Society constantly seeks ways to be more productive because we’ve learned that being more productive means achieving our goals, generating more profit, or living the life we want.
But what if being more productive doesn’t look like what we think it does? What if achieving our goals requires more than just being productive?
This is the first in a series of texts where you will find a new vision of productivity.
If you are well-versed in personal productivity theory, this will be great for you, because for the first time, you will be able to connect the dots and discover blind spots in the current knowledge. But if you are someone looking to increase your productivity, your time has come, and this is your opportunity.
In the following texts, you will discover a fundamentally new approach to productivity and learn that the principles presented in the subsequent texts are the foundations for creating the world's first productivity system.
The knowledge you are about to access will allow you to understand why we haven't had a productivity system until now and what makes 9POS a milestone in the history of Productivity.
And it all starts with a really simple question: "Why doesn't this work?"
To talk about productivity, we first need to define productivity.
Productivity can be defined as the relationship between the amount of output obtained and the resources used to obtain it. In simple terms, it is a measure of how efficient a person, team, company, or system is in utilizing resources to produce desired results.
But more important than the definition of productivity is how we can increase it. Being more productive does not just mean producing more; it means being more efficient. This can result in having more time and living a life with more purpose (as you will discover in the following texts).
Anyone with a basic understanding of personal productivity would say that the way to increase productivity is to better manage time.
This is a reflection of the one-dimensional view we have of productivity today: productivity as time management.
To have a broader view of Productivity, we need to understand its pillars. Imagine that productivity is a team effort (TEAM), and the pillars are: Time, Energy, Attention, and Motivation.
Now, you can already see that Time is just one of the factors, and improving its management can bring benefits, but it is far from the result that can be achieved by improving all four pillars.
And to quickly understand why these four pillars matter, let's say simply that:
There’s no point in working more time if you are tired (Energy).
There’s no point in working more time if you are not focused (Attention).
There’s no point in working more time if you are not motivated (Motivation).
Thus, it is clear that increasing one pillar without considering the others is futile.
The same applies to work teams. Understanding the four pillars makes it clear that productivity can be significantly improved with a new approach.
To address productivity in a way that is even more relevant for today's times, we need to talk about the changing nature of work.
Today, when we talk about productivity, we are no longer just talking about workers on a production line, as in Chaplin's film "Modern Times," where productivity was increased as the production line moved faster.
We are talking about a new type of worker, the Knowledge Worker.
A "knowledge worker" is a term coined by the renowned economist Peter Drucker to describe professionals who primarily deal with tasks involving the creation, manipulation, interpretation, or application of knowledge and information. In contrast to manual or production line workers, knowledge workers rely less on physical labor and more on cognitive and intellectual skills.
These professionals are typically involved in activities requiring critical analysis, creative thinking, complex problem-solving, and decision-making based on information. They are often found in fields like information technology, scientific research, consulting, software development, project management, marketing, design, and more.
Knowledge workers generally possess specialized skills and a high level of education and training in their fields. They are valued for their ability to generate and apply knowledge to drive innovation, productivity, and organizational success. The rise of the knowledge economy and the digital age has further amplified the role and importance of knowledge workers in the global workforce.
And here lies the greatest leverage in the current productivity context. The focus of productivity is no longer on manual labor, which is increasingly being automated or replaced by robotic labor, but on the knowledge worker. This is the path to increasing efficiency.
Machines, artificial intelligence, and robots will do more and more. But there is another part of the work that we humans do, a delicate work where productivity is measured by our mental performance. This is the work we are talking about.
This is one of the points not addressed by conventional productivity, and which can already be mentioned (in addition to the one-dimensional view of productivity as time management), there is the one-dimensional view of the human being as a full-time worker.
We are not one-dimensional beings who only know work or rest.
If we could divide life into two areas, it wouldn’t be work and rest, but work and lifestyle. This is a point that will be better addressed in the future.
What we can conclude for now is that the real understanding of productivity requires a new approach to improve it. This approach relates to the vision of productivity with four pillars, necessary for increasing the productivity of the Knowledge Worker, which is the greatest point of leverage today (both for professionals and companies), since the other part of the work will be automated or assigned to robots.
9POS represents not only a new era for productivity but the acceleration of human development in a new context where the work structure is changing.
The knowledge and application of these principles will be the true differentiator for professionals and companies of the future.
The world's leading companies will realize that it’s no longer enough to simply hire the best professionals, but there needs to be a system that allows each person to contribute their best while also enjoying life as a complete human being.
Those who understand and apply this first will get ahead. Let the race begin.
A new era of productivity starts now.
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Written by Vinícius P. Breves
👑 The New King of Productivity
🥷 Productivity Expert
⚫️ Founder of 9Pomodoros
✍️ Philosopher & Writer