I’ve been “threatening” to write about the Personal Productivity Platform (“PPP”) for years now. The concept comes from my own productivity journey and what I’ve learned supporting thousands of clients, all seeking greater productivity. Not surprisingly, most of us sought out productivity software to relieve information overload or feelings of overwhelm from the deluge of information and decision-making required of modern life. Watching both the productivity failures and successes, I landed on the concept of a Personal Productivity Platform as key to greater personal efficacy in the modern world.
Briefly, a Personal Productivity Platform (“PPP”) is a small set of foundational software whose mastery works together over years to build your personal efficacy toward your personal and professional goals. In this article, I’ll explain the key elements of a PPP, but first you need to know why it’s important in the first place.
Why “Personal” Software Is Important
There’s lots of productivity software that exists, but the vast majority was never intended to be “Personal”. By personal, I mean focused on the needs of an individual, not a team or company. Many of us got our start with productivity software in the workplace and our primary usage was for work-related activities. There is nothing wrong with that, but it misses two-thirds of our lives.
As we select our foundational productivity software, we need to focus on its application to our full lives, not just activities related to work or business. But, why?
We’ll invest in it
After 20 years of switching software in the workplace, how much do you think employees devote to mastery of the next software suite management decides will transform the organization? If that software is helping us transform our whole lives, how much more would we invest in and achieve mastery?
We’ll build good habits
There’s a saying, “you are what you habitually do”. When we invest in learning a tool or process deeply, it becomes habitual. We free our mind from the details of the process and instead simply reap the rewards. This is true whether you’re waking up at 5am daily or jotting down your three highest priorities for the day.
We’ll outlast our current employment
Private sector employees in the U.S. are expected to stay at their current employer less than 4 years. If you’re like me, you’ve transitioned company productivity software more times than you’d care to remember, with all the associated headaches and learning curves. Did you transition any of your brilliant ideas or learnings? Were you able to seamlessly incorporate your prior good habits?
Personal productivity is actually about you as a person. The tools aren’t just to improve your outcomes, they are to improve YOU. They should not be subject to your changing employment as it will slow down the self-mastery that leads to personal efficacy. More on that now.
Why Productivity Equals Self-Mastery
The conventional view of productivity often revolves around efficiency—maximizing output from given inputs. However, when considering personal productivity, it's not just about what your tools can do for you, but also how they can transform you. For seasoned professionals, becoming more productive means evolving—using tools that not only enhance output but also foster personal growth and self-improvement.
I’m arguing that personal productivity is about self-mastery toward the end of achieving your goals. Ideally, our tools help us master and extend ourselves which is ultimately the key to reaching the goals we set for ourselves. If some of those goals are consistent with our current employer - great.
The journey of self mastery
By self mastery, I am thinking more about habits of mind than willpower or self-discipline. Ideally our productivity tools would be more than just tactical support for implementation, but tools that help us with self mastery. But, for most, tactical implementation is how these tools enter our journey.
After serving thousands of clients, let me share a typical journey:
There is nothing wrong with this tactical approach to adding tools as you go. But, what if you had a toolset that traveled this entire journey with you? What if those tools help you build great habits AND support the tactical objectives all toward greater personal efficacy?
This is why you deserve a Personal Productivity Platform.
Why A PPP Is Different
As stated earlier, Personal Productivity Platform (“PPP”) is a small set of foundational software whose mastery work together over years to build your personal efficacy toward your personal and professional goals.
But what does it do? As a collective system of software, a Personal Productivity Platform helps us master and extend our abilities to:
Capture & Retrieve
This is the key process that allows you to go beyond the limitations of your brain and capture any ideas you come across and retrieve them at the appropriate time. Note-taking software like Evernote, OneNote and Notion are examples, but focus on software that has the following attributes:
Prioritize & Act
Unlike much of the discussion of a second brain which focuses on the life altering ability to capture and retrieve ideas at any time, a PPP is equally focused on action toward all of our goals, personal and professional. Our PPP must help us understand which ideas require action, when, by whom and then adjust when all of that changes (because it will). Asana, Todoist, Trello, Google Calendar are good examples, but focus on software that is:
Integrate & Sustain
Most productivity enthusiasts will be familiar with the attributes explained above, but what makes the best Personal Productivity Platforms stand out is their ability to help us Integrate and Sustain our efforts. This is what helps build the long-term habits that lead to greater personal efficacy.
Let me explain.
Integrate across boundaries
If I haven’t said it yet, it is unlikely that one app is sufficient to be your entire Personal Productivity Platform. However, even if you choose the all-in-one route, it’s important that you consider how your efforts will integrate with others. Are you part of a family that needs to share a calendar? Do you collaborate with work colleagues on tasks? Do you want to share some of your ideas with friends or even the public? For all of these reasons and more, your PPP needs to integrate with the outside world.
Integration allows you to:
Shameless plug: TaskClone was born from frustration with the lack of integration among foundational apps. Give it look to integrate your foundational apps.
Sustain your system
To build great habits takes time. Jumping on the hottest trend might bring immediate benefit, but if you don’t sustain it, how will it sustain you? For greatest value, your Personal Productivity Platform needs to be with you long enough for you to build and refine a system that becomes a habit that benefits multiple areas of your life.
And yes, you can move your system from one app to another, but there are usually immense amounts of switching costs in learning, customizing and refining in each app. Think about learning and re-learning keyboard shortcuts. The more you put into an app, the greater those switching costs will be. But, if you don’t invest in the relevant workflows and capabilities of an app, you are limiting its intended benefit. Further, each app has unique capabilities that take time to integrate and master. Think about learning and re-learning keyboard shortcuts as the simplest example of this.
When looking at the foundational apps for your PPP, consider these additional attributes to sustain your long-term investment:
Recap - Personal Efficacy Awaits
Beyond a second brain, you need a Personal Productivity Platform of a few foundational apps that work together over years to build your personal efficacy toward your personal AND professional goals. You should invest in learning the intricacies of these few tools enough to build robust habits that support your own self mastery.
While choosing the foundational apps that will form your PPP is based on your personal context, get the compound benefits of tools that help you prioritize and act toward your goals and will be enjoyable and sustainable over the long-term.
We Want To Hear From You
Do you have a Personal Productivity Platform in place? Which apps are in your arsenal, and how have they changed the way you manage your professional and personal life?