Stop chasing the perfect productivity system

The night before I go on holiday, I invariably find myself working until the early hours of the morning. While everyone else is ready to leave, I am still trying to clear my inbox, finish outstanding tasks and make sure everything is in a good place. It has become a standing joke in my family.

You might think that once the holiday starts, I'll forget about work, but that's not always the case.

Even when I am supposed to be unwinding, I often find myself reading about a new productivity hack, watching experts share better ways to organise my life or dreaming up the perfect system that will change everything when I get back.

Sad, but true. The irony is that I do this because I feel overwhelmed at work.

It’s completely natural to want to come back from holiday feeling more organised. Yet searching for a better productivity system can become another source of work and pressure.

Maybe the fix isn't another app, method or beautifully reorganised to-do list. Maybe it's already there in the inbox, the calendar, and the habits we've been using all along.

An old parable called Acres of Diamonds captures this temptation perfectly. It is the story of a farmer who spent his life searching elsewhere for something that had been beneath his feet all along.

The farmer who walked away from a fortune

The story was popularised by Russell H. Conwell in lectures and published in 1915 as Acres of Diamonds.

It concerns Ali Hafed, a farmer who heard stories about great wealth and prosperity being made from diamonds. After a particularly hard day in the field tending a failing crop, Ali decided he’d had enough. He sold his farm and set out to find riches elsewhere.

He searched for years, spent everything and never found the fortune he imagined.

Meanwhile, the person who bought his farm had a very different life. One day, whilst walking around his fields, he was looking down into a stream when he saw something glinting back at him. Curious, he waded into the cool water and fished out the sparkling rock. And yes, you have guessed it; it was a diamond. The farm yielded more diamonds over the following years, and that unremarkable farm became an extraordinarily valuable diamond field.

I love this story. It reminds me to always start with what you have right in front of you.

Why feeling overwhelmed at work sends us searching for new tools

With today's easy access to YouTube 'experts', app stores and AI LLMs, there are plenty of opportunities to repeat the farmer’s mistake. When we feel overwhelmed, it's human nature to go searching for something new:

• another productivity app;

• a different task-management method;

• a fresh notebook;

• a reorganised filing system;

• or another expert promising to transform our working life.

I know this trap well. My particular weakness is watching YouTube experts explain the system that will supposedly solve everything. Closely followed by a new notebook that I promise myself I will keep neat and tidy.

Researching these systems can feel productive. Setting them up can even be enjoyable. But every hour spent rebuilding your system is an hour not spent completing the work that made you feel overwhelmed in the first place.

That does not mean you should tolerate a genuinely broken way of working. It means you should diagnose the problem before reaching for another shiny solution promising Utopia just over the next hill.

Use SAFE before changing your system

When you feel tempted to start again with another app or methodology, pause and work through the SAFE Method.

Situation: What is actually causing the pressure? Is it too much work, unclear priorities, constant interruptions, a failure to make decisions, or your system actually being broken?

Alternatives: What could you change using the tools and processes you already have? Could you remove, defer, delegate or renegotiate something?

Firm Words: State what you will do next. For example: “I will finish the client proposal before I spend any more time reorganising my task list.”

Evidence: Look at what is really happening. Which commitments are overdue? Where is your time going? What has your current system helped you complete?

Evidence helps you distinguish between a system that is genuinely failing and one you have simply not used consistently.

Avoid the productivity resignation trap

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but there is no perfect system and no silver bullet.

You need enough organisation to identify the most important thing you should do next. After that, you just need to begin.

Constantly redesigning how you work reduces the time available to deliver. That can lead to missed commitments, damaged credibility and even more pressure and maybe even stress. This is the beginnings of a self-inflicted resignation trap.

A better tool may occasionally be the answer. But look down before you go searching over the next hill.

Your next diamond may be the task, skill, colleague or perfectly adequate system already in front of you.