Productivity Creators To Follow In 2024

May 18th, 2024 – Productivity Creators To Follow In 2024

Photography by Sajjad Hussain M

Chasing productivity, increasing my productivity, and in general sharing productivity tips is a huge part of my life. One of the reasons I am who I am and I do what I do is because I love research. I once willingly spent three hours researching Chinese Etymology so I could find the name of a lake in China from a child’s written Chinese that Google Translate couldn’t pick up. And I loved it.

Therefore, whenever I hit a wall in my life and I realize I have a problem that needs solving, my first course of action is to research it. My life picked up speed when I was about 17 and just never slowed down. It hit me then that I had a significant problem. I needed to find more ways to be productive and beat out some old, bad habits. Since then, I have been refining my research on productivity.

I want to produce excellent work, I don’t want to procrastinate on my deadline, and I want to approach from a different perspective to give myself more motivation to be productive. Based on my Analytics, I can see that I’m not the only one who has ever gone looking for help in this area.

Over time I’ve learned some incredible tips, found creators I really resonate with, and have found tools to help me and people whose mind works like mine. I’ve also found really great tools that I can see the merit in, but work much better for someone who may be working with a different type of framework than I am.

Today, I want to share some of that with you. But before we start, I want to share a brief note on Toxic Productivity.

Beware Of Toxic Productivity

Toxic Productivity is a phrase that describes attempting to continuously increase productivity in your professional life at the expense of your mental health, well-being, and personal life. It is an unfortunate reality we sometimes impose upon ourselves, but often, it is seen in our corporate society from businesses that value profit over employees.

If self-imposed, it can occur for several reasons.

A theme I have noticed is comparison. But as we all know, comparison is the thief of joy. It’s easy to see these productivity bloggers and compare ourselves because they have achieved so much in such a short time. But be wary, these bloggers are not “just like everyone else” as they like to spout. The amount of money and influence they have greatly exceeds an average person, and therefore, we’re not in the same league. We’re not even playing the same game. What works for them will definitely not work for me or people like me. And it brings me no value to try to achieve the same successes as they have when I have less than half the resources.

Comparison brings enough of a headache as is. But it is only amplified by the idea that productivity means, “I need to complete every task on the list, and I have to do it now.” There are many productivity bloggers out there who, instead of assisting in your pursuit of setting and achieving realistic goals and creating a better work-life balance for yourself, will encourage setting inflated and unrealistic goals while pushing you to overwork yourself to achieve them.

That is not how I view productivity. My pursuit of productivity has been with the goal in mind of increasing my leisure time, while still producing the best quality work I can for myself and for my clients. The creators I plan to reference today are ones I believe are encouraging an achievable, and positive type of productivity.

Photography by Avelino Calvar Martinez

Full-Length Blogs

If you like reading blog posts, you may enjoy the following creators.

Zen Habits

Zen Habits is run by Leo Babauta, a man who practices what he preaches. Babauta has achieved incredibly difficult goals in his lifetime, including training himself to run marathons, building successful businesses, writing books, and cultivating impressive habits in his daily routine. All the while, he is a father to six kids. His blog focuses a lot on the power of your mindset during your search for productivity. It teaches you how to reevaluate your perspective and adopt a much more forgiving attitude towards yourself.

Tim Ferriss

I became aware of Tim Ferriss after I read his book, The 4-Hour Workweek. When I first found Tim Ferriss, my first question was, “How in the world has he done ALL of that?” His list of achievements includes guest lecturing at Princeton on High-Tech Entrepreneurship and Electrical Engineering, political asylum researcher, and Horseback Archer (yabusame a la Nikko, Japan.) Not to mention being a #1 New York Times best-selling author of The 4-Hour Workweek and Tools of Titans: The Tactics, Routines, and Habits of Billionaires, Icons, and World-Class Performers to name a couple.

Tim Ferriss has an access pass to the door of success and has left a map for the rest of us to find our own keys. He has been working and achieving these goals for almost twenty years now and shares everything he has learned on multiple platforms to help others achieve their own versions of success. Ferriss has his website/blog separated into different categories depending on what you’re trying to improve upon in your life, and they are all helpful and informative!

Mark Manson

Mark Manson is someone else I discovered because I read his book, The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck. His style is abrasive, but I love that about his writing. It may be difficult to hear but the things he has to say are the facts and truths of life as he knows it, and from his perspective. He has a plethora of knowledge on a variety of topics, and he’s a source worth trusting in.

He talks about things like your purpose in life, motivation, and productivity. But he’s also someone you can look to for articles on dating, relationships, and even book reviews.

YouTube Channels

If you’re someone who prefers to watch your content rather than read it, you can find a few productivity YouTubers with a lot to offer. They come from different perspectives and opinions which makes for a great amount of options if you’re swayed by a more specific approach.

Andrew Huberman

If you’re looking for a scientific approach, you’ll want to look up Andrew Huberman. His channel is called Huberman Lab, and as a professor of neurobiology and ophthalmology at Stanford School of Medicine, he has a great deal of credibility and experience to add to the conversation. He breaks down the science behind how our brains work and what we can do to hack those processes. He talks about things like mental and physical health, personal growth, and (my personal favorite) how to build productive habits.

Better Than Yesterday

This channel is where you should go if you’re looking for implementable strategies for being more productive and creating the best version of yourself. Adam Del Duca runs Better Than Yesterday, and there are a few similarities you can see between him and Mark Manson. There is a very upfront approach, no beating around the bush or sugarcoating the inevitable truths. There is a refreshing quality to it.

Plus, this channel provides a lot of easy, helpful guides to changing different perspectives you may have, or questioning your belief in certain ideals, and helping you move towards a more powerful mindset to achieving your goals.

Short-Form Content

With how much I have plugged the power of Instagram on this website, I would be remiss if I didn’t talk about some of the creators you can find there who have made content that can really inspire you. Short-form content is easier to digest for a lot of people, and it can be hard-hitting in a short time. Short-form content is made for that: hit you fast, hit you hard.

Shadé Zahrai

Shadé Zahrai is a Peak Performance Educator to Fortunate 500s (as says her bio.) She creates really interesting short-form content that encourages you to strive for the goals you have while not overworking yourself into thinking you always have to do more. There are a lot of “bro” accounts on Instagram that tend to try and make you feel bad for not working over 100 hours per week and neglecting your family, but Zahrai is not like that at all. She is incredibly motivational by showing you how to achieve your goals while staying efficient, healthy, and most of all, happy. She has incredible advice on things like managing your distractions or learning faster. But she also talks about things like standing out in interviews, taking control of your inner narrative, and utilizing your strengths.

She has practical tips that are easy to implement and designed with everyone in mind.

Books For Aspirants

Books will always be my first love, (sorry husband.) I love reading and learning, and my favorite medium is a hard-copy book. If you’re anything like me, and you enjoy learning through books, you’ll want to follow Books For Aspirants.

This is a page that reviews and summarizes books that can help you in a variety of different ways. The page highlights books that speak about different philosophies, productivity tools, how to shift your mindset, and build productive habits. The page will offer a synopsis of the book, which gives you a good idea if it’s something you’re interested in or if it is worth your precious time.

Conclusion

Productivity is a mindset. It’s not something you pick up and put down, it’s something you are, or you aren’t. The people I have linked here are some of the ones I trust to keep my mind focused on the task at hand, to make me rethink my own values, and to evaluate what is truly important to me in the long run.

I hope you liked this week’s blog post. If you did, make sure to leave a comment down below and check back every Saturday for a new post on the Next Step Scopist blog!

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