Course · I — Productivity · free

Productivity - Introduction

Productivity as a system of choice, attention, energy, and execution, not a cult of speed.

Productivity is not about doing more in less time. It is about choosing better, protecting your attention, respecting your energy, and executing more cleanly on what actually matters.

Productivity = efficiency x impact. Not just speed.

The real subject

This course is not a handbook for “working harder.” It is a framework for:

  • reducing dilution
  • getting bandwidth back
  • doing fewer useless things
  • moving better on the right ones

So the real issue for most people is not a lack of apps, hacks, or willpower. It is a lack of structure between:

  • what they say they want
  • what enters their attention
  • the energy they actually have
  • what they truly execute

The CMDglows decision framework

When you feel “unproductive,” the problem usually comes from one of four layers:

  1. You have not chosen what matters most
  2. Your environment creates too much friction
  3. Your energy is being ignored
  4. Your execution system is too vague or overloaded

In other words, productivity is not a personality trait. It is a combination of:

  • choice
  • attention1
  • energy
  • execution

This course is built to strengthen those four layers.

What productivity is not

Productivity is not:

  • filling every minute
  • moving fast on the wrong thing
  • treating every task as equally important
  • multiplying tools to compensate for a vague system

Good productivity knows how to distinguish:

  • what deserves depth
  • what deserves speed
  • what deserves to be ignored

If the sentence you say most often is “I don’t have time,” start by reading what productivity actually means: time is rarely what is missing.

A system is a decision you make once

Much of your tiredness does not come from the work itself. It comes from the small decisions that come back every day: where to start, where this file goes, whether to answer that notification now. Each one is tiny. Together, they eat the bandwidth1 you need for the real work.

A system settles those questions once. Tim Miller, who writes about Obsidian, puts it well: any time one decision spares you hundreds of future ones, you have just built a system5. On Windows this is very concrete: a “Do not disturb” rule that switches itself on during your morning block, one single folder where your downloads land, a shortcut instead of a trip through menus. You decide once, and Windows applies your decision on the days you no longer have the energy to decide.

That is why I do not stop at speed. To me, a productive system is a set of processes and rules that keep the work moving and that anticipate common mistakes and the unexpected. A good system does not only work when everything goes well: it has already planned for the day you are tired, interrupted or late.

Macro-productivity and micro-productivity

I separate two levels that people often blur. Macro-productivity is the overall output of your system: month after month, are you moving forward on what matters? Micro-productivity is your efficiency inside a single task: during those 45 minutes, did you actually work on the file, with no notification or stray tab?

The two are fixed differently. A macro-productivity problem is almost always a choice problem: you are efficient, but on the wrong things. A micro-productivity problem belongs to environment or execution: you know what to do, but every session leaks. Before installing a tool, ask yourself which level hurts. Typing faster will not rescue a quarter spent on the wrong project, and choosing the right project will not be enough if every session is cut every five minutes. Finding your why handles the first level, Focus the second.

Intentionality and adaptability

Two qualities run through this whole course, and I believe they are essential to move toward what matters to you: intentionality and adaptability.

Intentionality means acting because you chose to, not because the day chose for you. A goal that comes from your own values gets more sustained effort, is reached more often, and makes you happier once reached than a goal you merely put up with6. Yet an intention stays fragile as long as it is vague. It becomes solid when you give it a moment and a move: “if it is Monday at 9 a.m., then I open the client file”7.

Adaptability is your capacity to adjust what you think, what you do, and what you feel when the situation changes8. A plan never survives a real week intact: a client calls back, a child gets sick, a tool breaks. Being adaptable does not mean dropping your course at the first surprise. You change the route, not the destination. And sometimes you recognize that a goal has become unreachable: you let it go, then put your energy somewhere else. Being able to make that double move is linked to better well-being than stubbornly holding on9.

The two go together. Intentionality without adaptability turns into rigidity: you cling to a plan that no longer fits reality. Adaptability without intentionality turns into drift: you react to everything and move toward nothing. Research on psychological flexibility describes this balance: changing strategy as the situation requires, while staying true to what matters to you10.

In practice, this gives a simple rhythm. You set your intention with Finding Your Why. You turn it into concrete triggers with Discipline & Habits. Then you check every week whether your plan still holds, with the review from the Action Management module. That review makes adaptability a habit instead of a panic reaction.

The course model

The rest of the course treats productivity as a complete system:

  1. Choose what matters
  2. Configure the work environment
  3. Respect energy rhythms
  4. Turn intentions into clear actions
  5. Filter what enters attention
  6. Organize what deserves to be kept
  7. Channel communication
  8. Reduce execution friction with shortcuts
  9. Code from anywhere with a mobile terminal

The 9 modules

  1. Productivity - foundations, choice, attention, discipline
  2. Windows - configure a clean work environment
  3. Time & Energy - work with your biology, not against it
  4. Action Management - turn intention into execution
  5. Consumption - filter information and reduce infobesity
  6. Knowledge - capture, organize, retrieve, create
  7. Social - email, messaging, meetings, online presence
  8. Shortcuts - protect flow with a few keyboard control cores
  9. Code on Mobile - Termux, SSH, and Mosh to develop from your phone

One simple rule: choose before you optimize

Before adding a tool, routine, or method, check:

  • am I working on the right thing?
  • is the next move clear?
  • is my environment helping or interfering?
  • am I optimizing a real problem or just a secondary irritation?2

This rule prevents a large share of fake productivity.

What productivity really gives you

A good system does not just make you faster. It mainly makes you:

  • clearer
  • less scattered
  • less saturated
  • more able to keep time for what matters outside work too

So good productivity serves not only better work, but also keeping work from taking over the whole of life.

Where to start

Want results this week? Start with the Quick start: 15 minutes of settings, then one action a day for 7 days.

Then go deeper with Finding Your Why, and follow the module order: each lesson builds on the previous one.

Module plan

  1. Finding Your Why: define the problem and the purpose that give you direction
  2. Gear & Workspace: reduce physical, visual, and sound friction
  3. Keyboard & Typing: position, key technologies, and typing practice
  4. Health, Happiness & Wellbeing: protect sleep, movement, and attention
  5. Focus: build deep-work sessions
  6. Discipline & Habits: install a habit that holds
  7. Intelligence & Reflection: prioritize and decide with limited bandwidth

What you will have built

By the end of the module, you will have:

  • a “problem x purpose” sentence that guides your choices
  • a workspace adjusted to your real frictions
  • one focus session and one micro-habit tested
  • a prioritization grid for your decisions

Chapter references (go further)

1) Attention (bandwidth) — Daniel Kahneman (1973), Attention and Effort — Google Books

2) Friction and choice design (nudges) — Thaler & Sunstein (2008), Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness — Yale University Press

3) Working memory (capacity) — Nelson Cowan (2001), The magical number 4 in short-term memory — Cambridge

4) Cognitive load — John Sweller (1988), Cognitive load during problem solving — DOI

5) Systems (decisions made once) — Tim Miller (2023), Building systems in Obsidian — Obsidian Rocks

6) Self-concordant goals — Sheldon & Elliot (1999), Goal striving, need satisfaction, and longitudinal well-being: The self-concordance model — DOI

7) Implementation intentions (if-then) — Peter Gollwitzer (1999), Implementation intentions: Strong effects of simple plans — DOI

8) Adaptability — Martin, Nejad, Colmar & Liem (2012), Adaptability: Conceptual and empirical perspectives on responses to change, novelty and uncertainty — DOI

9) Goal adjustment — Wrosch, Scheier, Miller, Schulz & Carver (2003), Adaptive self-regulation of unattainable goals: Goal disengagement, goal reengagement, and subjective well-being — DOI

10) Psychological flexibility — Kashdan & Rottenberg (2010), Psychological flexibility as a fundamental aspect of health — DOI

Deep Dive: Technical concepts

Attention (bandwidth)

Attention is limited: when it is fragmented, execution quality drops even if you still “have time” on paper.

Scientific source: 1

Friction (activation costs)

Friction is not only psychological. It is also concrete costs (effort, clicks, micro-decisions) that make an action less likely.

Scientific source: 2

Working memory (limited capacity)

Working memory is limited. When you overload it, clarity and decision quality drop.

Scientific source: 3

Cognitive load (execute without saturating)

A good system reduces unnecessary load to preserve what actually serves the task.

Scientific source: 4

System (one decision that replaces a hundred)

A system is not a tool. It is a rule decided in advance, then applied without deliberating: an automation, a template, a fixed location. It removes repeated decisions from your day, which reduces the cognitive load described above.

Source: 5

Intentionality (choose, then anchor)

A goal aligned with your values, called “self-concordant,” gets more sustained effort, and reaching it improves well-being more. An if-then plan then turns that intention into a concrete trigger, which reduces hesitation at the moment of action.

Scientific source: 6, 7

Adaptability (adjust without losing your course)

Martin and colleagues define adaptability as the capacity to constructively regulate your thoughts, actions, and emotions in new, changing, or uncertain situations. Wrosch and colleagues show that being able to disengage from an unreachable goal, then reengage in another one, is linked to higher subjective well-being.

Scientific source: 8, 9

Psychological flexibility (the balance of both)

Psychological flexibility groups several abilities: recognizing what a situation demands, shifting your mindset or behavior accordingly, and keeping your commitment to what matters to you. It is where intentionality and adaptability meet.

Scientific source: 10