The ONLY Productivity Hack I Use

...As a Major Procrastinator

I’ve always been a major procrastinator.

In school I only did my home work at the last minute, right before class. The same went for my final exams/tests. I didn’t calmly study over the space of a year in my final school term like most people, I crammed everything frantically into the week of the exams themselves.

Nothing really changed when I started working in my professional life. I would get invited to speak at conferences and start making the slides backstage. When shooting a new online course or Youtube video I’m always just one minute or so ahead of the shoot itself.

People who work with me can find this method of getting things done to be stressful, chaotic and if you’re wondering if i’m regularly told I have ADHD… you wondered right! Btw i’m not saying I don’t have ADHD, I have no idea actually.

Ok so the point is this: I don’t only “work well under pressure”, no, it would be more accurate to say “I only work under pressure”.

When there’s no real pressure… I simply procrastinate and essentially do nothing. So for me, I know that the best way to make sure I really “get things done” is to make sure that there’s real pressure being applied to the situation.

Applying Pressure

The kind of pressure that works to make me “get things done” comes in 3 forms:

• Time Pressure: When something has to be completed at a certain time

• People Pressure: When people are relying on me to get something done or to make something good

• Money Pressure: When I need to make more money to maintain lifestyle, secure my family or keep my financial independence

Without one of these elements of pressure, it’s unlikely i’m going to do much.

When I was the singer in a band, I needed the Time Pressure of the concerts and People Pressure of the audience to do my best work.

When I was a film director, I had Time Pressure, People Pressure and major Money Pressure keeping the entire thing moving forward to completion

And with my current venture, AJ&Smart, in the beginning I had all 3:

• Time Pressure: Clients need their design work delivered on time or they’ll be pissed and might not pay

• People Pressure: Clients and Employees need to be serviced, paid and taken care of… or they’ll be pissed

• Money Pressure: Employees, an office, equipment and software licences meant that I needed to innovate my way to figuring out how to make money, steadily, every month

Without those 3 elements of pressure, I would never have gotten AJ&Smart off the ground. Many of our biggest “innovations” were simply external pressures building up and needing to be relieved. Our famous focus on Design Sprints was simply because we weren’t making good profits on our normal design work, moving into online courses was a necessity to build our cash reserves. Our Youtube channel, my podcast, everything you’ve ever seen us create isn’t for fun, it’s a reaction to pressure.

Manufacturing Pressure

But what if you don’t have any real Time Pressure, People Pressure or Money Pressure in your life (lucky you btw!)?

Well, if you work better under pressure then you need to manufacture it, you need to introduce it to your life. This might sound silly, but at a recent retreat I ran for our high-tier Workshopper Master members, many people told me they were too “comfortable” to really push themselves. They have plenty of savings, or their spouse is paying the bills or they have a particularly generous family. They don’t feel any real pressure to do anything, so when I meet them 1 year later they’re still working on their fucking website!

So start applying pressure. Time Pressure, People Pressure, Money Pressure.

Hire someone or a couple of people, get an office, move into a nicer apartment, get a personal trainer, set up an event 6 weeks from now and make it so you can’t cancel it.

If you’ve been coasting along for years, unable to start or really grow anything significant. Try applying some pressure.

Cheers,
Jonathan

Image created using Dal E 2