In Pursuit of Productiveness
The Mindful Art of Harmonizing Deep Focus and Fractal Awareness
This post is part of The Productivity Chronicles, a slow series exploring the history and future of personal accomplishment and some tangents along the way. The first part in this series was Beyond GTD - Pioneering The Future of Personal Productivity. In this second part, I explore a novel concept and a crucial distinction on which we can base this future.
Meditation and work are somewhat alike.
Both are approached in sessions.1
Both involve choosing an object of focus and directing attention to it.
And both are usually not ends but means.2
For many meditators, developing mindfulness is the utilitarian purpose of their practice. They not only want to become better at meditating but also to bring their gained calmness and serenity with them into their day. They want to level up in day-to-day life by avoiding impulsive actions, showing more empathy, or being more grateful.
Work also serves a higher purpose. Most of the time, we do not work for the sake of it. We work to realize aspirations. We also don’t aim to get better at what we do simply to be better at it. We do it so that we may reach our aspirations faster while leading a balanced life, avoiding burnout, and fostering agility, antifragility, and other meta-skills. And we do it, maybe most of all, hoping to preserve the human side of things; we don’t want – in the process of improving ourselves – to become an automaton, a mindless robot, or an efficiency machine. We want to feel alive while doing the best work we can.
This got me thinking…
is there an equivalent of mindfulness in the area of personal accomplishment?
Something that sums up all of these additional strivings but in a way that captures the comprehensive spirit of it all?
I chewed on this for quite a while now, but I believe I have finally “found” it.
For lack of a better term, I call it productiveness. And in this essay, I’ll teach it to you.