During the many years of becoming a more productive person I learned a couple of things, next to making many mistakes. During those years some themes kept recurring, which are listed below.
Consciousness
This is by far the most important aspect of all. Be conscious of yourself, the others and the environment and see how they interact with each other. What kind of influence do your actions have on you, others, the environment and vice versa? Do they have a positive impact or a negative one? Observe. Be critical. Ask the right questions.
Certainly in these times it's important to look at the social and ecological impact our actions have. We live in a high-tech, globalized world which has brought us many wonderful feats, like for example the internet: a fast, efficient way to communicate with all our brothers and sisters from all over the planet. Yet these same high-tech and globalization also have the potential to magnify our actions in a negative or positive direction. Sadly for the last couple of generations it has been in a negative, destructive direction. We are destroying nature at a faster pace than it can recover. We are killing people and animals at a rate and in ways unimaginable. Because of this behavior the world has become unbalanced and we will very soon see the consequences of our behavior at their fullest.
"Do I want this? Do I want to take more than I can give back from this world? Do I want to leave this planet behind with a negative or a positive impact and what actions do I need to take for that?" These are the questions that I ask myself literally every day.
Productivity without these questions, without this conscious awareness, becomes a force of unbalanced destruction. Without these questions it only becomes more efficient in its destructiveness when it tries to be more productive. It becomes merely a short term gain for a handful of people, but a long term loss for everybody. Can we even speak of productivity when the greater whole has become obsolete and the effects it has on others and the environment become trivial?
Kaizen
"Kaizen" is Japanese for "improvement" or "change for the better". It is a practice that focuses on continuous improvement on all levels. It is a way to continuously become more efficient whenever and wherever you can.
Simplicity
With simplicity I mean the opposite of complexity. Complex systems almost always use more energy than simple systems. If we implement complex systems in our lives, they will often take a lot of energy of us. Energy is something very valuable when you want to accomplish something, so it is best to do this with a system as simple as possible, so you can use the energy you saved for other things. The fastest way to get from one certain point to another is through a straight line. Try to get to the essence of what this straight line is and apply it. This is achieved through the way of the minimalist: Keep subtracting unnecessary things until you can't subtract any further. What is left is the essence.
Combine these three elements and you'll be surprised the impact it has on your life and how much possibilities open up for you.
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