Two Ideas to make you more Productive right now

My last post about productivity covers the best tips I found on the internet. However, there are two more tips I have up my sleeves that can be implemented to get instant results. That is what I am sharing in this post.

I will assume you already know what results your want to see- that you have a defined goal. If you don’t, then you will have to cover 3 steps instead of two; the first step being-  defining your goals.

So the 2 steps are-

i. Know your ‘sacrifice’ &

ii. Restrict all distractions.

If they resonate with you already, I guess you need no further explanation. If not, read along.

 

i) Knowing Your Sacrifice:

The future is like a judgmental father. It’s like a deity that can reward you- that can give you whatever you want, but it judges you first. It checks if you’re worthy of the thing you are asking for, before handing it over. And that’s where the sacrifices come in handy.If the future judges that your sacrifices were worthy enough, it may reward you with the results you were hoping for.

I got this idea from the biblical series of Dr. Jordan Peterson-

‘You may come up with your vision for the future, as if the future is a blank slate and then you come up with the proper sacrifice that should be made to realize that vision.’

For example, if your vision for the future is that you get 80 percent of marks in your upcoming exam, then the proper sacrifice might be to avoid playing games and social media and other entertainment stuff and start studying, taking notes and stuff like that. To know the proper sacrifices you have to be really truthful to yourself. You have to meditate upon it, you have to really calm your mind down and ask yourself exactly how do you think that vision of yours can come to reality. (If you really sit for 5 minutes to meditate upon it, you may get the best answers)

 

ii) Restrict All Distractions:

[Summary: Don’t play games or watch YouTube (or any other time waster) until a predetermined time (i.e. 6pm) ]

Okay, the first rule is the basic premise of how to know what to do. But that is not enough – even if you have great visions for your future and you know what the bargains with the future are. You have to put in the work & do what is right. Avoiding time wasters is the first step towards that but, this seems to be one of the hardest thing to do for us. I know that amazing human beings like- top athletes, actors and top entrepreneurs etc. hustle all day and just find satisfaction in their work, but most of us would rather binge watch on a TV show or just watch all the YouTube videos in the suggested feeds or keep scrolling through Facebook or take drugs and other destructive means but not read a single chapter from the book that we will be tested.

This is irrational obviously. But, There’s no denying that- most of us are like that. So why is it so tough to make these sacrifices, even though we know that we should be making them?

Steven Pressfield talks about this in his amazing book- ‘The War Of Art’. He introduces us to the idea of resistance. It is a problem all of us face. But, we can beat it. The way to beat it is to go pro.

Going Pro:

What does this mean? What differentiates pros from the amateurs? Well, it’s one simple thing- ‘Showing up every day’.

If you get a job you won’t go there at random times.. you most probably also have to attend your office every weekday. This is what a pro does. A pro writer sits down to write every weekday, at a specific time. Same thing applies to any other craft.

So, that is why its a good idea to stop all the distractions for a certain amount of time, at a specific time, while focusing on what you have to do for your desired future.

 

Well now you have two brand new tools in your arsenal. Use them wisely 🙂

 

My Speed Reading Journey

My words per minute were 197.

This left me devastated. I had just scored below average on my reading speed test.

With a lot of determination, I started practicing speed reading from “The Speed Reading Book” by Tony Buzan.

The Speed Reading Book

I was pleasantly surprised only hours later. As I progressed through the following chapters, and did the practices and exercises, my speed improved. At my fourth test I scored a wpm of 249.

What’s amazing is that, In both of these test I had a comprehension rate of 73.3%!!

I almost didn’t buy this book. I did not think it would turn out to be such a gem. The tips and techniques here are common sense and effective.

There’s much more! Tony Buzan also talks about mind maps here. I’ve been using mind maps from my last semester finals. They have proven to be really effective.

I love mind maps! They apparently use both sides of your brain. I don’t really know how they work. But they have reduced the time it takes me to memorize something. It also seems to aid my understanding of a topic.

Mind Maps

To be frank, I was scared of speed reading, at first. I thought maybe the comprehension will get lower and lower with each increase in speed.

To my amusement, it turned out to not be the case! My comprehension level stayed the same as my speed rose higher and higher.

Now I am excited to go even beyond that! I hope to increase my WPM up to 1000. I don’t know if this book is going to make this happen for me but I’ll give it a fair shot.

The science behind it made it clear for me. Apparently our brain can take a snapshot of something within microseconds. We don’t need to read slowly and word by word for better comprehension. Rather it’s wiser to read a chunk of words together. Thus the relative meaning of the words become more apparent.

Another great technique for comprehension is to use the first line of each paragraph as a reference. After reading the first line, try to establish a connection of that with the rest of the lines in that paragraph. Was the first line an introduction? Was it a summary of what comes next? Or is there no correlations at all? This increase comprehension and recalling abilities.

Now I feel sad why I didn’t learn this even earlier! I’d have read so many books! Because speed reading has made reading a lot of fun.

I’m excited about this semester and want to see how much better I can do with my newfound powers of speed reading, better comprehension and mind mapping.

I feel angry that it’s not taught in schools. It could have saved so much time that students could invest in there hobbies or towards building a career.

I’d love your feedback. This blog sprung out of passion and not just to make money. I love to learn new skills and share them. It’s like a need for my psyche.

Thanks for reading.