Five Ways Productivity Can Turn You Into a Real Nutjob

Sometimes too much productivity can turn you into a real tool.  We’ve scooped these 5 winners from the productivity loony bin to provide our own self-development lesson about d-baggery and what-not-to-do. . .

Nutjob Type #1: Mr. Space Man

People always ask the same questions about these types: “is all that technology really making them more productive?”  The answer, of course, is obvious:

Of course they’re more productive than you. They’re freaking cyborgs!!

Anyway, we know Mr. Space Man all too well.  He’s got $10,000 worth of gadgets in his fanny pack (not to mention, space ice cream), and can’t stop futzing around with his stylus.  He speaks flawless Klingon and has most definitely been assimilated.

If you approach him with a productivity problem, the solution will likely come from a recent issue of Pen Computing Magazine and it will probably require you to install another program on your PDA.

How to Identify Him

You’ll know this guy because his cordless headset NEVER comes off. And I mean never.  Not during showers, not during basketball practice, and (from what I’ve been told) not during sex.

(Pictured Above: a Space Man at a bar, wedding, and ski resort, respectively).

Nutjob Type #2: Mr. Hyper-Motivated Renaissance Man

What’s all this stuff about motivation? I say, if you need motivation, you probably need more than motivation.  Actually, if you ask me, this country could do with a little less motivation. The people who are causing all the trouble seem highly motivated to me.
-George Carlin

We all know a d-bag like this guy and frankly, he’s no Jean-Luc Picard.  He hands out personal business cards and introduces himself as “a speaker, inventor, litterateur, traveler, philosopher, thinker, poet, and sportsman.”  He apparently speaks 10 languages but his fake New England accent still sucks.  Anyway, this weekend he’s flying to aspen for private skiing lessons; on Sunday he’s going to Honduras to scuba dive and attempt breaking a world badminton record.

He makes video resumes like the one pictured to the right and will soon begin graduate studies at Yale.  He’s training for a marathon, is penning a fencing how-to book, and is a professional field hockey player.

He’s also kind of a knob.  We’d all be envious of him if he actually got laid once in a while.

Nutjob Type #3: Mr. Law of Attraction Megalomaniac

The best selling book “The Secret,” has opened up a quantum physics portal to parallel universe and allowed a bunch megalomaniacs nutjobs through (see below).  For fun, the crazies among this group of wannabe richie riches create movies like the one below . . .

Highlights from the Video: “Everything I touch turns to gold”? “I have more riches than King Solomon’s mines”? “Money falls like an avalanche over me”? “There is more money being printed for me right now”? “I have the best of everything”? “I know that when I ask for what I want, no matter what it is that I want, the answer must be, “’your wish is my command.’”?

Here’s a news flash: we can’t have everything we want (contrary to what so many of the “Law of Attraction” people tell us). Two year olds haven’t learned this yet. Adults should have this part handled by now.

Here’s exhibit #2 . . .

At some point I lost track of the all sh*t this guy wants.  Was that 6 luxury cars, a racing boat, a private jet, and two homes?  Anyway, I’ve got a new affirmation for this guy.  Repeat after me: “I am not a loser, I am not a loser.”

Nutjob Type #4: Mr. “Life” Hacks

[Note: Mr. life hacks really isn't a nut job.  He's more of a fun loving geek who's lost perspective and gone waaaaaay too far.  We wish him no ill will.]
So the first thing you need to know about the people in this group is that they really like emptying their geek bags, taking LOTS of pictures of the gadgets contained within, and posting the results to Flickr.  Seriously, there are hundreds of photos like these online:

So you’re probably wondering what it means to hack one’s life.  One example would be making the DIY plastic banana protector pictured to the left.  Another example would be going overboard with chord management on your laptop (see right).  I mean, if managing one’s chords and protecting one’s bananas doesn’t substantially improve your living, then I don’t know what will.

Anyway, Mr. Life Hacks wishes he were McGyver and probably wanted to be a real hacker back in the late 80s, early 90s, but ended up settling for a less exciting desk job and ends up consoling himself by hacking non-technology items.

It should also be noted that Mr. Life Hack uses the term “hack” pretty broadly and in conjunction with just about anything.  One can properly refer to date hacks, marriage hacks, diet hacks, child hacks, food hacks, kitchen hacks, parents hacks, brain hacks, etc.  If these whackos figure out a new way to use catsup then the solution just might be called a “catsup hack.”

Nutjob Type #5: Mr. Fake Zen Guy

Mr. Fake Zen guy really likes, you know, “that Asian spirituality stuff,” and he refers to eating with chopsticks as “Zen power eating” (the life hack people might refer to it as “hacking your meal”).  He uses the  term “Zen” as a synonym for all that is good and righteous in the world and he secretly hopes the chicks dig his Zen aesthetic.  The illustration on left shows Mr. Fake Zen Guy  doing some “Zen writing.”

Fake Zen guy hasn’t yet figured out that the Enso (not the Yang and Yin) comes from the Zen Buddhism tradition:

Real Zen (The Enso)	Fake “Food” Zen (the Yang and Yin is Taoist)

It bears mentioning that Mr. Fake Zen guy is starting to get really good at Fake Zen Photography.  He recently uploaded the following picture (see left) to Flickr and titled it “Zen” (he took it after doing a “Zen power walk”).  I asked him about this picture: he said he was flipping his dharma, or Feng Shui, or something.

Mr. Fake Zen Guy guy subscribes to all 2,000+ self-help and productivity blogs with the word “Zen” in the title, and reading them has become a real time sink.

Anyway, we’ve heard of Fake Steve Jobs, Fake Seth Godin, and Fake Samuel L. Jackson.  I think it’s time for Mr. Fake Zen Guy.

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Photo credits (from top to bottom, left to right): KrazyKritter, Gary Jones, Lerxst Boycat, Yumikid, Vince B. Attila, RjNagle, Buddhaah, GlennQNYC, Peter Gene, rhapsodienbleu, Striatic, [public domain], Anple, and #BennehBoy.