My Journey To Productivity

And I've got two questions...

Productivity is hard?

Do you believe this? Do you believe that productivity is a walk in the park or do you think it's easy peasy and the only thing you have to do is to put is effort?

For the longest time, I wanted to take my productivity walk seriously. You know, put in the effort, be disciplined, the early morning routines for highly successful people, 3 steps to plan like your life and all the likes.

And trust me, there are lots of these materials, go to YouTube, you'll find in excess, check out books, o por. But you'll never be productive if all you do is to keep searching and never implementing. The Journey of a Thousand miles begins with a step.

My Productivity Plan (and how it flopped)

The other day, I really planned to be productive. I've planned out my entire day, like mapped out the whole day

7:00-7:50- read xxxx

7:50-8:10- break

8:10-8:50- copy notes

8:50-9:15- solve past questions 

9:15-10:00- draft out content calendar.

This was how I planned put my day to the littlest minute. Sounds good, right?  

Ask me how it went….

Wait, just ask me how it went…😭

Anyways, I wasn't able to achieve half of what I planned to do, why? Something popped up into my schedule and that basically turned my whole schedule all around.

I remember going to bed feeling like I wasted my day. Technically, I didn't waste my day but I felt that way because I couldn't achieve the most important things that I wanted to achieve and so that feeling of ‘I wasted my day’ crippled into me.

As I reflected, I realized something, I had done a lot of things but I didn't achieve the most important things.

I wasn't able to tick off my academic goals, I didn't read as much I needed to

I didn't take a daily step I needed to for my personal goals

I didn't do something that'll tick off my goal for this newsletter

These 3 things are so important to me, that even though I did other things, the fact that I didn't do these three important things made it feel like I had wasted my day.

Lessons I Learnt

Now, I'm not exactly a productivity junkie, I'm just sharing my strategies that I've tried, and still trying and I'm hoping that it works for me.

The first step you need to do is to outline what is important to you. What tasks are important to you? Strive to do that first. What are some tasks that are high priority to you? Make these the most important things you do, don't shift them to the last minute.

My favourite subject in secondary school was Economics. Oh my, I loved Econs so much, and there's a term in economics called opportunity cost.

For example, I need to watch Tik Tok and I have an assignment to submit. What task is high priority to me? For me, finishing my assignment is a high priority to me, so I go with my high priority task first which is finishing my assignment. The fact that I chose that, means that there's a second option that I didn't choose. I chose finishing my assignment over tiktok. So the opportunity cost of me finishing my assignment is missing out on tiktok.

I know it seems like 24 hours is not enough time in a day, I mean can't there be a law to sort of increase it or not? 

Can I shock you? There's timeeee

For many people (I think this is relative) but there's time for you to do the things you need to do, maybe the problem is that you lack time management skills and this could stem from a whole lot of issues.

You know that habit of having free time in your hand and you have an assignment that's due next week, instead of getting the assignment you postpone it, I mean we still have two weeks so what's the rush? And so instead of starting with the assignment you'd rather toss it to one side, forget about it and start wishing you had just gotten started with the assignment the very day it was given, on the night of the assignment. Sounds familiar ?

Two Productivity Strategies to try out

1. Salami slice method

2. Swiss chess method

In salami slice method, you outline all of the tasks and break them into simple steps, then resolve to do just one slice of the task

For example, you have a 10 questions maths assignment due next week. Pick just one question, do it for that day, pick two questions the next day, do it for that day, keep doing it until  the slices finish and boom, you're done!

For the Swiss cheese method, you don't preslice your task like the Salami Method, just work on whatever task you can, just start anywhere or start with a specific time period

For example, you have an essay to complete, and it's due in your next class. How about when you get home, you just sit down and start, you could tell yourself “I'm just going to do this for 30 minutes, after 30 minutes I'm dome” but make sure that you show up everyday.

I kinda did the Swiss cheese method for this, I didn't feel like writing, I needed to write, in fact I have 2 articles due and so I told myself let me just start, let me just work on the introduction and write as it's coming to My head, I would edit and proofread later, I will schedule and craft out publicity for it later.

Now guess who did it? Me!

I ask again,  is productivity hard or is it a walk in the park? I don't know, but I'd like to know what you think.

If you overthink productivity, it becomes harder but sometimes what you need to do is just start.

It doesn't matter how many productivity books you read, how many videos you watch, even if you read this and say you'll change your ways, change will never come except you act on the law of inertia

I don't know about you but I think I'm just hoping to start anyway. Do something to yourself, what's that task you've been postponing since forever, pick it up and tell your brain you'll only do it for 2 minutes, just 2 minutes.

Come on, come on

I'm rooting for you let me know how that goes.

As you read this till the end, highlight one task you've been postponing, start it, just start it for 2 minutes.

I'm rooting for you!