This week, I present to you the Top Three Things I learned from Leo Babauta’s Zen Productivity Weekend Workshop
My name’s Lavi. My husband Anish and I are life and business partners, digital nomads, app developers, and zen productivity enthusiasts. Our new app is called SIMPLISH — a marriage between the word ‘simple’ and ‘accomplish’. This blog (and our business) is dedicated to helping other’s — whether you’re a freelancer, husband/wife team, solopreneur or small business — get it all done while keeping it chill. We strive to help all of us balance the constant conflict of planned spontaneity — the art of being in the “here and now” while also planning for the future. We encourage you to follow this publication while we help create a community and space for creatives, digital nomads, small business owners, and families to help simplify our lives and accomplish more with our days. We know life is complicated so let us help you make it a little simpler…Simplish if you will.
OK. I should probably start this post by being honest about why I signed up for a zen productivity workshop in the first place.
After the fourth night in a row that I looked up from my phone to see that it was 2 A.M and I was reading some obscure article on the 3rd page of Google about cauliflower recalls in Wisconsin, I finally admitted I needed a reboot. I was exhausted from long days juggling multiple projects, managing our life and taking care of the kids and when the evening rolled around, I clung to my phone as a comforting escape to zone out with. Instead, the phone started feeling more and more like a rabbit hole.
So when my husband Anish, (a subscriber to Leo Babauta’s Zen Habits blog), told me about a Zen Productivity workshop coming to LA this past December, I immediately knew it would be the perfect cleansing experience to start the New Year. I was also super excited that I would be meeting one of my favorite writers, Leo Babauta.
Zen Habits is a very popular blog focusing on how to change your habits and attain your goals all while living an intentional and peace seeking life. Leo’s philosophies, many of which are rooted in Buddhism, are ones that are close to my heart and I refer back to the Zen Habits blog many times when I am struggling with difficult concepts ranging from guilt to boredom to regrets and need some guidance or a kick in the right direction. I was a little anxious because sometimes meeting people you admire online IRL can be disheartening if they end up not living up to the image you built up in your head. But I am thrilled to report Leo was absolutely as down to earth, authentic and peaceful as I had hoped and I got a tremendous amount of value out of the workshop. And the timing could not have been better with the New Year upon us. Anish and I are all about approaching our work and life with even greater mindfulness and focus in 2018.
That said, my top three key takeaways from the Zen Productivity Workshop were:
1 — Remove Obstacles To Keep Up Those Good Habits.
Make whatever new habit you want to incorporate into your life as EASY to do as possible by removing as many obstacles to successfully completing the habit as you can. We discussed the fact that NONE of us have an unlimited reserve of will power so don’t worry it’s not just you! In order to really accomplish what we want and to fight all the fears, uncertainty and distractions that come up to block us from attaining our goals, we need to make any new habit or action as easy as we can to do. If we want to meditate every morning, we need to make getting to the cushion as seamless as possible and remove any distractions that you notice getting in your way. One option might be not having your phone right next to you as you sleep (gulp), or having a banana nearby if you notice that it’s hunger that first calls you away from the habit. By setting up ways to trick your mind into thinking the habit is easy, you have a greater chance of success. **I found this helpful and comforting because it wasn’t just me that had the procrastination, renegotiation demons in my head trying to convince me to sleep for 20 more minutes rather than do some morning stretches. And if even a zen master like Leo Babauta sets himself up for success through small but meaningful actions, maybe there was hope for the rest of us after all.
2 — Clear Your Phone and Make it a Sanctuary
My absolute favorite practical tip of the workshop was to acknowledge and attack the giant distraction elephant in the room — our phones. Leo offered a suggestion that we remove all apps from our phone so that our home screen is basically empty. It seemed daunting at first but after spending about an hour clearing and rearranging my apps and turning off all notifications from them, I became increasingly comfortable with the method. My phone became a powerful visual reminder to take intentional digital steps. By hiding the apps it didn’t mean I couldn’t access them if I really needed, it just meant I had to do it more intentionally. This tip was part of a larger point of also making it HARD to do things that distract us. Much of the time we spend on our phones, we are mindlessly scrolling through things whether on social media, Instagram (my weakness), and even email or Whatsapp just because it is so damn easy. By removing all notifications, I could choose when to check my messages and make it a more conscious act. I can honestly say that since I implemented this one I haven’t wasted as much time because I can’t just easily reach for them on my phone without asking myself — do I really want to be doing this or am I just running away from doing the thing that I should be doing because they are harder to do? Check out my beautiful new home screens below. I start off every morning with a short 10 minute meditation (keeping to realistic goals with two young kids), 4–5 sentences of journaling and 10 minutes planning my goals for the day using Simplish.
3 — Identify What or Who You are Truly Willing to Endure Uncertainty and Discomfort For
Another powerful piece of advice that was an important theme throughout the weekend was to really dig deep and choose a significant WHO, WHAT or WHY you were willing to put up with your discomfort or uncertainty surrounding a task for. Leo strongly believed that any procrastination or stress about completing an important task or project was due to a deeper reason of wanting to avoid the uncertainty (will I succeed, will I fail, will everyone read what I wrote and hate it). So if we could find a reason that was even bigger than that discomfort, we would have the strength to resist falling prey to it.
Many times I have struggled with staying on task for some of the nitty gritty tasks of having a freelancing consulting business with my husband (dealing with insurance, maintaining LLC paperwork, following up with leads, invoicing clients) because I find them annoying and I push them away up until there is a deadline and then it becomes stressful. By keeping centered on why I am doing this — to maintain our flexible nomadic lifestyle, have more time with our kids, and the freedom to travel — I zoom out of focusing so much on the value of the individual task completion and its importance and being frustrated or stressed by it. I have started feeling more motivated to do it when I can look at it as part of a broader and more important context or story. So now any time I start complaining in my mind or (out loud to Anish :) about what needs to get done, I have a way of talking myself into doing it because it is for something truly important to us.
There is so much more I learned from the workshop but in keeping with the concept of simplicity I will leave it at this for today.
Bottom line is if you get the chance, attend one of Leo Babauta’s workshops. I left the weekend feeling calmer, refreshed and with some practical and spiritual tools to approach my work and life. Not too shabby.
What are some of your favorite daily zen productivity tips? Share them below.
Curious to learn more about Simplish? Stay tuned. We’ll be launching soon.
