Ari Meisel - On Productivity: The Collective Wisdom of the Most Efficient Man Alive

I am a cynic.

Ante contemptus est inquisitio or Contempt prior to investigation was pretty much going to be my next tattoo. And so it was, with this remarkably closed mind, that I began my professional relationship with Ari Meisel and Productivity.

I needed work. He was an old friend who had a virtual assistant company. He said I had to go through the hiring process anyway even though I reminded him that... um, we were old friends. But I was not to worry, according to Ari. Things were going to be pretty straightforward.

Not.

As I said, I needed the work. So I found a flattering (read: wrinkle-diminishing) spot at my kitchen window. Put my hair in a messy bun the way the kids were doing it then. Did all the fake exercises to see if I could solve problems on the fly. Then proceeded to say terrible words in rapid succession, to get a damn video to upload to YouTube, which Id never done. I got the job.

Everyone was a whole lot younger than me and had next-level productivity vocabularies. I understood very little about how things worked, and it didnt matter. The Buddhist monk Pema Chodron tells us to find in this kind of situation the wisdom of no escape. When you have no choice, you figure it out. Productivity Win #1. Constraints are beneficial.

But with each win came the requisite mistakes.

Mistake #1: Nodding knowingly on team huddles over Zoom (we used Zoom way before it was cool, btw). I wish I had just asked the question and copped to my ignorance. I would have gotten an instructive answer and probably would have helped someone else who didnt know what the hell was going on either but didnt have the courage to ask.

Still, I built up my remote-gig-hustle sea legs. Despite my overly judgmental attitude, I was able to chalk up Productivity Win #2 when I figured out my Peak Time (69 a.m .). Yes, theres an app for it. Ari made one. Because, of course, he did.

I knew I was making solid progress when one morning I looked at my laptop. I had fifteen open tabs, and I didnt feel nauseous. I flew around Slack, spitballing ideas, attaching files, dropping lit AF gifs for any occasion. It felt good.

Client passwords were safe in Dashlane. My Trello boards were a Kanban thing of beauty, showcasing both velocity and a chill graphic vibe. I could feel myself falling in love with Canva, even though I wasnt ready for the paid membership. Take it slow, Amy. Take it slow. Wait until it drops an Instagram integration.

Then Ari decided to go out on his own.

I was giddy when he asked me to sit at the cool kids table and be part of the nascent team he was putting together for Less Doing. But now, there was nowhere to hide. I couldnt play the helpless old lady card anymore and get someone else to do the hard parts of content work. You know, like trending hashtags (like why is that even important?) and speaking truth to power about pervasive toxic masculinity in LinkedIn videos. So I bought blue-blocking Warby Parkers and subscribed to the HubSpot newsletter.

It seemed like every other day Ari sent a shiny new platform for me to use in my pursuit of streamlined, on-brand messaging. And he did it with a caveat to the rest of the team.

No one is allowed to help Amy. No one.

Now your first reaction is probably quite similar to my initial reaction.

What a d*&K.

But that is where you are wrong.

Mr. Miyagi was teaching me the most valuable productivity lesson.

I bashed around my keyboard. Squinted at error messages. Bristled at the failure sound that a Mac makes when it knows youre trying to go someplace youll regret, like Vegas in August.

Ill show him, I mumbled. I can shorten backlinks. Stock photo choices are not going to be the end of me.

I sent the work back to Ari for approval or just pulled the Level 6 trigger (see page 65) and didnt even ask. I did it, Id say, hitting return with equal parts spite and pride.

Ari said to me soon thereafter. You know why I told everyone not to help you with this stuff, right?

Because youre a d*&k?

No, a-hole. Smarter people than you and me built these platforms, he said smiling. You couldnt possibly break anything. I wanted you to get in there, make mistakes, mess around, and build up your confidence. Because that muscle memory never disappears.

Productivity Win #3: You cant break it. Just do it.

Its getting harder to remember that woman who was so afraid of change and innovation, that wildly unproductive human who wasted so much time. I dont miss her very much, and we only really get reacquainted when a new season of The Crown drops.

My success with a productive life is not measured by the sheer volume of work I produced for Ari or its quality. Thats kind of a BS metric. Its that he taught me how to use time efficiently enough to have time. Time to take care of my children, my health, my home, and my burgeoning political and literary pursuits.

He showed me how to build a life to be proud ofand I am.

If I can do it, anyone can.

--Amy Randall