Mystery Gift Box #021 | Why you shouldn't be more productive until you understand this...

Hey friends,

You want to be more productive.

You want to get more things done. You want to have time to pursue your ambitious goals AND have time with your love ones AND have time to exercise to maintain the physique of a greek god AND travel around the world AND blah blah blah…

You want to have it all.

Technology has helped us to become more productive than ever before.

We can get more things done now compared to the past. Yet we still hear many people complain that they don’t have enough time to do X, Y, and Z. Why?

This is what’s known as the efficiency trap. And until you understand this concept, don’t try to be more productive because a) you will feel like you have even less time than before, and b) you are actually better off being unproductive.

☠️ The Efficiency Trap

This is a concept that I was introduced to in the Four Thousand Weeks book.

It’s best to illustrate this concept with a well-known productivity movement called Inbox Zero, where you aim to keep your inbox empty.

Imagine you have 100 emails in your inbox.

You joined the productivity train and are excited to achieve Inbox Zero; to show that you are on top of everything. So you start reading and replying to emails… and a few hours later, you achieved Inbox Zero. You will feel a sense of accomplishment.

But then few minutes later, your phone made a ping sound (or whatever sound your phone make… my phone is always on Do Not Disturb). You have received a new email. It was a reply to your reply to the original email.

Few hours later, your inbox is at 150 emails (replies to your replies plus new emails).

Again, you want to achieve Inbox Zero… this time, you use ChatGPT to help you reply to emails quicker. Instead of taking few hours to reply to all emails, this time it only took you an hour to get to Inbox Zero. You feel great again. You are on top of everything.

Few hours later, your inbox is at 200 emails... Then it’s at Inbox Zero. Then it’s at 250 emails. Then it’s at Inbox Zero.

You see where this is going…

The more efficient you are at replying emails, the more emails you have to reply for various reasons. For one, people know that you have a quick response rate and so will send you more emails to reach you. For another, you will have new emails constantly coming in on top of hundreds of old emails that you have replied to.

Getting to Inbox Zero is stupid. It’s a never-ending game that you will never win and it gets harder the more you play it.

On the flip side, I have always been “terrible” with emails.

I am never on top of it. I miss things. I forget to reply. You would expect my inbox to be pile up with many old emails… But no... my inbox is actually near zero besides subscriptions that’s mostly read-only. There are not many emails that I need to reply to…

Why? Because (for better or worse) I have created the reputation of being hard-to-reach via emails. People know that if there’s something urgent, they should reach out to me in other social platforms.

In a productivity context, I am not productive in handling my emails but I am able to achieve “Inbox Zero” by setting my boundaries clearly.

You will find efficiency trap in different context. The goal is to be aware of it and stop being productive in things where being productive isn’t helpful and might even make things worse.

❌ Stop using a to-do list.

A to-do list is another context for the efficiency trap.

The more efficient you are in ticking items off your to-do list, the more (usually less important) items you will add onto your to-do list. This is especially true if you don’t have full control over your to-do list.

Long story short → stop using a to-do list, instead use a calendar app and allocate time blocks to accomplish THREE important things each day 🗓 

📚 This week, I finished reading…

Have interesting gems you want to share with me and others? Share it by replying to this email and I will include it in the next gift box :)

With love,

Ryan O. 🎮

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