The Productivity Trap Pwyl PDF

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Copyright 2010 - 2014 Dragos Roua

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All rights reserved. No part of this book may be
reproduced by any mechanical, photographic, or
electronic process, or in the form of a
phonographic recording; nor may it be stored in a
retrieval system, transmitted, or otherwise be
copied for public or private useother than for
fair use as brief quotations embodied in articles
and reviewswithout prior written permission of
the author.
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The Productivity Trap

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Dragos Roua
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Table Of Contents

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Foreword

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The Productivity Trap

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Why Become More Productive?
Do versus Enjoy
Productive versus Happy
A Life Management System
The Productivity Map

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The Axis
The Goal Axis
The Discipline Axis
The 4 Squares Of The Productivity Map
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1. High Goals + Sloppy = Procrastinators
2. High Goals + Discipline = Producers
3. Low Goals + Discipline = Obsessed
4. Low Goals + Sloppy = Followers
Lead Or Follow
Create Or Observe
Tensions
My Personal Experience
7 Symptoms Youre On The Verge Of A Burn

Out

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1. You Find Excuses Faster Than Solutions
2. Your Favorite Relaxation Is Making You

Nauseous
3. You Sleep More Than Usual But Worse
4. Your Rant Tolerance Is Lower Than Usual
5. Youd Rather Be Right Than Doing The

Right Thing
6. A Normal Task Will Require Twice The Time
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7. You Run Out Of Ideas
Training Your Focus

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Detach From Pleasure
Assess Results
One More Second
Balance Your Senses
Your Focus Is Your Reality
How To Be Productive Without Becoming A

Productivity Freak

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1. Dont Plan the Fun
2. Share Your Learning
3. Listen To Others
4. Keep Things Simple
5. Accept and Manage Interruptions
6. Daydreaming Is Not Dangerous
7. Stay Healthy
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Manage Your Time As You Manage Your
Money

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1. Keep it clean
2. Spend only what you have
3. Buy only what you can afford
4. Save some time
5. Once spent, stop thinking about it
6. Use the best tools
Goals And Mechanical Rabbits

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Running in the Right Context
Choosing Your Race
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Got this For Free Ill Pay What I Like For It
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Foreword!
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Authors note!
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Thank you for reading this!
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This is the second edition of this book. Apart from a
general cleanup of the text, theres a very important
change brought to you by this second edition. Namely,
the distribution model: you got it for free and youll pay
only if you like it, and how much youll like it.
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I chose to distribute my work like this because I
believe that value is something very personal to each
and every one of us. Maybe this book wont mean a
thing to you. But if you find some value in it, youre free
to make your contribution here:
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Free eBooks!
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There are also other books available on my website,
theres a list at the end of this.
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I was a big fan of productivity. And, in some
respect, I still am. Thats one of the reasons I started to
blog at http://www.dragosroua.com. Many of my first
articles were about how to get more done and how to
be more effective.

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I still believe in productivity as an enhancer,
though my days as an evangelist are over. I use it
merely as a tool and I think its role is way overrated in
our modern society. Most of the time, productivity is
just a trap in which we fall full of good intentions.

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After I wrote more than 300 articles on
efficiency and effectiveness, I gradually developed a
new attitude towards productivity, goal setting and life
management. This perspective is much closer to a
holistic approach, rather than being over-specialized
and niched. Its more about being happy than being
productive, Its more about being meaningful, than
being number one. And its more about plain being than
just having.

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This book is made out of several articles
initially written on my blog. I took out the references
and links to other articles, as it wouldnt make any
sense to have them in a printed book. I also did some
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minor edits and enhancements, but overall, this book is

more than 95% based on the work from my blog.

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I find this writing model extremely positive.
Writing my ideas initially on my blog helped me to
calibrate my message and to accumulate valuable feed-
back. I was directly exposed to a flow of opinions which
was almost in real time. For that, I am really grateful to
my readers.

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In a way, I think I can say now that this book
was initially crowd-tested. Enjoy it!
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The Productivity Trap!
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No more than 2-3 years ago I was a
productivity freak. At that time I was in charge of my
own business, an online publishing company started 10
years ago. I was managing basically all the aspects of
that company and that created a fantastic pressure on
my health and time. I had to be more productive
otherwise I would surely crack up.

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About that time also I started to be involved in
productivity techniques such as GTD and other
personal improvement techniques like NLP or
Transactional Analysis. Being a quite early GTDer
made my blog moderately popular and that served as an
encouragement to me. I continued on this path as it
seemed the right one.
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Why Become More Productive?!
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But as time passed I started to question myself
more and more often: Whats the point in being more
productive? Whats the point in doing more in less
time? Whats the point in doing more, anyway?. Those
questions emerged from a real state of frustration and
sadness. Yes, I was way more productive each month,
but other than really doing more stuff, nothing
interesting happened.

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Doing more in less time is a big trap. Doing
more in less time makes you wanna do even more.
Freeing your time by using productivity techniques,
without having a proper life management system,
makes you wanna use the free time in order to do even
more. You get caught in your own treadmill.

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I thought I was the only one caught in my own
setup, but as I read other productivity blogs I started to
see a hidden red strip going on. Almost everywhere,
productivity was perceived as a technique to squeeze
more stuff into your capacity of doing. Just do more. It
was weird. And it still feels weird, otherwise I wouldnt
be writing this right now.

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Productivity in itself, without a steady and
complete personal management solution is simply
unhealthy. Its a paradigm of greed disguised in a
technique for self-improvement. Doing more in less
time is as bad as not doing nothing at all, because it
directs your energy into a dry land of meaningless
numbers.

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Do versus Enjoy!
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As time passed by I started to shift my
productivity understanding from a quantity paradigm to
a quality paradigm. In other words, I replaced the
more with better. As simple as it looks on the first
look, this shift is a total reinterpretation of the
productivity concept.

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The better part means to enjoy what you do.
Means to be there and continuously enhance your
activity, not just to measure it against a set of numbers.
Doing things better means I have a quality system
management in place. This system allows me to
evaluate things around me and chose the ones I want to
improve. Doing things better instead of just doing
more things in less time doesnt mean I have a life
management system in place, but its the next best
thing.

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Being productive, in the old fashioned way
definition, dont have anything to do with your own
capacity of being joyful. Joy was something out of
discussion. Productivity is measured in tasks, lists and
checked items, not laughs.

Im sure it will sound unusual to you, but for
me being productive is a total mix of doing and
enjoying. If Im only doing and not enjoying, I feel
dull. If Im only enjoying and not doing anything,
sooner or later I start to feel equally dull. Whenever I
mix those two states of my being, something magical
happens with me: I am happy.

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Productive versus Happy!
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As popular as they are nowadays, productivity
techniques dont vouch for your happiness. They can
guarantee youre be doing a lot more stuff, but they
wont outline the expense for that. They wont tell you
that you can be caught in the process Yes, you can do
it with a mind like water, yes, you can Get Things
Done, but then again, if you dont have something
bigger than just a productivity system in place to run
your whole life, your own productivity will become a
worm hole.

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A life management system is something that
includes a productivity technique, if you want to. Is
something that assess your desires, allows you to make
decisions and to implement them. The implementation
part can be enhanced with productivity techniques, but
without the first two steps: assessment and decision,
your productivity is an empty space, emptying your life
task done by task done.

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Doing more is consuming, doing better is
happier. Almost any productivity technique I learned
and applied have a consuming mindset: they are based
on numbers and quantities. They teach you to do more
in less time. Why? Maybe I want to do less in more
time, but I want to do it better. Maybe I need a quality
assurance system for my life, not just a quantity
measurement system.

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A Life Management System!
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In the last few years I felt more and more the
need for a life management system, for something
bigger than just a productivity system as GTD. Dont
get me wrong, I had my share of benefits from applying
GTD but I dont think a productivity system in itself is
the only thing I need in order to be happy.

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Life management is the process of consciously
living your life. Its the process of integrating all the
parts into something understandable and controllable,
into something that you can modify at any moment. A
life management system can only use some
productivity techniques every now and then but it
cannot contained by them.

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So I started to gradually create what I call my
own framework for life management, and getting rid of
the productivity as a day to day living icon was the best
thing I had ever since. Not thinking in terms of
productivity but in terms of happiness is enlightening.

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In the end, using productivity for just doing
more is unfair: it takes you from your real self, it steal
the genuine joy from your life and puts you in slavery
to the numbers.

In the next chapter, were going to look at the
simplest productivity paradigm ever. Its what I call
the productivity map, a system to measure and
identify your role as a human being, performing at his
best level, not only on the effectiveness level.

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The Productivity Map!
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After I wrote the productivity trap chapter
which served as an introduction for this book, I felt
there was something missing. The main point of that
article was always valid, of course, but there was still a
little bit of fog regarding the whole productivity
concept. So, after taking some time to think it over, I
came up with a productivity map, which made it clearer
for me. Those of you accustomed with the urgent /
important diagram will be instantly familiar with it.

Lets take it one step at a time. Will shortly
analyze the 2 axis of this map and then will move to the
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each of the 4 squares in which you can be at one

specific moment.

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The Axis!
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There are 2 main axis of the productive citizen:

goals axis

discipline axis

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Generally speaking, the goals are the
motivators, the incentives, while the discipline is the
facilitator for reaching those goals.

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Goals are what makes us move forward, what
makes us thrilled and enthusiastic. Goals is a technical
term here, it can be substituted with dreams or passions.

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Discipline represents the acknowledgement of
the goals and also the actions you take for reaching
those goals. The term is not necessarily used in a
military sense, but rather as a constant attitude towards
a specific target, as opposed to inconsistency.

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The Goal Axis!
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I chose to represent this axis vertically because
I find it similar with a growing pattern. Goals are
vertical milestones. Whenever you reach a goal its like
you climb a mountain or reach a new, higher level.
Goals are accumulating underneath us and makes us
taller.

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What makes the difference between high and
low goals?

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High goals are medium and long term goals,
like a career, or a specific lifestyle. They spread over
longer period of times, months or years. The lower you
go on the scale, the smaller the amount of time spent
for a goal. Low goals are day to day things you do
almost on auto-pilot, things that require little or no
implication from you, like going to a job or doing your
errands.

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High goals require and provide awareness,
power and fulfillment. They require a higher degree of
awareness in order to be able to understand what that
goal will mean to you. They also require power in order
to achieve it and they need fulfillment to feed that goal.
Higher goals also provide more awareness, power and
fulfillment once reached.

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Lower goals are usually associated with lack of
vision, disempowerment and they create a follower
pattern. A life with lower or no goals is a life with no
vision, without power and in the footsteps of someone
else. The lower the goal axis, the less power and vision
you find.
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The Discipline Axis!
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I chose to represent the discipline axis
horizontally because discipline is a skill you acquire
and use rather than a personal quality. Its something
that goes with you, its not you. You can enhance it and
use it, but in itself it will not dramatically change who
you are. Your goals will.

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Disciplined people tend to have a higher time
awareness, they seem to be more time bounded than the
rest of the people. Theyre also highly task oriented,
having the ability to break a task in smaller chunks and
follow them until the task is done. Discipline is also
another way of expressing determination and stability.

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Lack of discipline is the source of instability
and mutability. Without a proper discipline one will
slowly start to get out of the flow. And by that I mean
out of an understandable and manageable context: hes
from another planet. Undisciplined people are often
dream oriented, floating around in parallel universes.

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On the right side of the axis, reality will tend to be
more manageable, while on the left side, the reality will
tend to escape from ones conscious power, becoming
unmanageable.
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The 4 Squares Of The Productivity Map!
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Now its time to look at each of the squares and
see how the combination of goals and discipline can
make a difference and what is the place of the real
productivity according to this diagram.

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1. High Goals + Sloppy = Procrastinators!
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You know the type: tomorrow Ill start losing
weight and the day after tomorrow Ill become a
millionaire. And the next day hell come with even
more powerful intentions. This is the type that
constantly establish high and ambitious goals but lacks
the discipline to make them happen. This is the home of
the procrastinators.

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Establishing ambitious goals is not the key to
success. Its certainly giving you more awareness and
power, but if youre not transcending that power into a
time aware and task oriented attitude, youll never cross
the line to the 2nd square. Lack of discipline is what
makes many of the people prisoners of the 1st square.

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In the 1st square you tend to dream about your
goals and not to do them. Dreaming can also have this
effect of extracting you from the current reality and put
you into an intermediary state of consciousness. And
that no mans land consciousness state is really
frustrating. Staying too long in the 1st square can lead
to serious psychological imbalances.
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2. High Goals + Discipline = Producers!
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You have high goals and you have discipline:
you make things happen. This is what I understand by
producers, a situation in which your attitude
(discipline) increase your altitude (high goals). This
square is for me the cornerstone of every productivity
definition. Nor high goals by themselves, nor a constant
disciplined attitude can lead to productivity, but a
balanced combination of both.

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Whenever you have the flow feeling while
working, youre most likely in the 2nd square. Your
time aware approach along with your high goals are
making a powerful force couple and youre climbing.

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The interesting thing in this square is its
sustainability. In the 1st square you have a natural
tendency to create your dreams, to make them real,
hence an attraction to cross the line to the 2nd square.
Unfortunately, the gravity force of your undisciplined
behavior are dragging you down, in the 4th square. And
you have this constant tension between those 2
neighbor squares.

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In the 2nd square there is no tension, youre
balanced and youre creating your world. Of course,
you can do wrong: overwork yourself, establish bigger
goals than your current capacity and so on. Overdoing
is a danger in any circumstance. But overall, being in
the 2nd square is the place to be.
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3. Low Goals + Discipline = Obsessed!
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This is the square of the guys that are
constantly reading personal development materials,
enhancing their skills by using different methods,
attending to seminars and reading productivity blogs.
But other than that, theyre doing nothing. Zero. They
dont start that business, they dont reach that huge
goal. Because they dont have high goals.

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Having a good sense of discipline but not
creating high goals is what makes you stay in the 3rd
square. You may have the means, but youre afraid of a
powerful vision. Youre afraid to dream. Discipline is
acting like a refuge for your lack of courage.

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Staying in the 3rd square long enough will
ultimately make you an obsessed productivity freak.
Instead of conquering the world youll work on your
discipline and tweak your lists. Wake up early, exercise
and so on, but no powerful goal.

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As well as in the 1st square, on the 3rd square
there is a tension between having bigger dreams and
taking it easier with that discipline. You understand that
you must dream big and cross the line to the upper
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square, but the left square is calling you to decompress

after too much discipline.
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4. Low Goals + Sloppy = Followers!
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With low goals and no discipline, its much
easier to walk on other footsteps and go with (or out of)
the flow. A follower attitude makes you wanna dream
all the time and do nothing all day. You wait for outer
world impulses to start working, like the lack of money
or hunger. Following means you cant do anything out
of your own awareness (low goals) and with tenacity
(low discipline).

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One word of caution here: this square is also
the play square. When you play you dont have high
goals and keep a minimal discipline. From this angle,
this square is one of the most interesting areas, and is
very easy to be mistaken for something is not.

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The followers square is the childish square. I
dont know yet of a kid with goals bigger than the next
second, nor to mention I never heard of a disciplined
kid. And were all perceiving childhood as a happiness
realm. Sliding from time to time in this first square has
this effect of traveling back to time and enjoying being
a kid again.

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But kids are by their very nature followers.
Theyre following their parents and they do that for a
reason: they dont have the experience nor the means to
start taking care of their lives. They rely on their
parents to feed them, take care of them and learn them
all they need to know. Well, youre past this. You have
the experience and the qualities to start doing
something with your life. Hiding behind the childish
paradigm while staying in the 4th square is just an
excuse for your laziness.
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Lead Or Follow!
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Another interesting thing about this map is the
kind of typologies it creates on each side of the axes.

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On the horizontal axis, the goals axis, we see
how one can position himself in regard to leading.
Dreams are the heart of the leading process. No leader
was born and made without a fantastic dream. The
higher your goals and dreams, the highest your position
as a leader.

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But if your dreams are low, youre surrendering
to a manipulation process, regardless of the level of the
discipline you have. The lower your goals, the higher
the probability to be enrolled and dragged in something
bigger than you.

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There is also some kind of quality of this
leadership, depending on the discipline scale. On left
side of the discipline scale, your leadership will be
deceiving and shallow. Youre only serving empty
dreams, not the capacity to make them happen.

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On the right side of the discipline scale, your
leadership will be empowering and fulfilling. Youre
not only giving big dreams and courageous objectives,
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but youre also disciplined enough to make them

happen.

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Create Or Observe!
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On the vertical axis we see how one can
position himself in regard to doing. If your doing
capabilities are low, youre merely an observer of the
reality. You cant influence much around, even if your
dreams are big,

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But if your doing capabilities are enhanced by a
proper discipline, you become a creator, you make
things happening. Youre not only observing, youre
modifying.

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As for the leadership, there is a certain quality
to the observing and creating attitudes. If youre an
observer on the lower side of the goals axis, youre
pretty much out of the show. Not only you dont have
big dreams, but youre manipulated and just observe
other people dreams. If youre an observer on the
higher side of the goal axis at least you can expose
yourself to some interesting dreams.

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If youre a creator on the lower side of the
goals axis, youre constantly creating insignificant
stuff. You have the ability, youre a creator, but the lack
of courage makes you waste your energy in smaller
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activities, most of the time in a job, as youre not a

leader either. On the higher side of the goals axis, your
creativity meets your leadership capabilities. Now
youre a star, and of course, you know it.
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Tensions

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The 4 squares have also some kind of tensions,
with the 2nd square being the exception. Already
mentioned the fact that the 2nd square is the most
sustainable of all, but lets see how the tensions works
for the rest of it.

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In the 2nd square youre dragged down by your
lack of courage and dreams, while youre eager to cross
the line to the 2nd square, to become a producer. This is
an imploding tension, at some point youll cross to
some of the attracting squares.

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In the 3rd square your discipline will make you
able to accomplish stuff, but your lack of vision will
attract to the 4th square. Youll want to climb, to
become more courageous, but the pressure of the doing
will attract you to the laziness of the 4th square again.
This is also an imploding tension, at some point youll
either become a producer, either a follower.

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And finally, the 4th square is having an
exploding tension, meaning it will do the best to take
you as far as possible from any other square. It will
drag you away. If your dreams are small and you dont
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care about your discipline, expect to forget who you

really are. Will lose your identity, self-respect and self-
trust.

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My Personal Experience!
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I confess I was an obsessed productivity freak
for many years. I read tons of blogs about productivity,
I started challenges, I did a lot of stuff all day long. But
I didnt have the courage to dream bigger. I was
keeping myself into a controlled realm (my company)
and insanely trying to optimize it. It was only when I
decided its time to want more than I crossed into the
2nd square.

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Dont get me wrong, my company was a very
successful one on this market, but the thing is
companies are like clothes: if you grow bigger they
tend to remain smaller. It was time for another set of
clothes and for another set of dreams.

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Another thing I want to confess is that I dont
stay only in the 2nd square. In an ideal world, I think it
would be great to stay there, but we dont live in an
ideal world, and Im not an ideal person. Im just me.
So, I spend some time in the 1st square, especially
when I establish new goals. I may spend days there,
only dreaming or contemplating my ideas, and not
doing much.

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I also have short holidays in the 4th square, but
those are extremely short. The 4th square is associated
with a kind of numbness which might be enjoyable
after a whole week spent in the 2nd square, but I dont
like being there too much. Its boring.

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7 Symptoms Youre On The
Verge Of A Burn Out!
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Striving every day to become better is not an
easy job. Its not a joy ride, or a walk in the part. Its
hard work. And hard work wears you out. If youre not
balancing this hard work, sooner or later youll hit a
wall. Youll be burned out. I know you know the
feeling: suddenly, lifes not nice anymore, everything
around you is tasteless and you wonder where are you
going anyway. Being burned out is a real danger. And a
hell of a situation to deal with.

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Fortunately, this dead end is not totally out of
your control. It may be predicted. Like a hurricane, it
shows some early signs. And if you know how to read
the signs, you can protect yourself. Here are 7 signs
which, in my experience, can witness the proximity of a
burn out in your life.

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1. You Find Excuses Faster Than Solutions!
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You have to do something, but out of nowhere
comes an excuse. A really good one. And you dont
have to do that thing anymore. Now isnt that
wonderful? You werent so into it anyway. What a
relief to find a really good excuse, isnt it?

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Well, not exactly. Finding excuses faster than
solutions is a sign that youre rejecting your reality. Its
an early sign of escapism. If you werent be so tired,
the idea of an excuse didnt even cross your mind. You
would just do that thing and move on.

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Excuses are disguised enemies. Theyre slowly
taking over your power, your focus and block your
resources. Any excuse you give will kill one potential
thing you could build. Maybe that thing wouldnt have
been a fantastic one, but the mere fact that you built it
was extremely important.

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Every time youre excusing more than you
really have to, youre approaching a burn out.
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2. Your Favorite Relaxation Is Making You
Nauseous!
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Lets say you really enjoy watching soccer. But
you start noticing that watching soccer is not so
refreshing anymore. In fact, its so boring, that you can
almost puke on it. Whats that game about, anyway?
Goals? To hell with goals, give me something better.

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Not being able to recharge yourself is a pretty
clear sign that your system is getting overloaded.
Unfortunately, instead of cutting the main power and
relax, most of the people are trying to get satisfaction
by increasing the relaxation stimulus. Which overload
the system even more.

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The next step if you favorite relaxation doesnt
work is to try something stronger. Get out, socialize
numbly or sink into alcohol. Maybe the first few times
this will work, but since youre not addressing the real
reason, your system will get overloaded again, asking
for more and more relaxation.

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If you feel the need to drastically change your
relaxation routine, ask yourself if this is not an early
sign of a burn out.
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3. You Sleep More Than Usual But Worse!
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Thats so easy to get spotted, yet so overlooked.
Your sleep is a fantastic indicator of your energy level.
The smaller perturbation in your sleep pattern should
be investigated immediately. Sleeping more but feeling
worse is a red arrow pointing for an imminent burn out.

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Unfortunately, most of the people are abusing
their sleep anyway, so they cant really spot any
difference. And thats really sad, because it takes away
a fantastic indicator of your health and effort capacity.
Sleeping good is as important as getting things done.

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Sometimes, even more important. I am simply
amazed by the fact that we have to sleep. I have a deep
emotion every time I try to explain myself this process,
like every time I try to explain some magic mystery.
Were doing it so often that were not willing to accept
the fact that sleep is a taboo territory: we dont really
know whats happening there.

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And its not safe to play with something you
dont really know what it is. Just step back and reinstate
a balanced sleep pattern.
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4. Your Rant Tolerance Is Lower Than
Usual!
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You either bullying without a reason and start
to engage in fighting, either avoid it even before you
know whats all about. Your rant tolerance is a very
good indicator of your stress level. It basically shows
how much challenge are your ready to accept in your
daily routine.

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Although Im totally against fighting, accepting
rants is almost anytime a fantastic opportunity to learn.
Especially from your critics. If your rant tolerance is
lower, that means you dont take criticism too easy.
Time to take a break.

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A burn out will trigger your guilt feelings first:
because you know you cant continue like this
anymore, you start to feel guilty because youre not
performing as others would expect. So, this guilt will
propagate up to the higher level of your consciousness,
making you very sensitive at any insidious remark
about your work.

!

Step back and relax, Youre heading toward a
burn out.
36
!
5. Youd Rather Be Right Than Doing The
Right Thing!
!
!
!
!

All you want is to be right about something.
You need that. Not necessarily doing the right thing but
being right about it. That means you need more
confirmation than usual and lack the energy of actually
doing stuff. A burn out will most likely emerge out of
this.

!

The need to be right about stuff is also a sign of
low self-confidence. All those small victories you get
from saying: I told you so are just unconscious pillars
you try to put under your falling self-confidence. Take a
break, or the pillars will eventually fall too.

!

Its ok to lose a battle every now and then,
thats a clear sign of normality. If you;re chasing
personal victories and insist to be right on stuff, then
youre heading to the wrong direction.

!

Also, the fact that you prefer to talk about it
rather than do it, its a sign that youre having an
energy imbalance.
37
!
6. A Normal Task Will Require Twice The
Time!
!
!
!
!

Its not that youre tired, but youre not
focused. Things you were able to finish in a single run
are now done in several blocks. A thin focus is almost
always a sign of an incoming burn out. Since focus is
your reality, a thin one will create a vulnerable reality.

!

This is also difficult to assess in the first time,
because you dont always time yourself when doing
stuff. All you get is a feeling of not having enough
time, or something like a pressure of having too much
on your plate. Take a break and the time will expand
again.

!

Having a fluctuating perception of time, either
being too short or too fast, comes from a twisted focus.
Every time youre experiencing this you should stop
and try to recharge.

!

Better doing it before the burn out will actually
kick in, it will be much difficult once youre down.
38
!
7. You Run Out Of Ideas!
!
!
!
!

Thats easy to spot but often mistaken for a
form of natural dumbness we all have to experience
from time to time. Well, I dont think so. Having a
constant flow of ideas is normal for everyone and its a
sign of a healthy connectivity.

!

Ideas are in fact nothing but hints we receive
from the Universe. When youre not having ideas,
youre so disconnected that you cant see the hints
anymore. Dont wait until youre totally out of sync,
take a break, avoid the burn out and reconnect with the
idea flow again.

!

For me, thats the most important sign of all.
Every time I run out of ideas I feel like Im on a desert
island. The feeling is so powerful that Im actually
getting out in the real world, trying to re-connect with
other people.

!

Running out of ideas means youre leaking
some energy. Find the leak and seal it.

!
39
!
Training Your Focus!
!
!
!
!
!

How is your focus? Do you find it easy to
concentrate for longer chunks of time or are you easily
distracted? Do you enjoy doing the same thing at the
same focus level over and over again, or are you easily
bored?

I used to think that focus is a function of
pleasure: I can concentrate on this because I like it. I do
some stuff better than other because I like it. While
loving what you do can keep your concentration high,
at least in the beginning, maintaining a constant, high
focus is not a function of pleasure at all. Its a function
of will.

Focus can be trained. It can be enhanced, it can
be shaped the way you want. It can serve you well, if
you treat it well. In this chapter Ill share some of my
observations regarding focus and how one can work
this tool the same way you work your muscles in your
daily workout.
40
!
Detach From Pleasure!
!

!
!

To like something is a great do igniter. It
really puts you on the road. Starting something you
dont like is usually slower and less energizing. But
after the initial thrill, even if you do like what youre
doing, keeping yourself in the flow requires a lot of
effort. Your focus will start to weaken.

!

The best way to ensure a constant flow of focus
is to detach from pleasure. To treat every single task
emotionally equal. Might sounds robotish and totally
not fun, but in fact its just a way to trick your focus
into a better approaching method.

!

If youre constantly doing only things you like,
your focus will develop a sort of addiction. It will
unconsciously start looking for nice stuff, and will
ignore difficult, or boring things. It will not discard it
and put it aside for later, the boring stuff will simply
disappear from the radar. Youll end up as a hedonistic
prisoner of only nice stuff, please.

!
41

Detaching from pleasure doesnt mean you will
refrain from enjoying what youre doing. Detaching
from pleasure means youll start doing things
regardless of their niceness level. Youll just do them.
Detaching from pleasure means youre also detaching
from boredom. If you can observe yourself doing stuff,
pleasure and boredom are just choices. Youre doing
that thing anyway, so you can chose how you feel about
it.
42
!
Assess Results!
!
!
!

Whenever you keep your focus on something
for longer chunks, take your time to assess results every
once in a while. Take your time to see how were you at
the beginning of the task and how are you now.
Especially in difficult tasks, assessing results is a great
focus enhancer.

!

It does this by progress showing. If youre
caught in solving a longer problem, you might forget
where you started. You start circling and stumbling.
You get caught in a pattern of Im getting nowhere
with this and your focus will start weaken. The
hedonistic part of you will ask for something nice to
hang on, and youll step away form the problem and go
grab a cookie, for instance.

!

If after the cookie your focus will be higher, it
would be great, but your focus is usually thinner. You
didnt assess any results, you just tried to escape a
difficult task. Your focus will want again to the cookie.

Assessing results is easy, is a matter of saying: I
started this journey 15 minutes ago, and Im doing ok,
regardless of the fact Ive done only one single step.
43
Im ok. Im on it.. Your focus will be forced to stay

there until you solve the problem. You assessed your
position, you acknowledged the fact that youre making
progress.

!

This works regardless of the focus time span.
You can assess results of a 15 minutes cooking session,
or of a 5 years goal. Maintaining your focus is equally
important in both.
44
!
One More Second!
!
!
!

I took this habit from my fitness session.
Whenever I do pushups or abs, I establish some goal,
lets say 50 abs. When Im close to 49, I stretch myself
out and go over 50, usually 51, or 52. I do the this all
the time. The goal is clear but I always try to stay in
there for one more second.

I also did this in business. Whenever I was
close to finish a project, I did something extra, a feature
or an addition of some kind. It was not in the specs
from the beginning but I felt the need to put it there.

Staying one more second in a project, in a
workout, or in a relationship is a fantastic focus
enhancer. I always know that I can do more abs after
that second and I always know that my project will be a
success, after that last feature. I am in there, I know it, I
stay focused.

One more second is also good for assessing
wrong paths. Even if you feel its wrong, take one more
second to assess that and let your focus decide. If its a
bad relationship, stay one more second in it and make
sure its really bad for you. Next time, your focus will
warn you from the beginning, and you wont have to go
through tough times again.
45
!
Balance Your Senses!
!
!
!

Your focus is channeling the reality by using
your senses. Each person have a specific distribution of
these senses in their focus. Some are visual, some are
functioning well by really touching stuff, some are
reacting better to voices. Your senses are the gates and
your focus is the gate opener.

Focus likes diversity. If youre a visual guy, try
using some sounds in the next working session. Put
some music on, tap the table from time to time. If
youre doing something related to sounds (youre a
musician for instance, or working on a movie
soundtrack) try to balance this by using some new
lights around you. Change your seat, light a candle. It
will instantly make you focus better.

Your focus will always appreciate a new
balance in your senses. Its not about boredom, we
talked about that already. What youre doing is sending
a complementary signal that will make your focus
trying to recompose the big picture. And that will keep
it on the current task.
46
!
Your Focus Is Your Reality!
!
!
!

Ok, I cheated a bit. I started with all those tips
about focus enhancement and kept the focus definition
aside. And I did this for a reason.

!

I strongly believe that your focus is in fact your
reality. You cannot experience something outside your
focus. Everything you do is driven by focus, its like a
handle to keep and master your environment. Its the
only way you actively experience your life: whenever
youre not focused, youre drifting away, whenever
youre focused youre sailing.

!

Lets make a short experiment now. Take a look
at the wall in front of you. Yes, like right now. Take a
look, I said, dont cheat. After several seconds come
back here and read on.

!

Where was your focus while you looked at the
wall? Outside this book, of course, what a silly
question. But where was the book during this period?
Youll answer that it was there, right in front of you,
waiting for your to get back. It was in your mind. But I
will say this book was completely outside your reality.

47

You might have think it was there, but it was on
a virtual space and time. Your real space and time was
filled with the wall. You were focused on the wall, and
the wall took precedence of everything else in your life,
including your thoughts. You might have think you
were thinking at the book, but instead you were focused
on the wall.

!

Everything in your life works like this. You
might think youre doing something, but your real
focus is somewhere else. You think youre happy, but
instead of real happiness, your focus is in useless,
shallow thoughts. You give to your thinking mind the
benefit of reality, instead to give this to your focus. You
might spend your entire life thinking youre doing just
fine, but your focus will be on a wall. Youll be in fact
experiencing a wall, not a happy life.

!

This is why training your focus is far more than
a productivity technique. At a certain level, focus
mastering is a magical endeavor, is an esoteric, almost
secret art.

!

The one who masters his focus will master his
own world.

!

Are you with me here? Or are your drifting
away?
!
48
How To Be Productive
Without Becoming A
Productivity Freak!
!
!
!
!

Productivity is usually a good thing. Usually.
Not always.

!

As I already said, too much effectiveness in
your life can become annoying at some point. Being
highly productive can really help you become some
sort of a freak, even if you obviously dont want that.
All those lists, thoughts capturing devices, advanced
task processing systems. All those fancy words like
next actions, hipster cards or mind like water. All
those tasks carefully squeezed into your agenda, well,
all that could give you a very hard time in a normal,
non-productivity related, social conversation. To be
honest, most of the people I heard talking about mind
like water were doing it mostly like a waterfall, not
like a still lake. I think you know the type: hyper-active,
super talkative and proud of the last uber cool
productivity gadget he bought or the last productivity
blog post he read.

!
49

The good news is that you can still be
productive while avoiding the pitfalls of a productivity
freak syndrome. Here are 7 verified ways to help you
avoid being left alone in the middle of a vivid social
conversation in which you just tried to talk about
exactly! nothing else but productivity.

!
50
!
1. Dont Plan the Fun!
!
!
!
!

Do you have items like go out in the park with
the kids in your to do lists? Or something like have a
romantic dinner with my partner? Ditch this.
Immediately. You cant really plan the fun in your life.
Its a contradiction in terms. If you plan it, its not fun
anymore. Its just another chore. Another task to be
slacked from your to do list.. Having fun is a
spontaneous activity and cannot be confined into a
productivity system. The very thought of productively
increasing your fun makes me laugh.

!

How many times you attended to a party and
had no fun at all? Well, Im sure that behind being at
that party there was a productivity reason. Maybe
you dont call it productivity, but it was something
like cross out that thing from my agenda. Mark the
task done somehow. Which, of course, you did. Only
there wasnt any fun involved. How many lousy
romantic dinners you had? I bet every time you had
them you looked up every single detail in advance and
made sure everything will be just fine. Only it wasnt.
You had no fun at that dinner.

!
51

Planning the fun in your life is the most subtle
yet powerful attempt of productivity to kill your
spontaneity. Your normal reactions to reality stimulus.
You can schedule in advance to DO something, thats
true, but you cant schedule in advance to FEEL
something.

!

Instead of planning your fun activities, you
should just make some time box in your schedule for
yourself. If you want to spend time with other people,
your friends or your kids, just make some space in your
time schedule and be there. Show up. And see where it
goes. Dont plan it, just watch it unfolding ahead. If
you want to throw a great party, by all means, do all the
preparations. Just dont expect the party to
automatically rock just because you had fantastic food.
Likewise, if you want a romantic dinner, just be
romantic, dont plan the next actions. Do something
unexpected or extraordinaire. Which, by the way, its
the complete opposite of being productive.

!
52
!
2. Share Your Learning!
!
!
!
!

Share what you learned about productivity with
your friends. Ask for their opinion. The first thing
youll notice is that all that information is now filtered
through your own perceptions and experiences. A lot of
what you thought is important is now modeled by your
own needs. While youre talking with somebody else
about all those new concepts or ideas youre slowly
getting rid of the initial hype and start to have a better
understanding of the system altogether. (Generally
speaking, sharing what youve learned is great way to
internalize everything you want to learn.)

!

The second thing you can realize by sharing is
to inform your peers about the results you had by using
that specific system. No need to talk about technical
stuff now, just simple things like: Ive done twice the
things I was usually doing on a Tuesday so far. Watch
for their reactions. Youll be surprised to notice that
being productive has little if no impact whatsoever in
your close relationships. Yet you unconsciously hope
that being productive will enhance your social or
intimate life too.

!
53

The most important point here is to create a
feed-back loop. A way to check out your social status
every now and then and see if youre not deluding
yourself. Being productive is meant to do things faster
and better, not to alienate you from your friends or
colleagues. Dont use the productivity hype as an
identity creator: Im the GTD guy, or the 4 hours work
week guy. The more you do that, the more youll be
identified with the productivity freak next office. Just
because youre updated to the latest productivity news
and other people arent, doesnt make you better than
them.
54
!
3. Listen To Others!
!
!
!
!

There is this cultural norm of associating
productivity with pro-activity. Start new projects. Ignite
conversations. Initiate new ventures. While this is
certainly very important, it also creates a very nasty
habit of not listening to other people. Listening is a
fantastic resource. How many times you found a
solution to something just by listening to other guys? I
know I did this literally hundreds of times. Just listen
carefully, because your question was certainly asked
before and there is already somebody who knows the
answer.

!

Listening is fundamental in identifying
problems. Maybe you have the skills to do something
faster and better, but if you dont know exactly what
you have to do, then whats the point? I see more than
often those productivity gurus offering ready made
solutions to problems far more complicated than they
realize. They have a limited set of solutions and they
try to apply them to every problem they encounter.,
regardless of its complexity. Just because they know
that works. Only, of course, it doesnt.

!
55

Without listening and acknowledging the real
problems your productivity skills are worthless. Youre
just a talkative guy making more trouble then it solves,
while bragging too in the process. Not the nicest
personal brand you can build, right? Listening is not a
productive activity in itself, although it can be
enhanced: there really is an art of listening, you know.
But listening, combined with your productivity skills
can help you become a useful person too, rather then
becoming just a freak annoying people around.
56
!
4. Keep Things Simple!
!
!
!
!

The promise of productivity subtly invites you
to bring more into your life. You can manage it, right,
so bring more. More business, more relationships, more
everything. You load yourself with tons of not really
necessary stuff just because you can. Well, you could
also run on a roof of a running train, with a little bit of
training. But why would you do something like this on
a regular basis? You could learn how to juggle with 5-6
balls at the same time, becoming better than a circus
artist. Ok, but why would you do it?

!

Almost any productivity system out there puts a
big emphasis on how to manage everything in your life.
But why would you wanna do that to everything in
your life? Why do you want to become productive on
all the things in your life, including stuff you dont
need anymore? Instead of trying to manage everything,
I think its better to get rid of the unnecessary entirely.
Why trying to manage something you dont really
need?

!

This subtle invitation to bring more stuff into
your life is the most dangerous thing you can do when
57
you decide to become productive. You dont really need

that extra stuff. Its like a competition between people
racing on roofs of running trains, just because they can
run on roofs of running trains. Whos going to really
win such a stupid race? The good side of being
productive and effective is that you can do more in less
time. Great, now go out and enjoy life, instead bringing
more work into the system.
58
!
5. Accept and Manage Interruptions!
!
!
!
!

The productivity flow assumes youre there
100%, 8 hours out of 8, 5 days a week. If youre a
normal person. If you have a busier schedule, it means
even more. Well, reality is different. Youre not there 8
full hours. At some point, life will get in the way
somehow. You will be exposed to interruptions. Its
called hazard or the unpredictable. And the way you
react to interruptions is almost always the key to a
productive approach.

Accept them. Manage them. Respond to those
stimuli, because there lies your real growth. Planning
everything ahead will not make you grow. It will barely
create a comfort zone around, but not more. Its this
constant stimulus-response dance that gives you new
insights and perspectives. This is where you learn and
do your real actions. A day with a perfect agenda is not
a day that will make you evolve as a human being. It
can give you a tricky sense of satisfaction, but if no
deranging interruption occurred, you must start
asking yourself questions.

!

Lifes whats happening when youre busy
making plans, said John Lennon and I totally agree
59
with him. Being productive is not always equal with

being happy and fulfilled. I really dont think the goal is
to become the perfect business machine out there, but
to live your life. A life filled with unexpected,
interruptions, change of plans and contexts. Avoiding
this by hiding under the high productivity blanket
will not only make you lose all the fun, but it will
surely create an almost visible aura of freak-ness
around you.
60
!
6. Daydreaming Is Not Dangerous!
!
!
!
!

One of the key principles of GTD, emptying
your mind has become one of its biggest flops.
Because when you empty your mind in GTD style,
youre not really emptying. Behind every mental throw
up of an idea, of a potential project or task, theres a
continuous, humming thought of being productive.
Every time you jot down something, youre doing it
because you want to be productive. So, even if you
think youre emptying your mind, youre not really
doing it: you continuously think about how to be more
productive.

!

A productivity freak is a person whos always
in search of a new gadget or system. His mind is simply
obsessed with the whole productivity process.
Sometimes, those guys really make a business out of
this, teaching other people how to become productive.
Theyre the lucky ones. They found an outlet for the
obsession. But most of the times, the productivity
freaks are just circling around, stuffing new
productivity techniques in their head until they forget
why they wanted to be productive in the first place.

!
61

Empty your mind from useless stuff. But do
allow yourself to have thoughts that will never grow
into a task. Imagine things. Picture new realities.
Visualize new contexts or situations. You may call this
day dreaming. And yes, you will be right about that.
But day dreaming is one of the most productive ways to
empty your mind. To switch its focus from the glitches
you encountered and allow it to regroup and find new
ways to tackle an issue. One of the core qualities of a
dream is its impermanence. Once finished, it will fly
away from your mind. Leaving it empty, refreshed and
clean.
62
!
7. Stay Healthy!
!
!
!
!

Being highly productive is often associated
with being a busy guy. In fact, you become productive
because you are a busy guy and want to minimize that
load. Alas, you end up by increasing it. Its an
addiction. The higher your productivity level, the
busiest you become. You enjoy so much the thrills you
get from being productive that you start putting more
and more on your plate just to trigger that feeling again.
Look ma, see how I slack those tasks from my task
processing system! Am I the best, or what? Now
gimme some more tasks, please! Man, that feels soooo
good!

!

Ok, Im being sarcastic here, but slacking tasks
from your lists can really become an addiction. And
just because is associated with productivity doesnt
make it less dangerous or less of an addiction. Its on
the same league with smoking or alcohol. Really.
Staying up late to slack tasks from your lists is doing no
more good to you than spending the whole night
drinking in a bar. You wont have a hangover in the
morning, thats true, but you will feel the urge to slack
them again in the evening. And will do this again and
63
again. The results: you end up stealing time from your

sleeping hours, from your social hours, from your
family hours. All that in the name of being productive,
how ridiculous is that?

!

Eat well. Sleep well. Exercise. Engage in
physical activities and change your focus. Being caught
in a constant flow of productive tasks will most likely
generate a flow of positive emotions too. Youll feel
good about yourself and that is usually a feeling you
want to keep as long as you can. That flow of ego
boosting emotions can keep you being productive for
hours without a break. But its tricky. Just because it
feels good doesnt mean it does good to your body. You
need a balance. Pack some time in advance in your
schedule and get out of that nice, ego boosting flow of
being productive and do some physical exercise. Take a
walk in the park. Eat a healthy meal. Take a nap. Then
you can get back on being productive, with a fresh
perspective.

***

To be productive without becoming a
productivity freak is an art. The art of living your life in
peace and harmony while still doing everything you
planned to do, enjoying abundance and feeling happy
and fulfilled.

!
64
!
Manage Your Time As You
Manage Your Money!
!
!
!
!

Time is money, thats one of the oldest English
sentences I learned. I guess I wasnt even in school, and
I remember I knew the meaning of this. And keep in
mind that English is not my primary language, I was
born and raised Romanian. Years after, I still surprise
myself thinking in these terms. There is a common
understanding that your time is one of your most
precious assets, so you should take good care of it.
Interestingly enough, this happens mostly in Western
cultures,Eastern cultures seems to have a more relaxed
attitude towards time.

!

But even more interesting is the fact that,
despite the ubiquity of this saying, almost everybody
tries to avoid its message. Dont get me wrong, people
are still putting a high value on time, making it a very
precious asset, but almost nobody really treats time the
same way they treats their money. People are eager for
65
free time, they are making a lot of effort to gain some

extra time, but once they get it, they are wasting it
instantly, in a way they will never do to their money. In
this chapter Ill try to share a few simple and easy ideas
for really keeping your time safely in your wallet, the
same way you do with your finances.

!
!
1. Keep it clean!
!
!

If you are a person moderately rich, I bet your
wallet looks like a pharmacy. Its clean and ordered and
you know in less than a second where to find the ten
dollar bill, as well as the Mastercard you use for
shopping only. And even if you are not a moderately
rich person, but you have a positive attitude towards
money, I bet your wallet is clean and ordered. I know
mine is. And I know I have quite a positive attitude
towards money.

!
So why dont we do the same with our time? For me,
that translates in a very clean and ordered working
routine. If time will be sliced into ten, twenty and fifty
dollars bills, I would know instantly how much do I
have left, and where I find the needed bill every time I
need it. Slicing my time in ordered pieces, the same
way I did with bills and cards in my wallet helped me a
66
lot. And is such a simple yet powerful analogy: keep

your time as your wallet.

!
!
2. Spend only what you have!
!
!

That, my friend, is very healthy advice. Even if
you will apply this only to money, it will make you
happy at some point in your life. I tried to keep myself
away from credit, partly because I know I have a rather
risky attitude (by the way, after 10 years of
entrepreneurship and successful business, I still like to
embrace risks), and partly because I just didnt feel well
about it. That saved me several times in difficult
situations, most of them business related, like a tight
cashflow or a bad market. If I would have credit in
those situations, my life would have been much more
difficult.

!

But when you translate this habit into time
management, well, you will discover some interesting
stuff. Spending only the time you have means to do
what you have to, when you have to. Working late
hours, for instance, will be a violation of this percept.
Because you will be spending the time you simply
dont have for work. Even if it seems its for work, it
isnt, its your personal time. And by using this time for
working, you are making a credit. You take by credit
67
from your free time and pour it into work time. Yeap,
you know that already: sooner or later youll have to
pay that credit. With interest, of course.

!
!
3. Buy only what you can afford!
!
!

Although this seems a repetition of the previous
habit, there is a subtle difference. In this case, you do
spend only what you have. But if you are spending only
what you have to buy a thing that you cant afford,
well, thats bad. If you give all your paycheck for a
fantastic trip to Hawaii, when you get back youll be in
a rather tricky situation: you had the time of your life,
but your life needs some fast cash, or youll be in
trouble with those bills Its the fact that you should
correctly evaluate your financial capacity and keep your
spending under control.

!

Now translate this for time management:
whenever you have a chunk of free time, try to slip in
only what you can do in that chunk of time, not more.
This comes to correctly evaluate your working and time
consumption capacity and keep your procrastination
under control. You might want to stretch that piece of
time, but you really cant. You cant stretch a ten dollar
bill into a twenty dollar bill, so you wont be able to
68
make an hour from twenty minutes. Dont try to

bargain for it, it wont work.

!
!
4. Save some time!
!
!

Every intelligent people know the importance
of the savings. Making deposits, investing in trust
funds, buying stocks from profitable businesses, all of
these are savings activities. By doing this constantly
you ensure that your money wont get devalued and
that you can also make some profit out of it. Its a
clever move. And I bet you put a lot of effort into
finding the best way to save your money. And also you
do enjoy spending your savings, right?

!

But Im not so sure if youre doing the same
way with your time. Have you ever thought to save
some time for yourself? Have you ever thought to
manage your activities in a flexible schedule, so you
can quickly step out from the routine and take some
time off? Saving the time for yourself is highly
rewarding. If you have money deposits or other type of
investments that are doing well, why not starting to
invest in some time for yourself? Time for personal
development, or for leisure, or for family, or just for
enjoying life.

!
69
5. Once spent, stop thinking about it!

!
!

Whenever I buy something, I never look back.
Thats another healthy habit I have about money. I
dont have regrets or second thoughts. If it proves
expensive after I bought it, well, so be it, Ill bargain
better next time. But once spent, I never think about
that money again. I only focus on whats left in my
wallet, or on what I can attract by using my skills. If
you think at money as raw energy, youll understand
that once declined into matter, that energy is gone for
good. So once transformed in goods, that money cease
to exist, is literally dead. And is so much healthier to
focus on life than on death, dont you think?

!

Well, try to do the same with your time. Never
look back, never have second thoughts, never regret
something, Whatever that was in the past, those times
are gone. Of course, you can enjoy memories, youll
always have that, but if you constantly live surrounded
by memories, youll lost connection with this present
time. Youll not actually live this life, youll not allow
to the time to manifest into your existence. So, leave
the past in the past, and dont fantasize too much about
the future, this present time you are living in it right
now is actually all you have.

!
70
6. Use the best tools!

!

Youre searching the best banks for your
money. Youre buying the best consultancy services and
apply for the best credit card deals. Great! So youre
actually using the best tools for your money. Because it
is so important to you, right? You just cant afford to
have nothing but the best.

!

But do you do the same with your time? Do
you even have tools for managing your time? In the last
10 years I used a variety of tools for time management,
starting form paper based systems, to complex digital
setups. But I gradually invested in better and better
time management systems and processes. I learned the
Getting Things Done methodology, which is a great
process for time management (and even more), and I
invested in state of the art tools for implementing GTD.
I try to use nothing but the best to organize my time.

!

Yeap, because it is so important to me, and I
cant afford nothing but the best for it.

!
71
!
Goals And Mechanical
Rabbits!
!
!

Everybody knows the power of goals. They
light your path, throw away the fog and make your
efforts worthwhile. Some of the most popular goals are:

!

get out of debt

get a compatible partner

be your own boss

get a promotion

!

Of course, there are other smaller goals
like owning a specific house or car. Or even buying a
specific computer. I want to have a Mac by Christmas.
Thats a goal.

!

Usually, goals are good. But, once you reached
your goal, what happens? Where is the drive to run?
Where is the motivation? Gone, of course. You reached
your goal. The race is over.

!

The only thing that would make you run again
is another race. Another goal. Another mechanical
rabbit running in front of you, close enough so you can
tell its worthwhile, but far enough to be out of reach.
72
In order to catch the rabbit, you have to stretch. To go

over your limits. Usually, you do that.

!

But after the race you bump into that frustration
again. What the hell is wrong with that rabbit? Where
does it hides? Every time I think I caught it, it
disappear. Damn you, rabbit!

!
!
Running in the Right Context!
!
!

The problem is not the rabbit. The problem is
the context. A dog race is a limited context. Its a stupid
competition, trying to establish a winner among a pack
of dogs. A dog race stretches the animals until one has
the power to reach out and become what we call the
winner.

!

This is pretty much what happens in the real
world of jobs and careers. This time the mechanical
rabbit is a certain lifestyle, a certain amount of money
in the bank, a specific power position. A lot of dogs are
running after that rabbit. One of them, after years of
struggling and sacrifices, go in front of the others. The
result: the dog who catch the rabbit is a winner. The
rest are losers. They have to start the race again. And
again. And again.

!
73

I think you can see now how a limited context
can totally change the game. Imagine a dog in the wild.
And wild here is not defined as a context with no rules,
but with less limitations than a stupid dog race. Imagine
a dog at wild, chasing real rabbits. Is there winner
there? Barely. The natural context is so large that the
chances that 2 dogs are chasing the same rabbit are
pretty low. And when it happens, they usually share,
somehow.

!

A dog chasing real rabbits will do it for the
thrills and for survival. If it doesnt catch the rabbit, his
meal will be gone. There is no competition here other
than continuing to live. The victory here will be life in
itself, not the first place and a medal.

!
!
Choosing Your Race!
!
!

Fact is goals are highly dependent on the
context. If you chose to live your life in a limited
context, chasing goals will feel as frustrating as running
at a dog race. You wont be living a real life. You would
actually live a dogs life, being enslaved for the benefit
of others. Dont blame the mechanical rabbit for that, as
it does the best it can. It runs. Thats what a goal does,
it runs before you until you reach it.

!
74

But was it worth the effort? The whole race
was something that fulfilled you? Being number one
is making you really happy? Most of the time, the
answer to these questions is No. Running over and
over trying to defeat other people with the stupid hope
that being ahead of them in a limited context will make
you happy, that, instead of being your source of
happiness, as you expect, it will eat you up inside. The
context in which you are running is limited. So are the
goals.

!

But, what happens if you would chose a larger
context? Avoid the dog race altogether, step out of it.
Get rid of notions like winner or loser. Think in
terms of living, not racing. Just being joyful for the run.
And then chose a goal on which your entire life will
depend. What if, instead of chasing a career or a
political position, you would chase a life. A different
life. Living in a certain way. Earning enough to travel
the world, for instance, but not entering any Fortune
500 list. The difference is that once you reach this new
goal, in this new context, you will feel alive and
thrilling. Reaching that goal in this new context will
make your life go on, instead of just preparing you for
another race. It will leave you free and full of energy,
not empty and frustrated. That goal will be the real
rabbit. Instead of being just a mechanical impostor, it
will actually give you the energy to go on. And
continue to live as you chose.

75
!

I used to chase mechanical rabbits all the time.
Being the first in my niche, with my business. Been
there, done that, felt like crap. Maybe it was a
necessary milestone for my personal evolution, but
truth is I never truly enjoyed this type of competition.
Once I stepped out of the context, everything changed.
Once I left the dog race yard, with all those mechanical
rabbits ready to run in front of me, something changed.
The whole game, changed, in fact.

!

There is no victory and no first place when you
chose to live your life. There is only life. Sometimes
you catch the rabbit, sometimes not. But running after a
real rabbit, after something on which your entire life
depends, that is so amazingly different.

!

What type of rabbits are you chasing now? Are
you in a dog race, following a stupid social device
which will leave you empty inside once you complete
the race? Or are you chasing out in the wild, with no
limitations in a game with no victory or defeat?

!

Its just a question of choice.

!
!
76
!
!
!
Once again, thank you for reading this book.
If it was valuable for you, feel free to pay as
much as you like for it. Go to this page and
make your contribution.
!
Free eBooks!
!
At the time of publishing this, the average
contribution was around $12.5, but rest
assured that any amount is appreciated.
!
Also, at that page you will find a list of the
other 8 books I published so far.
!
!
Dragos Roua
77

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!

The Productivity Trap

Why Become More Productive?

Productive versus Happy

A Life Management System

The Productivity Map

The Goal Axis

The Discipline Axis

The 4 Squares Of The Productivity Map

2. High Goals + Discipline = Producers

3. Low Goals + Discipline = Obsessed

4. Low Goals + Sloppy = Followers

7 Symptoms Youre On The Verge Of A Burn

1. You Find Excuses Faster Than Solutions

2. Your Favorite Relaxation Is Making You

3. You Sleep More Than Usual But Worse

4. Your Rant Tolerance Is Lower Than Usual

5. Youd Rather Be Right Than Doing The

6. A Normal Task Will Require Twice The Time

Training Your Focus

Detach From Pleasure

One More Second

Balance Your Senses

Your Focus Is Your Reality

How To Be Productive Without Becoming A

1. Dont Plan the Fun

2. Share Your Learning

4. Keep Things Simple

5. Accept and Manage Interruptions

6. Daydreaming Is Not Dangerous

2. Spend only what you have

3. Buy only what you can afford

4. Save some time

5. Once spent, stop thinking about it

6. Use the best tools

Goals And Mechanical Rabbits

Running in the Right Context

Choosing Your Race

minor edits and enhancements, but overall, this book is

each of the 4 squares in which you can be at one

square, but the left square is calling you to decompress

but youre also disciplined enough to make them

activities, most of the time in a job, as youre not a

care about your discipline, expect to forget who you

Im ok. Im on it.. Your focus will be forced to stay

you decide to become productive. You dont really need

with him. Being productive is not always equal with

again. The results: you end up stealing time from your

free time, they are making a lot of effort to gain some

lot. And is such a simple yet powerful analogy: keep

make an hour from twenty minutes. Dont try to

5. Once spent, stop thinking about it!

6. Use the best tools!

In order to catch the rabbit, you have to stretch. To go

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