From the Editor

Over-productivity

Productivity is becoming trendy. I am really glad about it and hope it will evolve! At the same time, I have observed some drawbacks around the issue. People want to be able to do more stuff in less time. That’s understandable — they need to find ways to cope with the overwhelming amount of duties and commitments related to professional and personal life. We need jobs to have money. We need money to make a living, to support a family, and to do things we like.

With all the tools and methodologies available on the market today, it is possible to achieve more and more. At some point, however, it is good to remember that we are human beings, not robots. No matter how great our physical and psychological capabilities are, we are still confined by things like health, relationships, and happiness. It’s good to avoid going for too much, not only because more doesn’t equal better, but also because the greatest philosophers always emphasized the role of the golden mean. Everyone needs time for reflection, time for finding out if what we do makes sense and is worth continuing at all. It’s easy to lose ourselves and the sense of what we do if we get caught by the productivity frenzy.

That’s why I encourage you to read the articles by Laura Stack, Graham Allcott, and Augusto Pinaud, who are shedding some light on the different aspects of this problem.

I chose the following sentence to be this issue’s motto:

(…)productivity isn’t some kind of chore or a means to an end, it’s a beautiful learning experience in and of itself. (Graham Allcott, “Extreme Productivity: 10 key lessons from a human lab rat”.)

Scott Belsky on overcoming difficulties and obstacles

I met Scott (as well as Brian Tracy, who was featured in the previous edition of Productive! Magazine) at a conference in Finland. He is a great business leader, investor, and the author of the bestselling book Making Ideas Happen. Read on as we talk about techniques that help inspire and motivate a team and about methods to overcome the resistance set up by bureaucracy, routine, and lack of motivation.

Great articles

As always, our fantastic contributors prepared a whole set of articles for you. Susan Brennann, Tracy Parks, and Goncalo Gil Mata explore the techniques and good practices that will help you improve the way you work and manage your daily activities. James Tonn writes about weighing the pros and cons of caffeine on productivity, and Graham Allcott tells about the “extreme productivity experiments” he did last year.

Meet the team

I couldn’t have done this all alone. Here is the amazing team behind Productive! Magazine:

Vision (that’s me!): Michael Sliwinski
Execution: Magda Błaszczyk
Design: Radek Kozieł
Technology: Radek Pietruszewski and Tomasz Kapelak
Editing: Emily Derr, James Tonn