Nov 25, 2018
These 2 Strategies Will Power Your Productivity in 2019
“Time is what we want most, but what we use worst.”
— William Penn
Most people on the journey to success assume you need to be constantly working to get there.
That every day, you need to accomplish more than you did the day before.
That time spent not working toward your goals is time wasted.
It’s a dangerous fallacy — entirely counterintuitive to everything you are trying to accomplish.
Today, people are more obsessed with being busy than with being productive.
We go around bragging about how much we have on our plate and how little time we have to allocate to anything else besides work. And we do so to give people the illusion of success — we want others to look at us and think, “Wow, that person really has it going on. Do you see how busy they are?”
When you overload yourself with work, overpopulate your daily ‘to-do’ list and commit to too many goals at once, you’re doing more to prevent success than you are to reach it.
Even if you’re an organized, ‘productive’ person who can work all day every day with little to no problem, you’re lacking one crucial element necessary for real success:
The power of reflection.
Just like your muscles need rest after a long workout, your brain needs rest to stay healthy, active, and avoid burnout.
If you’re constantly putting more and more on your plate, you’re going to over-stress and will be unable to think, perform and make connections a high level. You’ll never reach your full potential.
It’s a common theme among the most successful people throughout history to take time and do—well—nothing:
- Both Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates partake in personal ‘think weeks’ where they take time away from work, family, and friends dedicated to deep reflection.
- Stephen King talked about the power of taking a long, reflective, daily walk in his memoir On Writing.
- Richard Branson dedicates time to “mindless” (for lack of a better word) tasks like kite-flying every morning.
The list goes on.
While of course, these individuals spent plenty of time finding their life’s purpose, working on their craft, building a network, they also understood the importance of taking serious time to retreat and reflect. All have been quoted saying it was in these times of deep reflection — whether Gates during a think week or King on a long walk — that some of their greatest revelations came to mind.
If you want to be successful, spend 1 to 2 hours per day doing nothing.
Let me clarify: ‘doing nothing’ does not mean watching Netflix.
It doesn’t mean meeting friends for drinks. And it certainly doesn’t mean wasting time on social media. As contradictory as it sounds, you need to actively do nothing.
Literally — block out time to isolate yourself and try to do as little as possible. Turn your phone off, power down your laptop, and stay as far away from the T.V. as possible. And even though I’m an advocate for exercise, try to avoid doing anything overly strenuous during this time as well.
Use this time to free your mind and completely destress from the busyness that has become such a normality.
For those of you who have a tough time reflecting and really need to be doing something (like myself), here are a few methods that can help you get started on your journey toward relaxation:
- Take a walk — Grab what you need (a healthy snack and some water, really), leave your phone at home, and start walking. You don’t need to have a plan or a specific route in mind — just leave your living space with the intention of clearing your mind.
- Meditate — Take time to ‘be’. When was the last time you took five minutes to sit and breathe? Meditation is huge for giving the brain a break from the busyness we’re so used to. Do it outside or in your room. Wherever you feel the least amount of anxiety, go to that place and spend as much time as you can just breathing.
- Read something different — Dust off that old mystery book from your shelf or grab your favorite childhood story and read that. Don’t go read a book on productivity or business or how to handle your finances — you need a break from all of that. I recently re-read the original Captain Underpants book and felt nothing short of fantastic after doing so.
