Results matter the most.You might work for 50 hours a week, but if you don’t experience any growth personally, emotionally, financially, you’re not effective.Effectiveness refers to getting the right things done. It’s basically a polite word for “getting sh*t done.”And if you want to do your job well, earn money, live a meaningful life, learn skills, you HAVE to get sh*t done.One exercise that I use with companies and people who hire me to improve their effectiveness, is an exercise that I picked up from Peter Drucker’s The Effective Executive.

Know Thy Time

Much of the books, articles, productivity tools, and productivity apps you see these days are all in a way influenced by Drucker. For instance, the term “deep work” (coined by Cal Newport) is currently very popular. But if you read The Effective Executive, which is written in 1967, Drucker talks about the same concept.

Peter Drucker

Cultivate a deep understanding of yourself - not only what your strengths and weaknesses are but also how you learn, how you work with others, what your values are, and where you can make the greatest contribution. Because only when you operate from strengths can you achieve true excellence. Peter

“Do you know thy time?”If you don’t measure your time, it’s tough to stop procrastination or improve your productivity. Because if you want to manage your time better, you have to know where it goes first.How do you know your time? Keep an activity log - the specific method you use doesn’t matter. The only thing that matters is that you want to keep a record for at least two weeks. Preferably, you want a whole month of recorded activities.

Step 1: Know thy time

“Go through all the recurring activities in your log one by one. What would happen if you would stop doing them?” If the answer is: “All hell breaks loose.” Don’t change anything.But if your answer is: “Nothing would happen.” You’ve hit gold. We all do activities that have ZERO return. I call those activities time-wasters.

Step 2: Identify the non-productive work

Know where your time goes. Identify the critical tasks from the trivial tasks in your life. And cut the trivial, time-wasting, tasks.If you want to be a super-effective person, you regularly keep a log. You don’t have to keep a log for 365 days a year. Instead, do two stretches of two-three weeks a year. That’s enough to keep track of your time and identify new time-wasterit forces you to think about your daily routine.

Step 3: Eliminate the time-wasters

Peter Drucker’s Strategy to Become More Effective

I think that a productive life equals happy life. Drucker is the first and best thinker when it comes to effectiveness for knowledge workers.

productivity

Productivity

personaldevelopment

Personal Development

habits

Habits

problemsolving

Problem Solving

timemanagement

Time Management

Know Thy Time: Peter Drucker’s Strategy to Become More Effective - Darius Foroux

An antilibrary is a private collection of unread books, first mentioned by Lebanese-American scholar and author Nassim Nicholas Taleb in his book, 'The Black Swan'

The Antilibrary

The writer of The Swan, Umberto Eco is the owner of a large personal library (containing thirty thousand books), and separates visitors into two categories: <ul><li>Those who react with “Wow! Signore professore dottore Eco, what a library you have! How many of these books have you read?”* </li><li>And a very small minority—who get the point that a private library is not an ego-boosting appendage but a research tool. Read books are far less valuable than unread ones. </li></ul>

Umberto Eco's Collection of Books

You will accumulate more knowledge and more books as you grow older, and the growing number of unread books on the shelves will look at you menacingly. Indeed, the more you know, the larger the rows of unread books. Let us call this collection of unread books an antilibrary.

A Collection Of Unread Books

According to Umberto Eco, a private library is a research tool. The goal of an antilibrary is not to collect books you have read so you can proudly display them on your shelf; instead, it is to curate a highly personal collection of resources around themes you are curious about. Instead of a celebration of everything you know, an antilibrary is an ode to everything you want to explore.

The Antilibrary's Goal

The vastness of the unknown can feel terrifying, which is why many people feel uncomfortable with the idea of accumulating books they haven’t read. But embracing the unknown is what drives discovery. As Scottish scientist James Clerk Maxwell once said: “Thoroughly conscious ignorance is the prelude to every real advance in science.” An antilibrary is a reminder of everything we don’t know.

Embracing the Uncomfortable Unknown 

Now I see my massive collection of unread books with a new perspective! 

Unread books are as powerful as the ones we read. An antilibrary is a private collection of unread books capturing the vastness of the unknown.

books

Books

Building an antilibrary: the power of unread books

Since the popularity of Obstacle Course Racing, or OCR, has exploded onto the scene, there has been one woman who has dominated the sport: Amelia Boone. This interview is a little different than others you may have heard on <a href="https://fs.blog/knowledge-project-podcast/">The Knowledge Project </a>but no less fascinating. We cover a wide variety of topics including habits, reading, self-reliance, and training.

<ul><li>Why Amelia was drawn to obstacle racing even though running was something she despised</li><li>The complementary connection between her sport and her professional work and how racing has made her a more effective attorney</li><li>How Amelia fights physical and mental fatigue when most people quit (she even shares a story of how she dealt with a vacant support station halfway through a 100 mile race)</li><li>What she does to develop grit and resilience so she knows she can rely on herself when things get rough</li><li>Amelia’s “to-do list” trick that makes sure she’s productive — you’ll want to steal this! </li></ul>

<ul><li>How a serious injury taught Amelia some of her most powerful lessons about who she is and what’s important to her</li><li>What Amelia’s parents did to teach her to be self-sufficient from a very young age</li><li>How she learned to deal with setbacks, and how careful she is with the language she uses when she speaks to herself when things go wrong</li><li>Why Amelia runs with a Sharpie and the same playlist she’s listened to for the past 5 years</li><li>How Amelia transformed herself from a casual weekend warrior to one of the most finely tuned athletes in the world</li></ul>

Amelia Boone has dominated the world of Obstacle Course Racing with over 50 podiums and two dozen victories. In this interview, we discuss habits, grit, how to read a book, and so much more.

Know Thy Time: Peter Drucker’s Strategy to Become More Effective - Darius Foroux

Building an antilibrary: the power of unread books

Amelia Boone: Learning How to Suffer with the Queen of Pain

Amber Brown