Optimize Your Productivity: The Counterintuitive Approach to Get More Done in Less Time (Today)

By Lisa Kardos

Optimize Your Productivity is the go-to guide for getting more done in less time, especially if other productivity systems have failed you in the past. Lisa Kardos, Ph.D., an engineer, bestselling author, speaker, and consultant, has authored another title in the spirit of applying engineering best practices as a logical approach to improve our lives. Optimize Your Productivity will not only help you get to the root of your productivity issues, but it will also provide an interesting and unique approach to the formidable subject, including a "quickstart" guide to aid you immediately. If you know you could be more productive, or need some motivation to improve your productivity, this book will not disappoint!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lisa Kardos, Ph.D.
• Release date: Jan 27, 2019
• ISBN: 9781532708633

Book preview

Chapter One

Where to Start

This book focuses on improving your productivity. The problem with the subject of improving your productivity, however, is that often there is an assumed implication that you completely lack productivity skills. Some productivity systems or books focus on the negative aspects of one’s approach to life due to that implication. I have read a number of articles and books over the years on the subject; many times I came away feeling much worse off about myself as a result! While I’m sure it was not the authors’ intent to affect me this way, my reaction to those works is one of the reasons I found writing this book so interesting and hard at the same time. I don’t want to put you, the reader, in a position of feeling like I’m superior, as many authors have done. Nor do I, as mentioned in the introduction, want to force a particular system for your life. What we will do, however, is focus on making productivity work for you.

In some cases, other authors have collected input from many high-profile and rich, successful people, as a means to demonstrate This is what the best do, so you should, too. This is not that kind of book, and therefore I actually encourage you to stop reading this book if that’s what you’re looking for! To a certain extent, I feel that many of us cannot relate to the people often referenced as highly productive.  As an example, when I first started exploring productivity, I was an entry-level engineer. When I heard things like Say no more often I would shake my head and think, I’m not in a profession or role where I can say no to the many requests I get! I just started working! Therefore, trying to force-fit an approach the most successful people use may feel suffocating and not appropriate. While I do see value in understanding how the most successful operate, I also see value in honoring the individuality of people – to instead formulate a unique and different approach in the spirit of that individuality.

Interestingly, some of the most productive people I know are people who may not be considered successful in a celebrity sense, as compared to the millionaires and billionaires who are often sought for advice, but they are people who are following their passions in terms of their professions – with five kids at