Imitate, Iterate, Innovate: Assembling Your Productivity Toolkit

My productivity friend,

Dr. John Beall was my music composition professor at West Virginia University. He had an extraordinary talent that not only made me a better composer, but also made me more productive overall. And it made me a far better teacher of productivity, too.

Most composition teachers produce students who are mini-clones of the teacher. Dr. Beall’s talent was teaching technique without imposing his stylistic preferences on his students. Only great composition teachers, including titans like Nadia Boulanger, share this talent. (As a side note, Dr. Beall studied with Samuel Adler, who studied with Aaron Copland, who studied with… Nadia Boulanger. I like to think of myself as one of her many “spiritual great-great-grandchildren.”)

My aim as a productivity consultant is similar. Beyond certain “minimum requirements” for apps and a few foundational skills, your productivity toolkit should reflect the way you work, the action you take. It should have relatively little to do with the way I think and work.

This edition of the Action-Powered Newsletter will detail three steps — Imitate, Iterate, and Innovate — that lead you from those foundational apps and skills to a productivity toolkit that makes your work more effective, efficient, and fulfilling.

The Power of Imitation

The first step in learning to compose music or improve productivity is the same: Imitate the masters.

At first, this may be “guided imitation.” In my freshman year at WVU, Dr. Beall assigned an exercise that had a Mozart piano sonata on the first two staves followed by a pair of empty staves. Our job was to write our own piano sonata, modeled on the structure of Mozart’s.

It was challenging. For the first few days, I felt like I was copying Mozart while changing enough stuff to avoid it being identical. But as I got into the flow of the exercise, the piece took on its own identity and I learned a lot about form and structure.

Over the next three years, my imitation followed my own interests. I fell in love with the music of Gustav Mahler (a love that continues even today!), and I also drew heavily from masters like Debussy and Ravel. Under Dr. Beall’s tutelage, my imitations of those influences formed the technique upon which everything else I’ve ever written is built.

Imitate the Productivity Masters

My productivity journey began when I read David Allen’s Getting Things Done (GTD) in 2014. As I had modeled my music on Mahler, Debussy, and Ravel, I modeled my productivity on GTD.

You should choose a model to imitate, too. Naturally I suggest Action-Powered Productivity (APP), not only because I created it but also because it is designed to provide a foundation of tools and skills rather than impose structure.

But even if you start out with APP, continue to imitate what resonates with you. I’ve been powerfully influenced by The Checklist Manifesto, Everything in Its Place, Four Thousand Weeks, Atomic Habits, and many other books and resources.

Just as Mahler and others became my technique because Dr. Beall could guide me through that imitation and synthesis process, your productivity influences, over time, will become your productivity toolkit technique.

The Power of Iteration

I mentioned “synthesis.” How does that happen? How do your productivity influences become your productivity toolkit technique? Through iteration.

In college, I composed a lot of music. In my lessons, Dr. Beall critiqued that music. He pointed out what worked and what didn’t, and explained where our influences were serving us and where they were too obvious or derivative.

Dr. Beall was never harsh, but he was sparing with compliments — which made the compliments he did give that much more powerful! One lesson my senior year, he listened to my setting of Robert Frost’s “Acquainted with the Night” for solo voice and orchestra. Afterward, he made no suggestions. He simply closed the file, smiled, and said “That’s a great song.” I still bask in the glow of a rare Dr. Beall compliment.

Iterate on Your Productivity Toolkit

Action-Powered Productivity isn’t going to fit every productivity need you have. Neither is GTD. Neither is any book or system or structure.

Iterate on the foundations you’ve built. Use the toolkit you’ve built. Then — and this is critical! — look at the work you’ve done and figure out how to do it even more effectively or efficiently in the future. This is “capturing recurrence” in APP parlance, and it ensures that your work and your workflows both improve over time.

You’ll still draw on your influences and incorporate new influences that you imitate. But by iterating on your workflows and assessing the work they produce, you synthesize the toolkit to your specifications.

One last point on iteration. Just as Dr. Beall was neither harsh nor effusive with praise, you should not be overly frustrated nor pleased as you assess your workflows. You’re not judging your worthiness as a human. You’re refining your productivity toolkit. Keep that in perspective.

The Power of Innovation

Once your technique is laid, you will discover new ideas and approaches that none of the masters you’ve modeled yourself on ever considered. When this happens, you’ll realize that those masters themselves also built on the shoulders of those who came before. The student becomes a master.

You become an innovator when your technique becomes your instinct. You trust your impulse, which has been honed through imitation and iteration into your own voice. You can continue to imitate and iterate as you like, but all of that will be driven by your distinct awareness of who you are. You’ve innovated a new musical sensibility into the world: your own.

Dr. Beall’s most impressive talent was cultivating this last phase of the journey. It’s not something that can be “made” to happen. It emerges from imitation and iteration, but it can’t be forced.

Innovate on Your Productivity “Voice”

My approach, Action-Powered Productivity, no longer bears much resemblance to my starting point in GTD, even though David Allen was my first major influence. Through years of imitation and iteration, my toolkit now puts action — and especially recurring action — at the forefront, and emphasizes starting where you are and building from there.

For you, innovation won’t (necessarily!) mean inventing something entirely new. It means you develop the unique combinations of existing apps and methods that work for you, and refine them into workflows that reflect your action. Once you have those in place, you — like a great composer — can act on impulse rather than “technique.” Your approach becomes instinctive.

This isn’t immediate, nor should it be. It takes time to synthesize your influences into your technique, and for that technique to dissolve into instinct. The only real shortcut is having a Dr. Beall to guide you. For your productivity guidance, hop into the (free) APP Community and learn from what I and others are doing. It won’t take you years, like it took me, if you have a guide.

What Action Will You Take?

Now that you understand the process of imitating, iterating, and innovating as you build your productivity toolkit, it’s time to take action.

1. Imitate. Choose a productivity method (say, Action-Powered Productivity) to imitate.
2. Iterate. Implement what you imitate, and commit to at least a month’s use. What works, what doesn’t?
3. Invest. Don’t try to “innovate” within the month, but do invest time (and, if you like, money) toward improving your toolkit.

I’m in the free APP community if you need me, and there are live events in the $9/month APP Pioneers community if you want a bit more engagement.

You can get started on your own, of course. But I’m ready to be your Dr. Beall if you need a guide!

Have a productivity Friday and weekend!
R.J.

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