How To Increase Your Productivity 500%

One of my favorite writer and blogger James Altucher is out with his latest post How to Increase Your Productivity 500%.  What I really like about Altucher's style is that he is very straight forward and very open not only with his opinions but his personal experiences as well.  Like most people who give their opinions for a living you may like or not like their thoughts but if they get you to see another view point or challenge you to see something in a different light then they have achieved their goal as a writer.  This is something that I strive for as a writer and blogger myself.


Here are James' nine point from his piece and a few other bullets that I find important

1. Pessimistic thoughts
2. Vice
3. Perfectionism/Shame
4. Possessiveness
5. Painful
6. Fear
7. Obsessive
8. Sadness
9. Unimporvement

• The mind is like a giant Gmail box. Emails are constantly coming in. Most of them are junk emails and are instantly filtered into the spam box. But many other emails come in that we don’t know what to do with.
• If we use the above nine labels above, and then filter anything (or most things) with those labels into the “not useful” box as per this post, then here’s what happens:
• Our brain gets quicker at noticing when we are thinking not-useful thoughts.
• Your negativity is like a rock constantly being doused with water when you use the above labels. Eventually the rock withers to nothing, although it takes time. It’s persistent practice.
• We have more time for the useful thoughts – the thoughts that lead to productivity, minimalism, happiness, freedom.
• We can identify which labels are occurring the most and develop problem-solving techniques to directly deal with them. Not every “not useful” thought should be treated the same.