Looking back on my best work of the past couple decades, almost none of it has happened because of steady progression toward a goal, accruing achievement step-by-step. The most authentic and novel work has come from emergent discoveries that suggested catalyzing action, followed by experimentation and sharing of my findings. This is how my productivity works, and this year's hypothesis is that the trigger comes from having great conversations with like-minded people. The implications of this are that my kind of productivity is ill-suited for most people, but so long as I can create perceptible value with some regularity that will be OK.
Definition
As of 2025, I'm defining Emergent Productivity as a disciplined way to balance intuitive impulses with the need to create something of value regularly.
In my case, it's highly tuned to my specific cognitive architecture combined with the requires for working or interacting with other people. It may be of interest to people who are neurodivergent (ADHD, AuHD, Autistic) who have entrepreneurial aspirations.
One of these days I'll write it up.
References
This is a long-running experiment spanning several years. In hindsight, it correlates with the ADHD/Autistic traits that I have.
- 2017 - Gathering-style Productivity
- 2018 - Groundhog Day Resolutions 2018 was built entirely on gathering-style productivity
- 2019 - Groundhog Day Resolutions 2019 removed extensive tracking from the approach, testing its limits
- 2020 - A year with NO GHDR TRACKING, experimenting with different focusing and scoping approaches.