I’m a nut for non-fiction, particularly books on business, entrepreneurship, self-development and productivity. For those who have read more than a few titles on such subjects, eventually you would notice opposing ideas (which all seem to be right) among authors of any topics.
Take for example two recent best-sellers that are driving the life-hacking craze - “Getting Things Done” by David Allen and “4-Hour Workweek” of Tim Ferriss. David Allen basically encourages writing a number of huge to-do lists (organized well-defined and specific Next Actions, Projects or desired outcomes, etc) that should be available to you at any given time on a PDA, binder or set of folders. On the other hand, Tim Ferriss advices just having a very short to-do list of critical missions (two to three things) for the day and a “not-to do” list which he writes down in a (folded to about an index card size) short letter paper and keeps in his pocket.
The respective reasonings behind these “hacks” are hard to argue against. For Allen, defining stuff into numerous Next Actions frees up your mental RAM and organizing them into contexts enables you to accomplish more in a specific setting such as if you are in front of your laptop or commuting. For Tim Ferriss, having just two or three critical mission in a list, which ideally should be accomplished before 11 am, insulates you from less productive “stuff” that will undoubtedly bombard you the rest of the day.
So who is right? Who do you follow? First of all, as these techniques are “life-hacks”, indeed these methods are basically tricks to improve one’s productivity. They were conceived by people who, by all means successful and intelligent, have their own personalities and quirks. They will work for some and may not for others. More importantly, there are principles behind tricks which us mere readers should try to identify and focus on when in doubt.
More often principles agree with each other than tricks. In this case, I see the principles of the importance of writing things down, clearing your head, having a plan, and many more.
Time and time again, I see the value in differentiating between tricks and principles not only when I’m reading non-fiction books but also when participating in discussions, whether it be about business, religion or relationships. It forces me to think and stop myself from committing to a particular point of view but instead to look at patterns that may be principles. Identifying principles should be done before looking at cons and pros of tricks and saves a lot of time from arguing with yourself or worse, debating with your peers. But sometimes the hard part is when people brand their ideas as “principles” when they may be still just “tricks”.
My personal hero, Ken Wilber may call such principles as “orienting generalizations” - patterns or ideas that overlap among seemingly opposing schools of thought. Thousands of these he collected from the greatest thinkers in history and which he organized to come up with a “Theory of Everything.”
At least from the way I see it, in a perfect world, principles are universal for all humans for all time or at least in most cases, in most times. Tricks on the other hand can be symptoms, manifestations of principles in a given context, surface details, or whatever that is not the heart of the matter. Still “tricks” are quite important if you test them and they work for you. Test as many as you can.
Back to life-hacks, one productivity “trick” that has me still impressed for years is the “personal valet” - a simple container situated near my door for which I must empty all the contents of my pockets when I arrive. Who cares about the principle behind it, I have never lost my keys since implementing this.
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Notwithstanding, in this category we call “Arena of Ideas” we will post about opposing ideas, people and books. Bouts to look forward to: Stephen Covey versus David Allen (again), Ken Wilber’s Integral Vision versus Rhonda Byrne’s The Secret, Traditional Therapy versus Tony Robbins, PR versus Advertising, Kiyosaki versus John T Reed. Fight! Fight!
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After writing this , I saw some excellent blogs that have also discussed this subject:
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1 World’s Best Collection of Lifehacking Links and Blogs // Jan 14, 2008 at 10:49 am
[...] Just don’t forget, spending too much time reading them would actually be counter-productive… Focus on not more than three that really relates well with your lifestyle and character. Whatever the tips you find useful, don’t try them all in one go. Also remember to always differentiate between tricks and principles. [...]
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