Knowing where to put you time and energy is an essential part in creating a life of fulfillment and meaning
Time blocking, scheduling, journaling, meditation, and many more, I have a feeling that you’ve tried these already in an attempt to boost productivity.
It either worked, or it didn’t.
Now what? Are there any other ways to help you become more productive?
I credit productivity in leaping from where I am to where I want to be. Knowing where to put you time and energy is an essential part in creating a life of fulfillment and meaning.
But there are other ways that I’ve done which was surprisingly helpful in being productive. It’s counter-intuitive but they are under-rated and no one really talks more about these ways.
Let’s dive in these three under-rated ways to boost productivity:
Here are 6 daily habits that you can adapt to help you fulfil your potential.
Taking Regular breaks
The common belief surrounding productivity is that you have to work hard. The more you work, or the more hours you spend at work, the more productive you are.
I spent my 20’s doing just that. I don’t take a day off. I worked not two, but three jobs. When doing house chores, I do two or three things at a time. I’m obviously overworked, no wonder I burned out quickly.
I was not a unique case. According to this news article, Filipino women are working longer hours than men. Working mothers are said to be working on average 45.6 hours per week, that is on top of taking care of the children and the household.
Overworking can cause serious health problems, too. From chronic stress, fatigue, elevated risk of heart disease and mental health problems, the list is endless.
We all want to work hard enough to provide for our families, to create the life that we want. But risking or sacrificing our health, is not worth it.
It’s time to take more breaks and abandon the notion that you have to work hard longer hours to be productive. This doesn’t mean going on an extended vacation in the Caribbean, that’s great too, but breaks can be as simple as taking a 20-minute break every 40 minutes of work.
If you have desk work, consider standing up or doing a few stretches for at least 10 minutes to rest your eyes or stretch your muscles. Give your bum a rest, stand up, take a walk out of your office.
Some of my favorite ways to take a break is napping, getting good quality sleep, walking and taking a midday meditation break. I would suggest that you try each of these and see what fits best with you.
Nourish your body
The more you learn, the more you achieve, as Warren Buffet said.
You might wonder why you’re not becoming productive when your work environment is optimized, you also exercise and you meditate and journal and you might also believe that you are eating a healthy diet, but you may not get enough nutrients from the food you eat.
Our body needs nourishment from food to become productive.
Filipinos are among the nutrient-deficient population in the world. In this survey, nutrient deficiency is high on almost all nutrients including iron. Iron is an essential mineral that we need in our body. It is needed to make hemoglobin and myoglobin. Iron-deficiency is linked to reduced performance and physical work capacity because of sluggishness and increased lethargy.
Overall, nutrition deficiency affects one’s productivity including lack of focus and low energy.
There is also a lack of diversity in our food choices. Filipino diets are heavily dependent on rice, which is not really that good of a source of micronutrients.
It doesn’t also help that you the food readily available are fastfood, which you know are sugar-heavy and lacks in essential nutrients that our body needs.
Another factor is throughout decades of conventional large-scale farming, our agricultural lands are losing minerals and nutrients that the plants needed to grow healthy. In turn, affects the nutrients consumers intake when consuming these conventionally grown plants and plant-derived food products.
If you want to boost productivity, you can start doing small lifestyle changes like:
Eating more of the right foods and limiting your processed food consumption. Fill your grocery baskets with more vegetables, fruits, meat and as much as you can, organically or naturally grown.
Switch to healthier snacks. Instead of eating packaged chips that are either rich or filled with more salt and other flavoring that doesn’t actually nourish your body, try snacking on nuts, fruits and sliced vegetables instead.
Stay hydrated.
Staying hydrated is just as important as eating the right food in staying focused. Do this by drinking water, smoothies, or consuming water-rich fruits and vegetables.
I also believe in supplementing with the right vitamins and minerals from my trusted brands because we still don’t get enough nutrients even when we eat the highest quality of produce. I would highly suggest that you visit your physician to consult, avoid self-medicating.
Align with your energy
You may have observed that other days you’re ultra productive and energetic, and some days, you just want to rest it out. While most women are aware when they need to rest (hint: that time of the month) or when energy is high, all across gender we all have high and low energy days.
This is where aligning with your energy comes in.
Energy alignment is simply finding the best time or day where your energy matches what’s required to get a task done.
If you think about it, we have the same time every day, but not the same energy levels. Your energy plays out a big factor in determining how much you accomplish (what these accomplishments are defined by you).
There are so many time management seminars and articles, and I bet you’ve read and attended many of them. But really, we can’t manage time. It’s impossible to manage time. What we can manage instead is our energy and aligning when you have the most will help you boost productivity.
This is how I align with my energy. In weeks where my period happens, I give myself light tasks. I use this full week to rest, rejuvenate and recalibrate. For us women, we need this. Our body needs time to recover after all the shedding that’s happening in our reproductive system. I call this week, Triple R week.
The next two week after Triple R week, is when I have so much energy. I just came from a week-long rest so it’s obvious that I have high energy. This is when I batch my content, I shoot videos and do all the hardwork.
Then comes the last week of the month, this is when I review a lot of my work. When I review my goals and the things I’ve done is aligned to my big picture and definition of success.
I hope that gives you an idea of how to align with your energy. Give this a try and see how this boosts your productivity.
In essence, productivity improves the quality of life because it’ll allow you to have freedom to pursue things that matter to you.
For me, that is spending uninterrupted quality time with my family, that is nurturing my community and pursuing my other interests.
I hope this brings value to your life and allows you to have a more fulfilling, meaningful and happy life. If you think that your friends and family will benefit from this blog post, please share it with them.