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<h2 id="org10e897c">The 567 Personal Productivity System</h2>
<div class="outline-text-2" id="text-org10e897c">
<p>
The <i>567</i> productivity system is a method I came up with for getting more stuff done in daily life. It works as follows:
</p>
</div>
<div id="outline-container-orgf126d36" class="outline-3">
<h3 id="orgf126d36">The System</h3>
<div class="outline-text-3" id="text-orgf126d36">
<p>
Every day, there are seven time slots:
</p>
<ul class="org-ul">
<li>One 2-hour slot;</li>
<li>Two 1-hour slots;</li>
<li>Four ½-hour slots.</li>
</ul>
<p>
This sums up to a total of six hours. The rules of the game are then as follows:
</p>
<ul class="org-ul">
<li>At the start of every day, you must assign an activity to each slot, filling all of them;</li>
<li>Throughout that day, for every slot, you must engage in your chosen activity for <i>at least</i> that much time;</li>
<li>You may choose to do slots over the day as you wish. You may not change which activities are assigned to which slots after planning them, however.</li>
</ul>
<p>
Additionally, you must commit to the following restrictions on what activities you plan for your day:
</p>
<ul class="org-ul">
<li>At the start of every month, you must choose a <i>monthly theme</i>; every day for that month, you must dedicate one slot to fit the monthly theme;</li>
<li>Likewise, at the start of every week, you must choose a <i>weekly theme</i>;</li>
<li>Additionally, at the start of every week, you must choose three <i>habits</i>, three specific activities, and assign all three of them a slot every day of that week.</li>
</ul>
<p>
Thus, added together, this gives you 5 <i>commitments</i>, 6 <i>hours</i>, 7 <i>slots</i> per day, forming the <i>567 system</i>.
</p>
</div>
</div>
<div id="outline-container-orga5e7715" class="outline-3">
<h3 id="orga5e7715">The Weekend</h3>
<div class="outline-text-3" id="text-orga5e7715">
<p>
On the weekend, slightly different rules apply. On Saturday, the 2 hour time slot should always be reserved for &ldquo;leisure&rdquo; (e.g. watching a movie, going to the pool, that kind of thing). Additionally, on Saturdays, drop the monthly theme and one of the 1-hour timeslots, forming what I suppose may be called a <i>456</i> system. Feel free to drop another slot and/or another commitment too if you wish.
</p>
<p>
On Sunday, there are no commitments; spend your entire Sunday at your own discretion (a <i>000</i> system?).
</p>
</div>
</div>
<div id="outline-container-orgc8c3a43" class="outline-3">
<h3 id="orgc8c3a43">Modifications for People With a Job</h3>
<div class="outline-text-3" id="text-orgc8c3a43">
<p>
The system as described is intended to work for people who are self-employed or otherwise work in the kind of self-directed manner that allows this. It is not intended, and indeed too heavy, to be crammed wholesale into whatever time you have left after coming home. It can&rsquo;t be easily imported into your job as a McDonald&rsquo;s fry cook, either.
</p>
<p>
For supplementing a day job, I would suggest dropping the 2-hour slot and one 1-hour slot, making a <i>535</i> system. You might want to drop a <i>habit</i> commitment too if you feel like you&rsquo;re running around too much (<i>435</i>, or <i>434</i> system).
</p>
</div>
</div>
<div id="outline-container-org1e1750a" class="outline-3">
<h3 id="org1e1750a">Justification</h3>
<div class="outline-text-3" id="text-org1e1750a">
<p>
The system is designed to balance <i>discretion</i> with <i>commitment</i>, for the sake of ultimately building <i>trust</i>. Specifically, it is designed to satisfy the following constraints:
</p>
<ul class="org-ul">
<li>Guarantee enough personal discretion and adaptability to deal with the normal everyday flow of obligations and productivity;</li>
<li>Allow the user to commit to things and guarantee that progress will be made without needing to muster constant willpower;</li>
<li>Prevent the user from trying to plan every second of their life and place impossible strain on themselves, or constantly have to answer the question of &ldquo;how much planning is appropriate?&rdquo;;</li>
<li>Centralize and minimize decisionmaking.</li>
</ul>
<p>
The system sets a bound for <i>enough</i>; at the end of the day, if you&rsquo;ve filled and executed all the slots, you will know that you spent some six hours being productive; that you spent an appreciable amount of time on several different activities; that over the course of a week you will spend at least a couple hours on some thing of your choosing, and over the course of a month, at least a double-digit number of hours on something. If you follow the system for a day, that day is never wasted; even if you do nothing else but play video games afterwards, you will never outright stall.
</p>
<p>
At the same time, the system only covers a total of 6 hours out of a waking day of 16 hours or so. It can be quite gentle and adaptable when it needs to be. On the other hand, it&rsquo;s not meant to cover all your productivity; you&rsquo;re always free to spend more time on something than the time slot assigned to it.
</p>
</div>
</div>
<div id="outline-container-org0f6ada6" class="outline-3">
<h3 id="org0f6ada6">Example</h3>
<div class="outline-text-3" id="text-org0f6ada6">
<p>
Currently, today&rsquo;s use of the system looks like this for me:
</p>
<ul class="org-ul">
<li><b>Monthly Theme</b>: game development;</li>
<li><b>Weekly Theme</b>: increasing my online presence;</li>
<li><b>Habits</b>:
<ul class="org-ul">
<li>Exercise;</li>
<li>Meditate;</li>
<li>Read a book.</li>
</ul></li>
</ul>
<p>
With my slots assigned like so:
</p>
<ul class="org-ul">
<li>2-Hours game development;</li>
<li>1-Hour: increasing online presence &#x2013; just about done fulfilling this slot right now by writing this blog;</li>
<li>1-Hour: meditation;</li>
<li>½-Hour x4: reading, exercise, studying math, visual art.</li>
</ul>
<p>
Most of the time, habits will tend to go into ½-hour slots (though they don&rsquo;t have to; meditation for me today doesn&rsquo;t) and tend to work better as more discrete activities. Habits are generally better left as more open-ended things that can fill arbitrary amounts of time.
</p>
</div>
</div>
<div id="outline-container-org7053f76" class="outline-3">
<h3 id="org7053f76">Q&amp;A</h3>
<div class="outline-text-3" id="text-org7053f76">
</div>
<div id="outline-container-org5a7c655" class="outline-4">
<h4 id="org5a7c655">What is the difference between the <i>weekly theme</i> and <i>habits</i>?</h4>
<div class="outline-text-4" id="text-org5a7c655">
<p>
Habits are specific activities; their description fills a slot verbatim. Themes are better thought of as broader &ldquo;domains&rdquo; to which specific activities can belong. The difference is mostly philosophical.
</p>
</div>
</div>
<div id="outline-container-orgab8350b" class="outline-4">
<h4 id="orgab8350b">What do I do if the system becomes too burdensome?</h4>
<div class="outline-text-4" id="text-orgab8350b">
<p>
Remember, you can assign your slots freely within the constraints. Nothing prevents you from setting easier goals; during difficult times, it&rsquo;s totally fine to put such things as &ldquo;get out of bed and brush my teeth and stuff&rdquo; as a habit, or &ldquo;cook dinner&rdquo;. You can totally make &ldquo;relax&rdquo; a theme or assign it the 2-hour slot! Also, you are free to assign more burdensome task to ½-hour slots.
</p>
<p>
If you really can&rsquo;t manage that way, the system degrades gracefully if you get rid of some of the slots and obligations. Make this a deliberate decision; choose to plan fewer slots at the start of the day. Don&rsquo;t accept planning things and then failing to do them! On the other hand, do be very gentle on yourself when you can&rsquo;t manage on a given day.
</p>
</div>
</div>
<div id="outline-container-orga1ce6b1" class="outline-4">
<h4 id="orga1ce6b1">Can I spread one activity over multiple slots?</h4>
<div class="outline-text-4" id="text-orga1ce6b1">
<p>
I would strongly suggest not doing this; don&rsquo;t spend 3 hours straight on one activity, then tick off both a 2-hour and a 1-hour slot. On the other hand, I think it&rsquo;s fine to have one slot be in some sense a subset of another; for instance, I think it&rsquo;s fine to have a 2-hour &ldquo;game development&rdquo; slot, and then another 1-hour &ldquo;work on user interface system&rdquo; slot, as long as you treat them as distinct activities.
</p>
</div>
</div>
<div id="outline-container-org6039bab" class="outline-4">
<h4 id="org6039bab">Can I fulfill multiple slots in parallel?</h4>
<div class="outline-text-4" id="text-org6039bab">
<p>
Generally, do not do this; in the above example of &ldquo;game development&rdquo; and &ldquo;user interface&rdquo; slots, don&rsquo;t just work on the user interface for 2 hours and then tick off both slots.
</p>
<p>
In some cases though this does make sense. For instance, I have a standing desk with a threadmill under it; it&rsquo;s very natural for me to spend half an hour walking on it while working on the computer, in which case I have no qualms ticking off an &ldquo;exercise&rdquo; slot while also working on another slot. Another example might be &ldquo;call mom&rdquo; at the same time as &ldquo;cook dinner&rdquo;.
</p>
<p>
In general, slots should be distinct activities; occasionally, you really can multitask activities in a natural way, but usually you cannot.
</p>
</div>
</div>
<div id="outline-container-org8f076be" class="outline-4">
<h4 id="org8f076be">Can I split slots? What if I get interrupted, or want to take breaks?</h4>
<div class="outline-text-4" id="text-org8f076be">
<p>
Slots are meant to be time slots for focussed work, not time quotas. Avoid splitting a 1-hour slot into two half-hour blocks. On the other hand, interruptions do happen, in which case use your own discretion; if you get interrupted 45 minutes into a 1-hour slot and you&rsquo;ve already accomplished what you wanted to accomplish, it&rsquo;s fine to just tick it off. On the other hand, if you get interrupted 45 minutes into a 2-hour slot, you probably want to catch up later.
</p>
<p>
It&rsquo;s fine to take small breaks, I think, but try to spend 80% of your slot&rsquo;s time actually working on what you&rsquo;re supposed to.
</p>
</div>
</div>
<div id="outline-container-orgb4a2d1b" class="outline-4">
<h4 id="orgb4a2d1b">Can themes and/or habits overlap?</h4>
<div class="outline-text-4" id="text-orgb4a2d1b">
<p>
I think it can sometimes make sense to have monthly and weekly themes overlap. I don&rsquo;t think it makes much sense for habits to overlap with either.
</p>
</div>
</div>
<div id="outline-container-orgc96ebc2" class="outline-4">
<h4 id="orgc96ebc2">What if I finish before the slot is over?</h4>
<div class="outline-text-4" id="text-orgc96ebc2">
<p>
Try to fill up the rest of the slot if you can, but if you have nothing productive to do it&rsquo;s fine. Still, try and conceptualize your activities such that they fill the slots.
</p>
</div>
</div>
<div id="outline-container-org5e82b70" class="outline-4">
<h4 id="org5e82b70">What if I don&rsquo;t finish my activity within the slot?</h4>
<div class="outline-text-4" id="text-org5e82b70">
<p>
Feel free to continue your activity! Slots are a minimum, not a target or a maximum.
</p>
</div>
</div>
<div id="outline-container-org6c26bb9" class="outline-4">
<h4 id="org6c26bb9">What if I can&rsquo;t finish all slots in a day?</h4>
<div class="outline-text-4" id="text-org6c26bb9">
<p>
Start the next day fresh. Don&rsquo;t &ldquo;roll over&rdquo; or do anything to try and compensate.
</p>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
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<div id='footer'><div id='publish-date'>Published: 2024-08-23</div><div id='modified-date'>Last modified: 2024-08-23</div><hr>
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