“Work life balance,” is the generally accepted principal that work and life need to be balanced, putting forth the idea that “work” and “life” are separate. Modern productivity efforts are mostly aimed at making you more “productive” through attaining a nirvana of balance in your “work” and “life.” This approach is crippling and damaging; a delusional approach to the complicated and intertwined nature of life.

These two things, “work” and “life”, are not separate. If you must think of them as separate, simply think of your life as a reflection of your work and vice versa. If you are aching to get out of the office at 4:59pm on the dot, and agonizing over that 7am alarm, you can be assured that your personal life is going to reflect that attitude. As well, if you work till 3am, have lost the ability to socialize, and literally dream about work, your work has overtaken the humanity that we exist to live out.

The separation of work and life is a wonderful mechanism of mental protection. The future is unknown and constructing a future is complicated, and the future you desire seems quite often to be much farther from reality than expected. If work holds you back from reaching a level of success — power, wealth, status — or whatever it may be you are trying to attain, then it’s much easier to start compartmentalizing “work” as separate. It’s now something to improve upon in a small little container (one which you can mostly ignore). The notion that you can improve the productivity of work without having to touch your life is comforting, but unrealistic.

Instead of trying to look at life as separate compartments to improve, I approach everything as though it is an intertwined mess. Holistically, and iteratively, I try to optimize all parts of my life, realizing that my actions compound. Every tiny decision we make impacts all the others.

Health, Productivity, & Time

“Early to bed and early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise.” — Benjamin Franklin

Time is the only currency that counts. And, the value of that currency is directly related to our health. Productivity is just a measure for how well we use our time, and without health, you have nothing. For myself, time management comes down to managing my activities in a way that supports my mental and physical well-being, above all else; The ability to do my best, while also being able to feel good and enjoy the life I work so hard for matters more than anything. Healthy, wealthy, and wise.

The illusion of the modern world, is that we lack free time. But, that’s wrong. We lack discipline and focus. Our time is spread out among a never ending sensory smorgasbord of notifications that we have chosen to give our attention to.

With so much chaos and noise in the world, the only thing you can do is apply filters and rigid rules to your life. True luxury in modern society is about health, privacy, and a lack of distraction.

Rules & Filters

“Wise men speak because they have something to say; Fools because they have to say something.” — Plato

This is a list of rules and actions I take to achieve better time-management and productivity.

• Do whatever you need in the morning to feel amazing. Listen to music, drink coffee on the couch in peace, read a book. Get your mind ready to attack the avalanche of madness that is awaiting you.
• Txt or call the people you love on a daily basis, even just to say “hello, how are you?”
• Use flexible tools and devices.
• Delete all the apps you don’t use on your phone.
• Put only 4 apps on your home screen. Put the rest of them on other screens.
• Don’t check your phone before bed.
• Don’t check your phone first when you first wake up.
• Don’t sleep next to your phone.
• Look at your weekly calendar first thing in the day and last thing at night.
• Ditch the social networks (physical or digital) you don’t need, or that are harming you.
• Don’t let yourself sleep in.
• Don’t let yourself stay up too late, or allow circumstances to arise that mess with your sleep.
• Take 1 hour every day to space out without a care in the world.
• Close your eyes for 10 minutes and breathe deeply.
• Be kind to yourself.

Today and Tomorrow

Clarity in scheduling comes from a minimalistic approach. I keep every day on my calendar empty, except for extremely important appointments. I limit appointments to 50 minutes, and generally only speak for 15 minutes. I don’t schedule things less than 1 week before. Every morning I review my week and make notes for what I really need to get done on that day.

For tasks that are part of a project, I keep them organized Kanban style inside GitHub. I also keep a project calendar with milestones (sometimes).

Today and tomorrow are the only days I focus on in regards to what I want to accomplish. I write down all the things I want to accomplish today on a piece of paper, and the things I hope to get done tomorrow. If I can’t get to something today, I put it on tomorrow’s list. It’s a nice way to remove the complexities of and unmanageably large todo list.

Fear

“Have no fear of perfection — you’ll never reach it.” — Salvador Dali

A productive life comes to down to what fears you are able to face. For some people it’s simply the fear of failure; for others, it’s the fear of possibility–they can do anything they dream of, but they end up doing nothing. For everyone, no matter what, the struggle is real.

Fear can ruin you, it can depress you. But, it can also be the key to defining your dreams more distinctly and achieving better “productivity” in life. Embrace the fear.

Sum

“The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.” ― Aristotle

You are only the sum of all your parts. True productivity and happiness comes from a respect for the complexity of life.

Treat all parts of your life as intertwined and equally important. Find the (un)balance that makes you feel alive. After all, a successful productive life, is only as good as it makes you feel.

Originally published at The Human In The Machine