My Top 10 Tips for a Productive Day

Here are my top 10 tips for a productive day:

1. Energy:

First and foremost, you need energy. A tired mind/body is not going to have a productive day. Learn to sleep earlier and sleep better. Do a little cardio after you wake up. Drink plenty water throughout the day.

2. Length:

Always use pomodoro. It can be for 25 minutes or 1 hour. But, never longer than that for one session. You should always know exactly when you are going to stop. Keep a stopwatch beside you. Whenever you feel bored or feel like giving up, just look at the stopwatch and tell yourself, “Hey, let’s keep at it for just 15 more minutes.” Your mind will be less likely to rebel against that vs if you didn’t know when you are going to stop.

3. Time:

Not every task is suitable for every waking hour of the day. Learn about chronobiology. Solve math problems in the morning. Do something creative in the afternoon. Alternatively, you may exercise in the afternoon. Take a nap between 1 and 3 pm.

4. Ease:

There’s always a difference between what you should and what you could do. Maybe you want to write a novel, but don’t have the discipline to do so. Well, then write a one-page story first. Make sure you sit down to write for only 25 minutes every day. Once you’ve mastered that, you’ll be ready to tackle bigger projects and longer work hours. So, always start easy. Don’t bite more than you can chew.

5. Simplicity:

Tasks in your to-do list must be simple. Don’t complicate them. Don’t plan to write the most amazing thriller where the hero is the villain. Rather, plan to sit down for 25 minutes with pen and paper.

6. Focus:

Focus is a fail-proof trick that forces you to be productive. Have as little things to do in your day as possible. Eliminate/ hide all distractions. You need to prepare for each task like you’d before entering an exam hall. Keep your phone somewhere else and forget everything else you’ll have to do after these 25 minutes.

7. Organize:

What are you going to do first? How many minutes will you take rest? Do you have enough water with you? Is your stopwatch with you? Will you run out of pages to write?

Always take a second to check if everything is in order.

8. Improvise:

Not every problem requires the same solution. Yet, we often get stuck at a particular way of thinking. Let’s say you have too much work to fit your to do list. To make sure you get these extra works done, you must innovate.

Can you tackle some tasks in the car?. Tasks like listening to a podcast, learning a new language, transcribing your blog post etc. can be done on the road.

Could you find someone else to do it?

Could you merge two tasks together? i.e. listening to an audio book while playing games etc.

9. Eliminate:

You can’t get everything done in a single day. You must sacrifice what is of less importance to you. You must sacrifice the trivial for the sake of what’s meaningful to you.

Uninstall social media apps, remove gaming from your schedule, restrict the time you are on YouTube.

10. Environment:

Environment can either distract you or aid you to focus. As we now know,it’s better to keep the marshmallows out of site than to use willpower for avoiding them. Keep your dumbbells where you can see them. Put the book you want to read on the bedside table. Put all the sweet cookies out of sight. Design your environment for success.

 

Bonus Tips (Because Why Not!)

11. Push:

When nothing else works, just take one step. Don’t want to work out? Then do one pushup and one sit-up everyday until you can muster the will to do more. Don’t feel like studying? Read just one paragraph every day.

12. Learn:

There’s a lot to learn about productivity. We don’t come to this world with a manual on how to properly use our body and mind. That’s what Tim Ferris, Barbara Oakley, Jordan B Peterson, Stephen Pressfield and other thinkers/ researchers are for. Learn from them. Always be a student of great minds.

I hope you find these ideas helpful. Best of luck!

 

 

 

Neil Gaiman shares how he keeps writing day after day

Was listening to Neil Gaiman on the Tim Ferris show. I already admired the guy- for his silky voice, good looks, nuggets of wisdom from his masterclass and of course- his writing. This podcast didn’t change anything about that.

He shares an interesting secret here. It’s how he keeps producing so much content. I found the trick very practical yet amusing. Been giving it a try since I listened to him yesterday and trust me – it works!

He basically prepares for writing and sits down in his assigned place, blocking distractions. Then he tells himself that he has permission to write or NOT to write… but he can not do anything else.

Naturally his mind wanders around as writing can be boring and tedious if done day after day. But miraculously yet very much predictably, he picks up the pen and starts putting words onto the sheets. It turns out that, writing is more interesting than doing nothing.

Very practical insight indeed! Just show up to your work and give yourself permission to fidget around. But, avoid the slot-machine-like addictive YouTube, Facebook or any other entertaining stuff. Just be there- alone in the workplace. Sooner or later, your mind will start searching for more fun, and the only available fun is your work!

This is how to increase your brain power

Your brain is your ultimate Weapon. It’s the only weapon that you have with you for all kinds of situation you may find yourself in. So, it’s only natural to have the desire to sharpen it and make it as powerful as possible. As our brain is the only tool that we have available 24/7 to deal with life’s challenges, empowering the brain through various activities sounds like a good idea.

Let’s say you want to improve upon the current condition of your brain. How do you approach it? To answer that question, first let’s talk a little about the brain itself.

Necessary Information about the Brain

The brain is a relatively tiny part of the body. It only weighs like 3 pounds, but it uses 20% of our total energy consumption.

Therefore, our body is very cautious about making it as efficient as possible. As a Child we are born with many different faculties of the brain, but they wither away as we become adults because, to increase efficiency our brain shuts down or limits resources to the parts of it that we don’t use as often.

Another thing we need to know about the brain is that it’s made solely with fats. And its preferred source of fuel is from ketones.

Okay, now that we have learned a little bit about the brain itself, let us discuss about how to improve its day-to-day functionalities, i.e. focus and cognition.

Foods for a Healthier Brain

Let’s first talk about the foods you need to intake to grow your brain. The old convention was that you are born with a set number of neurons and that you cannot generate any more. But this idea has been debunked and now we know that new neurons grow all the time. Your diet can influence it. The diets that support a healthy brain the most consist mostly of fats; as the brain itself is made from fats. You may want to eat salmon fish oil and nuts and fish rows. Also, a balanced diet where you get all kinds of nutrition is helpful.

The Importance of Sleep

Now let’s talk about the rituals that will boost your brain. These are habits that will enhance your brain’s performance. The first thing you want to ensure is good sleep. Make sure you have a good amount of uninterrupted sleep every day. If you couldn’t sleep one night, then don’t sleep for Two or three hours in the morning. Rather skip sleep completely for that day and get an uninterrupted longer sleep later. Because, when you interrupt your sleep midway, it’s harsh for the brain and the brain thrives when you let it complete its sleep uninterrupted.

How Exercise Boosts Brain Power

The next ritual you may want to incorporate in your daily life is to exercise. Exercise feeds your neurons, helps to grow novel synapses and makes them stronger. Working out will also make you more focused and energetic. Your ability to concentrate and your willpower will also increase. So, it’s a good idea to start your day with a workout regimen.

The Power of Meditation

The next daily ritual you may want to incorporate in your everyday life is to meditate. Meditation detaches you from your monkey brain and lets you see it as is.When you focus in the present moment, it releases unnecessary burden from your brain and lets you think more clearly and see things more clearly.

Tips and Tricks to Enhance your Brain

Okay, now there are some tips and tricks that you can use to help your brain retain all its potential faculties that usually wither away as we don’t use them. One way to do that is to use your left hand as often as you can. Another way to do that would be to learn dancing. And the best and the most holistic way to do that is to think about difficult stuff and take new challenges.

How Ketosis helps your Brain

The last thing I want to introduce is the importance of ketones. We can take our fuel from food in two ways: from glucose with the help of the insulin that our body produces, or from fats through ketosis. Our brain’s preferred mode of getting its fuel is through ketones. And that’s why it’s a good idea to introduce intermittent fasting or ketogenic diets in your life. People with intermittent fasting have reported to have higher focus and concentration and overall better mood.

So, there you go. I hope these are some helpful pointers for you to start building a healthier brain and nurture it properly.

(I must acknowledge the hard work of Dr. Rahul Jandial, What I’ve learned, Barbara Oakley, Impact Theory and Sam Harris. I wouldn’t have the slightest clue about all this if I hadn’t been following them.)

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 🙂

 

Do your best now

I had to focus, on my surroundings. It enhances mind, one Quora post said. I had to try it.

I was in a rickshaw. Leisurely sitting while someone else worked hard to pull me. There was no shortage of sound to hear and things to see. I saw cars, nameplates, buildings, trees, billboards, people, dust, smoke, sun-rays, the sky, clouds etc etc. There was sounds of birds chirping, car horns, engine sounds, wind, rickshaw bells, people and a weird silence beneath all the sounds. I tried to listen to all of them. And see everything I could.

But it was hard to continuously focus on this moment. Thoughts and feelings would take me to the past, or make me worry about the future. I felt tired from fighting with them. But the overall feeling was good. I felt more powerful, more confident but not in an arrogant way. Lights seemed brighter and I noticed a lot of different sounds that I usually ignore. I felt good. I wondered if this was the secret of Sherlock Homes.

Another amazing change was the clarity of thoughts. I was seeing bullshit in my own thoughts.

I saw two birds playing, flapping their wings. For a second I thought I wish I could fly like them. Then I remembered, nothing else can add to me. Even if I end up flying like them, soon I’ll be looking for some other cool thing and be frequently suicidal thinking what is the meaning of all this. Nothing really can add to what I am already. I will either find contentment in who I am or never.

The following thoughts are cliches now. We run after things, never satisfied. Nothing new changes how we feel about ourselves. This is not new. It’s been there since ages.

I thought about breaking this cycle. I want to not fret about what I’m going to get every second. Rather focus on what I have. I want to savor every moment.

But wouldn’t that be stupid? How will I plan for a better future? What if I slack off?

Well, there is good news. When you focus on this moment, the quality of what you do rises. The quality of how you respond to your environment rises too. And, you get a feeling of stronger will power. I don’t think will power itself rises. But when you have to  do just a micro task in the moment , it’s easier.

What about future planning? Well life is the dancer and we are the dance. Much of what happens to us is out of luck. But their is much we can do to influence our fate. No doubt about that to. Maybe Its better to think of this as a co-creation where you and life come together to complete the future building process. A good mood to enter this process is playfulness. The worst meed is neediness. The needier one is, the harder it is to do the right things. If one is worried about the future, it’s more likely that s/he is needy. When one is focused on the duties of this moment, s/he can operate from a playful state of mind.

 

We see only what we aim at and this can be a problem!

To a man with a hammer, everything looks like nails. There are some shocking truth to this quote.

To comprehend this complex world, we use selective perception. Now you might ask, who decides what we see? Well the answer is, what you aim at decides what you see.

Vision is selective. The world is too complicated to take it all in and process everything every second.

Maybe some of you are familiar with the basketball and gorilla test. For those of you who don’t have a clue here’s a summary: So, some researchers arranged a basketball match and asked the research participants to count how many times the white team threw the ball at each other. Everyone starts counting. Meanwhile, a giant gorilla comes along and dances around in the middle of the screen. The gorilla avoids any area where the ball is.

Most of the participants counted the number of times the ball was thrown correctly. They completed the task with success. But wait, , most of them did not see the giant gorilla! Now this is a study done by credible scientists. Many other studies have been done like this with similar and shocking results.

This illustrates the point I made earlier. You see what you look at. So, if you are dreaming of your ‘six figure passive income at the Malibu beach’ lifestyle all the time, but at the same time worry about why you won’t sit down to study or do your bed or workout and etc other problems, remember this discussion. You are blinded by your own aim. Yes your ambition blinds you to all the goodness around you.

If all you see is violence and crime, maybe all you are looking for is violence and crime. You can replace this with anything else and its still true. It can be lack of opportunities, or maybe a plethora of opportunities. Maybe you see danger , or maybe you see safety. You could see betrayals everywhere, or rather trust and camaraderie. Whatever, I guess my point comes across.

 

A better approach to life

So what’s the way out? How to see the greater truth? How to notice more of reality and see the opportunities around you?

Odin sacrificed one of his eyes to see the greater truth. He could no longer aim well. But this made him see more! (spoiler for Thor: Ragnarok ahead) Thor lost one of his eyes in Thor: Ragnarok. But it gave him wisdom.

You see the metaphorical connection here?

Sacrifice. Sacrifice your aim. This seems to be the answer.

But really? Isn’t it stupid not to have an aim? After all, the school system has asked us to write about our aim since we were children. There is also this saying that: a  man without an aim is like a ship without a rudder. Well this is wisdom too! We can’t just leave this advice and start living an aimless life right?

Well, this is actually where my own understanding remains insufficient. I cant really argue against this. But I can see how obsessive coalition with an aim is bad. It can make life shallow. Specially, when human tendency is to ignore everything that is beyond your aim.

Your own well being could be beyond your aim and you would ignore it! Your family’s well being could be beyond your aim and you would ignore it too! Same goes to your tribe, your country and the whole world! It pains me to think how many CEO s have been blinded to the fact that they are harming the planet and ruining our future, because they cant even see it! They are blinded by their goal: more wealth for the shareholders!

I had been blinded by my aim too. I failed to see that doing the right things in the present moment, like, building good habits, doing positive and productive things that I also enjoy doing and taking the opportunities already in front of me is what would make me better, not blinded hankering after a single aim.

So do we aim at nothing? Do we become like ships without a rudder and wander around aimlessly all our life?

To answer that, let us can break the problem into three sub-components first-

1. We see only what we aim at
2. We want our life to be well and possibly get better every moment
3. As a result, we want to look at-a) the good things already existing in our life.b) The existing possibilities to improve our life

I have a solution here. Well, It’s not an original idea. I got it from Dr. Jordan Peterson’s book: ‘12 rules for life: an antidote to chaos’

The idea is:

First, sacrifice your aim. Then aim again. This time, aim at good. Your aim now is to do whatever good you can do to make your life better than it has been.

This puts you in an upward trajectory. Now you may see all the good and more conveniently, all the evil around you.

I’ve been following it since 2 or 3 weeks now. And it has made me realize things in my life that I didn’t before.

There can be a plethora of ways to see the world. The more we experiment and see the world through different lenses, the closer to the lens we are that may lessen sufferings.

So, give up on your aim for maybe a week and act accordingly. See what greater truth you discover!

 

 

Craft a story to memorize faster

Here’s how a story can help you memorize a big list:

Yesterday I was studying about fire insurances. I came across a big list containing 8 lines of instructions. I was already bored to death. I had no energy left to cram this list.

The Method of Loci

I have known about The Method of Loci for some time now. But I never took the time to master it. I took out my phone, opened YouTube and searched for the method. Then, I started watching the first video. It was really good. I got super excited . So I tried it out myself. The result was pure gold. The method works like a charm. Here is the link to that video- The method of loci
Make sure that you skip to 4:25 minutes of the video. The first 4 minutes are unnecessary chatter.

This video shows how to incorporate an interconnected story to remember chunks of information. I used it to remember those fire insurance clauses. I can still remember the whole thing without revision. That blows my mind, as I’ve always been very bad at memorizing stuff.

Watch this to go to the next level

There’s another video that may come handy- when you need to memorize bigger lists. Here’s the link-

Video about Mind Palace technique

These guys have done an amazing job at explaining the method. So I will not go into the details here. Watch them and grow a new super power!

Be more Present by Owning your Mortality

What is presence?

It’s being in one’s senses, not being caught up in one’s thoughts.

Have you ever feared that life’s just passing you by and you’re not really experiencing it?Has it ever occurred to you that you’re not what you could be- right now? That you are running on some kind of power-saving mode? Then you have lack of presence.

Actually, all of humanity has lack of presence, except some exceptional people. But that doesn’t mean everyone else is operating on the same level of consciousness. It varies greatly. The more present you are, the more enjoyable your life is. And not only enjoyable, but you also become more efficient as you can see things as they truly are and not be biased by preconceived opinions.

Presence lets you cultivate your own persona. It lets you break free of societal conditioning.

What does owning your mortality have to do with presence?

To understand that, you have to understand what truly blocks presence. We do have the answer. It’s your thoughts about past and future. If you can free yourself from those thoughts, voila! you’re present.

When you truly understand that you’re going to die, it is then that you start living. It is then that you start valuing your present moments more. Owning your mortality let’s you live every moment as if it were your last. It makes you feel that something wonderful is in your hands, and it’s not going to last very long. So you might as well enjoy it while it lasts.

One simple trick

Jessy Itzler

I was watching Impact Theory the other day and something ‘Jessy Itzler’ mentioned that stuck to me. He used to calculate his remaining days on earth by subtracting his age from average male life expectancy. Then he would write that down on his hand everyday.

I tried this for a while. It truly made a difference. It sounds morbid and depressing. Maybe it is; a little bit. But it’s a necessary dose of truth that I needed in my life. And I am thankful that I did it. It let me focus on what’s truly important to me and look through all the bullshit I’ve been telling myself.

Try this out for a day or two. See if this works for you!

Eckhart with Dalai Lama

If you want to take your presence to the next level then do check out Eckhart Tolle on YouTube. He is a master of presence. His book ‘The Power of Now’ always helps me gain sanity. It’s one of my favorite book.

 

Please like and share this post if this helped you. Follow this blog for being up to date with all my latest posts. See you in the next post 🙂

A powerful tool for focus and motivation: Simon Sinek’s bagel trick

What is the main reason we lose focus and motivation? Where does our motivation and focus go? Well, for me it’s obstacles. Whenever I’m focusing more on the struggles I’ll have to go through to get something, I get really discouraged.

British author Simon Sinek talks about one advice to get through this problem. He goes on to tell a story about him and one of his friend first. They were together somewhere and saw someone giving away free bagels. Simon was super excited to get the bagel. His friend on the other hand was not. The friend discouraged Simon’s enthusiasm by telling him about how long the line is and that he doesn’t wanna put up with that. He was focused on the obstacles and not the reward. Simon was the opposite. He could only see the free bagel.

At a certain point in our life, all of us accept that mere wishing isn’t enough. We must work for the things we wish to get.

Then some of us get fed up with how stale and predictable (& sometimes terrible) our life is. They get up and try to do something about it.

An unfortunate discovery is to be made at this point.

There is a good reason most people are lazy & unmotivated.

Work is hard. Pursuing ambitious goals is a dark path of constant struggle, failure, confusion & rejection. It’s freaking inhuman and a big bubble of ‘ifs, buts and what ifs’.

Getting through this is the real problem. It’s where you lose sight of why you started the journey in the first place.

This is exactly what you MUSTN’T forget.

Never let your why be blurry. No matter what it is, shamelessly accept your why. Nurture it, let it grow. Let it consume you. Otherwise, the struggle will overwhelm you and you will quit.

And this is the trick. Keep your eye on the rewards you are working for. Do not forget your why.