Productivity is not central for Happiness in the Game of Self and Success in the Game of Life. It is a byproduct. People with more Flows than Boxes have always productivity and happiness. Almost everyone in modern society gives themselves the wrong answer to four key questions:
1. Is productivity mostly about “producing”?
Every work process has creative phases and implementation (production) phases. If you lack the creative phases, your Job will likely be replaced over time by AI. If you lack the implementation phases, your work will also likely be replaced over time by AI. So are we all going to be replaced? No!
It’s in the combination of creating and implementing that AI is still vastly outperformed by humans. And a smart human using AI will probably always be better than just AI left on its own.
You don’t have to outperform AI. You just need to be better than other humans. If everyone raises their productivity, we may be able to transition our economy so no one is left behind.
Implementation is a Left brain Structure. It requires a process, definitions (Boxes), often Logic or planning. It’s the only time in life we actually need to create mental “Boxes”.
Creativity is a (mostly) Right brain Flow. It cannot be manufactured, only stimulated by giving it space and Time to form and thrive.
As we already learned, Boxes and Flows are like fire and ice and destroy each other in the short term – reflecting the struggle for dominance between the left and right hemisphere of our brain. So Implementation and Creativity will be in a constant fight within you, so there is always a chance for a comeback.
How do we stimulate creativity? Like every right brain Flow it’s not directly manufacturable, but if we remove enough Boxes we open the space for it. Removing brain fragmenting distractions like phone notifications and social media scrolling is the best possible start.
All structures are Boxes and will suppress your creativity. The only exception are Empty time slots – Boxes with no other boxes inside create the space for Flows!
The current world makes great ideas more important than great execution. But their generation is completely unpredictable. Open time and space for them.
2. Is productivity defined by performance?
If you see productivity as defined by performance, you automatically suppress creativity, which is a slow, chaotic and immeasurable Flow over long periods of time.
3. Is it possible to measure productivity?
Flows such as Love, Motivation and Meaning cannot be measured. Creativity is immeasurable. One of the main reasons you are not Einstein-level-productive is precisely because you are doing things Einstein never would even think of. Such as tracking productivity.
4. Is it possible to improve productivity by planning more?
You can’t improve it with more Boxes. Only with less. Most people need way less planning in life, not more.
It took me about 15 years to transition from a productive to a creative mindset. To stop measuring success in every other way and leaving just one intellectual metric in my life – How many truly world-changing ideas do I generate per year?
Live dynamically, talk to smart and creative people, connect, engage, share. In I Grow Younger we always use the term Diversity of Experience since one person can have more data points for their Intuition in a year than someone with a very repetitive life in five years. So try as many different things as possible. Unfinished projects are a loss in the Game of Life but wins in the Game of Self as we prioritize the invisible – Intuition, creativity, Curiosity, Meaning. These precious Flows give us internally more than the experience of minor finishing touches on a project whose success or failure are already pre-destined at this point.
An important addition to the above – celebrating small wins is a way to abandon your Flows and Hunter mode just when you got the momentum. You don’t have many battles in life, you have one and it’s an infinite game, it’s never won or lost so there’s nothing to celebrate. Feeling good and joyful and having fun are great Flows. A targeted celebration is turning the Joy into a Box and destroying the best part of it. You can celebrate the whole miracle of life 24/7 if you want – that’s healthy!
There is one critical Flow – the value of empty intellectual space, Stillness. It’s just the absence of thinking. Mental peace.
Just like sadness can be a healthy processing state on an emotional level, stillness is a very healthy processing state on an intellectual level. In both states the brain turns off its tireless conscious prediction engine functionality, resulting in Boxes fading away and space for Flows being formed. At the same time the full brain power is available to facilitate the processing and the very limited brain intellectual output bandwidth is free if the processing results in some amazing idea.
Stillness can happen at any moment you are not stimulated. After you wake up. In nature. In public transportation. While waiting for someone. Opportunities for stillness wasted by phones.
We have one of those typical I Grow Younger “infinity spectrums” where extremes are good and the middle is bad:
- Slowing your brain speed to near zero is great – you win in Flows and Intuition;
- Working at insane speed is also great as it helps your body get into Hunter mode and doing beats (over)thinking;
- The mid-ground of getting some work done on the phone at half speed & small screen is a bad choice.
How are motivation and creativity related?
All of your motivation happens due to dopamine.
The brain has two neural pathways for Extrinsic and Intrinsic motivation. Dopamine is central to both but in every other regard they are very different.
Extrinsic motivation is anything about avoiding pain and seeking pleasure. All the reward chasing in Hunter mode and all the defensive, fear-induced behavior in Sheep mode come from extrinsic motivation.
If you don’t know why you do it, but you do it, and it’s some joyful flow experience… it comes from Intrinsic motivation.
How do we increase our Intrinsic Motivation?
Intrinsic motivation is simply the sum of your Core Flows (Self-Love, Unconditional love, Meaning, Responsibility and Growth).
Self-love destroys the barriers within, you see yourself and your life experience as one whole
Unconditional love and compassion for others destroys the barriers between you and other people
Meaning destroys all other barriers in the world, seeing it as a whole
Responsibility destroys all barriers between our values and taking action on them
Growth/Scale destroys all barriers that slow us down on our mission to contribute to the world
The core Flows generate secondary Flows such as curiosity, playfulness, joy, love for nature and creativity.
One of the most fascinating neuroscientific discoveries is that due to both pathways sharing the dopamine in the system, having extrinsic motivation will deplete all of the dopamine from the other circuit and make intrinsic motivation impossible for you!
So how do you create the uncreatable, how to spawn intrinsic motivation? If you construct your life in support of your Core Flows and reduce as much boxes as possible you also fix all problems with dopamine depletion and extrinsic motivation getting in the way. One solution to everything, isn’t that nice and… rare?
This is why your productivity requires zero effort. This is why pressure is counterproductive and self-discipline is a sham concept that leads nowhere. This is why measuring and structuring your life is counterproductive.
Productivity is Creativity + Execution. And Intuition building over the long time is needed for both Creativity and Execution. But Intuition needs data points. Which come from Diversity of Experience. Which comes from Chaos and Creativity, not repetitive Execution…
