On presence and productivity
Many of us would like to get more done in less time. Our quest to get ahead has led to various ‘productivity hacks’ ranging from 5 a.m. morning routines to task management tools promising to revolutionise our work flow. We charge onwards, our days sometimes passing by in a blur of tasks completed and not much else in between.
However, our pursuit to be more productive can often make us overlook the present as we strive for the future that always seems just out of reach. Our days lose the colour of variety. We fail to notice, or fully enjoy the company of others. Our constant efforts to maximise productivity has been an obsession of our times, as we often forget to be still and present in the mystery that is our lives.
Perhaps partly why we judge our days by how much we have produced is due to our warped relationship with time. French-Armenian graphic designer Vahram Muratyan explores this concept in his book, About Time: A Visual Memoir Around the Clock. From everyday events to the cyclical nature of work and relationships, Muratyan captures our anticipatory anxiety that defines our relationship with time – that one should do more, and that each moment should carry us closer to our goals.
Muratyan’s minimalistic illustrations poke fun at our preoccupation with productivity at the expense of the present. He accurately depicts universally felt notions of how time flies by and yet plods along, measured by human experiences and everyday moments. The present sometimes feels like it’s in the way of the bigger and brighter future.
Rethinking productivity
If we therefore reframe productivity through the lens of the present, we become more intentional with our actions and goals. The thinking thus isn’t necessarily to just blindly live moment to moment, or mindlessly do things that make us feel productive. It is to successfully marry the two notions together with some deliberate thought and intent.
Many of us are painfully aware of the fact that it is easy to get motivated, but hard to stay disciplined. Workout schedules taper off after a few initially enthusiastic days. Personal hobbies fall to the wayside, ignored and forgotten.
Focus and consistency is therefore at the heart of being truly productive. While willpower does have a part to play, evidence shows that it just isn’t enough to keep us going. As it is, studies on ego-depletion suggests that willpower is a limited resource that can be used up entirely. Zero willpower equals zero motivation.
Our brains are also primed to fear risk and failure. Research by Kenneth McGraw has shown that getting started is often the biggest hurdle in the way of success. We also often visualise the worst parts which in turn deter us from getting started in the first place.
In the same vein, researcher John Bargh has found that our brains will focus on small, mindless tasks to give an illusion of productivity while avoiding big projects. This probably explains why so many of us are suddenly interested in reorganising our Spotify playlists and cleaning out our desks when tax season rolls around! Our minds cheat us into believing we have accomplished a lot, while the main task remains untouched.
While the odds may seem stacked against us, there are habits that can help us be more deliberate with our time and efforts.
Break it down
Let’s say the next thing to tick off your to-do list is to write a symphony. Unless you are Mozart incarnate it’s pretty unlikely you can get it done in a day or two with minimal effort. Starting each day with the vague, overarching aim of completing it can quickly run into a host of problems from lack of willpower (as we have explored) to producing substandard work. This can be both demotivating and energy depleting as our minds become overwhelmed with the anticipated scope of work that lies ahead.
The key here is to break down the task into smaller, more doable chunks and tackle it from there. In other words, focus on making the task easier to do.
Professional violinists seem to have clocked this. One may imagine them practising from morning till night, rarely emerging to make contact with the outside world. However, a study by Anders Ericsson shows that the most elite players broke their practise sessions down into 90-minute chunks, with a 15-20-minute break between each session. Like many things in life, it’s about quality, not quantity. They were engaging in more deliberate and thoughtful practise to make each session count.
This is something that most of us can definitely put to good use. The stakes are a lot lower for your brain to handle, and knowing that there is a break coming up means you will be able to pace yourself better to tackle the more challenging stuff.
Make it a habit
We know that willpower can’t be the sole factor capable of powering us through the day. How do we then become consistent with our work sessions and see progress?
Countless research has shown that discipline is maintained through habits. Building and maintaining these habits means creating your own rules to follow. We tend to be our own worst taskmasters, but there are a few simple yet effective ways to get things going.
A good example is the two-day rule, a method that filmmaker Matt D’Avella explains and puts into practise pretty well:
The two-day rule is a very useful exercise to become consistent with your efforts without being too draconian with yourself. It takes the pressure off doing something every single day, but being able to take a day off in between ensures you don’t slack off too much either.
If the two-day rule can help implement 90-minute sessions in your daily life, there’s another useful method to track what you’ve completed in each session called an Accountability Chart.
To start yours, just draw a line down a piece of paper to create two columns, or use a spreadsheet. The first column tracks the time for one of your 90-minute sessions. The second will list what tasks you have accomplished during that timeframe.
Tracking your progress like this will be a more accurate testament to what you have completed, rather than relying on the assumption of work created in your head – which we know to be mostly inaccurate.
To really hold yourself accountable, write down what you did even when you didn’t do what you initially planned to. Noting that you spent 2 hours scrolling down the rabbit hole of Instagram will mean you are less likely to do it again.
Multitasking is your enemy
We tend to view an individual described as a multitasker as someone who can effectively manage their time and energy to complete a dazzling array of tasks in a day.
However, this couldn’t be further from the truth. Research by Zhen Wang has shown that on average, multitaskers are less likely to be productive despite feeling emotionally fulfilled with their work, creating an illusion of productivity. Focusing on one item per session can therefore increase your progress significantly.
To curb the temptation to multitask, a good strategy is to spend your evenings planning and selecting a few priority tasks to accomplish the next day. Try to keep the list to just five items for each day, and break down bigger projects. Instead of writing down, ‘Write symphony,’ as your task to complete, list down ‘Finish first movement,’ or, ‘Finalise main harmonies’ as your daily items to tick off, and focus on that.
To live with presence
The thinking therefore isn’t to do away with productivity and to just be content with whatever blows our way moment to moment. It is to be deliberate about how we spend our time to effectively work towards things that are important to us. Goals aside, being deliberate can simply mean experiencing things without worrying about if it’s ‘going anywhere’. In a sense, the process is all we have, and we might as well enjoy it.
The techniques mentioned above are therefore useful to not only help us form a habit, and therefore cultivate productivity, but also help train us to recalibrate and be mindful about our efforts too.
Presence and productivity are both skills to be cultivated. They can help narrow and broaden our focus, from concentrating on a specific goal or experience, to stepping back occasionally and checking in on what’s important to us in a broad sense.
This important duality brings to mind the words of British philosopher Alan Watts, who was a pioneer of Zen teachings in the West. Observing how relative and elastic time is, he noted that “For the perfect accomplishment of any art, you must get this feeling of the eternal present in your bones – for it is the secret to proper timing.”
Don’t cheat yourself out of the joys found in the present moment for the sake of potential rewards the future may bring – find a happy momentum between the two, and take it from there.
By: Shing Yi Tan