Q&A: Productivity
Productivity
Question
Hello Rabbi,
I have listened attentively to almost all of your lectures (on YouTube) and read most of your books—some of them several times. Even though (and some would say “precisely because”) I am a graduate of Har Hamor, I find a stable support in your philosophical framework. Even if I do not agree with everything you say, I can say without hesitation that I have enormous appreciation for you and am happy for the privilege of learning from you. This is a good opportunity to express my appreciation and say thank you.
Your pace of writing is extraordinary (books and articles), you run this website with all its various aspects—questions and answers, articles, and the like; you teach in academia and in other frameworks, and I assume that is only part of the picture.
Maybe you will not like the question, but as someone who takes the substance of your thought very seriously, I cannot ignore the technical framework that characterizes it—how do you do it? How do you manage to get it all done? Sometimes it seems to me that there must be several people.
As a student, I would be happy if you could mention a few principles that might help me with productivity, writing, output, time management, and the like. Precisely as someone who claims to be your student (not your admirer), I would like you to address this question seriously—in my opinion, this is not a trivial matter.
Thank you very much.
Answer
Hello,
It is hard for me to give advice. Do not forget that this site was launched when I was already almost sixty. I had already accumulated knowledge and experience and a writing pace, and my ideas were already fairly well-formed. With writing comes skill, and then it goes faster. So I really have one main piece of advice: start writing on various platforms and in different formats, and you will see that over time you improve and increase your pace.
Of course, I also have help from dear Oren, who runs the site (voluntarily—the site was actually his initiative), and he saves me time on technical matters and on problems that come up.
Of course, it also depends on abilities and inclinations. Some people write faster and some less so. Some have a drive to write and publish, and some do not.
And perhaps one more piece of advice: give up on perfectionism and be willing to fail and make mistakes. There are people whom those fears cripple.