5 Simple Things Helping Me to Be Productive
Monday, 11 pm. Approximately 5 months ago.
Going to bed with a headache, I couldn’t fall asleep for a long time. It was a disgusting day. During previous 17 hours I tried to do a lot of things, but lying in bed, I realized that had done absolutely nothing…
It pissed me off. Eventually, I asked myself:
“Why sleeping for 5–6 hours a day and devoting all possible time to tasks, I don’t achieve any results?”
This question worried me so much that the next morning, first of all, I tried to find an answer to it. Naturally, a full understanding of the problem came much later.
The reason of my underachievement was in my unproductivity.
The next 3 months I devoted to research. I read a lot of articles about productivity. Some of them were too complex and impractical, but several had an influence on me, being made my life more enjoyable and easier.
I’ve determined for myself 5 simple things which help me to be productive. And they can also help you!
But before you get to know them, I want you to ask yourself a stupid question: “What is productivity?”
Don’t worry if you answered it incorrectly, most of us can’t answer it. Maybe because we’ve never thought it over before.
Productivity is the ability of a person to perform a certain number of actions in a certain time.
It’s a skill. Some people believe that it’s possible to sit down, read some tips and become a productive person. No, like any other skill, productivity needs practice.
The most important principle I’ve found out is
Productivity requires an integrated approach.
It means if you don’t follow at least one thing, you won’t likely be productive.
There are 5 things helping me to be productive.
- Daily regime
- Task planning
- Research
- Healthy lifestyle
- Positive mood
Thing #1: Daily regime
Sleeping
Lack of sleep and excessive sleep destroy our productivity. You might have thought that it’s another one article about 8 hours of “optimal” sleep. No, it’s not so obvious. In fact, you really should sleep 7–8 hours a day but don’t forget that all people are individual, and it’s impossible to determine the optimal sleeping time for all. Experiment. Quite possibly you will feel better sleeping 7.10 or 7.35 hours, not 8.
Awakening
The most productive hours are the morning. That’s why it’s so important to start your day early. Determine for yourselves when you’re waking up. Whether it’s 4, 5 or 6 am, you should always adhere to this time. Otherwise, you may experience energy drops.
Evening routine
Analyse the day you’ve spent. It helps to reflect on things that are important to you and avoid repetition of your mistakes in the future. Ask yourself what kind of progress did you make? What worked and didn’t work today? What made you happy?
Thing #2: Task planning
Planning is one of the most important steps on the way to high productivity. A plan helps to free up your head space and reduce worry. Don’t feel sorry to spend more time on this. Every minute of planning saves five of execution.
Make a habit to spend an hour of Sunday evening (or any other part of the day if you like) planning tasks for the forthcoming week. You can use either paper diaries and copybooks or different apps like “Todoist” and “Things3”.
Long-term goals
All successful people I know also set long-term goals. Write down what you want to achieve by the end of the month and year. It will make you more purposeful and deliberate.
Short-term planning and prioritization
Spend 10 minutes of your evening to make tomorrow productive. Set tasks which should have done by tomorrow evening. It will help you to work purposefully, not just improvising.
There are different ways of prioritizing tasks but to my mind, the most effective is “Trio of Important Tasks”.
Pinpoint your top three — and only three — most crucial to-dos for tomorrow.
“Once you’ve identified what’s important, you’ll often find it’s not many things”
You can also apply this method to weekly, monthly, and annual planning.
Thing #3: Research
We all heard the phrase: “You don’t know for sure until you try”. It’s necessary to invest some time working on atypical ideas. While it might seem like a waste of time, it is important to think outside of the box and make sure you don’t get into ruts of ideas. The easiest way to break out of that is working on something that sounds foolishly.
Sometimes, we also come across something that goes wrong. At such moments it’s important to take a break and put everything in order. When you find out what exactly is wrong, you save your time and nerves.
Every week allocate 2 hours for research. No matter what day of the week it is but most prefer Friday or Saturday.
Thing #4: Healthy Lifestyle
To be a productive person means always be able to take right decisions and use all the possibilities of life. Neither one thing nor the other available to unhealthy people. Therefore you should be completely healthy. There are some tips helping to keep oneself in order.
Exercise
Working out is the single best way to get good health and more energy. And it doesn’t just energize you; exercise also combats disease, brightens your mood, and helps you sleep better.
Choose healthy foods
What you eat has a huge effect on your energy levels. The worse you eat, the quicker you’ll burn out, and the less energy you’ll have to get stuff done.
Don’t skimp on sleep
Studies have shown that those who sleep less tend to weigh more.
Avoid unhealthy habits
(It’s definitely not about me but many of my friends suffering because of this)
Avoid smoking and alcohol intake. Smoking is associated with a variety of health risks, including heart or liver disease and many cancers. Alcohol is also associated with health risks, including liver disease, cancer, heart disease, alcohol poisoning, and depression.
Thing #5: Positive mood
Be positive in any situation!
Yes, I know, sometimes it’s really hard. Howbeit, the negative won’t exactly make you more productive. And the last:
Want to be truly productive?
Learn to handle stress. Try to put yourself in a more optimistic, can-do mood. Keep everyday practice and remember:
“Nothing is impossible.”
