Of course, dominant thoughts manifest. If you think red, you start seeing red everywhere. If you’re deep into geometry, you start noticing shapes of things. A businessperson sees products and services where others fail to notice.
There are other things working here too. We have unconscious believes that the future will be similar to the past. We have inhibitions towards the new. Setting intentions and visualization fights that.
We have a tendency to change direction often. Our mind wanders like a vagabond. That is not the efficient way to reach a destination. So, reminding yourself of your destination regularly and sticking firmly to your vision helps.
I say I value freedom above all, but keep setting instructions for me to follow. To be effective and efficient, I’ve found that, I should build good habits, avoid bad habits and follow a good routine. That requires discipline to follow pre-planned ideas. That kinda goes opposite of freedom. So I think I need to rethink the model of freedom I want if I want to reconcile with the twin ideas of freedom and responsibilities. Firstly freedom without responsibilities is neither possible nor desirable. Why is it not possible? Because, in a world of form where everything falls apart all the time, someone needs to take responsibility for my existence. If that someone is not me, then I can’t be totally free, I am bound by the wishes of some other to ensure proper existence. So that someone should be me. I need to be capable enough to shoulder my own burden. Why is it not desirable? Well firstly because it’s not true freedom as discussed above and also because it denies dignity.
We must impose order inside and outside of us to exist. The more I give freedom to my whims and impulses the less control I have on the direction of my life. So what is freedom really? Is it freedom to not work? Freedom to sing whenever I want to? Freedom to harm others? What is the freedom that I am after? Is it freedom of choice? Freedom from relying on other people? I would guess I just don’t want to have to answer to someone else. I want to be the supreme authority of my life. Now to some extent that’s impossible. There’s the government and seniors and religious or other leaders who will often have authority over me. But if I can shoulder my own burden, by either decreasing my wishes or increasing my capabilities, then some above average freedom sounds possible. Maybe the best kind of freedom is inner freedom. Freedom from being attached to thoughts and feelings. That requires constant upkeep though. I have to meditate and listen to spiritual stuff everyday. Also I might like the freedom of designing my own life. But that would require being capable enough to shoulder all that responsibilities myself. And for that, I must let go of the freedom of being impulsive and rather be disciplined, like an AI.
Hope all of you and your loved ones are safe during this pandemic. I admit that lockdowns are very boring, yet they are an opportunity to learn and do things that you’ve always wanted to do but didn’t have enough time for.
My schedule during this lockdown can be divided into three different parts:
i. Morning rituals
ii. Work
iii. Rest
Here is my schedule:
……………..Morning Rituals………………
1. Meditation: I meditate for 15 minutes the first thing in the morning. This prepares my mind to be disciplined for the rest of the day. I know this because whenever I miss my morning meditation I struggle with my will power.
Currently I am using this guided meditation video from Eckhart Tolle as my meditation aid.
2. Listen to an Audiobook: The next thing I do is to connect my earbuds to my phone and start an audiobook. The two next items in my schedule (i.e cleaning room and working out) can be done while I am listening to an audiobook so I take this opportunity to learn about something new.
Currently I am listening to Why We Sleep by Matthew Walker. It’s an amazing book that goes deep into all the cutting edge research on sleep. I highly recommend it.
3. Cleaning Room: A clean and well decorated room makes me feel good and aids in my determination to have a great, productive day. So, I take 10 minutes to make my bed, wipe some furnitures and sort scattered items.
4. Workout: While still listening to the audiobook, I get into my workout clothes and open my workout app. I am a huge fan of this app called-“Home Workout “. (They are providing free access to all premium features due to the pandemic, so definitely check it out). Each workout session takes 20 to 30 minutes.
5. Put my phone away: After completing my workout session, I stop the audiobook, disconnect my earbuds and put my phone away in a drawer. I don’t touch it untill my deep work session of the morning (which I will talk about below) is done. This aids in my deep work and keeps me from procrastinating.
5. Take a shower: Elon Musk did an AMA(ask me anything) on Reddit. Someone asked him to share what habits has the largest positive impact on his life. He answered: showering.
I live in a humid country and daily shower definitely helps me feel good for the rest of the day.
6. Wim Hof: I don’t know how many of you are familiar with the Wim Hof method. It’s a breathing exercise that has been researched extensively in the recent years . What researchers have found is, it strengthens your immune system through making your blood slightly more alkaline. I highly recommend you try it out! Here’s the link to the official YouTube channel:
Wim Hof method helps me to feel calm and focused. Have you ever kept yourself from breathing for a while when feeling sleepy? It makes you more alert right? That’s how I feel after going through each session of the Wim Hof mehod.
………………………..Work…………………………
7. Deep work: Ok now we’re onto my favorite session of the day. This is what I look forward to everyday. But let’s talk about what deep work is first:
Cal Newport, a brilliant professor and bestselling author of many books, published ‘Deep Work‘ in 2016. Here he talks about the brilliant skill of working distraction free on a cognitively demanding task.
Deep work enables you to learn complex topics and perform your best work. Barbara Oakley, the brilliant professor behind ‘Learning how to learn’, talks about how distractions hampers your ability to learn. She, being a big advocate of chunking, encourages students to minimize distractions while studying.
After three sessions of the Wim Hof method, I sit down to study. I study for 4 pomodoro sessions, each being 50 minutes long. Currently I am studying ‘Tensorflow’ which is a machine learning library. The course I am taking is called: “Introduction to Tensorflow for Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning and Deep Learning “. (If you are interested in taking this course, I recommend you read the Keras documentation first).
8. Nap and Lunch: As I’ve learned from listening to ‘Why We Sleep’ by Matthew Walker, napping is a good habit to get into. It reinforces what I learned in my study session and refreshes my mind and body for the rest of the day. I take my lunch after waking up from my 20 minutes long nap. This is the first meal of the day for me, my latest being only 8 hours later, which makes me fast for 16 hours everyday. This is called intermittent fasting and it has been linked to many helath and cognitive benefits in numerous research .
9. Some More Work: After lunch, I work for 6 more hours. This is when I write in my blog, or make a YouTube video. If I am feeling particularly lazy that day (which sadly is most days), I work on finishing one of the courses that I’ve enrolled in Coursera. Currently, I’m doing ‘The Science of Success’ by University of Michigan. This is a great resource if you want to learn about how successful people are different form others and how to incorporate those traits in you.
………………………Rest……………………..
10. Entertainment:
Mob Psycho 100
After I am done working for the day, I pick up my phone and watch an anime or watch something on YouTube.
Currently I am re-watching Mob Psycho 100 and my absolute favourite YouTuber to watch is B-rad.
11. Sleep: I try to get 8 hours of sleep every night.
So there you go. That’s the routine I strive to live up to everyday even though it’s a struggle to maintain it perfectly, specially because my sleep cycle is all over the place at this moment.
I’d really like to know how your schedule looks like during this lockdown. Please share in the comments below.
Here’s a comprehensive list compiled by Class Central. Have fun! If you don’t know where to start from I suggest that you check out the free Manning ebooks, those are great. Also check out the list of 85 free Coursera courses with certificates and 365 data science free courses with certificates. No credit cards required for any of these purchases.
Productivity seems to be a function of these ingredients-focus, environment, energy and clarity.
If you want to be more productive, improve upon these aspects of your life.
Here are some ideas to get you started:
Focus– be interested in what you do. It’s hard to do a good job when you are bored. You may also want to try meditation to improve your general level of focus and attention.
Environment– Have separate places for different tasks. Don’t make your bedroom the only workstation you have. Eliminate distractions.
Energy– Run often. Stay hydrated. Get enough sleep everyday.
Clarity– Keep a to do list. Prioritize the tasks on that list and set asidespecific time and spacefor each of them.
(There’s a lot more ways to improve you productivity. If you want to know about some more, check this out-My Top 10 Tips for a Productive Day)
You want to reach the moon and touch the stars. You want to travel, be a ladies’ man and get good grades. You want to win the Olympics and the Nobel prize. You know nothing is beyond your reach if only you would work for it.
But you don’t. Why?
You see the movie Limitless once and decide you’ll change your life from today. Maybe you even do get some shit done for a day or two. But never more than that. Why!?
This question bugs every ambitious person that ever sets out for greatness.
Well don’t worry. You are not sick. This is a curse every human being is born with. You see, we are not very good at taking the future seriously.
They even have a name for this phenomena. Hyperbolic discounting.
If I offered you a 100 dollars now vs 300 dollars 5 years later, you will probably take the $100 bill.
Because money has a time-value.
Similarly, there is a time value of pain and pleasure!!
If you smoke today and the cancer is 20 years away, who cares! Right? If you work tonight and the fame and glory is waiting for you 8 years down the line who cares?!
I know you do care. Everyone does. But that’s the Pre-frontal Cortex talking. Sadly that guy isn’t in charge. He’s just an employee of the reptilian brain you have. And the reptilian part of your brain could care less about the future.
So, yeah, there it goes. We humans are in big trouble. By default :3
It’s a manufacturing defect.
Well now let’s see what we can do to work around this handicap.
I suggest 2 BIG Steps,
Get Clarity
The Farmers mindset.
how to beat procrastination and be more productive
Here’s what I mean by these terms:
Get Clarity:
Productivity problems are often clarity problems. Here’s some steps towards greater clarity:
a. Get clear on what exactly you want to do.
b. Figure out how you are going to do that. And
c. Break down the tasks to tiny little tasks.
Develop a farmer’s mindset:
See every task you do as a seed you sow, It’s not the final product. It’s still on the embryo phase. Create a good environment for your tasks and nurture them. But don’t worry if they are not perfect. They will eventually grow and become full fledged awesome crops if you keep nurturing them regularly.
There are few meditation apps as good as ‘Waking Up’. You definitely want to check it out. Right now, I am enjoying the ‘Metta Meditations’ inside the app.
This app also provides access to various theories and lectures on mindfulness. It’s completely free until 2020 as a gift from the developers.
Other Updates:
I just watched this video by Max Joseph. He’s a master video editor and an amazing film maker. Many of you may know him from the show ‘Catfish’.
This video will show you how to find time for reading, how to read faster and comprehend more, beautiful libraries across South America and Europe and a lot more.
But you want a six pack. So, you go online and look for an exercise that will help you.
There, you find that you will need to lower your overall body fat for the abs to show. You are intimidated by the prospect of going on a diet.
You tell this to one of you friends. He tries to cheer you on. He promises to join the gym with you.
You are sick and tired of having a big gut so you decide to start your journey towards having abs.
You join a gym and work your abs until they are sore. Your friend on the other hand doesn’t over work his abs like you do.
The next day you are surprised to see that your abs are still sore and you can’t work them anymore. Your gym coach tells you to give them a week of rest. That week, your friend went to the gym without you. After some rest, your abs start working again. The next day, you join your friend in the gym.
You ask your friend if he had similar troubles. He tells you that he didn’t. Rather he kept working his muscles throughout the week when you were absent. He also tells you that he can now do more reps than he could a week before.
You are tempted to over work your muscles again. But you’ve learnt your lesson.
You start giving some love to all your muscle groups- biceps, neck and shoulder, pecks, legs etc. You don’t over work a muscle anymore. You are more concerned with putting in more reps. You now realize that, you won’t see results after one day of hardcore training. Rather you will see results after you’ve put in regular work, day after day after day.
Here’s what James Clear has to say about it,
Everyone wants to make progress. And there is only one way to do it: put in your reps.
He does a great job at explaining this idea. He cites multiple studies that prove this effect. I highly recommend you read his post. You can find it here- https://jamesclear.com/repetitions
One of the worst feelings in life is the feeling of wasting life away. No body wants to feel like their precious time is going by while they are in a power saving mode. Sadly, power saving mode is the default mode for any organism. Without good reasons to do otherwise, you and everyone else will always chose the path with the least effort and instant rewards.
Yet, it remains true that delaying gratification is what makes us humans. At least it is one of the core aspects of human ascension. The latest addition to organisms by evolution- the central lobe, tries its best to make us sacrifice instant reward now to get bigger rewards in the future. We ignore its voice at our own peril.
Do this thought experiment with me. Let’s say you have decided that for the next three hours you can only do one of the following:
Draw something
Study for the upcoming test
Exercise and
Watch your favorite show on YouTube
This is what is going to happen. Your mind will quickly glance through all the options. It will think something like this: “Hey I’ve always wanted to sharpen up my drawing skills! Let’s draw something! But wait, what do I even draw? It’s not like I have a syllabus or anything… I have this test coming, I should better study. But studying is so boring! I guess I’ll first do something else. I don’t feel like hitting the gym either man. I don’t even remember where I left my shoes and trouser last time. Let’s just watch YouTube for now. I can’t wait to see what (your fav YouTuber) has uploaded today!”
One video will lead to another and soon your 3 hours will be up.
Unless for an extraordinary burst of motivation or rare case of extreme self-control, this is how we function.
What would have happened if you didn’t have the choice of Watching YouTube?
Yes, herein lies the answer. ELIMINATE.
Eliminate the possibility of doing things that you know are your weakness. Things that you know waste your time. Here’s the thing, you don’t have to do it for the whole day.
Block 3 or more hours of your day. Choose only a handful of tasks that you really want to do and eliminate every other possibility.
You will be surprised to see what happens then. Some magical wizard stuff will guide you to the things you’ve always wanted to do. Because that’s how we work. We always look for the highest reward with least amount of effort. Choose the activities you’re allowed to do and your limbic brain will be tricked into thinking it chose the most fun thing with least hassle.
Keep doing this 3 hours a day, 7 days a week and see how your life satisfaction shoots up.
I was unhappy with how my days went. I always thought I can do so much more. But I didn’t know how to.
Then I got an idea. I called it the productivity challenge. I had to stop all my social media activity and digital entertainment until each evening. I also had to work in Pomodoros while never taking a break longer than 15 minutes.
This did sound impossible to me. Nevertheless, I gave it a shot and my day went well! I tried it the next day too, but couldn’t keep it up for any more days. I knew I was on to something. But it was still a work in progress.
Then I found out how Dr. Jordan Peterson would lock himself up for 3 hours every night to finish his book. Stephen Pressfield does something similar every morning. Neil Gaiman does this. Stephen King writes 6 pages everyday no matter what.
This lit up an idea in me. I couldn’t do it for a whole day, but I could do it for 3 hours. That’s where my idea of 3 sacred hours came for. For the last 12 days I have put in 3 hours every single day, except for one minor hiccup.
But, the pull of digital entertainment is always there. It’s easy to do my 3 hours and then waste my whole day on social media, YouTube or some streaming service.
That’s when another idea struck me. There’s something I always wanted to do. That is learning about new things from masters of that craft. I just love it when someone talks about something that she is very passionate in.
So, I decided to replace digital entertainment with books and lectures from different Universities. I guess all of you know that Stanford, MIT, Yale and Harvard have their own YouTube channels where they upload full lectures on numerous subjects. Then there’s the Joe Rogan Experience, The Origins Podcast, The Artificial Intelligence Podcast, The Portal and many other podcasts where I get to see people talk about their views and their passion.
The lure of social media, random YouTube videos and streaming services are still there. It’s a conscious choice that I have to make every day to read a book, watch a lecture or listen to a podcast instead.
But at the end of the day, this is what makes me happy. I urge you to try this for a day and see how it goes. You can start with this course about ‘Death’ (!) by Shelly Kagan that I’m watching right now.
RaihanRiad 