This morning, I found myself frustrated by productivity guru podcasts.
I awoke early and got out to take two good walks before the sun rose.
As I walked, I was listening to various podcasts on the following topics:
Doing a time audit (where does your 40 hours of work go each week?)
Beating holiday stress by implementing multiple systems
Having two practices and five sets of personal projects to go along with your normal work goals to keep your life from feeling flat
Don’t waste your best hour of the day on email
All of these gurus seem to have the same message:
If you do less, you’ll achieve more in life.
Look, I love that idea. But what does it really mean?
all I know is that I have set myself up to face a daily struggle to stay consistent with two “streak” goals.
What is a streak goal? It’s what I have been calling One Hit Wonders.
It’s where you commit to doing something every day related to a goal.
Jerry Seinfeld is held up as an example by these gurus.
Seinfeld wrote a joke per day, every day, for a period of time.
He may still do it. I don’t know.
Nevertheless, it is an inspiring Idea, and I use it regularly.
And yes, I have five of these One Hit Wonders going.
However, two of them don’t require the same amount of time as the two I’m discussing here.
and one of them is meant to reduce the time I spend on meaningless distractions (It is a “do not do” streak goal).
What I find fascinating about all these productivity gurus is that they rarely give you actual examples of what a “productive” day looks like in its totality.
You hear about the bits and pieces of a “successful” day, but I am not aware of any guru who gives you a 24/7 template to follow.
I asked Google Gemini if I was missing something, and it agreed with my criticism.
As it put it, the gurus talk about what to do with a 90-minute block of time but leave it very vague when it comes to what you do with the other 22.5 hours.
However, Gemini gave me an example of a 24/7 schedule, dividing the week into buckets of hours:
84 hours for essential biology needs
44 hours for work
40 hours for “reclaimed” life, including habits (7 hours), social time (15 hours), and guilt-free “space” (18 hours)
Okay, that’s a start.
but how many goals and projects are represented in that 24/7 template?
Gemini first said eight in total.
I called BS.
Gemini came back with something about “a normal Tuesday,” as it always likes to do.
and then claimed it was more like 15–20 items that the person in the 24/7 template example was attending to during the week.
There are the “big rock” items:
2 major work projects
1 major personal project
Then there are the small rocks:
4 daily habits:
A morning walk
Reading a book
Daily exercise and stretching
Morning and evening hygiene routines
5 weekend “mini-projects,” using home-maintenance-related examples:
Organize the garage
Fix a broken FILL IN THE BLANK
Pruning and weeding
Installing X, Y, or Z
Plan a vacation
9 administrative and life-maintenance tasks:
Clearing the inbox/email
Filing reports (e.g., expenses)
Updating trackers
Buying groceries
Paying bills
Doing laundry
Scheduling appointments
Cooking and preparing meals
Tidying up the place (e.g., washing dishes, taking out the trash, etc.)
And, of course, sleep, if you can afford the time for it.
You’ll notice that Gemini said nothing about relationship tasks in that list or the time they take.
You’ll notice there is nothing about “fun in the sun” either, besides planning a vacation (but I put that one in there).
Spiritual pursuits? Forget about it.
It is a dilemma, isn’t it?
Yesterday, or perhaps the day before, I heard another podcast in which a productivity and time-management coach was discussing client case studies.
One man she worked with was completely stressed out because he time-blocked his whole day and week.
Another man was completely stressed out because he was following the streak-goal approach for his large and important work and life goals.
One woman failed completely because she couldn’t say no to non-urgent tasks and other people’s needs and requests.
Another woman was able to get a ton done but was allowing her personal relationships to suffer.
I mean, come on. WTH?
It’s like a never-ending trap.
What can you do to avoid it?
Maybe stop listening to these podcasts, dude?
Yeah, that might help.