Meaningful productivity
The best work happens in short intensive deep work spurts (1–3 hours, no distractions).
Your best thinking will actually happen while you’re away from your work, “recovering.” By taking your mind off work and actually recovering, you’ll get creative breakthroughs related to your work.
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Recovery is the process of reducing or eliminating physical and psychological strain/stress caused by work.
This is necessary for staying energetic, engaged, and healthy when facing job demands. Detach completely from work-related activites (including emails) and thoughts during non-work time.
It means you are literally unreachable during certain hours.
Don’t check your social media or email until after your 3 hours of deep work. And schedule all of your meetings for the afternoon, after lunch.
Your morning time should be spent on output, not input.
Spend the first 90 minutes of your workday on your #1 priority, nothing else.
Zero distractions. Just get that work done.
By integrating one “keystone habit,” like exercise or eating healthy, the positivity of that habit ripples into all other areas of your life, improving it.
Because they are a system. When you change a part of any system, you simultaneously change the whole.
...are your most precious for maximized productivity.
Your brain is most attuned first thing in the morning, and so are your energy levels. Consequently, the best time to do your best work is during this time.
Create a planned “if-then”response every time you’re either triggered or tempted to do something you don’t want to do.
This can lead to better goal attainment, as well as help in habit and behavior modification.
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They lock all of your other habits in place.
A person might start exercising once per week, and unknowing begins eating better and being more productive at work. All because she started exercising once per week.
"Keeping a personal journal a daily in-depth analysis and evaluation of your experiences is a high-leverage activity that increases self-awareness and enhances all the endowments and the synergy among them."
- Increases focus;
- Deeper level of learning, order, action, and release;
- Holding thoughts still so they can be changed and integrated;
- Releasing pent-up thoughts and emotions;
- Empowerment;
- Bridging inner thinking with outer events;
- Detaching and letting go of the past;
- Allowing you to re-experience the past with today’s adult mind.
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These are the habits that, once implemented, have a positive impact on many other facets of your life.
Their effect is similar to a domino: all you need to do is perform this one habit and you’ll see the benefits ripple out.
“The power of a keystone habit draws from its ability to change your self-image. Basically anything can become a keystone habit if it has this power to make you see yourself in a different way.”
Exercising regularly is perhaps the most impactful keystone habit you can implement.
When you take up exercising on a regular basis, you start eating healthy. And you start feeling good about your body. You procrastinate less and you get good sleep.
When you get adequate sleep, your mind and body are primed for a productive day.
That means more energy and mental capacity to do the work you want to do — and do it well.
- Early morning hours are prime for productivity: early risers tend to have a higher level of cognition and the ability to solve complex problems.
- The morning is the time when your willpower is at an all-time high: when we wake up, our willpower is still high because we’ve used less of it. As the day goes on, our willpower is depleted.
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- Decide the time you’re going to wake up and set the alarm for that time (put your alarm clock in a different room so you physically have to get out of bed to turn it off).
- Have a few key objectives for your morning.
- Set up literally everything that needs to be set up so that you don’t have to waste mental energy during your morning.
Your behavior defaults to what is most convenient.
For example, if there is junk food in your fridge, you’re probably going to eat it. However, if there is junk food sitting right on top of your kitchen counter or table , your chances of eating it skyrocket.