In the current digital age, we are exposed to a tons of information and frequently puzzled by different means of distraction all along the day.We feel that our working time is constantly shattered into thousands shards of digital distractions. Pulling us from being in a deep thinking mind state, and never allowing us to settle, reflect and reach a deeper meaning in our life.Our productivity and achievement levels have been remarkably degraded.So what is Distraction? How we can overcome it and improve our focus ability?

The Digital Disarray Era

Distractions can give us a sort of short pleasure but makes us feel sad in the long run.Two type of Distractions:<ul><li>External (Conversations, noises, Mobile, TV ..)</li><li>Internal (Thoughts, hesitation, anxiety, procrastination..)</li></ul>

What is Distraction?

<ul><li>Focus must be cultivated, and learned.</li><li>Focus requires daily practices and discipline.</li></ul>

What You Need?

<ul><li>Make a list of distraction sources that are pulling your attention (self questioning)</li><li>Remove source of distractions Or Remove yourself from it</li><li>Watch Focus progress within 15min intervals.</li><li>In case of failure to focus ⇒ Stop doing, start reflecting on why you can’t Focus.</li></ul>

Eliminating The External Distraction (Daily practice)

Internal hesitation basically happens when prioritizing things over others without considering own life values and goals. (E.g. going for a birthday’s party instead of preparing tomorrow’s job interview, torn between friendships and career).<ul><li class="ql-align-justify">Reflect on your life values and prioritizing them correctly, this acts as a compass guiding you through life and giving meaning in all your actions.</li><li class="ql-align-justify">The more our values and priorities are in the perfect order this would lead to the most meaningful life we could live.</li></ul>

Eliminating The Internal Distraction 

“When two values are in conflict inside of us, we need to place our values in their correct order to eliminate this internal distraction”

Being focused in our daily life is becoming more and more difficult amid the digital disarray we are living in. Here is a simple and practical guide to turn yourself into a laser focused person.

productivity

Productivity

How to improve your focus level in the digital disarray era?

<ul><li>Self discipline is one of the most important skills to learn in life. </li><li>By having the ability to control your feelings, emotions, what you do, you are more likely to be successful.</li></ul>-By no means it is easy

Why Is Self Discipline Important? 

Learning how to gain self discipline is a game-changer! The following five steps will help you on your journey:

How To Develop Self Discipline? 

In an ideal situation, you can do anything you wish whether you feel like it or not. But that's not possible if your starting from scratch. First start with something small like drinking water every morning or practicing gratitude, start small. Your consistency will build confidence in your ability to follow though.

1. Be Consistent With Small Habits. 

What distracts you? What are your temptations? Maybe you are well aware of them. Chances are you many not able to fully cut them off, you still can reduce them. <ul><li class="ql-align-justify">By decreasing the number of things that can derail you, your energy and effort are spent on important tasks</li><li class="ql-align-justify">Removal is one of the main keys to improving self-discipline because it allows you to have better control of your habits.</li></ul>

Reduce Distractions Or Temptations

Eating nutritious food, drinking plenty of water, exercising, and getting enough sleep makes a massive impact.<ul><li>If you’re not taking care of your health, improving your self-discipline will be challenging.</li><li>When you’re health is in check, you’ll feel better. Although you still have to complete the tasks ahead of you, you’ll go in feeling good.</li></ul>Another aspect of health is taking breaks. Being self-disciplined doesn’t mean you’re working 10 hours a day without taking a break<ul><li>Schedule a time to relax, catch some fresh air or catch up with friends. Never over work your self</li></ul>

Taking Care Of Your Health

Having support is essential. It can be friends, family or even a online group<ul><li>Not only will they hold you accountable, but they’ll also encourage you to continue developing your self</li><li>Things won't always be smooth sailing. They’ll help you get through the tough times, discomfort, and temptation to take the easy way out.</li><li>Your support system needs to have people that genuinely care and want you to succeed.</li><li>It may be difficult to find the right people, but it’s worth doing.</li></ul>

Get Support. 

You're not going to be perfect. Building self discipline is a life long journey. You can get better at it but perfection? That's impossible.<ul><li>When you experience failure, get back up and keep going.</li><li>It’s also important to forgive yourself, don’t use failure as a reason to stop.</li><li>Don’t be too hard on yourself. New things can be difficult. Naturally, you’ll want to stay in your comfort zone.</li><li> Applaud yourself for your commitment to building self-discipline and keep going.</li></ul>

Get Back Up, And Keep On Going! 

<ul><li>Self discipline helps make progress and active goal</li><li>It's may not be easy but most definitely is worth it</li></ul>

Conclusion:

Self discipline is not doing what you don't want to do, but it's self love. You love your self that much that you will do what you need to do. (Hope that made sense) 

Self-discipline is the ability to control your feelings and what you do even if you don't feel like doing it. Learn how to do it.

personaldevelopment

Personal Development

health

Health

habits

Habits

How to Improve Your Self-Discipline (5 Ways That Work) - Next Level Gents

The less important something is, the more time is spent on it.
When a topic is simple and easy to grasp, like a bike shed, we will tend to have an opinion on it and thus more to say.
Even if we don't, we'll still say something so that:
<ul>
<li>We don't look stupid in front of our peers.</li>
<li>It looks like we're contributing.</li>
</ul>
Prevent bike-shedding with a clear purpose and objective. Ensure that your meetings have a clearly defined purpose or desired outcome.

Bike-Shedding or Parkinson’s Law of Triviality

<ul><li>Fewer cooks in the kitchen generally leads to a better meal.</li><li>Be ruthless about limiting the size of the meeting.</li><li>If a big meeting is unavoidable, do your best to share both the purpose and relevant information ahead of time to increase the chances that participants will have something of value to say</li></ul>

Less Is More

<ul><li>Identify trivial matters ahead of time and delegate them to individuals or smaller groups that are empowered to make decisions without the full group’s approval</li><li>This ensures that everyone is on the same page about what should and shouldn’t be discussed.</li></ul>

Delegate Trivial Matters

<ul><li>Don't engage more than you have to.</li><li>Save your voice for moments when you can contribute meaningfully.</li><li>Speak softly and carry a big stick.</li><li>Protect your energy and mental health by resisting the temptation to participate just because everyone else is.</li></ul>

Be Aware and Pick Your Battles

We focus on trivia at the expense of more important issues. Why does this happen and what we can do about it?

timemanagement

Time Management

leadershipandmanagement

Leadership & Management

Why We Spend So Much Time at Work on Things that Don't Matter

The mobile home screen is the biggest time sink of today. I realized keeping my home screen minimal dramatically reduced my tendency to check apps with no prime purpose.p.s- I'm using a productivity launcher since the start of this year and it's amazing!

#1. De-clutter Your Mobile Home Screen

Remember that we are trying to fight the best behavioral scientists in the world whose job is to keep us hooked to our apps.Poor chance we will win.Install time blockers!

#2. Put Time Limits On All Apps Where You Tend To Waste Time

You will not be able to fight distraction if your mobile screen is constantly pinging with what's happening, or your screen shows you how many messages you've missed!Remove all of them. It should look like this, all the time.

#3. Remove All Notifications And Red Color Badges

One of the worst things we do to ourselves is to wake up just in time for our day.We feel rushed.It disorients us. For the entire day. The first thing I do is sip water for 15 mins.No phone. No book. No music. No person.Just me, water, and my thoughts.

#4. Wake up Slow

If our glucose levels go down, we feel drained out of energy.If they remain too high, we tend to overeat.

#5. Maintain Your Glucose Levels Sideways

We all have a zone where we are most productive.Guard that period ferociously. Schedule the toughest or most impactful things for that period. For me, it is my mornings. Reserved for the most important things with most of it thinking time

#6. Find your max energy period

A powerful way to keep your mind focused.A 30-min slot is 1 pomodoro25 mins of work5 mins of breakRepeatAfter 4 pomodoros, take a long 20-30 min break. Download a Pomodoro timer - there are plenty of good ones.

#7. Use Pomodoro Technique

Your mind should be used to think.Not to remember.Use the calendar, emails, and notes app to record everything.From to-do lists to reminders and beyond.

#8. Do Not Try To Remember Anything

We are living in a world of information abundance. And the more sources you have of information, the more you will constantly be consuming, as against doing real work.

#9. Restrict Information To Max 3 Sources

Even with 3 sources, you could spend your entire day consumed by them.Schedule time for them.

#10. Schedule time for these sources

We crave distraction because it is the forbidden fruit.Dopamine is addictive. You could fight it by setting up a scheduled time to "waste time"Our mind then anticipates it, instead of craving it.

#11. Setup distraction time

When we write we tell our brain that this is important.Which is one of the best ways to get our mind off that thing. So the next time you feel distracted, just write down that thought.

#12. Keep a  journal for distracting thoughts

Our mind is designed to focus on things that we haven't finished, as against things that we have. Do not add to your pile of unfinished things.

#13. If anything can be done in 2 mins and needs to be done, do it.

Nothing beats distraction than having a routine. The absence of which is you willingly giving away control of your day to external stimuli.

#14. Maintain a routine

This thread will help you in cutting the distraction off and doing more with our time!

14 Ways To Beat Distraction🚫

Productivity is a skill that can be learned.A shared Gmail inbox on steroids.Drag lets you and your team work together directly inside Gmail.Through a combination of collaboration, productivity, and workflow tools like:<ul><li>Kanban boards</li><li>Team chats</li><li>Shared labels</li><li>Email tracking, & more.</li></ul>

Drag app

Reminders — with a sting!Track any goal you can plot on a graph.Weight, exercises, time spent on an app, etc.As you enter data it’s added to your graph.Fall below your goal & you’ll be charged an amount you determine. Stay above & it’s free.

Beeminder

A new one I stumbled across this week while surfing the ol’ interweb.At first glance, it feels like the best parts of Notion, Slack, & G-Docs all rolled into one.A collaborative space built for remote work + tons of free templates to get you started.

Slite

There’s only one thing we can never have enough of — time.With Rescuetime’s automatic tracking & time management software you can:<ul><li>See a clear picture of your day</li><li>Measure where your time is really spent</li><li>Know the truth about what distracts you</li></ul>

RescueTime

Hive turns multi-step projects into simple workflows.<ul><li>Map out project timelines</li><li>Simplify complex approval processes</li><li>Utilize templates to save time on repetitive tasks.</li></ul>

Hive

I love being productive every day as it helps me sort out all my priorities very quickly. Being Productive is a superpower we all must acquire early in our lives. So, for this same quest, I keep…

remotework

Remote Work

teamwork

Teamwork

5 Free Tools That Will Make You More Productive In 2022

Write Your To-do List On Paper: Writing your tasks on a sheet of paper and keeping it at a visible range, will help your stay focused.

Write Your To-do List On Paper

This may sound limiting, especially in this era of remote work and freelancing. The idea is to have a space, place, or, sometimes outfit that puts you in work mode, even if you are a freelancer or globetrotter. Having this in place will help program your mind to switch into work mode easily.

Have Designated Workspace 

If the nature of your work permits it, and most work does, take all your work offline. This will keep your brain at an optimal level of functioning. Some professionals use devices that block out the Internet, i.e, EMP, in their work area, to help them maintain selective attention for a long time.

Take Your Work Offline 

If you can’t take your work offline, don’t connect any social media account to your desktop.  Connect only your work to the Internet. Also, muting your email notifications will help you focus more.

Don't Connect Your Social Media Accounts To Your Desktop 

Taking a significant break after a long period of focused work beats short intermittent breaks. Short intermittent breaks aren’t bad, they can help to prep the mind when the brain wants to switch to a task with similar technical responsibilities but different outcomes, etc. But a long break that has no work interference or thoughts will rest, nourish and reinvigorate the brain, therefore creatives, innovators, etc get insight and novel understanding after staying off their work for some time.

Take Long Breaks 

Productivity is a buzzword in work, business, and personal development spaces. We all want to be productive because it translates to efficiency and more income. These productivity tips aren’t new but…

5 Simple Productivity Tips To Help You Stay Focused

Recent statistics show that an average person consumes about 10.5 hours of media per day - watching movies, shows, surfing the internet, social media, listening to the radio/podcasts, playing with an app & much more.In a world where zillions of bytes of content is created every single day, we are bombarded with options screaming for our attention.The world’s consumption engine is led by - Youtube, Netflix, Tiktok, Instagram…

Consumption Engines

Consumption is convenient - streaming your favorite shows with no commercials, and on your own timetable - what could be better.Creation is stopped before it could even get started because it is hard and it requires effort, focus, motivation & determination.When you create you have to fear failure, ridicule, or criticism, you hold yourself back as that could leave you feeling bad about yourself.Creation = Work & Work = something to be avoided.

Consumption vs Creation

There are only two main reasons we consume1. It is useful &2. It makes you happyAfter a certain point the more you consume the lower the returns from the new content - less fun, less enjoyment, no happiness & not useful eitherI call this the “Blue Dot” level

Blue Dot level

- don’t feel +ve after consuming more- Seen/heard/tasted all of this before- Cribbing & complaining about creators- Missing the “good old days”- Losing curiosity- Feeling downIf you have lost interest in what you are consuming, you have reached the “Blue Dot”.

Indicators that you have reached the blue dot

What do the most successful & intellectual people have in common? Do we look up to people who are constant consumers or passionate creators?Coincidentally wealth also needs to be created!

It is time to create 💪

<ul><li>Recognise Consumerism - marketing is oriented towards one thing – making you believe that consumption will make you happy & successful. No iPhone, movie, book, car, dress, bag or shoes can make you happy/successful. </li><li>Track your time - Watch where you you spend time and track it like you track you expense, understand the spend patterns & budget for important things</li><li> Rule of 10 - When starting a new activity/project, commit to 10 attempts and don’t analyze the results of these first 10 attempts - That’s your buffer to iterate, learn & begin.</li></ul>

How to make the switch? 1/2

<ul><li>You Vs. You - You don’t need another productivity app, another book, another video, the only thing that ruined your plans in the past was your own resistance.</li><li>Short-term planning - Plane the progress in short sprints, here’s a frame works that can be used. Create Something – Ship it – See the Real Feedback – Adapt – Repeat</li><li>Time & Place - This really helped me - Schedule some time time and decide a space for constructive deliberate reading. The combination of fixed time & space helps overcome the resistance and helps in building a habit.</li></ul>

How to make the switch? 2/2

Understanding when to make the switch from consumption to creation.

creativity

Creativity

Creation To Consumption Ratio

When you are having fun, you want to do work; you don't need to give yourself discipline or gain motivation or create some fake reward; instead, you enjoy doing the things you need to do, thus making work more enjoyable. This video is based on the book Gamification.

Why should you care?

8 Core drivers that video games tap into and if we understand what it is then we can understand how we can implement it into our day to day life. Thus making life better.

Octalysis Framework

Make whatever you need to do have meaning and joy for you. The reason for this is that if you truly believe  in it then it will be much easier to actually complete it.

Epic and Meaning

When you level up and get better it makes whatever you are doing feel much better.People play video games to get better when we can see ourselves improving it makes us want to do more and get better. Have checkpoints or ways that you can see yourself improving.

Development and Accomplishment

<ul><li>How can I be more creative with this?</li><li>How can I gain more feedback</li></ul>

Empowerment of Creativity and Feedback

It has been studied that when you feel like you own something you take better care and cherish that thing significantly more. So any project that you are working on even if you don't like it. View it as YOUR project that YOU are responsible for and try to do your best to make it a good representation of you.

Ownership and Possesions

We play the same video games that our friends play so having a community that supports you and helps you when you face challenges is very important.

Social Influence or Relativeness

One thing I especially liked is the Octalysis Framework. Wow I enjoyed this!

My main philosophy for being more productive is simply to have fun, even when you're doing the smaller boring tasks. Researcher Yu-kai Chou has figured out how to do this using the addictive frameworks games use to draw players in to hours of play. He explains all the strategies in his book 'Actionable Gamification', which I break down in this video. MENTIONED IN THE VIDEO: Buy Actionable Gamification on Amazon: https://geni.us/JM3z Subscribe to my Deep Dive Podcast, hopefully we get to interview Yu-kai Chou in the future! https://www.youtube.com/c/DeepDivewithAliAbdaal Submit your video ideas and if we pick your video, we'll send you $100 - https://aliabdaal.typeform.com/video-ideas MY FREE ONLINE COURSES: 🚀 Productivity Masterclass - Principles and Tools to Boost Your Productivity - https://go.aliabdaal.com/course/productivity 🎬 Video Editing with Final Cut Pro X - From Beginner to YouTuber - https://go.aliabdaal.com/course/video-editing 🎓 How to Study for Exams - An Evidence-Based Masterclass - https://go.aliabdaal.com/course/studying PART-TIME YOUTUBER ACADEMY: 🍿 My 6-week live online course - https://academy.aliabdaal.com CREATORPRENEUR 💰 My flag-ship course for scaling up your creative side-hustle - https://go.aliabdaal.com/creatorpreneur YOUTUBE FOR BEGINNERS COURSE 📸 This is for anyone who'd like to start a YouTube channel. You'll learn everything you need to get started as a YouTuber including how to script, shoot, and edit your first video - https://go.aliabdaal.com/course/YouTube-for-Beginners MY FAVOURITE GEAR: 🎥 My YouTube Camera Gear - https://kit.co/AliAbdaal ⌨️ My Keyboard - Wireless Coral mechanical keyboard (Cherry Blue) - https://go.aliabdaal.com/keyboard 📝 My favourite iPad Screen Protector - Paperlike - https://go.aliabdaal.com/paperlike 🎒 My Desk Accessories + Todo List - Ugmonk - https://go.aliabdaal.com/ugmonk MY FAVOURITE SOFTWARE: ✍️ The best summaries of books (Shortform) - https://go.aliabdaal.com/shortform 📚 How I remember what I read (Readwise) - https://go.aliabdaal.com/readwise 🎵 Where I get my Music (amazing for YouTubers) - https://go.aliabdaal.com/epidemicsound 🎙 Deep Dive podcast - https://www.youtube.com/c/DeepDivewithAliAbdaal/ The podcast that delves into the minds of entrepreneurs, creators and other inspiring people to uncover the philosophies, strategies and tools that help us live happier, healthier and more productive lives. You can find it by searching “Deep Dive” on any podcast app (eg: Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts etc). BE MY FRIEND: 💌 Sign up to my weekly email newsletter - https://aliabdaal.com/friendzone/ 🌍 My website / blog - https://www.aliabdaal.com 📸 Instagram - https://instagram.com/aliabdaal 🐦 Twitter - https://twitter.com/aliabdaal 💙 The Friendzone Discord - https://discord.gg/Dh2kGavffd 🎮 Twitch - https://twitch.tv/aliabdaal PS: Some of the links in this description are affiliate links that I get a kickback from 😜

career

Career

mentalhealth

Mental Health

My main philosophy for being more productive is simply to have fun, even when you're doing the smaller boring tasks. Researcher Yu-kai Chou has figured out how to do this using the addictive frameworks games use to draw players in to hours of play. 

He explains all the strategies in his book 'Actionable Gamification', which I break down in this video. 

MENTIONED IN THE VIDEO: 
Buy Actionable Gamification on Amazon: https://geni.us/JM3z
Subscribe to my Deep Dive Podcast, hopefully we get to interview Yu-kai Chou in the future! https://www.youtube.com/c/DeepDivewithAliAbdaal

Submit your video ideas and if we pick your video, we'll send you $100 -  https://aliabdaal.typeform.com/video-ideas

MY FREE ONLINE COURSES:
🚀  Productivity Masterclass - Principles and Tools to Boost Your Productivity - https://go.aliabdaal.com/course/productivity
🎬  Video Editing with Final Cut Pro X - From Beginner to YouTuber - https://go.aliabdaal.com/course/video-editing
🎓  How to Study for Exams - An Evidence-Based Masterclass - https://go.aliabdaal.com/course/studying

PART-TIME YOUTUBER ACADEMY:
🍿 My 6-week live online course - https://go.aliabdaal.com/ptya_aliabdaal

CREATORPRENEUR
💰 My flag-ship course for scaling up your creative side-hustle - https://go.aliabdaal.com/creatorpreneur

YOUTUBE FOR BEGINNERS COURSE
📸 This is for anyone who'd like to start a YouTube channel. You'll learn everything you need to get started as a YouTuber including how to script, shoot, and edit your first video - https://go.aliabdaal.com/course/YouTube-for-Beginners

MY FAVOURITE GEAR:
🎥  My YouTube Camera Gear - https://kit.co/AliAbdaal
⌨️  My Keyboard - Wireless Coral mechanical keyboard (Cherry Blue) - https://go.aliabdaal.com/keyboard 
📝  My favourite iPad Screen Protector - Paperlike - https://go.aliabdaal.com/paperlike 
🎒 My Desk Accessories + Todo List - Ugmonk - https://go.aliabdaal.com/ugmonk

MY FAVOURITE SOFTWARE:
✍️ The best summaries of books (Shortform) - https://go.aliabdaal.com/shortform
📚  How I remember what I read (Readwise) - https://go.aliabdaal.com/readwise 
🎵  Where I get my Music (amazing for YouTubers) - https://go.aliabdaal.com/epidemicsound

🎙 Deep Dive podcast - https://www.youtube.com/c/DeepDivewithAliAbdaal/
The podcast that delves into the minds of entrepreneurs, creators and other inspiring people to uncover the philosophies, strategies and tools that help us live happier, healthier and more productive lives. You can find it by searching “Deep Dive” on any podcast app (eg: Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts etc). 

BE MY FRIEND:
💌  Sign up to my weekly email newsletter - https://aliabdaal.com/friendzone/
🌍  My website / blog - https://www.aliabdaal.com 
📸  Instagram - https://instagram.com/aliabdaal
🐦  Twitter - https://twitter.com/aliabdaal
💙  The Friendzone Discord - https://discord.gg/Dh2kGavffd
🎮  Twitch - https://twitch.tv/aliabdaal

PS: Some of the links in this description are affiliate links that I get a kickback from 😜

📚 Check out my first book Feel-Good Productivity here: https://www.feelgoodproductivity.com/

Hey, I'm Ali, a doctor turned entrepreneur, and the world’s most followed productivity expert 😜 

On this channel, we explore evidence-based strategies and tools that can help us be more productive, and build a life that we love. 

If that sounds interesting, consider subscribing! See you in the next video x

Ali Abdaal

How to Make Productivity More Fun

How I Make Work Fun

Ever wonder where the day went? It’s not uncommon to reach the late afternoon and marvel at why you didn’t gain more traction on your to-do list. That’s because the workstyle most of us use is reactive.Many of us are feeling overwhelmed, and remote working arrangements aren’t necessarily helping, because they increase the amount and forms of communication you must track. The challenge is our brain’s instinctual reaction to overwhelm.

Reactive Work Style

We have a hangover from our ancestors that doesn’t really work in the modern world. Anytime your ‘ancient’ brain perceives that something is more than you can handle, it sees it as a threat and triggers the stress response. Stress today is social stress, but it still sets off the automatic response of fight or flight.It’s possible to manage our thoughts so we’re not just reacting in panic mode all day long. Setting these boundaries will help you work in a more sustainable way.

More Work Is Stressful, Biologically

Part of your brain is always asking, “What’s wrong?” “How am I going to make it? “What’s next?” Self-inflicted stress is the frenzy and frazzles to get to the next item on the list.To get anything done during the workday with focused attention, you need to tap into your working memory. The human brain is limited to three or four thought chunks for only a few seconds.

Attention Management

Unfortunately, interruptions blow up working memory. We have the rise of what’s called ‘attention deficit trait. It’s not ADHD, but it mimics the same symptoms. Your attention span shrinks, you have a hard time staying on task, you flit from one thing to the next, and you have more time urgency because you’re falling behind.To regain your attention, calm your mind. Count backward from 100 to zero in your brain. Since we don’t do this every day, we have to pay attention to it. If your thoughts stray, just come back to the next number down the line. The exercise is relaxing and calming.

The Working Memory Is Always Stressed

Exercise is a good stress reducer because it brings your brain back to the centre. Or focus on your breath. It massively increases your attention. Deliberative breathing shuts down the acceleration of the stress response. It’s strongest in the immediate few minutes after the button gets pushed.We think because something’s in our head, we got to pay attention to it. We don’t. We can try to be thought-free, as hard as it sounds.

Focus On Your Breath

In order to have more attention, it’s important to set the terms of engagement with your devices. Disruptions erode your impulse control, and interruptions make anything you do seem more difficult and aggravating than it is. Humans are allowed to set the rules on the devices.The impulse control mechanism is located in a part of the executive attention function of the brain called effortful control. Interruptions shred it and make us self-distract and lose the ability to regulate impulsivity and stay on task. Managing interruptions, then, is key.

Interruption Management

Another boundary your brain needs is the ability to let things go in order to return to work. This is called “barking” management.Does your dog bark hours, days, months, or years after another dog walks past your yard? He drops the event as soon as it’s over like it never happened. But that’s not what humans do. We keep barking. We hang on to the event, and that’s what causes our stress—but we don’t have to.Hanging onto stress is rumination. We can play a big role in shutting down this ancient reflex by managing the thoughts in your brain.

Barking Management

We’re very verbal creatures, and a lot of words are flowing through our brains. They attach themselves in a random way. They fuse with thoughts, feelings, emotions, and moods in our brain and come out in the form of a thought.For example, if you have a confrontation with someone at work and your thoughts drive you to a conclusion that you can’t take it anymore, you’ll be worse off than you were because you’ve self-defined yourself as being in a bad state. Labelling your thoughts as thoughts separates you from knee-jerk, emotion-word fusings that hold you hostage to false beliefs.

Thought Labelling

We are not hard drives with hair.After two hours of time on task, the brain has to get off task to relieve strain and reboot.The brain needs daily, weekend, and vacation resets. Robinson says productivity goes up after 10-minute breaks, 20-minute breaks, and dramatically after a vacation. Recreation and relaxation also allow you to put away whatever you’ve been thinking about over and over and recover. If you don’t, you’ll come back to work the next day with the stress still there.

Refueling Management

So many of us feel overwhelmed. Setting boundaries allows you work in a more sustainable—and less reactive—way.

These are the 4 boundaries your brain needs to feel less overwhelmed

The key to getting the most done to the highest level and impressing the most people is actually through aiming for less than perfect. Here’s how to adopt this more effective way of tackling your key projects.Understand that you can’t do everything all at once and that it’s good to plan so you can pace yourself. But if you struggle with perfectionism, then planning to do something “later” can easily slide into procrastination, because you aren’t willing to start until you reach some optimal state of professional nirvana that never comes.

Aiming For Perfection Backfires

At the very least, sit down and brainstorm what steps you’ll need to do to get the project done.You may prefer to record the steps digitally. Either way, you want to start to flesh out what it will take to get things done and start the process of gaining momentum.

Start Today

If you <a href="https://www.fastcompany.com/90628373/why-tackling-perfectionism-must-go-beyond-letting-things-go">struggle with perfectionist tendencies</a>, once you get started on a project, you’ll need to have a plan for how to stop yourself from investing too much time in individual parts of the work.As you focus on the production, get the work to an acceptable level in each area with the understanding that you can come back and refine it if you have more time before the deadline. This leads to an overall better outcome than fixating on making a particular part of a project perfect and then having to rush through the rest.

Catch The Perfectionist Habits Early

The key to success is to give yourself a time limit, do the work, and then move on to the next part. This doesn’t mean everything will always go accordingly to schedule—there may be times when you need to spend an extra 30 to 45 minutes to get something done. But if you’re going hours and hours beyond what you had determined was the appropriate amount of time, then you likely need to stop yourself and move on.

Give Yourself The Time Limit

Once you get into producing work, you may find yourself getting stressed and overthinking things because you’re wondering how others will respond to what you present. This can lead to analysis paralysis, where you invest much more time in thinking than doing.To avoid this trap of perfectionism, integrate constructive feedback on how you could improve, but then try to block out thoughts of the future about how people will or won’t respond. Vague concern about whether people will think you’re amazing doesn’t do anything to help you actually get the work done.

Focus On The Work, Not The Feedback

When those invasive thoughts slow you down, shut them out with this truth: I can’t control how people do or don’t respond to me. All I can control is what I do now.This will reduce your stress in the process and help you to get the work done which can lead to better results and therefore better feedback. And even if you do get some legitimate critique that can help you do a superior job next time, that’s okay. A growth mindset is healthy; recognize that you can always develop and improve over time. You don’t need to get everything right all at once.

Negative And Invasive Thoughts

If you’ve followed the above pieces of advice, you shouldn’t be scrambling at the last possible minute in order to get work done. You started early enough to at least get the basics done, didn’t over-invest in a particular part, and weren’t wrapped up in what other people might think.Now the deadline is here: so you give everything a final look over—then ship it out. <ul><li>Don’t redo a whole part that was already fine.</li><li>Don’t decide you’re going to go in a different direction.</li><li>Don’t keep refining it so much that it’s so amazing and you miss the deadline.</li><li>Do let it go.</li></ul>

Hold Yourself To Every Deadline

Yes, people want you to do excellent work. But many times good work delivered on time actually serves them better.Your boss, colleagues, and clients don’t need the mental burden of being constantly concerned that if something is in your court it might not get done or very likely will be late. If you consistently start to deliver on time, their trust levels in you will greatly increase, and they’ll need to spend little to no time and energy worrying about whether you’ll come through.

Don't Deplete Your Energy

Aiming for 'good enough' can dramatically improve your relationships and reduce work for you because you’ll need to spend less time replying to follow-ups and explaining why the work isn’t done.A perfectionist approach may seem like a great way to excel in your work, but it’s often counterproductive. If you use a few of these strategies, you can get more done with less stress.

Let Go Of The Perfectionist Approach

You’ll feel better when you’re done—over endlessly agonizing over a task.

Understand yourself and those around you.

psychology

Psychology

problemsolving

Problem Solving

Why getting things finished is better than getting things perfect

Find 100+ Facts and Tips on Productivity - Curated from inspiring sources like Books, Podcasts & Articles - Genuine Insights from like-minded Users like You!