Productivity is effective movement. It’s running in the right direction for
the longest distance. It’s about making the greatest progress
towards your goals in the shortest amount of time. And the key to productivity can be boiled
down to a simple equation: distance equals velocity multiplied by time, which equals
another set of variables. In this video, I’ll explain all of the variables,
giving you the ultimate guide to productivity. Let’s start by analyzing you. You’re an organism with a limited amount
of energy that you can spend each day. As you go about your day—moving, thinking,
acting—this energy bar is slowly draining. And if you’re mindless of how you spend
this energy, you’ll end each day with nothing left to show for it. So learning to use your own internal energy
is critical to being productive, and the best way to leverage your energy is by performing
what I call Sprints. Sprints are time-bounded work sessions that
require intense focus, active participation in an activity, and pushing yourself beyond
your current limits. Working sprints, the ones I’m talking about
in this video, are just like real sprints: a strenuous and intentional use of your energy. If you’re a student, sprints are when you
study at your desk with no distractions, and you’re actively working on homework problems,
recalling flashcards, deconstructing a text, writing an essay, or doing practice exams—not
reading over your notes or highlighting. If you’re a hockey player, it’s intentional
and strenuous practice on your conditioning, puck handling, passing, or shooting, not idly
skating around and shooting on the net for fun. If you’re a writer, it’s hammering out
your words and performing surgical revisions. The purpose of a sprint is to make effective
progress towards your goals by focusing your energy on a singular task that challenges
you, and this brings us back to the key formula: d= vT. Every sprint has 3 key components: distance,
velocity, and time, and I’m going to break down each one, starting with distance. Distance is the measure of your productive
output. If we’re running, it’s the literal miles
or kilometres we’ve travelled. If we’re writing, it’s the number of words
or pages we’ve written. If we’re studying fluid dynamics, it’s
the number of practice problems we’ve solved. Distance is the measurable fruits of our labour,
and it shows us if what we’re doing is effective. Our goal is to increase the distance we run
with each Sprint, and there are two ways to do this: increase our velocity or increase
the time we work for. Let’s start by analyzing time. Time, with a big T, can be broken down into
two smaller components: time (with a little t) and N. N is the number of sprints we decide
to do in a day, and t is the length of each sprint. For example, when I write, N is four and t
is thirty minutes. That means I do four Sprints a day that last
thirty minutes each. Thirty minutes is how long I can successfully
stay intensely focused in a single Sprint, and after four sprints a day, I’m pretty
mentally exhausted. You can experiment with the number of sprints
you do in a day and how long you do them for until you find a mix that works for you. The goal is to get both variables, N and t,
as high as possible but in a way where you can stay consistent. Going back to my writing example, I can consistently
do four sprints a day for thirty minutes each without fail. Keyword: consistently. Consistency depends on discipline, not motivation. Here’s what happens if you work off motivation. You’ll get excited and do four sprints for
one hour each on the first day and exhaust yourself. You’ll probably do one sprint for one hour
the next day, fifteen the next, and then you’ll give up altogether. But here’s what it looks like if you work
off discipline. On the first day you work for fifteen minutes,
and you still feel like you have energy in the tank, but you wait. The next day you do two sprints, and you still
have more energy in the tank, but you wait again. On the third day you do three fifteen minute
sprints, and on the fourth you do four, slowly ramping it up. But on the fifth day, you try working twenty
minutes each sprint instead of fifteen, and you still have some energy left over. So on the sixth day, you try working for thirty
minutes, and you realize that you’re a little tired this time. And in fact, that tiredness spills over into
the next day, so you only do ten minute sprints now. Now you’ve successfully found your limit,
and on the eight day, you revert back to twenty minute sprints—which you consistently maintain
going forward. Discipline, not motivation, leads to consistent
results, and discipline depends on thoughtful experimentation, self-awareness, and self-respect. We have to discover how much we can push ourselves,
finding a healthy balance between being too hard and too lenient. When it comes to productively managing your
time and energy, one of my favourite pieces of advice comes from Hemingway: You write
until you come to a place where you still have your juice and know what will happen
next and you stop and try to live through until the next day when you hit it again. Hemingway didn’t work until his tank was
empty, like many overly-motivated, eager beginners tend to do. He kept a consistent regimen, and he always
ended his work day with some energy left in his tank, when he knew how he would continue
his story the next day. By ending in a place where you know what step
to take next, you’ll build anticipation that will let you hit the ground running on
the next day. Productivity, when it comes to the things
that matter, is always a long-term marathon, and to run the marathon, you have to learn
to manage your time in a way where you can make consistent daily progress, and managing
your time comes back to two factors: the number of sprints you do (n) and how long they are
(t). But time is not the most critical factor for
being productive for 3 reasons. (1) Your upsides are limited. Once you’re working around 60-80 hours a
week, you’re reaching the maximum of what’s probably possible for the average person. The rest of your gains in productivity will
come from your velocity, not your time. (2) The returns are diminishing. Once you’re working 80 hours a week, you’ll
probably burnout and become tired, reducing your long-term productivity. (3) And the final reason, time is an imprecise
metric. When some people say they worked for sixty
hours, what they really mean is they sat in an office for sixty hours, doing a little
work here and there. Or think about a college kid who says he was
studying at the library all day, when really he was just sitting in the library with his
books open, chatting to a friend. Time passes regardless of what you do, so
it becomes a very easy metric to fool yourself with. Now let’s move on to the more critical factor
when trying to be productive: velocity. Your sprint velocity is made up of two key
components: direction (D) and stride (R). Let’s start with direction. Obviously, before you get moving, you have
to decide which way you want to sprint. The direction you run in is often more important
than how hard you run. Consider this example. Two mechanical engineers take jobs in different
industries, one in the oil industry and one in HVAC. Assuming they work with the same intensity,
the engineer in the oil industry will likely make more money based purely on the direction
he chose. Or consider this. If you invested $100 in apple on January 1,
2002, you would have $34000 today. But if you invested $100 in Netflix on January
1, 2002, you would have $48000. I pulled these numbers off an online calculator,
so they might be inaccurate, but the underlying point remains true: where you invest your
energy is more important than how much you invest. But how do we decide which direction to run
in? The direction we choose is based on our values. The HVAC engineer, for example, might value
environmentalism more than money, where as the oil engineer values money more than environmentalism,
which is why they chose their specific directions. Of course, this is just an example, I’m
not saying all oil or HVAC engineers have these values. So how do we find our values? If you ask people what they value, they’ll
say things like “love, kindness, honesty, and service,” then they’ll rage the next time someone
cuts them off in traffic. Values are what we act out, not what we say,
and often times, we’re not even aware of our own true values. But you might be able to discover some of
your values by reflecting on your past experiences. Think about a time someone made you very envious
or angry. That probably gives some insight into your
values. Or think about your idols. Who do you admire? That might give you insight into your values. And don’t lie to yourself. Ask yourself if you would trade places with
your idol. Paparazzi and business man. Would you rather be Kim Kardashian or Mother
Theresa? Jeff Bezos or Gandhi? This might give you some insight into your
values. But our values aren’t set in stone. As we collect more varied life experiences,
our values can change. We discover our values through experiences
and reflection. Reflect on what experiences you truly want,
don’t want, and what values will take you there. Once you determine your values and direction,
it’s time to work on the next part of velocity: your stride. Your stride is the actual action you take
to make effective progress towards your goal. You have to identify it for yourself. If your goal is to write a book, then your
stride is actually sitting at your desk and writing the words. If your goal is to become a pianist, then
your stride is sitting down to play the piano. Your stride is the next action you can take
to move towards your goal. Your stride is made up of two components:
stride length (L) and rhythm (Y). Stride length is the distance between each
step, and rhythm is how often you take each step. To improve your stride, you can work on either
of these two components. What does it mean to improve your stride length? Stride length is a measure of how effective
the action you take is with respect to your goal. In other words, it’s a measure of your skill
level. What’s the difference between me sitting
down to write and Hemingway? Stride length. Give us both the same amount of time to write
and you’ll notice a disparity between the quality of our work. If you give me and Steph Curry the same amount
of time to shoot hoops, he’s going to sink a lot more in. So how do you improve your stride length? Through deliberate practice. How does deliberate practice work? It’s pretty simple. There are two components to deliberate practice:
action and feedback. If you wanted to improve your weight lifting
form, you could film yourself lifting and then compare it to the footage of a professional. The goal is to take action and then get feedback
by comparing your action to the ideal action. Or in other words, take action and compare
your action to those of someone who’s more skilled at what you do. Alternatively, instead of filming yourself,
you could hire a coach, and the coach has an understanding of the ideal, and so he or
she gives you feedback to help you move closer to it. If you wanted to learn how to produce music,
you might try to recreate your favourite beats or music that you hear on the radio. Again, your taking action and comparing it
to an ideal to correct your action. When we start something new, the ideal is
often way beyond us. Comparing ourselves to the best pianist, for
example, may be discouraging and unhelpful, so we might compare ourselves to lesser versions
of the ideal instead. We can imitate people who are just beyond
us in skill level, slowly inching ourselves towards the ideal. Deliberate practice usually begins with imitation,
but as your skills grow, you develop a stronger relationship to the ideal archetype or idea
itself, and you shed the need to imitate. You learn to act on your own instead. Now, after stride length, the final component
is rhythm: how often you take a stride. The key to rhythm is creating the right conditions
to allow yourself to enter a state of flow. Flow is a state where your focus is pointed,
singular, and unbroken. The key to creating a state of flow is to
remove things that break your focus. There are two ways to do this. (1) Remove all external distractions from
your environment. For example, your phone, the internet, music,
other people, so on and so forth. Remove whatever might create sudden and unexpected
distractions. (2) Work on something in alignment with your
highest value. The more meaningful you find the work you
do, the more important you feel it is, the less likely you are to let things pull your
attention away from it. Its very hard to ever live a life free of
distractions and obligations to others, especially if you have kids or a large family. But if you can work on things you find deeply
meaningful, you’ll be less likely to have your attention suddenly pulled away from the
task at hand. For example, when people play video games
or watch TV, they can keep their focus glued to their screens if they really need to, even
if there are other distractions. That’s because they find the activity more
meaningful than everything else going on. The same thing can happen when you’re reading
a gripping book or sending an important message. So, let me summarize everything. Productivity is movement, and one of the most
effective ways to make successful movements is by performing Sprints. A Sprint is a highly-focused, intentional,
engaged, and time-bounded work session that pushes you beyond your current limits. The goal of each Sprint is to travel the greatest
distance towards your goal as possible. Distance is equal to velocity multiplied by
time. The total time you Sprint for each day is
dependent on how many times you Sprint a day and how long you Sprint for. Velocity is a function of the direction you
choose and your stride. Your direction is based on your values or
goals. Your stride depends on your stride length
and your rhythm. Use deliberate practice to enhance your skills,
and subsequently, your stride length. Learn to keep imitating people better than
you until you surpass them, developing a direct relationship with the ideal itself. Remove distractions and create the optimal
conditions for flow to maximize your rhythm.
