Photo by Weekly World News

[Note: This post is by no means intended as a rant against the Lifehack blog, which in my view represents a very healthy, holistic, and multifaceted take on the word Lifehack.]

In short, a hacker discovers what is normally hidden to the common man.
-Elf Qrin

If you’re tinkering around in the basement of life, seeing what works, and trying to figure things out, then . . .

You ARE Hacking Life

If you’re getting honest with yourself and trying to make positive changes, then you’re hacking life. It’s that simple. We are not machines with instructions manuals and when it comes to this organic & circuitous black box of a thing we call life, there are only hacks.

If you think for yourself and are trying to build a better life, then you’re hacking life, because the roadmap to a beautiful life isn’t outlined in our DNA and it can’t be discovered through brain scans or science. We’re all just a group of hackers trying to crack this messy, organic, and beautiful thing that is life, and sharing out what we’ve found along the way.

Even if you’re a religious person and believe you’ve found the roadmap or key to everything, you’re hopefully still questioning things and thinking for yourself.

So anyway, I LOVE life hacking. I love tinkering around in the garage of life, exploring the depths of this human experience, and trying to look for the hidden truths and solutions. I also love the DIY ethic, because as far as I’m concerned. . .

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Photo by Chance Gardener
Since World War II, productivity in the U.S. has doubled. So we should be working 20-hour work weeks, right? Well, we’re not. We’re working more. In fact, we’re working more than medieval peasants, and the 40-hour work week hasn’t changed since 1940 even though productivity levels have been growing steadily since then. Productivity simply isn’t helping most people: it’s not making them happier or leading to more free time.

The Productivity Industrial Complex

You and your company need to get things done - lots of things[.] You have invested heavily in the human factor … but are you getting all the results from your people that you could? Are they maximizing their output?
-The David Allen Company

Photo by Stewf
The Productivity Industrial Complex is a marriage between corporations and an entire industry of productivity companies, gurus, consultants, and solution-makers who help corporations squeeze every ounce of productivity from their workers. Organizations like The David Allen Company, for example, make the bulk of their income from corporations looking to “maximize their employee output,” and it’s no surprise that they have a Fortune 500-studded client list which includes Lockheed Martin, Deloitte & Touche, and the U.S. Department of Defense (see here for more of his clients).

This manifesto is largely a response to the Productivity Industrial Complex . . .

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First off, you must start with a quotation. Preferably by an Asian spiritual leader (quoting Lao Tzu, Confucius, or the Buddha works, but don’t quote Jesus). The quotation really doesn’t have to relate to the article or the picture at all. It just has to make you feel good. And quotes by people with obscure names are a good thing.
-Sun Zhongmou Liu Yuanzhi Xu Shu

The perfect productivity article should start with a picture of a person jumping. Pictures of beaches, sunsets, or children also do the job, but a picture of someone jumping really is best. It really doesn’t matter whether the picture relates to the topic, so long as it’s a really cool picture of someone jumping. Then you can proceed with the introduction.

The introduction shouldn’t be very long. Its real purpose is to make you look like a writer instead of a glorified list maker. Because if you don’t have an introduction, then you’d just have a list of tips and that wouldn’t look very good.  Or literary.

Bear in mind that a lot of people aren’t going to read past the second paragraph of your introduction. They’re just going to skip to the list, which is the most important part of the article. So without further ado, here are 70 simple power tao secret hacks to writing the perfect productivity article, plus a guide & system for doing it:

1. Call Your Article a Guide or System

No matter what the content or article length, make sure that you call your article a guide. Or a system. Your piece might only be 500 words, but that’s OK. Remember, people want to read guides and systems.

2. Make a Numbered List

Making a list is the most essential element of a productivity or self-help article because there are few things as compelling, sexy, motivating, and exciting as a list. So make sure you have one. The reason you want to have a list is because it allows you to number things. Also, it’s easier to make 70 points poorly that to make one point very well. Read the rest of this entry »

(Photo by  Steve Sawyer)
The battle for our minds usually isn’t a struggle against brainwashing (although most of us are mildly brainwashed). The battle for our minds isn’t usually about politics, consumer culture, and mass media. Nope. The battle for our minds is fought out every day in the workplace, and due largely to. . .

The Paradox of Intelligence

More intelligent people tend to have jobs that require very high levels of mental engagement (not to mention, longer work weeks). If you’re a doctor, lawyer, accountant, consultant, teacher, etc., then chances are your thoughts are consumed by work-related activities (and that you have less-than-average amounts of free time).

Highly intelligent people are more likely to exchange their brainpower for money, and less likely to retain much of said brainpower for themselves. They’re more likely to enroll in mentally demanding graduate programs and accept mentally demanding jobs. (In the western world we’re taught that if we have the capacity to be a doctor then it’s somehow a “waste” to work retail, make smoothies for a living, or become a farmer — even though a retailer worker, smoothie maker, or farmer get to own more of their thoughts).

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[Editor’s Note: This is a guest post by Jonathon Howard of Di Mortui Sunt]

I just finished reading Dan Ariely’s Predictably Irrational: the Hidden Forces that Shape our Decisions. It is yet another book cashing in on the market’s love of laymen economics, in the vein of The Tipping Point and Freakonomics.  Like its literary predecessors, PI claims to explain all the quirks of humanity through the lens of Econonics, which as a science has about the same amount of credibility as say your local weatherman.  You know, the one with an associates degree in journalism.

To Dan’s credit though, his field of economics is called “behavioral,” and the field conducts experiments involving actual humans as opposed to trolling through vast fields of numerical data, making random odd pairs in the hopes of stumbling upon one that is correlated significantly enough and then screaming it from the rooftops, as an insightful, new view of human transactions. Read the rest of this entry »

Sometimes too much productivity can turn you into a real tool.  We’ve scooped these 5 winners from the productivity loony bin to provide our own self-development lesson about d-baggery and what-not-to-do. . .

Nutjob Type #1: Mr. Space Man

People always ask the same questions about these types: “is all that technology really making them more productive?”  The answer, of course, is obvious:

Of course they’re more productive than you. They’re freaking cyborgs!!

Anyway, we know Mr. Space Man all too well.  He’s got $10,000 worth of gadgets in his fanny pack (not to mention, space ice cream), and can’t stop futzing around with his stylus.  He speaks flawless Klingon and has most definitely been assimilated.

If you approach him with a productivity problem, the solution will likely come from a recent issue of Pen Computing Magazine and it will probably require you to install another program on your PDA.

How to Identify Him

You’ll know this guy because his cordless headset NEVER comes off. Read the rest of this entry »