A photo by Tammy Duggan-Herd on Unsplash.

The ultimate productivity tool

Sorry guys, it’s not an app, a book, or a 6-week program.

Zhivko Todorov
Aug 31, 2018 · 4 min read

Everybody is looking for that app that’s going to take their productivity to the next level. Productivity planners, collaboration apps, you name it. The industry is booming: books, events, programs and there’s even a productivity category in the Apple Appstore. Truth is we already have the ultimate productivity tool, however too many of us neglect it: our health.

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That’s right. You can download all the apps, go to all the events, read all the books, but if your health is not on track, your everyday performance will be quite poor.

Optimizing physical health

This requires work. Consistently. Sorry guys, there are no shortcuts here. No apps, no 6-week programs, no detox shakes. It’s a consistent effort with no quick fix, everything else “on the market” is a tool that can help you along the way.

So what are the fundamentals?

  • Sleep: Possibly the most important and most overlooked factor. Getting quality deep sleep is absolutely vital for your health, mood and overall energy levels. Check out these little hacks to help you master “deep sleep” — when body and mind recovery happens.
  • Nutrition: A healthy, balanced, low sugar diet, is an absolute key. High carb intake and constant blood sugar spikes are a prerequisites for brain fog, not to mention weight gain. Healthy fats, on the other hand, even if they’re saturated, are super essential. The carb industry however is doing whatever it can to abolish them. Do your own research, take everything (including this) with a grain of salt, and find what works for you.
  • Exercise: You’ve heard it before right. Well, rightly so. Exercising will do wonders for your brain (by releasing BDNF hormone and dopamine). Regardless of your level of fitness, get it moving daily! It’s not that you don’t have energy to exercise. You don’t have energy, BECAUSE you don’t exercise.

Unfortunately, one of these does not compensate for the other. They are all complementary and having those 3 in check will give you a tremendous productivity advantage, that no productivity coach will ever be able to give you. The human body can be optimized for both performance and longevity. And just as the body does, the mind needs some looking after as well.

Optimizing mental health

Actually your diet, physical activity and overall health, will have a HUGE impact on your mood, and mental health. However, there’s a lot more to be done to improve your mental well-being.

  • Meditation: An ABSOLUTE MUST for a healthy mind. Establishing a meditation habit will not make stress, anxiety and other negative emotions disappear, but will definitely reduce their intensity and make you more mindful about what goes in and out of your head. It can be quite challenging to begin with, however there is a plethora of guided meditation apps to help you.
  • Notifications: Turn them off guys. Email, texts, Instagram, whatever it is, we are flooded with notifications all the time, and each ones produces an “alert” in your brain: “Oh sh*t, I need to respond”. Keeping up with notifications can be really exhausting. What’s more, that’s everyone else’s agenda for your time. Work on your clock, check your socials when you need to.
  • Walk: Take more walking meetings. Go out in nature every once in a while. Make sure you’re taking a walk every day. It’s proven that it boosts brain activity, creativity and overall cognitive performance.
  • Create: Find what drives your creativity and do more of it. It could be writing, painting, graphic design, singing, play an instrument. It’s phenomenal what those activities do for your mental clarity.
  • Journal: Have a notebook where you can vent out. Our minds are flooded with thoughts, that rarely get expressed. Having a journal to let them out is absolutely great. It doesn’t have to be a diary, just let those random thoughts come out. You can also write goals, to do’s — whatever floats your board.

So all of the above are just part of the tools you can use to get your physical and mental health in check. Once more, doing one does not compensate for the other. However, all of them, performed daily, COMPOUND massively over time. So get to world-class physical and mental health, and watch your productivity skyrocket, regardless of apps, books and programs.

Let us know in the comments, what are you go to’s for physical and mental health.

Ж.

https://www.instagram.com/itscompound/

Zhivko Todorov

Written by

Blockchain most of the time. Doing random health stuff rest of the time.

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