Principles and productivity

“Far and away the best prize that life offers is the chance to work hard at work worth doing.”                                                 – Theodore Roosevelt

This Thursday (19th May, 2022), we had an awesome discussion during our community Discord event. The event was about "Staying productive".  Being productive is one thing we often aim for, whatever our profession may be. Find out what was discussed and how you too can be more productive and, if you already are, how to maintain the same. Check out principles and productivity, slides from weekly meetup. Also for a change, we used our twitch as well to help more folks, so keep an eye on GitCommitShow's twitch.

Get real

A person is way more than a group of cells governed by a smart group of cells. A person is an ocean of opportunities, holding the power to mark a dent in space and time. To do anything at all, one needs to understand the concept of self. Speaking in terms of productivity, one must try to figure out the following things:

1) Work:  You must know at what time and for how long can you work. you must have been in situations when you don't feel to work at all. This can be solved by observing your working style and routine. Try to figure out your most productive times and use them wisely.

2) Aspirations: A person must be aware of their aspirations in life and dedicate themselves to the same.

3) Status and challenges: One must not live in a bubble, being unaware of the present situations and challenges lying ahead. This ain't going to be a cakewalk.

4) Upskill: This will help you understand what you are capable of and what else needs to be done.

Factors affecting your reality

• Biases: We are "emotional fools" as our decisions are most often governed by our emotions. We tend to have biases for almost anything.
• Blind spots: There are many😳 things we unknowingly🤯 take as a universal🌍 truth✨. Most of the folks wouldn't see the previous sentence as credible as it has many emojis, that's a blind spot, without reading the whole sentence, we make up our minds about it.
• Being truthful: Truth is the element with highest z-index (hey CSS folks ). So try to be truthful more often. This will help you remember less made-up stories, help you get better idea of reality and know yourself well

• Actions: Your actions describe you almost completely. When you are trying to be more productive try to show up regularly. This helps you to improve daily and as stated in "Atomic habits" the power of compounding will do its magic.
  

The 5 step technique

Well, there are basically 5 steps / guidelines that need to be followed independently to achieve your goals. One must be emotionally at peace to make these steps work. One can see a clear image of self in calm water alone, I hope you all have watched "Kung-Fu panda". Now here are the 5 steps

1. Clear goals: One must have clear goals and it counts. A person trying to gain / loose weight needs to fix a goal. Setting just a vague target of gaining / loosing weight is useless, instead what's suggested is deciding change in weight withing a particular week by a particular number. Eg, Loosing 2 Kg's in one week.
2. Identify Problems: Identifying problems is really necessary. You are hungry and there's no food. Hunger is not a problem, absence of food is. People often mistake the cause of a problem for the actual problem, so be careful about that.
3. Diagnose problem to the root: Now you know the problem, but that is not all. Dive deeper and find micro problems that add up to this bigger problem.
4. Plan: Planning is the key, you know the problem to its base and now you need to make a plan. Figure out the steps needed to make your goals a reality , list them out and make your masterplan

5. Run: Making plans is not enough, make sure they take place. Give your 100% towards your plan, in direction of your goals and your work will make you reach your destination.

What if you don't have skills

Hehe, that's with everyone! initially we all lack skills, but some strive to gain them. Points to ponder are

• When they are needed: Know exactly why you need a particular skills. Is the skill useful for professional development or just another bucket list spam
• When you can get them: Learning to write an email as a toddler is of no use, so know well in advance about the time skill will be needed.
• Learn , practice , revise , repeat: The entire event loop for gaining skill explained.

Conclusion

1) Everything looks big up-close: Crash of stock market, blockchain boom  and so many things seem so big and significant, yet on a scale of human history, these seme quite insignificant. Therefore focus on your development and growth, these big things will go on side by side.

2) Rate of Change: As a developer , we know every month there is a new JavaScript framework released. One should be mindful of this rate of change and plan his growth accordingly. You should not try to learn them all or stick to one particular framework. Instead get your basics clear, and be like water, adaptable to all changes.

3) Emotions: Human emotions are such a complex thing that AI feels tired to replicate them. Being emotional and being emotionally driven are two separate things. Never let your emotions get best of you. Here comes an iconic WhatsApp message found in each family group.

4) Time: Good things take time. And so does its preparation. You have heard a lot of philosophical stuff today. If you try to implement all in one day, that won't work. So slowly but gradually, improvise yourself and get a step closer to your dreams. I would like to suggest another good read called "Art of war" by Sun tzu.

I hope you liked it😊. Join us every Thursday for more such amazing events. we'll be waiting in the lounge. Come join our Discord now!