Thread by @EthanEvansVP

Most of us are busy, not productive. Yet, actual productivity is what leads to success. Here is why busyness sucks us in and how to be productive instead.

Generally, “busyness” is easier than true productivity. It is easier to check emails and reorganize files than to do meaningful work on hard problems.

Things are rarely valuable, easy, and praiseworthy at the same time. When they are, those things get done very quickly.

But, when the valuable work is hard or scary, we gravitate towards easier busywork that people will praise us for doing or criticize us for not doing.

The simplest example here is email, Slack, or other messages.

People are happy when we get back to them. If we don't get back to them, they follow up with us or complain. There are social expectations about being responsive, and it is generally easy to do.

So, we do it.

Most of you have heard of the Eisenhower Matrix, the 2x2 grid that contrasts Urgent and Important.

I think this matrix misses a big point, which is what is emotionally easy.

Imagine another matrix with “valuable” and “easy” on it. We all do the valuable work that is easy, but then we drift towards the easy, non-valuable work rather than the work that is valuable and hard.

This happens for a few reasons:

1) Someone expects that work from us (a response, a report, etc.). We can check off an item and get some praise/avoid some criticism for doing it.

2) It is not scary and takes little effort

3) We tell ourselves that we will "clear our plate" and then tackle the hard thing

But the easy work is endless, and if we ever do finish, it is late in the day and we tell ourselves that we are too tired to do the hard thing. We plan to do it in the morning, but then our inboxes fill up with distractions overnight.

As much as I believe in the “Urgent versus Important” contrast of the Eisenhower Matrix, I think the deeper opportunity is in learning how to face the hard work first.

This is work that:

1) Scares us because we might fail

2) Takes painful effort, that we dislike or feel we aren't good at doing

3) Is long-term, where we won't get praise for months or years, if ever

The reason we don’t do this work is the same reason that we delay other things.

For example, why aren't we all in amazing physical shape? Because push-ups and running are less pleasant than ice cream and video games

Or why are we not all brilliant inventors? Because coming up with great ideas and bringing them to reality is way harder than doing what we are told.

So, what can you do?

I have only one recipe, which is:

1) Admit the problem (distraction) and commit to doing your hardest work first in the morning

2) Protect your energy to do this. I am a night owl and morning is still the best time for this.

3) Once you do the hard thing, reward yourself with the easy stuff, even if it is low value.

See Cal Newport's "Deep Work" for more techniques.