I used to think productivity meant optimizing every minute of your day. Listening to podcasts during every "idle" moment, creating elaborate notes systems to "capture knowledge”.

Then I heard Caesar Bautista explain how we've got it backwards, and how we should direct our energy instead:

1. 50% on physical and mental well-being

This includes sleep, nutrition, training, stress-management, relationships, chronic disease, mental disorders and so on. We need to optimize productivity over the entire arc of our lives. By neglecting our health, we don't realize how much potential we lose out on.

2. 45% on work

Wealth = our ability to create value. Most of us create infinitesimal amounts of value for the world. If we want to be truly create wealth in the world, we need to shift our mindset from being the n+1 th worker in our field to being an outlier.

3. 5% on productivity hacks and apps

Marginally improving your annual efficiency is useless if your total output is a rounding error. As a knowledge worker, you should work on things that matter before thinking about working faster.