Elite Productivity by Bab Group
Build a Brain (BAB), a group of researchers and authors in the fields of personality, productivity, social psychology, and developmental psychology, uses storytelling to make salient points about being productive and reaching peak performance. So before we get to its stories, here’s one of mine.
I was struggling to send out a business communication to many people — each one had to be personalized. I was on the first one. I looked it over, but something was just not right. I made subtle changes. I bounced them off coworkers. I went back to the drawing board again. I needed this to be perfect.
My boss strolled over, saw I was laboring, and said these simple words: “It doesn’t have to be perfect. In fact, if you would settle for it being very good, you could have had 20 of these sent out already, instead of none.”
I never forgot that lesson. And it was validated yet again in reading BAB Group’s book, Elite Productivity: 29 Steps to Reaching Your Peak Performance in Life. In fact, the point isn’t made until Step #28: “Perfection is the antithesis of productivity,” the BAB Group says. “You need to find common-sense methods for not letting perfection eat up your productivity. It’s not a matter of perfection but applied principles that meet needs and inspire growth.”
PRODUCTIVITY IS PROGRESS, NOT PERFECTION
The perfection card is just one in this anthology of thoughts, ideas and strategies to help anyone be more productive. What separates this guidebook is its simplicity. The authors present basic concepts, put them together in easy-to-follow steps, and track them in the journal that he recommends readers keep. The 29 steps can be on subjects as common as eating, sleeping, staying healthy, creating the right physical living and work environments and keeping technology in its proper place.
But the authors also offer discourses on tuning out distractions, learning how and when to say no, staying focused, structuring your life and work into small steps, and not trying to achieve things all at once. Wasn’t it the baseball manager trailing in a game who said there’s no such play as the six-run hit?
BAB Group floods the book with clever and relevant anecdotes to make its points, with subjects ranging from Popeye’s spinach to the cartoon character Wile E . Coyote, from being lost in a Boston rush hour to soft-boiled eggs. The stories make what could be dry preaching into lovable lessons without hammering readers over the head.
HAVE YOUR SNOW CONE AND EAT IT, TOO
The book opens with the observation that “shaved ice makes better snow cones. Your life is like a snow cone, and your goal is to shave off the corners, rough edges and bite-sized pieces currently affecting your productivity.”
This is because “Increasing your productivity means going through a series of steps in which we shave away our unproductivity, squeeze better effort into what’s required, and in the process life feels fuller with more free time to spare.”
While the authors say they serve as a guide along the way, ultimately change is up to each reader. “You hold within you the seeds of greatness, of enhanced productivity. But the courage, optimism, commitment and eye for detail that is necessary must be cultivated within your own psyche. Dig deep and find those bare-bones building blocks.”
About BAB Group:
The BAB Group is a group of researchers and authors in the fields of personality, productivity, social psychology, and developmental psychology. They love to research human psychology and behavior in order to get maximum results out of life. Live to learn, embody and then impart the fundamentals of optimal living to help others lead a resourceful life. The group is fascinated by the vastness of the human potential and is dedicated to teachings of the true human potential, thus enabling individuals to take massive action through principles backed by research and scientific evidence. Visit https://www.buildabrainacademy.com.
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