Why Productivity?

The productivity world gets an understandably bad rap by we leftists and anticapitalists. Widely seen as an output-driven expression of late-capitalist financiers, “productivity” often reads as code for money-obsessed type-A’s scouring the internet for hot new time-hacks. If this is your belief, you aren’t far off. That’s definitely a part of it. But, like most scenes, what appears on the surface is rarely what’s taking place below.

God Bless the Millennials

A new, younger generation of productivity hackers has popped up over the past five years. This generation often centers self-care, peace of mind, and free time in their approach to productivity as much as they do achievement, making money, and getting things done. Coming to productivity with ideas about work and achievement that differ considerably from their parents, this new generation of productivity hackers leverages the use of systems and new technologies to help them make more time for play and more head space for contemplation.

In this new environment you’re just as likely to find a young productivity YouTuber talking about why they’re leaving med school to pursue their dream as a writer as you are someone teaching you how to read a thousand books a year. Productivity has diversified. It’s the lens through which neurodivergent people manage their social interactions, anarchists design consensus-based councils, and tarot readers organize their cartomantic interpretations.

A Taurus In a Turkish Towel

If you look up “Taurus” in any astrology book, you will see a picture of me in all my bearded baldness, wrapped in a blanket, hands grasping an earthenware mug filled with herbal tea, smiling back at you. The last thing I’m about to do is “more.”



As a majestically horned bull, my lifelong goal is to do only what I want when I want, to make the things I don’t want to do more attractive so I will want to do them, and to make my many creative projects, my home-improvement tasks, my varied and seemingly disconnected interests, and especially my love of loafing about all work together. We bovines aren’t looking to become the CEO of anything. Like our comrade in horns, Black Phillip, we’re on a mission to live “deliciously.” And yet, every good Taurus loves a well-planned system.



I see productivity not as an impetus to do more for the sake of accumulating accomplishments, but rather as an intentional approach to help inspiration flow more smoothly. For me, it’s one of the ways spirit makes its way down the pipeline. Being productive isn’t about immediate gratification. That’s rarely the outcome. There’s no reason to do more. That’s defs not my scene. Instead, I go the opposite way. I try to employ upaya, the “skillful means” by which I can remove the obstacles that block inspiration—the in-spirited-ness—so I’m able to do the things I actually want to do with grace and relative ease.

A System For My Spirit

In order to funnel my spirit into tasks and projects I want to accomplish I use a combination of both the GTD and PARA methodologies, both of which I’ve designed to function on the Notion platform. My system consists of a place to capture my tasks (that is, type in what I need to do), and other places this task goes once I fill in all the details and hit “🚀Send.” Once I do, the task filters down into an “Upcoming” list, a “Meetings” list, or a “Today” list. In this way, no task is ever coming across my screen that I don’t need to think about. Mind clear. Spirit vibing. 🕊



Having a semi-automated to-do list to guide my days helps to direct my oft-quickened spirit toward the actions I really want to take. I’ve found that a handful of simple, clean, behind-the-scenes productivity systems puts me in a better position to engage with projects I may not have taken up had I left the directives up to my self. In effect, this system can act like Thich Nhat Hanh’s mindfulness bell: a gentle interruption put in place to break up my habitual behavior patterns.

This approach has also positively altered the way I experience media. Because I funnel news articles, books, podcasts, and videos through my system, I no longer feel assaulted by media, drowned by media, or needled by media.

But, again, it’s not about doing more. It’s not about finishing the internet. It’s about filtering in what I want to do and filtering out what I’m less interested in. It’s about curating my “information diet” (Forte). It’s about reclaiming my attention, that core aspect of my being that social media so desperately tried to sell. 🌴