We all want to be more productive, right? But, are we incorporating habits and routines in our life to achieve that goal? I believe people misunderstand productivity as a whole, because productivity is a RESULT.
You cannot be productive by reading a book, or by watching tutorials. Productivity is a result that comes from making everyday choices that are good for you. Converting every day choices into habits and routines. Choosing long-term clarification instead of short-term dopamine hits.
You want to choose to sit down and do certain tasks versus being interrupted by social media every five minutes. Either you put your phone away, turn it off, delete social media, or whatever works for you.
These mini actions are steps towards becoming more focused and channeling your attention into one thing.
You need to ask yourself, what is this one thing you want to focus on, and then you have to shut down everything around you until you achieve it.
These actions will lead to the desired result: productivity.
How to get more done
Every time you make a choice you choose if you are doing it for the long term, or if you are doing it for the fun of now but knowing the consequences of it later.
You become productive when your focus is lasered into this one thing and you will become faster even if you do it slower.
There are people with ADHD for instance, who struggle to focus long-term.
I always tell my clients to break down their tasks into smaller chunks: 5 to 10-minute tasks. For this period of time they will shut down everything, and they will reward their brain with 2 minute break time, where they will get distracted, but only for 2 minutes before coming back to the 10 minutes task.
I can assure you that if you follow this pattern, you will get more things done, even though you are distracted for 2 minutes every ten minutes and you are interrupted a lot. But your brain will think “if I focus for ten minutes, I will be rewarded with 2 minutes of distraction”.
You will be able to focus better.
When this is applied, even people with ADHD lose interest in being distracted all the time so the focus section gets longer, and the distractions get shorter. And this is great progress.
It is a bit like training your brain to focus for longer periods of time.
It is important to talk about efficiency and effectiveness here.
Efficiency is how well you can do things in the shortest time.
Effectiveness is how much quality work you can do in the fastest steps.
Productivity is an outcome, you do all of these things, you create all these habits and routines, you make these choices, and in the end, the result is productivity “yes” or “no”.
The importance of habits and routines to be more productive
I keep reading from people online that you don’t need habits and routines to be successful.
But if you think about it, the brain, every cell in our body works on structures, repetitive patterns, and routines. You can be successful without habits and routines, but you are making your life harder. We want to provide our brain with the easiest way to work. This is why it is important to incorporate habits and routines in our life in order to be more productive.
You need to look at what you want to achieve. Ask yourself, what is the one thing in the morning that you want to feel different about?
For instance, you may want to feel more focused, more relaxed, more peaceful, or more energetic when you wake up, so you can plan your morning routine based on this.
If you want to be calmer in the morning, you will probably want to meditate.
Same to the morning routine you can also create an evening routine. The goal is to sleep better. There is some “sleep hygiene” you should be doing, and include some habits and routines you should incorporate to have better sleep.
For instance, taking a shower before going to bed. Journaling so your brain doesn’t have to think about everything before going to sleep. Stretching is always good. Get away from any devices that have artificial lights two hours before you go to sleep like phones, TV, etc.
How to use circadian rhythm to be more productive
I keep reading from people online that you don’t need habits and routines to be successful.
I developed what I call Chrono-Energy types.
A circadian rhythm is a 24-hour clock in your biological rhythm. For example the sleeping cycle. These biological cycles come together as circadian rhythms.
I look at how our energies come in the day for the different types of Chrono-Energy.
Some people can wake up and run a marathon and some people can wake up and not be able to talk until they have a cup of coffee.
If you want to know your Chrono Energy type, you can take the quiz here.
This quiz is based on the mental capacity and energy flow throughout the day, and what actions and activities I recommend doing to make the best out of your energy, and recovering that energy during the day so that you have more energy again later too, versus dropping your energy battery,
A lot of people are against their biological rhythm without even knowing it because that is what the 9 to 5 forces us to do.
The “owls” for example are more energized later in the evening, and if they are forced to wake up and go to work in the morning, they will not be productive at all, and they will always be criticized, get bad feedback because we have never taken into context that people have different times in the day where they are more energetic and productive.
You need to understand that there is no one way of doing something.
There is no one way how you should be working.
There is always a different solution.
There are plenty of ways of doing things and only your way is the right one for you.
Do it your way.
Do what works for you.
If you liked this blog post, you will love below episode from the podcast “Unbox Yourself by Shivali Beaktawhere” where I was invited as a guest. We had a great chat about burnout, habits, routines, and productivity.
You can play it here below.
I would love to read your thoughts in the comments section.
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