There are 2 things that have a strong influence on personal productivity, but rarely get attention: self-confidence and pride.
By ‘pride’ I’m not referring to cockiness or a boastful attitude and inflated ego. I’m talking about the feeling you get when you’ve accomplished something, or when you’ve been of service and created value. That feeling. That pride. The more you feel that, the more productive you tend to be right after that.
Self-confidence is closely related to pride, but it’s a bit different. It’s actually very similar to trust. It’s a trust in yourself, and it takes a few different forms. You trust that you know what you’re doing, that you’re competent. But you also trust that whatever you say you will do, will get done. It’s the trust that what your words and thoughts say are important to you, will be followed by your actions.
When those two elements are weak, or lacking entirely, you will not be productive. When they’re only halfway there, but not being actively built up, you may be productive at certain things. But you’ll probably still feel a disconnect between what you think you should be doing and what you’re actually doing. As long as you feel that, your growth is being limited.
These two elements were part of what drove me to create The Today System. For all of my adherence to various methodologies and apps, I rarely felt proud of myself, or that I was building self-confidence. What’s more, I had no way to measure how much I could trust myself, and how much I was accomplishing.
The Today System has provided that for me. There is a number each day to tell me how I did, and I can be proud of a high score. There’s a number each week, and a lifetime number that helps me to see very clearly and simply how well I’m doing at building self-confidence, because I know I’m working on the important things.
So long as I continue to feel a sense of pride and self-confidence by using this system, I’ll continue to tell people about it until the kindly ask me to shut up.
So if you’ve been frustrated with other personal productivity systems, give The Today System a try.
Start with the Quick-Start Guide, make a card for yourself, and dive into the full, 4-level guide later.
