There are lots of definitions for the word productivity. My favorite comes from Chris Bailey (who the TED organization described as “the most productive man you’d ever hope to meet”):
“Productivity is accomplishing what we intend to do.”
It’s not cranking widgets. And it’s not crushing your goals. It's not a certain number of zeros in your bank account.
It’s following through on what we decide is most important at any given moment.
I remember the first time I interviewed Chris for the Focused podcast. In that interview, he floated a radical idea: that if you mean to watch Netflix all day, binging it for 8 hours is the most productive thing you can do.
It's the intention that determines whether we're being productive or wasting our time. Until you decide what you really want to optimize for, you cannot be productive.
If you aren't careful, this is when you find yourself collecting a "default currency" that really doesn't have much value for you.
The 3 Pillars of Productivity
Once you set your intentions, the next step is to manage your resources in a way that you can follow through on what you intend to do and (hopefully) get the outcome you desire.
That outcome is tied to your default currency (the thing you value most).
When it comes to productivity, we all have three different resource pools we can draw from:
- Time (having the hours available to do what needs to be done)
- Energy (having the ability to follow through on what we intend to do)
- Attention (having the ability to focus on what really matters)
In order to really be productive, you need to align all three.
- You can have the time to do something, but not have the energy to follow through. (Not productive)
- You can have the energy required for the task, but still be constantly distracted. (Not productive)
- You can know what to do and be motivated to do it, but not have the time to take action (Not productive)
You need to manage all three of these well if you want to consistently take action on what’s important.
As you take consistent action, "productivity" is the payoff for the time, energy, and attention that you invest. The outcome is the way you collect your default currency for a "job" well done.
What exactly that job is, well, that’s up to you.
The Default Currency
Many people give the best of their time, energy, and attention to their 9-5 job.
Why? To get a paycheck.
Quite literally, they are trading their life (time, energy, and attention) for money.
In other words, money is their default currency.
Which, to be clear, is completely fine!
As long as it's intentional.
They may have very good reasons for choosing to optimize for their finances. Maybe it’s important to them that they have money to maintain a certain lifestyle, save for their kids’ college funds, etc.
But for many, it’s simply their default currency.
Here’s the thing: you don’t have to optimize for finances.
You can change your default currency.
For example, what if you optimized for time freedom? Maybe you’d take a different job where you worked fewer hours in order to have more flexibility in your schedule.
Or what if you optimized for impact? Maybe you’d volunteer more instead of working that extra overtime.
I once heard a podcast where the guest shared about how he decided to trade his frequent flyer airline status for improved “status” with his young kids. He described the moment he had the realization that he was optimizing for the wrong thing and decided to focus on his family instead.
That’s an intentional choice. You can optimize for that. Time with your family can become your default currency.
The Bottom Line: Choose Your Own Default Currency
I have good news: you have the ability to change what you’re optimizing for.
Once you get clear on what's really important, then you can start to modify your systems to create more of that.
By getting clear on your vision & values, it helps everything else in your life stay in alignment. The work you do, the projects you say "yes" to, even the ideas you have and the information you consume, all have a purpose.
That's the reason for my PKM Stack framework: to get everything in alignment so you can make progress on what really matters.
(If you really want to dive deep on this, check out the Practical PKM Hybrid Cohort here.)
But the bottom line is: magic happens when you live an intentional life in alignment with your vision & values.
No one gets to choose your default currency for you.
So what will it be? What is the outcome you want from the time, energy, and attention you have to invest?
If you changed your default currency to the thing that is most important to you right now, what would it be?
