📚 I Didn’t Do the Thing Today

I recently read a very different type of productivity book called I Didn’t Do the Thing Today by Madeline Dore.

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Instead of promising 3 simple lifehacks that will give you an hour every day so you can do more, it tries to help you come to terms with the fact that you can’t do all the things.

It took a couple of times for for this book to appear on my radar before I ended up reading. The progressions went something like this:

• 1st time: “Who would want to read a book like that? I actually like being productive!”
• 2nd time: “Now that I think about it, that’s an interesting angle… maybe I should read that.”
• 3rd time: “This is a brilliant idea – I have to read this book RIGHT NOW!”

The whole premise of the book is about letting go of productivity guilt.

Here’s a quote from page 4:

If that resonates with you (like it did with me), then this book is for you.

One of the things I liked best about this book is the juxtaposition of productivity and creativity. With productivity, the focus is on doing. The problem here is that we keep adding things to the list, and eventually we can’t get it all done.

But with creativity, the focus is on making. Living creatively often does not mean living sequentially.

Here’s a though to ponder:

What if you viewed your day as a canvas for creating instead of list of things you had to do?

Life is art. And after reading this book, I’m inspired to think like an artist, not a machine.

I highly recommend this book. Click here if you want to pick up a copy for yourself.

— Mike Schmitz

P.S. Here are my notes from this book if you’re interested.

P.P.S. We just covered this book for Bookworm, here’s the link to the episode if you want more on this.