Microproductivity is the newest productivity hack that can help you boss your work day around like it’s nobody’s business. What is it exactly? Well, the word itself was coined by Jamie Teevan back in 2017, and describes the ability to be productive in tiny spurts as a result of breaking down our large tasks into small ones.
Let’s be honest, major projects are intimidating. When faced with writing a 30 page essay, for example, where do you start? The thought of pages and pages of writing might overwhelm you, make you feel discouraged, and lead you to procrastinate.
Microproductivity helps you overcome this problem by removing that overwhelming feeling that comes with the prospect of completing a massive task. How? Simple! By turning your big task into a bunch of little ones.
Microproductivity matters because it helps you take advantage of smaller time blocks to do something that you can easily check off your to do list. And checking a micro-task off your to-do list also gives your brain a quick hit from that oh-so-famous neurotransmitter: dopamine.
Dopamine is a neurotransmitter associated with pleasure and reward, and the feeling we get when we get something done, triggers a release of dopamine in the brain. While slogging away in a single session at a 30 page paper might seem like a tireless, thankless task, writing one page over the course of a single hour earns you a checkmark on your microproductivity list, inspiring you to keep going and do it again.
Being microproductive is easy. Just take a large daunting task you have and start ideating on how you could split it up into smaller tasks that will only take you an hour or less to complete.
Using our previous example, imagine that you’ve broken your 30 page paper up into “microproductive” tasks. Now you won’t need to sit in front of your computer for 4 days straight bemoaning the fact that you still have X number of pages to write.
Instead, you can schedule each page as a one hour long task. You’ll end up spending 30 hours on the project and writing 30 pages, but only writing a single page every hour.
Whenever and however you want to arrange those hours is up to you. Simply slot your one hour tasks into your calendar (keeping the due date for your larger project in mind) based on what works for you.
You can slot your tasks into a single time-block (like an afternoon), or you can split them up and dot them all over the place. The focus is to get this thing done in smaller spurts.
Now that you’ve got your list and your micro tasks are in the calendar, keep checking back in with your list as you go to keep tabs on what’s been completed.
Look at you go. You’re being microproductive already!
Microproductivity is easy, but making it a habit is where the work starts. Once you incorporate it into your life, we’re confident you’ll find that even the most intimidating tasks seem much more manageable. When in doubt, just remember: how do you eat an elephant? One (microproductive) bite at a time.
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Microproductivity is the newest productivity hack that can help you boss your work day around like it’s nobody’s business. What is it exactly? Well, the word itself was coined by Jamie Teevan back in 2017, and describes the ability to be productive in tiny spurts as a result of breaking down our large tasks into small ones.
Let’s be honest, major projects are intimidating. When faced with writing a 30 page essay, for example, where do you start? The thought of pages and pages of writing might overwhelm you, make you feel discouraged, and lead you to procrastinate.
Microproductivity helps you overcome this problem by removing that overwhelming feeling that comes with the prospect of completing a massive task. How? Simple! By turning your big task into a bunch of little ones.
Microproductivity matters because it helps you take advantage of smaller time blocks to do something that you can easily check off your to do list. And checking a micro-task off your to-do list also gives your brain a quick hit from that oh-so-famous neurotransmitter: dopamine.
Dopamine is a neurotransmitter associated with pleasure and reward, and the feeling we get when we get something done, triggers a release of dopamine in the brain. While slogging away in a single session at a 30 page paper might seem like a tireless, thankless task, writing one page over the course of a single hour earns you a checkmark on your microproductivity list, inspiring you to keep going and do it again.
Being microproductive is easy. Just take a large daunting task you have and start ideating on how you could split it up into smaller tasks that will only take you an hour or less to complete.
Using our previous example, imagine that you’ve broken your 30 page paper up into “microproductive” tasks. Now you won’t need to sit in front of your computer for 4 days straight bemoaning the fact that you still have X number of pages to write.
Instead, you can schedule each page as a one hour long task. You’ll end up spending 30 hours on the project and writing 30 pages, but only writing a single page every hour.
Whenever and however you want to arrange those hours is up to you. Simply slot your one hour tasks into your calendar (keeping the due date for your larger project in mind) based on what works for you.
You can slot your tasks into a single time-block (like an afternoon), or you can split them up and dot them all over the place. The focus is to get this thing done in smaller spurts.
Now that you’ve got your list and your micro tasks are in the calendar, keep checking back in with your list as you go to keep tabs on what’s been completed.
Look at you go. You’re being microproductive already!
Microproductivity is easy, but making it a habit is where the work starts. Once you incorporate it into your life, we’re confident you’ll find that even the most intimidating tasks seem much more manageable. When in doubt, just remember: how do you eat an elephant? One (microproductive) bite at a time.
