Good Productivity Ideas Are Borrowed. Great Ones Are Stolen.

I’m sure you’ve heard the quote, “Good artists borrow, great artists steal.” The quote is attributed to Pablo Picasso, although there is some doubt.

The point is that simply borrowing or “copying” (as Steve Jobs altered it) is not a good strategy when developing your productivity system. What works for one person is not going to work for you.

You and I, for example, work differently. We have different jobs, for a start, and how we work will be different. If you meet a highly productive person and try to copy their methods and techniques, you will fail. However, if you steal a concept and bend it to work for you, you will discover strategies and practices that work for you.

I recently came across Jeffrey Archer’s time management system. It’s extreme, and at first, I dismissed it as impractical for my work. However, a seed began germinating in my mind over the following weeks. I realised that while Jeffrey Archer’s system, as he practices it, would not work for me, the concept could be stolen and forged to work.

Jeffrey Archer’s method is to practice a ‘two-hours on, two-hours off’ work day. He will begin his day at 6:00 am with two hours of writing (his core work — he’s an author) and stop at 8:00 am for a two-hour break. He would then repeat that from 10:00 until 12:00 and so on until 8 pm.

This means he is doing deep, focused work for eight hours a day with six hours of rest. I realised that two hours of deep focused work is the limit I have for doing deep work. After two hours, I am mentally tired and need a break.

Knowing this means I can structure my day to get two deep work sessions each day. That would be enough to get my most important work done each day and leave me sufficient time to deal with communications.

Going a little deeper with this, I also realised when I needed extra time for my work, I could “triple shift”. This meant I could do two hours of focused work in the morning, two hours in the afternoon and two hours in the evening.

This means I would have two hours of rest in the morning and the afternoon and three hours in the evening and still have six hours of focused work each day.

(If you would like to learn more about how I stole and adapted this method, I did a short video, which you can see here.)

When I developed the Time Sector System, I developed it for me. I realised the only thing that mattered was what needed to be done this week. Trying to plan out all the different things I would need to do to complete a project was a waste of time because most of the steps I thought I would need to do didn’t need doing, and a lot of what I did need to do I never imagined having to do. In the end, I realised the only thing I needed to know was what the next step was and when I would do it.

I have encouraged students in the Time Sector System course to take the concept (steal) and adapt it to how they work. That led to some people not using the This Month folder and others eliminating the Next Week one. The crucial part of the Time Sector System is to focus on what needs to be done today. Everything else is irrelevant. The only thing that matters is today. You can worry about tomorrow and the next day when they come around; a lot of what you think you have to do won’t need doing, and there will be many things that need doing you never anticipated. (That’s life, by the way)

There are many different ways to do your work, and many blog posts and YouTube videos explaining new and fascinating ways to manage your time and be more productive. The important thing is that whatever method or system you use works for you. Trying to shoehorn a system into your day that is designed to work for one person is like trying to put on a pair of boots three sizes too small. You might be able to squeeze your feet into them, but they will not function as they should, and you will end up with very sore feet.

If you want to find the “perfect” method, steal concepts; don’t borrow systems. You can mould an idea into a form that works for you. Borrowing or copying another person’s system is going to cause too much friction, and that will ultimately lead to broken systems. (And very sore feet!)

Thank you for reading my stories! 😊

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