Life Management for Productive Bliss

Life management in modern times requires more than just a productivity app.

When I began my journey of self-growth some 20 years ago, the Internet was a simpler place. With all of the real-time notifications and social media of today, I almost need super human powers of concentration to stay focused on being productive.

In fact, the concept of productivity is now entirely different to me now than back then. Traditional productivity is about getting important stuff done as efficiently as possible. I believe that no longer meets our standards for modern life.

We expect more. We want to cut out the noise of the world, if only for a time. We want to maximise every possible opportunity for positive life experience. Shoot, we want to feel bliss for life.

And why not? In childhood or certain times of adult life you may remember a deep sense of fulfilment during pockets of success. And that’s not just career. It’s all other categories of life too. Finances. Relationships. Travel. Lifestyle. Hobbies.

That’s modern productivity. Something I now call productive bliss.

Managing life for productive bliss has 5 foundational pillars:

1. Be Productive — this includes traditional techniques to get more done. Project lists, milestones, breaking down goals into next steps.

2. Follow Your Bliss — the most productively blissful people I’ve met around the world do not focus on ‘being productive’ per se. They focus on their purpose and passion.

3. Clarify Life Direction — Taking time to define and design your ideal life both short-term and long-term creates a magnetic attraction that will pull you into that future. Vital for comprehensive and fulfilling life management.

4. Regular Reflective Reviews — Take regular time out to review failures and successes. This simple act can accelerate success via the feedback you get and the chance to renew commitments and make new choices. Reflecting on accomplishments with gratitude helps fuel your motivation to make progress.

5. Accountability Partners & Tribe — Finding a tribe of like-minded people and being accountable to each other is one of the secrets of the most productively blissful people in the world. Some call it a Mastermind.

When you combine all 5, you get a chain reaction for accelerating success, being more creative, and renewing focus.

That 5th factor was the toughest for me. Accountability and a Tribe.

The American Association for Talent Development found that your chances of success increase up to 95 percent when you have accountability partners to check in on progress.

Attracting like-minded accountability partners is hard work given that everyone is so busy, and you may think that discussion forums or social media chat groups serve as this measure of accountability. Alas it does not. True accountability comes from a conscious choice and explicit conversation with someone assigned as your accountability partner.

This is actually one of the big benefits in general of having a life coach. It’s also a key principle on which I developed Life Binder Club.

Take pen to paper and write out your ideas for each of the 5 factors of life management as given above. What do you currently do for each? What gaps or challenges do you see? What simple choices or commitments can you make to improve them starting today?