Maria Popova and what matters enough

A couple of days ago, I wrote about finishing books and often write about productivity. I must tell you that I feel like a twerp when I think about Maria Popova.

Maria Popova. Photograph by Elizabeth Lippman for The New York Times (taken from brainpickings.org)

She writes the brain pickings blog and is extremely productive. Here’s a little taste of her workflow (found on Wikipedia):

“Running Brain Pickings takes over 450 hours of work each month. Popova reads hundreds of pieces of content a day and anywhere between 12-15 books per week. From this, she posts the best to her blog and Twitter feed. She spends anywhere from three to eight hours writing a day, publishes three articles a day from Monday to Friday, and tweets four times per hour between 8am and 11pm Eastern with few exceptions.

All these articles are written and scheduled in advance. Popova tries not to write on Fridays, and likes to keep that day designated for sending emails and attending meetings. In terms of gathering interesting information to write about, Popova tends to do most of her long-form reading while at the gym. She skims the news while eating and listens to podcasts during her commutes.

Her daily routine includes checking her email, going through aggregator services, skims the RSS feed, pre schedules ten tweets to be published on Twitter for the mid-afternoon in the morning, then going straight to the gym which she does the elliptical while reading. She then heads back to her apartment and eats breakfast while reading more. She then goes to one of her two offices in New York City where she writes for her blog, tweets, goes through feeds, and more. When her work is done, she does not watch TV, but instead, reads the newspaper.”

Like I said before, I feel like a twerp compared to her (especially in reading). Talk about focus, dedication and productivity!

When I read about or meet someone like Maria, I always wonder what drives them. How on earth do they stay motivated?

I’ve never met Maria but I bet that she’s driven by work she feels is worth her time. Extra productive people like her work with a sense of conviction and they contribute with passion. Those people are often the game-changers we seek to be.

We don’t all have to be as productive as Maria Popova though. At least not in the same way.

Of course we should still aim for accomplishments that matter enough to us. It could be a mixture of things such as raising good kids, having a successful marriage, or working on projects that impact a tribe we belong to.

There are so many areas we can master. We simply need to find out what matters enough to get us moving.

Digging deep into what matters will help you stay motivated and have the endurance to accomplish so much more. You’ll never feel like you’re wasting time when your conviction is to truly make a difference.