Deconstructing “Productivity” Part 1; The Framework

February 23, 2025

Blake Sichel

The "blake" in "blakelike" who likes a lot of things

The Essence of “Productivity” is Strategically Delegating your Attention to Achieving Tasks/Goals in the most Efficient manner possible.

    Every productivity tip and trick revolves around maximizing the output given any input. Whether that be a rule to sequentially prioritize your tasks to properly delegate the limited deep work time you can exert in a day to specific tasks, such as Brian Tracy’s ABCDE Method or the Life-Tracker journaling system, which aims to raise awareness of how you utilize your time/attention throughout monthly intervals to increase work duration, and efficiency. Every productivity hack is built on the foundation of increasing productivity through awareness of delegation, prioritization structuring to decrease wasted time, or is a framework to avoid worldly distractions. 

Through the fundamental understanding of the framework you can quickly learn what genres work best for you, what you need to improve, and possibly even create or evolve current systems to better increase output.

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While Productivity systems, methods, and hacks can increase the quantity of work accomplished over intervals, there is no replacement for doing the work. 

  • Why do people never start? Why do the masses struggle to continue? How many abandoned projects do you recall?
    • There are 3 Main reasons this happens: 
      • (Part 3) Phycological Barriers (Internal Conflicts)
        • Lack of Proper Mindset(s) 
          • Fixed Mindset(s) 
          • Emotional Reactivity (Crashout) 
          • Lack of Clarity 
          • Lack of Resourceful Thinking 
          • Fear of Success / Fear of Failure 
          • Threshold Paralysis
          • Perfectionism Paralysis
          • Lack of Visualization / Faith in Oneself 
          • Short-Term Gratification Bias / Hedonistic Tendencies 
          • etc. 
      • (Part 2) Physical Management (External/Physical/Actionable Conflicts) 
        • Lack of Systems 
          • Poor Prioritization 
          • Lack of Discipline
          • Lack of Systems / Inconsistent Effort
          • Lack of Professionalism/Mannerisms
          • Lack of Required Skills
          • Burnout Mismanagement
          • Task-Hopping Syndrome
          • Poor Environmental Design 
          • Lack of Reflection & Iteration
          • Procrastination Loops
          • etc.
      • (Part 1) Work Repulsion (Distractions)
        • Cheap Dopamine and Hedionistic Prioritizations 
          • The Attention Economy Trap
          • Recreational Overindulgence
          • Dopamine Hijacking 
          • Closed Loops of Consumption 
          • Information Overload Paralysis
          • FOMO-Induced Procrastination (Fear Of Missing Out)
          • Hyper-Stimulation Dependency
          • False Productivity Loops (Productivity Porn)
          • Escapism Through Media
          • Media Based Emotional Hijacking (Includes Rage-baiting) 
          • Identity Manipulation 
          • etc. 

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***the bold ones are the issues I think are currently the biggest based on myself and what I see in friends (college students)*** 

Blake Blurb

    I started this series because I see the thumbnails of so many people introducing regurgitated productivity concepts from the past, and it's annoying. Another fundamental thing I've been thinking about more recently is the point of this whole productivity, which is to increase output with a set input. Still, that input should be something already established. Productivity tips are meant to be that extra 20 percent add-on to what work methods are already being done, a work habit should already be established before you even consider squeezing out that extra efficiency.