Want To Be More Productive In 2023? Do Just This
It’s simple to increase productivity levels, but it may not be cool
We are being flooded by content about productivity. Why one more?
In 2022, despite all my struggles, I experimented with a method that made me achieve a level of productivity that I thought was impossible to tap, through a very straightforward choice. I think it’s worth sharing it.
First off, why be productive?
That’s a good, important question, even if it doesn’t seem to make sense.
I’m not into being productive only to produce and make more money. This kind of reason, as ubiquitous as it is nowadays, is no longer compelling to me.
Yet, this year I noticed that there are good reasons to be as productive as we can be, like finishing our work in time and being allowed to spend time with our loved ones, exercise, sleep, and eat slowly, without blaming ourselves for doing so.
In other words, as strange as it may sound, we can aim to be very productive people and at the same time not be so much about producing more, making more money.
The only step to be more productive in 2023
I need quickly introduce my experience.
I am finishing my Master’s in Law. In Brazil, we have a year to attend classes and another whole year to write our dissertations. I concluded mine in less than three months, which is unbelievable, and I would never imagine this being possible.
Dissertations are not that easy to write. It involves lots of previous research and formalities, besides being long documents; mine, for example, has almost 200 pages, and it’s on law, something not as exciting as, let’s say, productivity.
How did I do that? I will not surprise anybody with this simple “secret”: curbing my cell phone and computer usage.
Long story short: simply quit social media altogether or develop strict rules regarding its usage. It’s this simple.
There’s not much to be said besides this, but there is a lot to do to improve our self-control and fight this addiction affecting most of us.
I was already out of platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.
Yet, I’ve got even more strict, setting a rule of touching my cellphone just once a day, in the afternoons, after achieving my goal for that day regarding my dissertation and my work in general.
But what if someone needed to talk with me? This was a good excuse to allow my addiction to take over. The truth, however, is less interesting. I am not as important as I think I am, and if someone truly had to talk with me, it would be simple: calling me at my office phone number.
This may seem too radical for some people, but less than three months later, when we were attending some classes yet in the Master’s, there I was, with the whole dissertation completed.
I don’t need to clarify that I am not telling this to feel like I am perfect at productivity; far from that. Since then, I’ve been struggling to achieve this same level of discipline using WhatsApp and YouTube.
Even so, this quick story shows that, as people like David Goggins say, we don’t need to be that good to stand out at something.
We may accomplish seemingly impossible things just by having a healthier relationship with technology.
Of course, there are more things that we need to do to become even more productive, like sleeping and eating properly, exercising, and reading.
However, I think this tiny article delivers what it promises in its title.
It’s a sure thing that, once we curb our social media usage, our productivity levels will increase, even if there will always be space to make other adjustments.
To conclude, we don’t need any new tools to be more productive. We just need to tame our devices, instead of the other way around.
If this content brought some value to you, please follow me here on Medium. It’s free of charge, and it helps me a lot.
