You will surely find a bunch of articles on this topic on Google. There are even more personal development courses, and many successful people dispense useful advice on this matter. These are all important and significant. Every piece of advice you get, which comes from a person who has abundant life experience or an open mind, should at least be taken into consideration, if not applied, and even adopted.
However, what makes one person productive does not contribute to the result of another. It sounds like a cliché, but it’s true. The correct answer is like a seesaw, it balances our experiences, or the number of trials and errors, on the one hand, and our knowledge of our being, on the other. If one of those prevails, we will not come to the correct answer and rather engage in extremes, and here is why.
When we are only guided by our experiences, we do not have an objective picture, because we repeat the lived methods over and over again and we believe that if we succeed once or twice in one way, that the same way will lead us to success in new situations. What happens here is that we tie ourselves to a certain method, adopt the belief that has led us to accomplishing a goal, and we are convinced that that is our truth. That may be true, but it does not mean that it is the final truth or the only possible one. We always have plenty of opportunities and an infinite number of ways in which we can do something and be successful at it. Experiences are important because they develop self-confidence, but sometimes they can be limiting, if we believe that they are the only relevant ones. So, the first side that balances out our productivity is the one that respects experiences but realizes that they are neither final nor written in stone.
On the other hand, we have personal development. When someone asks themselves a question of how they can be more productive, that tells us that they are important to themselves, and want to be a better version of themselves and do not want to be their own stumbling block on the path to progress. Then our focus is to understand ourselves, to look at ourselves as an observer and notice where our words, deeds and experiences come from. We need to know why we react in certain ways, what inspires us, what moves us and what makes us get up earlier, stay an hour longer at work, exercise, eat healthier, help others, understand what we are doing wrong and why these mistakes, even though we are aware of them, keep repeating themselves. When we take all that into account, we can better manage our energy, time and resources, which certainly contributes to our productivity. However, this side can also go to extremes. If we only and exclusively dedicate ourselves to personal development without entering into experiences and relationships with others, we begin to live a life that is not so much coloured by reality. Such a life makes us a little lonely because the circle of those people who can follow and understand us becomes increasingly smaller. So, personal development is a very desirable thing on the way to achieving higher productivity, but we should keep in mind that it is also a segment of our life that is not final and that it also needs experience.
Healthy productivity balances out our lived experiences with the work we do on ourselves. It is devoid of ambition and originates from the core of our personality. It cannot tire us or make us feel bad, but can only lead us in the direction of progress.