You'll likely be required to write and submit a personal statement as part of the application process to graduate school. A personal statement is a short essay, two to three pages, explaining why you're applying to the program and why you are a unique applicant. Writing your personal statement is the best way to show off your personality. It helps the admission committee better understand who you are outside of your professional and academic experience that will make you a good prospect for the program.

Writing a personal statement for graduate school

The first step to writing an outstanding personal statement is to take some time to reflect. Writing prompts can serve as a foundation for your personal statement. <ul><li>What are my short-term and long-term goals? Will acceptance into this program help me achieve them?</li><li>What are my strengths and how can these benefit the program?</li><li>What life experience or interest is so meaningful that I would devote years to exploring the topic?</li><li>Is there someone who has significantly impacted my life or character? Describe.</li><li>What do I want the people reviewing my application to know about me? </li></ul>

Brainstorm before you write your personal statement

A great personal statement capture who you are as a person. <ul><li>Your story is unique. The more authentic you are, the better.</li><li>Your personal statement should be complete. You want to give your audience all the information they might need to decide on your application.</li><li>It should be mistake-free.</li></ul>

Aspect of a strong personal statement

<ol><li>Include examples. Back up any claims you make. For example, you can prove that you're driven by sharing that you balanced a job with school to pay down student loans.</li><li>Be yourself. Be authentic when crafting your personal statement. </li><li>Do your research. Ensure you know what you're getting yourself into.</li><li>Grab their attention. Think of an instance that shaped you and jump right into the story. Keep it short and engaging,</li><li>Remember your audience. Stay professional.</li><li>Address the prompt in your personal statement.</li><li>Revise and proofread</li></ol>

7 dos for a personal statement

<ol><li>Don’t be presumptuous. “I know my personal statement for grad school is the best, and I have no doubt that I’ll get in everywhere I apply.”</li><li>Don’t use platitudes or clichés. Avoid starting your essay with a quote, definition, or anything else that signals the obvious fact that time has passed and you’re now applying for graduate school. "From a young age..." or "I've always been interested in ..."</li><li>Don’t overshare. It is not an autobiography. Pick one or two life events that shaped your desire to apply to grad school, but don't share your entire life story.</li></ol>

3 Don'ts for a personal statement

Start with an outline:<ul><li>Introduction. Include a hook that captures your reader's attention.</li><li>Body paragraphs. The paragraphs explain your motivations for applying. Include examples of characteristics you want to share, such as a challenge you overcame.</li><li>Conclusion. Discuss future plans and why acceptance into your desired program would benefit you.</li></ul> The final paragraph should be just as good as your hook. You want the audience to remember your paper.

Crafting your personal statement

Follow this guide for crafting the best personal statement to show off your unique personality and what you bring to the table.

Stashed ideas

A Guide to Writing a Personal Statement for Grad School Applications

Much of what we come to call "luck" is actually the macro result of 1,000s of micro-actions. Your daily habits put you in a position where “luck” is more likely to strike.
In order to get lucky, you have to remove the “black holes” (anti-luck) from your existence. You have to take action to expand your personal luck surface area.

Luck Is Programmable

Diligence is the mother of good luck.

Shallow men believe in luck. Strong men believe in cause and effect.

If you have a choice between entering two rooms, choose the room where you are more likely to be the dumbest one in the room.Once you’re in the room, talk less and listen more. It’s bad for your ego, but it’s great for luck.Good things tend to happen in these rooms.

Be the Dumbest in the Room

Pessimists sound smart, optimists get rich.When choosing who to spend time with, prioritize spending time with optimists. Pessimists see the doors that are closed. Optimists see the doors that are open—and probably kick down the closed doors.Pessimists are “black holes” in your life that need to be removed in order for you to get lucky.

Hang Out With Optimists

There's no luck on the sidelines—the arena is where it strikes.It's lonely and vulnerable, but it's the only path that bears real fruit. When faced with two paths, choose the path that puts you in the arena—where collisions happen, where luck can strike.Furthermore, surround yourself with people who are also in the arena. Sideline rock slingers never get lucky.

Get in the Arena

When you write and publish your ideas and insights, you are casting a web of magnets out into the world.Those ideas and insights will attract some people to you—and perhaps repel others.As your web grows, the connections—and luck—compound accordingly.

Write in Public

"Don't talk to strangers" is a classic we are told as children—the residue of which carries into adulthood for far too many people.New relationships spark new ideas, insights, and opportunities—these compound just as well as any financial investment.Broad Network = Broad Luck.

Talk to Strangers

Cold emails are responsible for some of the biggest breaks in my life—new mentors, relationships, and career opportunities.Cold emails are a force multiplier for your efforts.Follow the principles in my Cold Email Guide to enhance your odds of success.Always remember: Shooters shoot.

Send More Cold Emails

The idea that free time is bad is one of the greatest lies you’ve been told.In investing, it’s often said that cash is a call option on future interesting investments. Well, in life, I believe that free time is a call option on future interesting opportunities. When you have free time, you have the headspace to pursue new ideas and go down rabbit holes.Plan for more of it.

Schedule Free Time

Everyone has a few negative people in their circle. They tell you to be realistic. They laugh at your ambition. They argue.Eliminate this negativity from your life. It's a boat anchor—a major black hole—cut the damn line and run away from it as fast as you can.Negative people are quite literally the anti-luck.

Ruthlessly Eliminate Negativity

You should spend your 20s saying yes to almost everything.Saying yes puts you into uncomfortable situations that lead to new relationships, opportunities, and growth.These unexpected moments are luck-rich. Embracing them is how you capitalize.

Embrace the Unexpected

When you have a bias for motion, good things happen. You create more random collisions in your ecosystems—it’s like chaos theory.A bit of hustle goes a long way.

Hustle Hard

There’s luck through persistence, hard work, hustle, and motion. This is when you’re running around creating opportunities. You’re generating a lot of energy, you’re doing a lot to stir things up. It’s almost like mixing a petri dish or mixing a bunch of reagents and seeing what combines. You’re just generating enough force, hustle, and energy for luck to find you.

Observe the weekend projects of the smartest people in your circles. These passion projects are disproportionately likely to be a looking glass into the future.Make asymmetric bets on these areas.

Trust the Weekend Test

The best things in life come to those who create value with no expectation of a return.When you put out good energy, it tends to come back to you—often multiplied.Be genuine. Create value. Good things will happen.

Create Value Without Expectations

It pays to bet some hard cash on new ideas that you have heard from smart people around you. The skin in the game forces you to dive deeper. Sometimes you learn more and fold; more often you learn more and double down. These are small bets with outsized returns.

Put Skin in the Game

It’s hard to get lucky watching Netflix at home on the couch.It’s (relatively) easy to get lucky when you’re engaging with people, interacting, and learning—in physical or digital worlds.Spend more time engaging and you'll find yourself in more positions to get lucky.

Get Out & Engage

If you are exceptional at one specific thing, luck tends to find you.Your expertise becomes a magnet for new and interesting opportunities you never knew existed.Public awareness of your expertise is a plus. Share your work to widen the reach of your magnet.

Become an Expert

We really need to normalize boredom. Some of your most creative moments come during periods of boredom.On a walk, in the shower, at a dinner by yourself. You’re bored, your mind wanders, your thoughts mingle. Bam! Insight strikes.Boredom creates luck. Go for more walks (sans technology), go for more drives, sit quietly and think. You’ll never regret it.

Creative Boredom

Twitter is an insanely valuable resource if you use it well.You can literally reach almost anyone in the world from your couch. You can connect with many amazing people through sending them a cold DM—even if you don't have any followers.Use my simple guide to hack the process. Shoot your shot.

Send More Cold DMs

The world has changed—you no longer need to live in a big city or have a fancy degree to connect and build valuable relationships.The rise of digital communities is real. Consider the fact that one of the co-founders of the largest play-to-earn game in the world started out as a member of the community in the very early days (now he’s worth tens of millions!). The opportunity playing field is levelling out.Join a Discord, engage in good faith. Create value, receive value.

Spend Time in Digital Communities

When you meet new people, find ways to stand out. Asking great questions is a clear way.A few to get you started:What are you most excited about that you're working on right now?What is your favourite book that you’ve read recently?I know almost nothing about your field of expertise. Can you tell me more about that?It gets the other person talking—plus they’ll remember you for future opportunities.

Ask Great Cold Questions

Humans are born with astonishing curiosity. But somewhere along the way, we're told to stop asking questions.Push back.Learn to follow your curiosity—trust it. Curiosity drives you to knock down doors and enter new rooms.Fortune favours the curious.

Follow Your Curiosity

20 ways to expand your luck surface area & create more luck

How to Get Lucky

Working from home often means that supervisors don't know how hard their team works. As a result, you may feel overwhelmed with the tasks that are loaded on your plate. Don't assume you are supposed to feel overwhelmed. You should be able to speak to your team leader about your workload. However, some preparation would help.

Feeling overwhelmed with your workload

You can't just say that you have too much work. You need to be specific. Create a clear list of everything on your to-do list, due dates, and estimates of how long it will actually take to complete those tasks. This list will help understand the workload and what trade-offs would need to be made to have a more manageable list of tasks. However, be prepared for your boss to tell you that some tasks can be completed satisfactorily by doing less work that is good enough, not perfect.

Document your tasks

When you document your tasks, be clear about where requests come from and to whom you are passing your completed work. Your boss may be unaware of how many people add things to your to-do list. The information can help in deciding which people should be able to give you assignments and how those tasks should be handled. Knowing the groups' overall workflow can help determine what other aspects of a project depend on your contribution. This can help in setting priorities for your work.

Analyse your workflow

If you are already working efficiently, you'll have to determine which tasks will get done and which ones need to be passed on or left for now. Consider what work you would prioritise if you could decide what to do. Then, write down your justification and bring that information to the meeting. When your boss suggests a different set of priorities to yours, orient the discussion to understand the reasoning. This will help you know how people in supervisory roles think about workflow.

Suggest priorities

How to talk to your boss about having too much work

Procrastination is the voluntary delay of an intended action despite knowing such delay can cause harm in terms of task performance and even to one’s self-image.
Procrastination undermines the pursuit of our goals. Compared to their peers, people who procrastinate achieve less in life, report more negative feelings and have greater health problems.

Procrastination Defined

To prevent procrastination, start by categorizing the delays in your life. Identify the delays that are voluntary and that undermine your performance and well-being.Create a list of the things that you tend to procrastinate on. You may find that the tasks have something in common or elicit a common feeling.

How To Recognize and Prevent Procrastination

Procrastination affects our health because it causes stress and leads people to needlessly delay exercising, eating healthy, and getting enough sleep.Procrastination is a problem with not getting on with life itself. When we procrastinate on our goals, we are our own worst enemy. These are our goals, our tasks, and we are needlessly putting them off. Our goals are the things that make up a good portion of our lives.

The Cost Of Procrastination

<ul><li>Make a deep commitment to change by focusing on the costs of procrastination. Ask yourself: “Am I ready to live with them?”</li><li>Strengthen your goal intention by recognizing the benefits of acting now. Take the time to think about how your goals align with your long-term objectives and values.</li><li>Examine your intentions regularly as a way to reduce your tendency to procrastinate.</li></ul>

Your Goal Intention

<ul><li>Procrastination is a form of regulation failure. You fail to self-regulate because you want to feel good now at the expense of carrying out your long-term goals.</li><li>If you find that you are chronically procrastinating, it may well be that you are running away from negative feelings by putting off your tasks.</li><li>To address procrastination, you need to tackle short-term mood repair in favour of long-term goals.</li></ul>

Understanding and Taking Action

Emotional intelligence is the ability to effectively identify and utilize emotions to guide behaviour. If you are likely to procrastinate, use the if X then Y format of an intention. For example:IF I feel negative emotions when doing a task, THEN I will commit to finishing the task rather than abandoning it.

Emotional Intelligence

We tend to focus too much on our current situation without regard to how future events will make us feel.Focuslism: “The tendency to underestimate the extent to which events will influence our feelings and thoughts in the future”Presentism: “Putting too much emphasis on the present in the prediction of the future” When you plan for the future, you feel positive and get relieved that you don’t have to act in the now.

Just Not Feeling Like It!

To overcome presentism, you can forecast the future and try to imagine how you will feel at the time. Another strategy is to accept that you will be wrong.For Example:If you think you will feel better doing a task tomorrow, tell yourself that you are probably wrong and that it won’t be any better.You need to build momentum.

Overcoming Presentism

Following are the biases in your thinking that contribute to procrastination:<ul><li>You tend to discount future rewards in relation to short-term goals</li><li>Underestimate how long things will take and how much you can do</li><li>Prefer tomorrow over today</li><li>Self-handicap to protect your self-esteem</li><li>Think irrationally about the task at hand and your ability to accomplish the task</li><li>Manufacture happiness that is consistent with your behaviour.</li></ul>Identifying you have these biases is an important step in addressing the reasons why you procrastinate. Write down the typical excuses leading to needless delays.

Excuses and Self-Deception

<ul><li>Once you get started on a task, it is not often as bad as you think. Starting a task demonstrates progress towards your goals which makes a very big difference in your lives.</li><li>When you feel like putting off a task for tomorrow, get started on some aspect of the task.</li><li>If on the other hand, the task feels overwhelming, break it into subtasks.</li></ul>Getting started is just one piece of the puzzle when it comes to solving procrastination. You must also recognize the points at which you are likely to abandon your goals.

Well Begun is Half Done

Our willpower is a limited resource. If you are constantly fighting off the temptation to do one thing over another, you will likely give up. Ways to boost your willpower:<ul><li>Exercise your self-discipline by holding out longer than usual</li><li>Sleep and rest well</li><li>Take strategic naps during the day</li><li>Boost your positive emotion. Find people or events that make you feel good about yourself</li><li>Use implementation intentions to boost your willpower</li><li>Keep a piece of fruit to restore your glucose level</li><li>Be aware of the social situation and interactions and how they erode your willpower</li><li>Cultivate your motivation.</li></ul>

Willpower And Procrastination

<ul><li>The internet and its many addictive apps like Instagram, TikTok and Netflix are some of the top reasons why people procrastinate. </li><li>The way to avoid procrastination is to minimize distractions while we are working online.</li><li>Turn off all notifications that compel you to move towards procrastination using junk content that seems enticing.</li></ul>

Cyberslacking

This guide to eliminating procrastination offers everyone, from entrepreneurs to parents and students, tips and practical strategies to help break the cycle of self-destructive ideas and habits that prevent freedom and accomplishment. Original.

Solving the Procrastination Puzzle: A Concise Guide to Strategies for Change

We all only live about 4000 weeks.
This deadline of living on Planet Earth can make us do stuff quickly, trying to be as productive as possible in the short time we have.
This phenomenon of speeding up, called the productivity trap leads us to unhappiness and eventual disappointment. Counterintuitively, we need to slow down to make the most out of life.

Four Thousand Weeks

Factories and mills of the industrial age put their focus on time management, productivity and efficiency, pressurising the workforce to work maximum in minimum time. This practise is still being followed by corporates.This method does not work, as it puts us in a productivity trap, which is a recipe for disaster.Example: Answering every email may sound productive, but it actually increases your workload as more and more replies pile on.

Time In The Industrial Age

Doing things faster does not free up time. Rewards, achievements and accomplishments do not really make us happier, a phenomenon called hedonic adaptation.The feeling of time slipping away decreases our happiness levels and makes us conscious of how little time we have.

The Paradox Of Time

It is fine to leave certain projects that you haven’t been able to do, instead of fretting about it. You only have 4000 weeks and there is a limit to what you can achieve.One trick is to create a have-done list, which is empty in the morning, and by the end of the day is filled with all the tasks, planned or unplanned, that you ended up doing.This exercise reframes your mental workload and provides a sense of achievement.

The 'Have Done' List

We have a finite amount of time, yet we still strive to accomplish infinite goals. Why do we put this pressure on ourselves – and how can we stop?

How to escape the 'productivity trap'

It can be inconvenient if you've missed a telephone conference because you forgot that 9:00 a.m. in Chicago is 7:00 a.m. in Los Angeles and 10:00 a.m. in New York City.
Time zones are supposed to keep our clocks consistent with solar time wherever we are on the planet. Solar time changes as you move even a short distance from one place to another. It was invented to help reduce confusion rather than cause it.

Time zones were invented to reduce confusion

<ul>
<li>Confusion about the exact time only became a problem in the 1800s, when railroad trains made it possible to travel from one place to the next.</li>
<li>People were missing trains, and near misses and train collisions started to take place.</li>
<li>In the US, 300 local time zones existed, but the railroads eventually condensed it down into 100.</li>
<li>Finally, in 1876, Scottish-born engineer Sir Sandford Fleming devised a system in which the world was divided into 24 time zones, spaced at about 15 degree intervals.</li>
</ul>

Railways standardised time zones

Time was based on how many time zones separated a location from the Royal Greenwich Observatory in the UK. Greenwich Mean Time was determined by the average time of day when the sun passed over the Prime Meridian at Greenwich.
On Nov. 18, 1883, railroads in North America converted to a system of just over four time zones: eastern time, central time, mountain time, and Pacific time. Eventually, it became the standard across the U.S.

Using Greenwich Mean Time (GMT)

Even with fewer time zones, time confusion arose again in the 20th century. Air travel, the internet and mobile devices gave us a 24-7 culture in which we're tightly interconnected to events in other parts of the world.
Another solution was proposed: Abolishing time zones and putting the entire world on universal time (UTC). Under this system, it's 9:00 everywhere on the planet, even if it's morning in one place and evening in another.

Time confusion in the 20th century

The switch to universal time has already taken place. Pilots and air traffic controllers in the U.S. rely on universal time. So do financial traders who deal across time zones. The internet essentially runs on universal time.
The switch to universal time may cause initial disruption. People say, 'if we went universal time, that would mean we'd have to open businesses when it's dark outside.' In reality, your business would go on with the sun, as usual.

Using UCT as a world-wide system

The world has only had time zones since the late 1800s. Some people think we should eliminate them and have just one universal time instead.

Time Management

Why Aren't We All on the Same Time Zone?

The activities that we have on our calendar are most likely the things that we're supposed to do but in order to not tire ourselves out, we must also make time for the things that make us happy. 
The people who spend more time on projects that energize them and with people who bring the same energizing energy tend to be happier.

Schedule things that make you happy

The feeling of time constraint is not from the idea that you are losing time, but instead, it is due to how you perceive it. Ironically, researchers claim that the best way to feel less busy is to give away some of our time to others in order to feel less time-constrained.
Moreover, people who perceive time with equivalence to money are more likely to feel impatient when they're not using it to earn money and that hurts their ability to derive happiness during leisure activities.

Time perception is everything

Shortly after we wake up early in the morning, our brain is unwound, disorganized, and we're more open to understanding a wide variety of unconventional ideas. We actually do some of our best thinking when we're half asleep.
It is also important to know the groove of our circadian rhythm in order for us to deliver the best output possible without overexhausting our bodies.

Optimize the time you have

If you're the type of person who spends more time in front of the computer instead of socializing, research shows that digital natives are not really suited for jobs that involve diplomacy and sales. There are high-trust fields and having prolonged exposure to computers reconfigure a person's natural networks and are likely to have low levels of empathy and social skills. 
Moreover, how we communicate towards people includes things we don't notice as much like their tone of voice or inflections.

You are how you spend your time

The best piece of advice in order to make sure that your life is on the right track is by remembering that we were born with a limited number of days, and with each passing day, the memories we carry will not be perfect.
The two things our brains remember about an event are:
<ol>
<li>The emotional peak
</li>
<li>The end
</li>
</ol>
With this in mind, we'll be able to structure events where both the peak and the ending are great. When we make sure that tomorrow has something amazing for us, we can end the day on a positive note.

Looking at the big picture

Everything you need to know about 5 Secrets To Using Your Time Wisely

5 Secrets To Using Your Time Wisely - Barking Up The Wrong Tree

This is a productivity method developed by Brian Tracy. The 'frog' refers to the most important and most impactful task you have to complete. If you work on it first thing every morning, you'll be more productive and successful, and you'll reach your goals more quickly.

'Eat that Frog'

If you don't know what your goals are, most likely you won't be able to identify and prioritize the specific tasks you need to work on to achieve those goals. Write your major goals down and break them into tasks. Your goal tasks are your frogs, the things you want to work on first thing every day for greater productivity and success.

Clarify your goals

... to make better short-term decisions.If you question the consequences of doing/not doing a to-do before you start on it, it not only makes it easier to find your frogs, but it also makes it easier to find time-wasting tasks that are better deleted from your list or delegated to someone else.

Think long-term

<ul><li>A tasks: things you must do - they're your frogs. </li><li>B tasks: things you should do. Replying to emails or attending meetings are often should-do tasks. </li><li>C tasks: nice-to-dos. You probably want to do them, but there are no consequences if you don't.</li><li>D tasks: things you should delegate to someone else so you have more time for your A tasks.</li><li>E tasks: things you should eliminate. You don't need or want to do them.</li></ul>

ABCDE prioritization method

Understand what you were hired to do and the results you are supposed to deliver.By being aware of hat you're truly accountable for, you can justify delegating and deleting tasks that aren't related to your job-specific tasks and goals.

Understand your key result areas

<ul><li>Plan your frog for the next day at the end of the previous workday and block off time to work on that frog so you can tackle it with no interruptions.</li><li>Make sure you have all of the things you need to do your work and a comfortable workspace to do it in.</li></ul>

Prepare for your work

Once you have your goals broken down into tasks, you have to work on those tasks one at a time. Prioritize them, schedule them, and then when it's time to eat your frogs, focus on them completely.

One task at a time

Identify the things that are holding you back, internal and external and eliminate them.More often than not our constraints are internal: we procrastinate because of impostor syndrome, or we fill our time with low-value tasks and distractions.

What's holding you back

Schedule time on your calendar at the end of every workday for working on your frog the next morning, or create a recurring meeting for the first hours of every day to make sure you always have time blocked for goal tasks.

Schedule your 'frogs'

After you start working on a frog, continue working on it until you can take it off of your to-do list.To do this effectively, you'll need to make sure you have tasks that are small enough to complete in one sitting. Also, make sure you have time blocked to work on your task.

Finish your tasks

<ol><li>Define your goals and write them down.</li><li>Break those goals down into tasks.</li><li>Break those tasks down into the smallest possible subtasks.</li><li>Prioritize your tasks, and delete/delegate tasks you don't need to do.</li><li>Schedule time on your calendar every single day, ideally first thing in the morning, to work on your highest-priority goal task.</li><li>Focus on your goal task during your scheduled time, and work on it until it's complete.</li></ol>

'Eating that Frog' in short

Eat That Frog is a productivity method developed by Brian Tracy and described in his book Eat That Frog! : 21 Great Ways to Stop Procrastinating and Get More Done in Less Time. Both the book and the method get their names from a quote usually attributed to Mark Twain...

Eat That Frog: A Practical Approach to Reaching Your Goals

We usually procrastinate instead of being productive due to various reasons like having fun being distracted (like playing video games) or just lounging around as the task is too easy (or too difficult).
We start with a big, audacious goal and quickly realize that it is not feasible. Our lack of expertise is also a perfect excuse to slack around, as we fail to break down the task into smaller ones or take the first step.

Procrastination: The How And Why

Recent studies on procrastination seems to suggest that the fear of failure could be a core reason for postponing tasks, as it is hard to:
<ol>
<li>Amend mistakes.</li>
<li>Lack of expected progress even with the effort being put.</li>
<li>A wasted day having a spillover effect on the next day.</li>
<li>Lack of practice.</li>
<li>Lack of trying again.</li>
</ol>
We need to detect patterns in our behaviour and recognize the cause of any hidden or camouflaged fear.

Procrastination And The Fear Of Failure

There is a denial of procrastination, where we are telling ourselves that we are working as we should and there is no problem at all. The valid justifications we make to cover the problem or delay is essentially an excuse.
We make excuses as it is a valid cover to protect our self interest, and we often blame other people and circumstances to cover our own failure. If we could simply stop making excuses and start calling a spade a spade, we would learn a lot from our own behaviour.

Procrastination And Making Excuses

One can diminish the value of an achievement so that non-accomplishment isn’t a big issue. 
One also falls into a self-fulfilling prophecy, that if one isn’t interested in doing a task, that task must not be interesting or important enough in the first place. This leads us to switch our goals, leading to excuses and missed opportunities.

Diminishing The Value Of Success

<ul>
<li>We mistakenly think that if something feels difficult and out of our comfort zone, then it is not ‘us’, paving the way for resistance.</li>
<li>The task is difficult because we haven’t done it before, and avoiding it only hinders our growth.</li>
<li>Inversely, anything looks easy when you know exactly how it’s done.</li>
<li>Great achievers fall prey to this line of thinking when they are termed overly ambitious.</li>
</ul>

Fear And Procrastination: The Thing We Have Not Done Before

We think we have worked all these years and achieved a certain level, and attempting something new and outrageously out of our league will make us into a ‘newbie’, something learning the ropes and making mistakes.
Getting out of our comfort zones may not feel ‘comfy’ but is good for our personal growth and eventual success. Reaching the next level is not easy, but pays off big in the long run.

Not Wanting A New Challenge

Loss aversion is a big reason for fearing to do a project. Making progress sounds great, but correcting mistakes and counting your losses seems like an avoidable activity.
We want things to be perfect, and bad days are not really motivating for us. We need to embrace the imperfections, uncertainty and the so-called bad days and move ahead with our goal.

Procrastination And Wanting To Avoid Loss

Life isn’t black and white, but in a shade of grey. Our expectations about doing things perfectly and wanting the results in absolute terms is often unrealistic and hinders our progress. 
We need to take the first step and get used to action, without being stressed up about the results. We can improvise and optimize as we go.

Our Unrealistic Expectations Of Doing Things Perfectly

We usually want to take action as fast as we can, but with important decisions, we tend to wait and research more so that we can check the options and not make any mistakes.
The preparation time we need is often fear-based because we don’t want to mess up and it can look like procrastination.

The Speed Of Action

<ul><li>Fear is a natural and common emotion even with full-preparedness.</li><li>Whenever we do something that leads us towards growth, there is a certain kind of resistance and discomfort known as ‘flinch’.</li><li>This kind of fear happens to us when we are about to give a live public appearance or a live video, or when we approach someone for the first time, starting an uncomfortable conversation.</li></ul>

Fear 8: Flinch 

People can lose time, money, respect, resources among other things when faced with failure, and that leads to fear-based procrastination. We need to keep in mind that mistakes happen, and only with action and errors does one learn something and moves towards growth.
Focus on action and learn to stop worrying about failure, taking it as a learning tool.

Overcoming The Fear Of Failure

Fear of failure and procrastination: how to overcome it (without needing a master's in psychology) by learning to recognize the causes.

Fear of Failure and Procrastination: 8 Reasons You're Sabotaging Action

A huge number of productivity books have been published but very few of these books combine productivity, creativity, and mental health. How do you achieve more without burning out in the process?
Using a mindful productivity audit is one way to assess your current systems and evaluate if you can perform better while taking care of your mind.

Assessing your productivity

The first hour is the most important part of your day. It impacts your mindset by setting the tone for the rest of the day. A routine designed around your goals will always trump one that is based on habits you haven't thought about.
<ul>
<li>What is the first thing you do in the morning? Write it down. Be as detailed as possible: getting up, brushing your teeth... until you sit down at your desk.</li>
<li>What could be improved?</li>
<li>Do you have any bad habits you want to better manage?</li>
</ul>

The first thing you do in the morning

A calendar is a helpful tool to manage your time. It is there to guide you, not to rule you.
Review a typical week in your calendar.
<ul>
<li>How many events are there?</li>
<li>How many events did you create, and how many invitations did you receive?</li>
<li>Could any of these meetings have been replaced by email or a shared document?</li>
</ul>
Start exploring ways to improve your time management systems. It might be useful to block some time at the start of the day to adjust your calendar.

How to manage your calendar

Research suggests a knowledge worker should spend four hours of deep creative, highly productive work per day.
How many hours do you currently dedicate to deep work? Look at your calendar and count the hours spent in deep work.
If you have too many hours, try to unblock some time for lighter work or recharging your mental energy. If you have too few, try and rearrange your time commitments to make space for up to four hours of deep work per day.

How much time to dedicate to deep work

Taking breaks restore your motivation, consolidate your memory, increase your creativity, and prevent decision fatigue. Research suggests we need to take a break for 5 to 10 minutes every hour or so and a longer break (more than 30 minutes) every two to four hours.
Look at your calendar, and ensure you have a combination of short and long breaks during the day. During a break, move your body, do some deep breathing, chat with your peers, or go for a walk outside.

How many break to take during a day

When we have lots of work, we can fall into the trap of neglecting to nourish our mind with enough high-quality input. Ways to cultivate curiosity include reading books, blogs, newsletters, taking online courses, joining learning communities, and more.
<ul>
<li>Do you make space for cultivating your curiosity, exploring new ideas, and expanding your knowledge?</li>
<li>Make a list of all the ways you cultivate your curiosity. Consider if these opportunities are aligned with your goals.</li>
</ul>

How to cultivate curiosity

Instead of mindlessly repeating the same action with little regard for how they impact your performance, ensure you have time and space to reflect and incrementally improve the way you work.
A weekly review is a powerful way to direct your life with intention. It may be in the form of journaling. Include questions to assess what is going well, what is difficult, and what your focus should be during the following week.

Create space for self-reflection

Your working space can have an impact on your productivity. When working from home, are you crouching on the kitchen table or working from your sofa?
Ask yourself: Is my chair is comfortable? What is my posture when I am sitting? Is the screen at eye level? Do I get enough light? Do I have access to liquids to stay hydrated throughout the day? Do I enjoy my workspace?

Consider your physical workspace

It is easy for knowledge workers to accumulate screenshots and random files on their computer "just in case". Performing an audit of your digital workspace can reduce your cognitive load.
<ul>
<li>What does your desktop currently look like?</li>
<li>What apps are installed? Which ones do you regularly use?</li>
<li>What tools do you use to manage your knowledge?</li>
<li>Take some time to consolidate, declutter and clean up the files on your computer. Explore potential tools for thought, such as a note-taking app.</li>
</ul>

Consider your digital workspace

People working from home can be tempted to keep working until they feel too tired to keep going.
Creating habits, routines and rituals to frame your workday is essential for sustainable performance.
<ul>
<li>Create a hard stop at a specific time.</li>
<li>Another approach is to give yourself a specific number of work hours per day, which is more flexible as you can start and stop earlier or later.</li>
<li>Shift your focus from time to actual productivity by creating an adequate list of tasks for the day. Once the tasks are done, you are done.</li>
</ul>

Determine when to stop working

Winding down before you go to bed will help you sleep better and prepare your mind for the next day.
Write down everything you usually do in the last hour of a typical day. How many activities involve a screen? Do you spend time with your family? Do you read a book? Do you think you have bad habits in the evening?
Consider what you want to change and implement it in your evening routine.

The last hour of the day

Mindful productivity combines productivity, creativity, and mental health. Perform an audit to achieve more without burning out.

Bite-sized knowledge
to upgrade
your career

Milo
@mil_k

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Bite-sized knowledgeto upgradeyour career

Milo @mil_k

A Guide to Writing a Personal Statement for Grad School Applications

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How to talk to your boss about having too much work

Solving the Procrastination Puzzle: A Concise Guide to Strategies for Change

How to escape the 'productivity trap'

Bite-sized knowledge
to upgrade
your career

Milo
@mil_k