Photo by Sunfox
The Growing Life emerged 7 weeks ago sporting a tag line that read: "Durable Evolution, Meaningful Productivity." The ever-so-wise academic in me thought "durable evolution" was both catchy and sophisticated. A real show-stopper. Turns out only one person liked it, and I’m pretty sure that they expressed this opinion while drunk.
At the same time that my hopes of "durable evolution" entering the common parlance were being shattered, I also discovered the beginnings of the voice for this blog. Articles like this and this were beginning to define The Growing Life. Additionally, I found myself questioning GTD and the role of wildly-successful sites like Lifehacker, and thinking more and more about counterintuitives as well as ideas at the so-called "bleeding edge." In light of this, I’ve decided to change my tag line to "Alternative Productivity, Anti-Hacks for Living." Here’s a little on what these two phrases mean to me…
Alternative Productivity
Alternative productivity is really a constellation of things, but here are some of the major points:
- The less time you have to spend thinking about productivity, the better.
- Traditional productivity is a necessary evil: if you dislike your job, you’re going to need a water-tight productivity system in place to keep you on task.
- Far too many mainstream productivity gurus make the bulk of their income from company training events. David Allen, for example, has a Fortune 500-studded client list which includes Lockheed Martin, Deloitte & Touche, and the U.S. Department of Defense (see here for more of his clients). Given this source of income, productivity experts are often working in the interest of corporations who would squeeze every ounce of productivity from their workers.
- Productivity should be designed around lives, not the other way around.
- Self-development and productivity are two very different things.
- The the 9-5, 40 hour work week is outdated.
- More technology often leads to decreased productivity.
- Hacks, tweaks, tricks, etc. have emerged from a productivity hobbyist culture, are largely insufficient at solving bigger life problems, and often do not increase productivity.
- Hacks etc. are vestiges of the largely "techie" demographic of the early, but self-reinforcing, blogosphere.
- The workforce is laboring for more hours and for less pay, taking fewer vacations, and generally burning out.
- The societally scripted route to success via productivity is failing us.
This list is just a starting point. Hit The Growing Life in the next few days for a more thorough discussion.
At any rate, a backlash against productivity is slowly surfacing the present-day zeitgeist. I am largely in alignment with this backlash (apparently, so is this person and this person).
Anti-Hacks
Albert Einstein correctly started that “problems cannot be solved by the same level of thinking that created them.” Anti-hacks attempt to solve problems by approaching them at a higher level of thinking. For example, while David Allen says that peace of mind (i.e. mind like water) comes from creating exhaustive todo lists and getting everything out of your head, an anti-hack might involve meditation, because all the list-making in the world will not bring you to a meditative, mind-like-water state. An anti-hack might also involve quitting your job or taking the inefficient but nevertheless effective high road.
Please note that while the prefix "anti" can mean "opposed to" or "against," as in "anti-aircraft" or "anti-war," it can also mean "instead of" as in "anti-drug," or "anti-folk." The term "anti-hack" employs to latter meaning (i.e. instead of). Please also note that I think hacks can be great, that I am a fan of both Lifehacker and Lifehack, and that I reserve the right to write at length about various life hacks on this blog.
So-called anti-hacks really are nothing new (but neither are "hacks," for that matter). "Anti-hack" is just a new word for a very old idea, but the term highlights a significant distinction.
How My New Tag Line Will Affect Content on The Growing Life
It would be easy for me to move forward by writing rant after rant against productivity. I’m not sure this would be of much help. I’d rather focus on durable evolution and meaningful productivity :-).
For more on alternative productivity and anti-hacks, subscribe to The Growing Life.
The Marketing Program is a step-by-step, walk-you-by-
the-hand bootcamp.
Each month, we give you ONE (and no more than one) "marketing project" to complete in your business.
You do that one project each month . . . and we guarantee that if you do the stuff, you'll double your online income during the next 12 months, or we'll double your money back.
Anyway, each monthly marketing project is a plain -as-day, from A-Z, step-by-step, no B.S. blueprint (that has been tested and proven to work over and over again) for getting multiple on-demand cash infusions into your business.
Clay Collins is widely regarded as one of the top internet marketers in the world. Now in his 30s, Clay left home at age 15 to start his first software company and has been practicing entrepreneurship, off and on, ever since. Clay has been behind the scenes (advising and writing copy) for some of the most important and highest grossing information marketing campaigns on the internet.
Pingback: journal
Pingback: disinfo.com