1. My Blog Post on How to Work Productively
Last week I posted a blog on Working Productively — How Do You Know If You’re Doing the Right Things? My thinking in that post was based on the quote by Chris Bailey in The Productivity Project: “Productivity Isn’t About Doing More Things — It’s About Doing the Right Things.”
In my blog post, I argued that it was a mistake to just apply productivity practices to whatever you were doing. Rather, in accordance with Bailey’s quote, it was important to apply productivity practices to the right things.
“Productivity Isn’t About Doing More Things — It’s About Doing the Right Things.” Chris Bailey, The Productivity Project
One practical and effective way of finding out what those right things are for you is to take the time to identify and evaluate your life roles. When you know what things are important to you, then you can properly use productivity practices to get those important things done.
2. The Importance of Doing the Things That Matter
Over the weekend I read Things that Matter, by Joshua Becker. Becker begins the book by describing an article by Bonnie Ware, “Regrets of the Dying.” In this article, Ware describes what dying people said were their biggest regrets.
“There may be no greater pursuit for yourself and others than choosing to live a meaningful life focused on the things that matter.” Joshua Becker, Things that Matter
The article went viral. Becker questions why a list of dying regrets would be so popular. He concludes, “For people in middle age, and even for people in young adulthood, it’s common to have nagging anxiety that we’re squandering our time and resources on things that are not important while not focusing enough on the things and people that really do matter.”
Becker contends that the reason for this anxiety is because most people go through their lives “putting the inconsequential ahead of the imperative.” He concludes, “There may be no greater pursuit for yourself and others than choosing to live a meaningful life focused on the things that matter.”
3. The Intentional Life is Worth Living
I think Chris Bailey’s quote that productivity is “doing the right things” is, at its essence, a call for intentional living.
That’s also the concept that underlies my blog post on working productively. Productivity is not just about getting more things done.
Rather, it’s a tool for living our lives with intention. It’s a collection of practices to give us a better shot at getting the things done that are important to us.
Do you know what’s important to you? Are you “putting the inconsequential ahead of the imperative?”