Stress-free productivity does exist

Any person or organization wishing to develop a product—whether it’s a web application, a toaster or a building—must take into account how the people who will use the product usually behave. This is essential to design the product so that it’s easy to understand and use.

Once you have started a project, momentum is everything. Momentum is a physical quantity that describes the impetus gained by a body in motion. Momentum feeds the motivation needed to continue the project and, of course, to complete it.

Throughout the day a multitude of thoughts arrive in your head: ideas, things you’d like to do, people with whom you’d like to be, something you’d like to tell someone, something you should buy, something or someone that you would like to know…

In any project that requires some creativity—as any endeavor—it’s necessary to switch from time to time between acting and reflecting. Sometimes you have to shutdown, stop doing things, think of what you’ve done so far and discuss what should be the next steps to follow.

All of us procrastinate occasionally. Most times it is simply to delay a few minutes or a few hours on something we must do (“come on, 10 minutes more on Twitter and then I’ll get with it”, “This afternoon I’ll call him, now I do not feel like it”.) Other times it is more serious, because our unwillingness to undertake that task affects other people and generates problems.