It's the little details

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Every night before going to bed, I take some time to think of the stuff I plan to do the next day. It includes my morning yoga workout, menu for the day, counseling sessions, checking on my plants, writing, reading and watching TV. I didn’t realize the benefit of this habit, till about now. What started a few days ago as lock-down fatigue, quickly snowballed into self-deprecating thoughts that despite my relentless efforts didn’t leave me. I couldn’t explain my general lack of verve. So I turned to what I know helps me – self-interrogation and sifting through my reading list. And voila! I found this article that first featured on Medium about the things that maybe hindering my personal productivity. I figured that the little things I had been doing before going to bed were actually enabling me to be more productive and efficient. Conversely, when I stopped doing those things is when I felt out of sorts.

So without further delay, here are the magical recipes to getting things done or to get your “mojo” back:

Start your day with a reliable routine. A morning routine allows you to focus on getting things done instead of making decisions when you are most productive.

Jim Rohn once said, “Don’t begin the activities of your day until you know exactly what you plan to accomplish. Don’t start your day until you have it planned.”

When you don’t start your day without a routine, you can waste a lot of energy in the morning deciding what’s worth your time for the rest of the day. S.J. Scott, author of numerous books on habit development says, “…doing things only when you feel like it gives too much control to your state of mind. And let’s be honest, most of the time none of us “feel” like working. Giving control of our productivity to our fickle-and lazy-emotions is a recipe for failure. This is exactly what happened to me a few days ago. I let my “feelings” get the better of me instead of planning the night before about what I was going to do the next day. I am still not completely in control of my state of mind but I am more conscious of the downside of relinquishing the small system of planning for the next day.

Prioritizing deep work over shallow work. To get more done every day, you should make the clear distinction between shallow or low-value work and high-value work. Once you know you have identified the difference, spend your most productive time on your most important tasks. It is easy to get excited about low-value work-the easy tasks that keep us busy without really moving us forward: email, organizing files, returning phone calls, meetings, paper work etc. Many people start their day with long meetings, too many calls and spend a lot of time responding to emails before making time for actions that actually contribute to real progress.

Activities like writing, counseling and evaluating my client’s progress move the needle for me. These are my high-value tasks that contribute to my long-term goal of putting my talent and skill to good use. They produce my most important outcomes. When you delay the hard tasks to do just comfortable work, you can easily run out of time for high-value work. This is a vicious cycle that can lead to low productivity. Invest your most productive hours in your highest priorities. Deep work should always take precedence over shallow work. Don’t mistake busyness for real work.

Start your day with a priority list. Is everything really important?

When almost everything needs to be done now, you can get overwhelmed really fast. Learning to prioritize your priorities can make a difference to how you work and get things done. When you have two important things that need your attention, you can end up in a paralysis that leads to no action at all.

“This lack of clarity often arises from a feeling of ambivalence- I want to do something, but I don’t want to do it; or I want one thing, but I also want something else that conflicts with it,” explains Gretchen Rubin, the author of The Happiness Project and Better Than Before.

Until you know what you want, where you are headed and the right actions that can get you what you want at the right time, almost everything you desire will scream for your attention, energy and time. To prioritize effectively you need to be able to recognize what is important and what is urgent. Getting real work done is about putting your time and energy where they are most needed when they are most needed. To take control of your priorities, start work with the end in mind. Ask yourself, “What do I have to do today to get close to the end goal?”

One of my goals is to publish a post every week. But missing a week or two without sharing something of value doesn’t mean I am not thinking about it. However, under the current circumstances, it is important but not urgent because my need of taking care of my family and my clients outweighs the importance of publishing every week.

Work with the right system. What is the first thing you do when you wake up? What is your productivity trigger? A life without a system is so much draining mentally, physically and emotionally than you can ever imagine! A productivity system provides you the ability to manage and execute your commitments and tasks at specific times. It is simply a collection of behaviors, repeated consistently and in a particular order, plus the tools that support them. It makes you efficient. Some popular productivity systems are: The SMART Method, Time-boxing, The “To-Do” List, Pomodoro Technique, Don’t Break The Chain and Eat That Frog. I came across a wonderful new system of creating a “not-do-list” that I will share in my next article.

All of these systems are designed to do one thing: get stuff done. They are individual systems, but you can combine what works for you with other tools and apps to create the results you want. Remember, there is no perfect system. Every contented person has a system for getting things done. What works for me may not necessarily work for you.

Truly disconnecting. Working without breaks can increase fatigue and stress levels, making it harder to do more high-level work. The moment you make time to relax-when you are not consumed by to-do lists, plans, agendas, you allow your brain and body to recover, recharge and get ready to do what it does best. For consistent peak performance schedule enough time on your calendar to unplug from work.

Quality rest from work doesn’t have to be huge to make a difference – just 5 or 20 minutes in between deep work can be enough. But the rest itself should be free from distractions or diversions – not filled with passive digital interaction. To be honest, I am still working on it and it helps to have my four-legged pooches that don’t mind being gently massaged or always ready to play ball.

Scheduling down time creates the balance your brain needs to keep delivering the results you expect of it. Quality rest time has been proven again and again to increase your well-being. I guess that is what I was aiming to do, “nothing”. But where it went wrong for me was not truly disconnecting from my mental fatigue and putting my energy into doing stuff that would reinvigorate me. I now realize what it means to take a complete break, even a quick one, can recharge your brain, get rid of a lot mental clutter, and prepare you for your next task.

To summarize, the sooner you identify the habits that get in the way of pragmatic productivity, the earlier you can regain control to do more great work and truly get the most out of a day. Remember, your life is determined by your habits-if you are not making real progress in life or career, the first place to look is your habits.