Staying Productive– The Sane Way

A zen state of mind

Here we are! It’s my first post since I started this journey to fully immerse myself in the world of front end web development. I recently found myself feeling unmotivated and tired. It’s that information overload that all of us feel when we’re cramming for exams or just simply overburdened at work and look up at the end of the day… and oh! It’s already 5 PM. At that point, we may have not even finished all the things we wanted to do (of course procrastination or online distractions don’t help at all). For this post, I wanted to give everyone a chance to see what you can do to help yourself stay motivated and always keep moving forward with key goals in mind.

Every time I feel like things are just too overwhelming or I don’t know where to go, I’ve come to realize that there are a couple of key things that keep me going through it all:

1. Self reflection- We need to take a breather every hour or so and process all we’ve learned. Go distract yourself with anything you want or grab a treat! You’ll come back refreshed and ready to tackle the next challenge
2. Meditation- There’s no better way to allow the information absorb into your mind and the stress to melt away than some deep breathing and emptying of the mind.
3. Write it all down- The best way I’ve been able to keep visualizing my goals and staying on track is making lists and keeping notes organized by topics I care about. That way, I’m less scatterbrained and always have something to reference and keep myself on task.
4. Deep thinking- This one I read about recently… It means that we need to allow ourselves time throughout the day to take a step back and simply let the mind wander. We are idea machines and sometimes it can be overwhelming when we hear that voice inside all the time. This can be time to reflect once more or to jot down great ideas and thoughts you had throughout the day.

By putting some of these methods above into practice, I’ve been able to keep myself going through the harder times and stress of having to do so much in what feels like so little time. I hope that these ideas help out others at least a little bit so they can see what kinds of habits can improve our productivity. Once all this is done, you can easily get back to working and learning, and in my case, building sites and web applications from scratch.

Until next time everyone and have a good week!