Becoming a Productivity Ninja
The art of getting stuff done…
The problem statement
Are there times when you feel that you are not getting anywhere with your life? When you seem to have an unending list of to-do items and there is a general sense that with every passing day you seem to be inflating your backlog. Every night before going to bed, you make up your mind and motivate yourself to change it all, and every time you come to a realization that you are failing. So where exactly does the problem lie? Well, It all comes down to one common mistake that we all make, we rely on motivation.
What exactly is motivation?
Motivation is the desire to commit to a goal, keeping in mind the rewards that goal is going to fetch us, that is, we have a result in mind and it, in turn, drives us towards our end goal.
The problem with motivation
Now imagine yourself getting highly motivated to do a certain task, only to wake up the following morning to realize that you are no longer motivated to accomplish it. You may want to read some inspirational material or watch some video to get yourself motivated again but it is unreliable. You may conclude that you no longer feel motivated towards the goal or you may feel re-motivated only to give up the task later on.
Motivation plays all of its cards betting on something as fragile as human emotion
How many times have you faced a similar situation? It’s certainly very common because motivation plays all of its cards betting on something as fragile as human emotion, and that is why my friends’ motivation is a myth.
Yes!!! I said it — “Motivation is a myth”.
The Solution!!!
There is only one way to consistently deliver on your goals with strong reliability and it all comes down to one factor — Self-Discipline.
Self-Discipline is the ability to get yourself to take action regardless of your emotional state.
Now I know this is not a groundbreaking discovery that we have made here, in fact, almost everyone knows the value of discipline, the concept is widely known and accepted, but what is tough to do is the implementation. The next section of the article focuses on practical ideas that you can utilize to nurture the plant known as self-discipline.
Practical Ideas that work
I have been trodding and tumbling on the path of self-discipline for quite some time now, and still have a long way to go, but when I look at my younger self I realize the progress made on an individual level. I have experimented with a ton of productivity techniques, models, ideas, and here is a small subset of the same that seemed to work best in my case.
The fruit of Pomodoro!!
Okay, so this is not a fruit, but you can rest assured that the fruits of applying this technique in your day-to-day activities will give you instant results. Also, this is one technique that seems to work from Day-1, of course, you become more efficient at it as time passes. The concept is really simple:
- You break your day into 25 min chunks separated by 5 min breaks, each such interval is called a Pomodoro
- For each Pomodoro concentrate on a single task at hand and give 100% commitment to it
- After every 4 Pomodoros take a longer break of 15–20 mins
Working in time blocks is an effective strategy to use time wisely. It allows you to focus on one task at a time, limits distraction and procrastination. The Pomodoro technique works on the underlying principle that the timer instills a sense of urgency. Forcing 5-minute breaks also ensures that you don’t burn yourself out.
One Space, One Activity….
The concept behind is fairly simple, our external environment tends to affect our internal thoughts. Using this concept what we are necessarily trying to accomplish is to equip ourselves with the environmental cues that would drive our productivity habits.
You assign a particular space to a particular activity and with time your brain draws a subconscious association between the space and the activity. For eg: you can have your work desk as your primary space for office work, you can have a specific spot in the living room to read, you can have your balcony space assigned to performing workouts or pushups, etc. So now every time you sit at your reading spot you get an inherent urge to read.
You can also customize your space according to the activity associated to further enhance your productivity, for eg: the spot you choose for reading should be well lit, the space you have assigned for your workouts can have motivational wall paintings, etc.
Habit Stacking
A very simple concept, with amazing results. The last section encouraged drawing associations between your habits and your environment. Here we want you to draw associations between your habits. You need to draw a 1:1 association between two habits, such that every time you are done with activity 1 you have an activity 2 that is lined up.
After Activity-A I will do Activity-B
Over time you stack one habit on top of each other and before you realize it, you have a productivity stack of hobbies that you can accomplish due to your daily habits. To quote an example, I started by fixing my bedtime schedule, I then placed a book next to my pillow and took a resolution to read for at least 2 pomodoros(my standard unit of time right now) once I woke up. The next step included drinking a tumbler of water after I was done reading, similarly, I kept on stacking habits on top of each other and now I have what others call “a productive morning routine”.
Tip: After Activity-A, I will do Activity-B(which I don’t like but is required) and then I will do Activity-C(which I like). This would provide you the reward factor to keep on working on Activity-B.
Prioritization Pyramid
This is a concept that’ll help you determine whether the stuff you are doing at the moment is the best thing you could be doing at that time. The underlying principle is simple, you need to label the pending items as part of either of the following 4 labels :
- Level 1 — Adds value to the entire life(Personal level, eg: spending time with the most important people in your lives, working out, nutrition intake, etc).
- Level 2 — High Added value per hour(Professional level, eg: reading, planning, networking, updating yourself on a new technology stack)
- Level 3 — Low added value per hour(Professional level, eg: cleaning up emails, paying bills, finishing reports, and other maintenance tasks.)
- Level 4 — Zero or negative value per unit(Mostly personal level, eg: gossiping, aimlessly surfing the net, unhealthy eating)
An ideal productivity pyramid has Level 1 activities as its base and then narrowly grows up to levels 2,3 and 4 in the shape of a pyramid. The reason being level 1 activities give meaning to our lives and govern our inherent happiness. Most people have their productivity pyramid, the inverse of what it should be.
So take out your notebook assign each activity a level and see how your productivity pyramid looks and reprioritize.
Conclusion
If you have made it this far, it means that you do realize that there is a problem with your approach to handling tasks and you also have the positive inclination towards changing all of that. This means that you already had the necessary thought and you just needed a plan of action.
Well, I have just given you a handful of tools that you can exercise from this moment on and fill in the void that exists between your thoughts and actions. So keep your head down, focus and Act!!!!
