Why Your Productivity System Stops Working When Life Gets Chaotic

The Seven Pillars Newsletter: Issue 05

When employment disappears, so does your organizing structure. Here's what to use instead.

Hi everyone and welcome to the fifth issue of The Seven Pillars.

Last week, we talked about building business skills. This week: how to organize yourself when the structures that held everything together—employment, funding cycles, organizational rhythms—suddenly collapse.

For years I managed multiple projects, clients, deliverables, and consultants, but when that went away, I had trouble planning my day.

When I was working full time, I needed a system to manage everything. I bought in fully to the productivity gurus and, for the most part, was very successful with what they preached. I had an organized calendar, a multilayered to-do list, and a time-tracking system. I had thought through how to set aside time for deep work, how to respond to emails, and how to archive all of my resources. Everything worked together in harmony.

But then unemployment hit and I had a new list of things to do during my day. Out were clear deliverables with hard deadlines. In were infinite possibilities. There were necessary things to do, like applying for jobs and consultancies, but now there was also a wide-open horizon that beckoned with unlimited choices. New careers to consider, books to read, courses to take, networks to maintain, recipes to cook, sports to practice…

I tried to apply my old system to the new reality. It failed me in a way I was not expecting.

What I came to understand is that these two very different modes of life–structured and unstructured–require distinct tools and approaches for meeting their demands. Employment provides a basis of accountability (whether to clients, bosses, colleagues, or concrete deliverables) that requires the use of calendars, checklists, time blocking, etc. 

But without this structured accountability framework traditional tools for organization and productivity fall flat.

For many of us, two paths then open up. On the first path, we throw up our hands and abandon control entirely, succumbing to chaos. On the second path, we overinvest and double down on task management (using what’s called “compensatory control” or the illusion of organization that helps us avoid feelings of uncertainty). 

Both are destructive, and both are symptomatic of using the wrong approach.

Let me clarify the distinction I'm making. 

The traditional tools I've mentioned—GTD, time-blocking, bullet journals—all fall into what I'll call Type 1 approaches. The purpose of these tools is to execute efficiently according to clear priorities. They include things like “Getting Things Done” or GTD, bullet journals, time-blocking, and others. They assume you know what to do and work wonderfully for tasks that are clear, bounded, and predictable.

In the unstructured uncertainty that I’ve currently found, I’ve come to rely on what I’ll call Type 2 approaches. What are they? Three core practices: adjacency, presence, and uncertainty acceptance. Adjacency is a way of prioritizing in a world of infinite possibilities—how do I take the most effective next step? Presence emphasizes awareness and enjoyment, rather than box checking. And uncertainty acceptance is the ability to make forward progress when there is no destination. I’ll get into more detail below.

These Type 2 approaches help navigate the opacity of the future and prioritize. They can help us stay clear on values (rather than tasks), cultivate practices of presence (rather than productivity), and accept, and even enjoy, uncertainty. These Type 2 tools can be invaluable to us during periods of transition when chaos is close and infinite possibilities threaten to overwhelm. 

Type 1 systems treat all tasks as equally possible “next actions,” whereas Type 2 recognizes the distinction between what is realistic and what is fantastical.

This is not to say that we have to choose between Type 1 and Type 2. We need to use both together and assess where we are on the continuum. Steady employment at an institution with reliable funding? You probably need more Type 1. Unemployed or working at a grant-dependent NGO? Maybe a little more Type 2.

We in the humanitarian, development, and social impact fields are facing a level of chaos, uncertainty, and unemployment that we’ve never faced before. The predictability that we had grown accustomed to no longer exists. Whether employed or not, the lack of structure can cause us to surrender to chaos or become paralyzed by possibilities. 

We’ve been trained to use Type 1 tools and systems—these are still needed, but not sufficient when stable structures are gone.

Productivity systems designed for execution (GTD, time-blocking) fail during life transitions because the problem isn't doing things efficiently, it's figuring out what to do at all.

We need wayfinding tools not task management.

I mentioned three approaches. Let’s consider each in a bit more detail.

Adjacency. Not all possibilities are equally reachable from where you currently are. For me, searching for new consulting contracts was the most adjacent task. I was prepared to do this task immediately and it was relevant. At the same time, I wanted to devote more time to day trading, but that was much more distant. Carl Jung famously advised that, when faced with uncertainty, we can only “do the next right thing”; that’s what adjacency is all about.

Diagnose for adjacency:

Presence. Here’s one thing I know for certain: time-blocking for your spouse is not a healthy practice. Neither is checking off a box after networking with friends. There are areas of life in which productivity is degrading and useless. Rather than trying to complete things, we need to concentrate on being present for them.

Diagnose for presence:

Uncertainty Acceptance. I find that I quote Donald Rumsfeld too frequently for comfort. But his quote about “unknown unknowns” is too good not to keep coming back to. Transitions contain irreducible unknowns. This can apply to our lives or our careers. We must be clear: are we organizing to move forward or avoid feeling uncertain?

Diagnose for uncertainty acceptance:

So how does this work day to day? The choice isn’t a binary; rather Type 1 and Type 2 approaches should be layered. The Type 2 approaches listed above can help us prioritize with a clear eye and then Type 1 tools can help us execute the way we’re accustomed to.

Think of this as a possibility map, rather than a task list. Make three columns and label them.

We can add an energy dimension to adjacency by borrowing the “Hell Yeah or Nah” approach from Derek Sivers.

Get out of the mindset of progress and outcomes. Create time with no agenda, just presence. If you find yourself thinking "I should organize this better," that's the sign you've drifted into compensatory control. Some domains of life degrade when we try to optimize them. Here are some examples:

Inevitably, anxiety will spike and we may start overplanning or abandoning structure entirely. When this happens, answer the following questions and remember: planning isn't the same as control. Sometimes the kindest thing we can do for ourselves is acknowledge the difference.

When stable structures disappear—whether through unemployment, funding cuts, or sector-wide chaos—our instinct is to reach for the tools that served us before. But GTD and time-blocking were designed for execution, not navigation. They assume you already know what matters.

The middle ground isn't between doing more or less organization. It's about doing the right kind of organizing for the territory you're in.

Start with Type 2 thinking: What's actually adjacent? What needs presence rather than productivity? What uncertainty do I need to accept? Then—and only then—pull out your Type 1 tools to execute on what you've prioritized.

For those of us in the social impact sector, this moment demands both discipline and flexibility. We can't abandon structure entirely (that's chaos), but we also can't organize our way out of genuine uncertainty (that's compensatory control). We can only take the next right step that's actually available to us.

And sometimes, that's enough.

Things I read, used, or loved this week.

📺 Watch: “How Tiny Experiments Can Set You Free” from Anne-Laure le Cunff. I referenced the idea of compensatory control above, but Anne-Laure really gets into the idea in a great TED Talk here. “What if the thing keeping you stuck isn't your circumstances, but your grip on who you think you need to be?”

📚 Read: “102 Screen-Free Activities for Kids” from Jacqueline Nessi at Techno Sapiens. I urge you to check out all the work being done over at Techno Sapiens, especially if you're trying to balance family and screens. If you’re currently stuck at home due to winter weather, this list should help furnish some ideas.

How have you organized yourself or become more productive during times of chaos or unpredictability?

Hit reply and tell me the story.

See you next week,

Anthony Pusatory

Founder, The Seven Pillars