- Hey friends, welcome back to the channel. In this video,
we are talking about the productivity equation.
And so what you're about to see is an excerpt
from my brand new Skillshare class
about the principles of productivity,
and this introduces the productivity equation.
If you like it, you wanna watch the rest of the class,
there'll be a link in the video description.
You can sign up to a free two-month trial of Skillshare,
and you can watch my productivity class.
We've got another one coming like next month,
and then another one coming the month after.
I've got loads of stuff on Skillshare,
so you can check it out.
Link is in the video description,
but now enough of the plug.
Here is the productivity equation, I hope you enjoy it.
Let's just dive into it.
And let's start off with the productivity equation.
And this basically informs how I think about productivity
and what the different areas of productivity
that we can target with targeted interventions,
what those different areas are.
So what does productivity actually mean?
Well, back in the day in the whole Industrial Revolution,
agriculture, and all that kind of stuff,
productivity was the amount of production
per factory or per worker or for a given day.
So this is something to do with the amount of production,
and something to do with per unit of something.
These days, we don't really think of productivity
as being per worker because it's
usually personal productivity that we're talking about.
Instead we think of productivity as being
how much work we can get done
in the smallest amount of time possible.
And so those are the basic components
of a productivity equation.
In a way, productivity equals output
divided by time.
So the more output we can generate,
the more productive we are.
The less time that we can generate it in,
the more productive we are.
So those are two components of the productivity equation,
but there are two more,
and they're arguably the more important ones.
Firstly, we need to recognize that there's no point
in being productive if we are
not being productive about the right things,
like you could just end up on a treadmill,
just kind of spinning your legs,
and like doing lots of exercise and stuff.
But if your objective is to get somewhere,
and you're on a treadmill,
then you're not really getting anywhere.
All you're doing is burning energy.
It's a similar concept in productivity.
We wanna be doing things efficiently,
and we wanna be doing lots of things,
but we also wanna be doing the right things.
And so the third component of the equation,
useful, productivity equals useful output over time.
It recognizes that the output has to be useful in some way
and kind of goes towards our longterm goals
or our vision for life or whatever we want.
But the point is we have to think
about actually doing the right things.
And the final aspect of the productivity equation,
which is like, I've never really seen talked about,
is something I came up with a few days ago,
which I'm very proud of.
F, F is a constant that is applied
to the entire equation of productivity.
And F is the fun factor.
And this is actually probably one
of the most important things,
because if I really think about it,
the reason why I'm so productive
and do all these things on the side on top of being a doctor
is because everything I do I really enjoy doing.
When stuff is fun, it no longer feels like work.
And when stuff is fun,
it bleeds into all the other elements of productivity.
It means that we don't have to worry about motivation,
consistency, willpower, discipline,
all that kind of stuff, because it's fun.
Like we don't need motivation to watch Netflix
or hang out with our friends because it's fun.
Equally, if we can make the useful output,
if we can make efficiency,
if we can make our productive tasks enjoyable,
it just supercharges absolutely everything.
And so these four aspects of the equation
are the things that we can target with interventions.
And we're gonna be coming back to this equation
as we go throughout this class.
And while we here,
there's another concept that I wanna bring forward.
And that's another kind of mental model
for thinking about productivity.
And the reason why we're thinking about productivity
to begin with is because yes,
it's all very fun and nice going after, you know,
this productivity app will change your life,
but actually it's a lot more about the habit formation.
It's about how we are, how we are being productive,
rather than what we are using to be productive.
And we'll talk more about apps and stuff in this class
and in a future class dedicated just to productivity apps,
because everyone loves that kind of stuff.
I'm a huge productivity app nerd,
but actually the mental model is even more important.
And the mental model for productivity is kind of threefold.
And the analogy that I use to describe this,
that my brother helped me come up with is
the pilot and the plane.
So imagine we've got a pilot.
The pilot's job is to set the course of the plane
to kind of pilot the plane,
to kind of figure out what direction
the plane is heading in.
And then we've got the plane.
And the plane's job is to be an airplane
to kind of follow the course, not deviate too much,
to be able to take off efficiently,
to be able to land properly,
safely without killing anyone.
and to be able to follow the directions
of the pilot without deviation.
And hopefully you might be able to see where we're going
with this analogy because the plane is us most of the time.
I would say that maybe about probably 80% of our time
should be in plane mode where we are
just following the instructions the pilot has set.
And maybe about 10% of our time should be in pilot mode.
Maybe even 15% of our time in pilot mode,
which is those small moments in the day when we have clarity
about what our vision, what our purpose is,
what we wanna be doing for the day.
For me, that's usually first thing in the morning.
I do my morning dump,
which is what I call when I get my notebook out
and just write down all the things I have to do for the day.
This is where sometimes in the evenings,
I'll figure out what I wanna do the following day.
That's me being a pilot and actively piloting my life.
But then once I've made that decision,
for the rest of the day, I don't care about the pilot.
I'm not wasting energy trying to decide
what I should be doing with my time.
Instead, I'm just being the plane.
For 80% of the time I am the plane.
I'm executing on the instructions of the pilot.
And so the pilot gives instructions to the plane.
These are like different roles that we take
throughout the day at different times.
And I would suggest that 10% of the time is pilot,
80% of the time is plane.
And then you might be wondering,
what about the other 10% of the time?
The other 10% of the time is
what I like to call the engineer.
And the job of the engineer is threefold.
Firstly, the engineer needs to make sure
that the plane is efficient.
It needs to make sure the plane is
doing its activities in a time-efficient manner.
Secondly, the engineer needs to make sure
that the plane is fuel-efficient.
Like it's not using excessive energy.
It's not using too much energy.
It's able to conserve fuel when it needs to.
And thirdly, the job of the engineer is
to keep the entire system organized.
So that would be things like writing out a to-do list
or sorting out your favorite productivity app
or click capture and all these things
that we are gonna talk about.
But kind of the job of the engineer
feeds into the job of the pilot
and kind of the job of the plane,
hence the kind of dotted line going to pilot.
And I would suggest that maybe we spend five to 10%
of our time on being the engineer,
on actively implementing and maintaining
the organizational systems,
and the various kind of principles, strategies,
and tools to make everything that we do more efficient.
And so you'll see that the pilot, the plane,
and the engineer ties into a productivity equation.
So the pilot is the one who sets the course,
who sets the direction of the plane.
And so let's put that in green,
and that is the useful component
of the productivity equation.
The pilot makes sure we are doing the right things.
It makes sure it's useful output that we are outputting.
Next we have the plane, which is 80% of the time.
The majority of our time is spent
executing the orders of the pilot.
And that is the output bit of the productivity equation.
And finally we have the engineer.
The engineer's job is to make sure everything is efficient,
organized, and fuel-efficient.
And that is the time component of the productivity equation.
And so when we're trying to increase our productivity,
we can recognize that actually,
it's not about increasing our productivity as a whole.
It's about recognizing,
do we need to work on the piloting?
Do we need to work on our plane?
Or do we need to work as our engineer
to improve those different abilities?
And then where fun comes into it is
that fun just sort of ties into absolutely everything.
So if, as I said at the start,
if we can enjoy what we're doing,
then being a pilot is more fun.
Being an engineer is more fun.
And being a plane is infinitely more fun because,
because, you know, the work is enjoyable.
It's not something that we have to
kind of talk ourselves into doing.
And so that is the productivity equation.
And in the rest of this class,
we're gonna be talking about various principles.
We've got the three myths,
the three laws, and the three powers.
And I'll be explaining the theory behind those principles,
but then also some practical tips
that you can apply them to your life from today
because as I said, productivity,
and being more productive is about changing your habits
and changing your skillset so you're a better pilot,
you're a better engineer, and you're a better plane,
plane probably being the most important
because that's kind of most of the time
that we spend in our lives.
And then in future classes,
we'll really be going deep into the woods
of this whole pilot/plane/engineer stuff.
And I'll be sharing all the advanced
and intermediate strategies, principles, tools,
and stuff to help us become better pilot,
planes and engineers.
But for now, we're gonna focus on the abstract
high level principles and also some general practical,
actionable advice about how we can
apply them to our own lives.
Okay, so that was one of the lessons in my,
I think there are 14 videos or 13 videos
in this particular Skillshare class
about the principles of productivity.
We've got the three laws, the three myths,
and the three powers of productivity.
Check it out, link in the video description.
You can sign up to a two-month trial of Skillshare.
You can check out all the rest of my stuff on Skillshare
as well while you're there.
Yeah, thanks for watching.
I'll see in the next video, bye-bye. (gentle music)