Busyness as Proxy for Productivity: In the absence of clear indicators of what it means to be productive and valuable in their jobs, many knowledge workers turn back toward an industrial indicator of productivity: doing lots of stuff in a visible manner.

Productivity is often a distraction. Don’t aim for better ways to get through your tasks as quickly as possible. Instead aim for better tasks that you never want to stop doing.

ingredients of productivity — time, attention, and energy

Continually seeking novel stimuli makes us feel more productive — after all, we’re doing more in each moment. But again, just because we’re busier doesn’t mean we’re getting more accomplished.

Productivity isn’t about how busy or efficient you are — it’s about how much you accomplish

The enemy of productivity is ambiguity plus infinite optionality plus a phone within arm’s reach.

Brainstorm some answers to these questions:

• Which activity makes you the most money per minute?
• Which activity delivers the most excitement per minute?
• Which activity creates the most connection per minute?
• Which activity provides you the most laughter per minute?

And which activity is the best blend?

There are two synergistic approaches for increasing productivity that are inversions of each other:

1. Limit tasks to the important to shorten work time (80/20).
2. Shorten work time to limit tasks to the important (Parkinson's Law).

The best solution is to use both together: Identify the few critical tasks that contribute most to income and schedule them with very short and clear deadlines.

The one productivity system that controls all others: your emotions. 

When you are in love with what you’re doing, everything gets easier. 

When you hate what you’re doing, no productivity hack will save you.

Sometimes the biggest gain in productive energy will come from cleaning the cobwebs, dealing with old business, and clearing the desks — cutting loose debris that's impeding forward motion.

Nothing will make you more productive than owning your time.

Nothing will make you less productive than selling it.

If you believe being overly busy and overextended is evidence of productivity, then you probably believe that creating space to explore, think, and reflect should be kept to a minimum. Yet these very activities are the antidote to the nonessential busyness that infects so many of us. Rather than trivial diversions, they are critical to distinguishing what is actually a trivial diversion from what is truly essential.

I get an extra 20 IQ points from being in that office,

unlike your most meaningful tasks, your most purposeful tasks may not necessarily contribute a lot of value or meaning to you, but they contribute an incredible amount of value to your productivity.