Loving and Losing: different only by one letter and a zillion degrees of pain.
Real love doesn’t meet you at your best. It meets you in your mess.
To be honest life sucks and then it gets better and then it sucks again and then it just sucks!
All these wonderful eye-catching quotes, I read it somewhere, pleased my eyes, cool. That’s how the quotes work. Instant pleasure and, that’s it. You know that right?
But it has little to do with our today’s post! Read on you’ll find out.
Well, today I’m going to address the topic: “5 habits that will boost your productivity”
You might have felt this before.
You’re on a social network, scrolling through your feed devouring post after post of “valuable” content and inspiring information.
You start getting pumped up, don’t you? I know I do.
It feels great to look at other people doing really well and think to yourself, “Hey! That could be me!”
It feels even better to read a motivational quote that really resonates with you and think, “Damn! This was the exact advice I needed!”
In the back of our minds, we think that with the right inspiration or motivation, everything will be different.
“It’ll all change, I just have to get motivated.”
Then…nothing changes.
Inspirational quotations might have an immediate positive effect or resonate with some people some of the time.
However, these benefits typically tend to be short-lived. This is a characteristic of any other type of quick fix.
So I compare these inspirational quotations to be similar to placing a band-aid on a gaping wound.
They simply are not sufficient nor helpful in the long run to completely or correctly address people’s issues.
Irony: I’m using quotes to quote that quotes suck! 🙂
Whatever! Let’s keep on moving.
We even trick ourselves into thinking that we’ll finally find our way if we just do enough “research” first.
Think back to all those late nights you spent “researching” your newest obsession…or watching YouTube tutorials for hours trying to “figure things out.”
It felt good, didn’t it? It felt like you were making progress because you were pouring energy into something that felt real.
But after months of research and wrestling with ideas, you know what happens to most of us?
Nothing.
Nothing changes.
Does this sound similar to you?
read on…
The idea behind such happening is simple: it feels good to think about all the wonderful changes we’re going to make in our life.
It feels good to think about the person we’re going to become when we finally “get our shit together.”
In fact, it feels so good that we often mistake our fantasies of a better life for actually building a better life.
But after we’re done vigorously thinking about all these great things…we often don’t have the energy to actually do anything about them. It’s like playing FIFA 18 on PC rather than going out and, ya know, doing the real thing.
We spend all our energy in the fantasy world and leave nothing for the real world.
But hold on…
Today is your lucky day. I’m going to share five awesome habits that’ll surely help you to rake in more productivity at your work or studies.
But first I want you to stand up, shake your fist at the sky and say, “NO MORE!”
Here it is then, they are all insights that have helped me get over the endless cycle of non-action and finally start getting results in my life.
1. Stop watching so much television/Netflix/YouTube. Seriously 🙂
Even if you’re only watching 2 hours a day before/after work( I know you watch a lot more), that’s over 700 hours per year of energy spent on something with literally no return.
Yes, there are some great shows. I like Stranger things, Breaking Bad and Game of Thrones. But if we’re being honest, 98 percent of TV sucks. We just watch it because we need to “relax” and we feel like there’s nothing else to do.
This philosophy applies to movies, too. Most of the time, we just watch movies because we feel like there’s nothing better to do. I’ve watched hundreds of movies last year that, after two hours, simply made me go “meh.” What a waste.
This is the empty time when you should be working on your idea. This is the time you have to start plotting your escape.
If there’s a particular show that you really love, block out time for that particular show every week and when it’s over, turn the TV off. When you want it, make it count. If it’s not a “hell yes!” then forget it.
It’s really that simple.
2. Invest in a hobby 🙂
If you’re cutting out TV, one of the best things to replace it with is a book. Reading has always been one of my hobbies, but more than that, it’s the best way to solve problems.
As you start reading more, you’ll start getting many more ideas and increasing your creativity.
For those that say reading is boring, or it makes you fall asleep…just like anything, learning to read while staying attentive and focused is a skill. It takes time, and it’s work. But it’s literally the best thing you can do for yourself. Other than reading you can write, draw, sing, or even make comic strips. Whatever makes you happy.
3. Don’t stay up late in the night 🙂
There’s nothing interesting happening. Trust me.
I used to have a really bad habit of staying up until past 1 Am every night. I think in the back of my mind, I was thinking that if I went to bed early, I’d miss out on something important. Results? I’d end up waking 11:00 in the morning, skipping morning exercise and breakfast altogether. My whole day used to be lethargic too.
On my Mom’s advice, I started going to bed earlier. It sucked initially, you know, the biological clock. Eventually, I got into the routine.
Waking up early is a big key to getting more done. But you don’t wake up earlier by simply changing your alarm from 7am to 5am.
Your morning starts the night before. The earlier you go to bed, the better you feel when you wake up.
Seriously, just go to bed. Not watching TV helps with this because you don’t do that thing where you lay on the couch in a half coma, too tired to go to bed…but too alert to fall completely asleep.
I aim for lights out at 11-11:30 pm these days and wake up around 6:30 or 7am. And if you do this consistently, you’ll find you won’t even need an alarm clock to wake up. Pretty awesome. My mom wake ups at 5:00 am without any alarm.
4. Create a simple morning routine 🙂
The human brain craves consistency. Whether you realize it or not, you’ve already created dozens of patterns and habits in your life in order to make your life more consistent.
You can take control of this process by creating your own positive routines and sticking to them.
Start by deliberately creating a short list of things you’re going to do every morning, without fail. Make those activities simple enough that you won’t constantly find an excuse to avoid them…but powerful enough to actually have an impact on your life.
I spend the first few hours of my day making my bed, exercising and jogging. This is “me” time when I don’t field requests from other people. I make sure to carve this out before I get to my studies or college.
Don’t have a few hours in the morning? Start with 30 minutes. Just center yourself before you have to run off and report somewhere.
Here’s my recommendation
#1. Make your bed.
#2. Do a Light exercise.
#3. Read a newspaper/ a few pages of a novel.
5. Be mindful of the social media 🙂
Social media is integral to the way most of us live our lives now, so I’m not going to tell you to give it up. But how about this…
Monitor yourself. Don’t allow yourself to scroll and endlessly refresh the feed bouncing from page to page.
Don’t succumb to the tiny hits of dopamine you get every time someone “likes” a post.
Use it as a tool to keep up with people you care about, not as a way to take up valuable time you could be doing meaningful work.
I have a little two-minute timer that goes off in my head. If I start scrolling and fall into the vortex, after two minutes, I just shut down the app and put the phone aside. You could also try this digital – detox challenge started by fellow blogger Sumeet here.
Seriously. You’re not missing anything.
I recommend using Quora and Linkedin. Avoid Facebook and Instagram.
So in the end…
I hope these lil’ tidbits don’t inspire you. I hope they don’t motivate you at all.
Why?
Because inspiration and motivation are fleeting. They’ll disappear as soon as you close this article. And they have to be reapplied CONSTANTLY.
Inspiration and motivation aren’t the same things like change.
The change means that you saw something, read something, heard something and felt something. It resonated so deeply that you can’t possibly live your life the same way as you did 30 seconds ago.
Something was one way. Now it’s another. That’s change.
Change is the power behind all of humanity’s greatest accomplishments.
Change is the power behind all the earth’s natural mysteries.
Change is what you feel when you fall in love.
Whatever you’ve been waiting on is actually waiting for you. But you’ll have to change in order to get it.
Thank you so much for reading!
Thank you, Guys! My blog just hit 1337 followers! Here’s something about the number 1337.
The Angel number 1337 carries a message from the angels telling you that they are happy and commend your efforts and the successes that come as a result. The angel number also tells you that you are teaching other people well by leading by an example.
Many thanks to my favorite blogger Manuela for nominating me for the Awesome Impact award.
Do check out her blog for a positive and wonderful experience.
EDIT: Just got a notification that this is my 200th post on WordPress. Thank you so much, readers. It’s quite an achievement for me. I could not have accomplished this without your love and support!
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