There may be hundreds of ideas for being more productive.
But let’s be honest.
We don’t really need to do 100 things or more to have a productive day. That’s the antipode of being productive.
Instead, if you master a few good tricks that work for you, you win the day and therefore your life.
Here are five things that help me stay productive.
See if any of them may work for you.
5 Ways to Be More Productive
1. Start Your Day with 2 or 3 Things to Do
Imagine you’re 5 years old.
Today is your birthday.
Your dad gives you $20, takes you to your favourite toy store, and tells you $20 is all you’re going to get. Make it count, he says.
You think long and hard (as any 5-year-old would!) about what to buy with it.
Every day, ask yourself how best you can trade your time.
Think long and hard, as you would when you have a limited amount of money in your purse.
Time is more vulnerable to misuse than money because you can’t see or feel it like $ in your hand, even though it’s more costly when abused.
We can never get it back, unlike money.
With $20, you can only buy one or two toys. With 24 hours a day, you can only do so much.
You want to make it count by getting your two or three most important things done.
2. Have a Success Ritual
A friend of mine has a Christmas ritual.
She watches, “It’s a Wonderful Life”, every Christmas.
You might have one too. Or some family tradition.
But certain rituals are good to practise every day, like a success ritual, not once a year!
My success ritual is daydreaming along with affirmations.
The trick is to make daydreaming brief. If it’s too long, you’ll likely fall back to sleep!
When I first got into affirmation rituals, I repeated this one powerful mantra throughout the day.
Now I’ve graduated from that one, which is awesome, and have moved on to more positive affirmations.
I always say them before falling asleep. Sometimes, I find myself uttering them automatically when waking up!
It feels like I’m hypnotising myself to success, but doesn’t that sound great?
Daydreaming is wonderful because there’s no limit.
You can achieve anything, absolutely anything, when daydreaming.
Make daydreaming your success ritual.
It’s a surefire way to feel your success every day.
It makes your day forward-looking and intentional, hence more productive.
3. Drink Plenty of Water
Aim to have more water than food.
On average, 60% of an adult’s body is water (compared to 75% in a newborn and 50% in an elderly person).
Our cells need water to live.
Our ancestors hunted for food only when they got hungry. Now we feed ourselves every 30 minutes, like our lives depend on cookies. ha.
We don’t give our bodies a break. It’s overloaded up to the neck, literally.
Wash it all down with water throughout the day.
A well-hydrated body helps you stay focused and productive.
4. Exercise
I remember feeling guilty when I read about the oldest marathon runner in his 80s.
And guess what?
I still did nothing. ha!
Sometimes, we’re just hopeless (but only sometimes…)
After a long time, I finally got a breakthrough and made exercise a habit that stuck.
We develop an innate resistance to obligations.
Whether they’re good for our health or not, we just don’t like things attached to “have to” or “must.”
We brush our teeth every day without thinking because it’s no longer an obligation.
It’s embedded into our routine. We don’t have an internal battle.
Should I or should I not?
When I integrated exercising into my daily activities, it stuck.
I now treat exercising the same as eating, drinking, or brushing my teeth.
Good physical activities, whether lifting weights or taking a power walk, will help you be more productive.
5. Rest Well
I used to walk around with a couple of hours’ sleep, deluding myself that a lack of sleep didn’t affect me.
When you work for someone else, you get a regular paycheck.
Unless you’re paid based on performance, most 9-to-5 jobs require a certain duty to be completed.
Even with brain fog, getting the job done isn’t an issue.
Since turning self-employed, I’ve had to stay sharp throughout the day to produce maximum output.
I had to earn my keep.
Days without a good rest give you a stark contrast in your productivity level.
Final Thoughts
Start your day with the most important 2 or 3 things to do, have your own success ritual you adhere to every day, drink plenty of water, exercise regularly, and sleep well.
When you master all of the above, not only will you have a productive day, you’ll also build a wonderful, healthy, and purposeful life.
You Might Also Enjoy…
- 4 Surprisingly Easy Ways to Stop Procrastinating (That Works for Me Every Day)
- How to Up Your Productivity by 100X Every Day
- 3 Ways to Develop Self-Discipline (You May Not Want to Hear)
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