What to do when you don't feel productive, but still feel busy [3 practices to deliberately increase your OUTPUT)

If you feel like you are constantly working long, mentally taxing days, without a sense of accomplishment, then you will benefit from reading this post. ??

As a high achiever, you are incredibly ambitious, optimistic, and driven.

Because of these admirable traits, you have constructed a full, goal-driven life with aspirations in various domains.

This applies to your career, your finances, your health, and your relationships. [And I Salute You For Having goals in all of these categories..

But this can lead to your demise…

These very traits that elicit inspiration and action, can also create an overwhelming paralysis, where you don’t want to do ANYTHING.

? When drive turns into imbalanced days filled with compensatory behaviors, such as skipping workouts to get more work done, or taking more stimulants than initially planned.

? Optimism turns into the planning fallacy, and you over-estimate your capacity to complete tasks in a given time, leaving you in a chaotic rat-race for the rest of the day

? Ambition turns into anxiety where your constant standard for “Excellence” becomes the very thing that burns you out, only to leave you exhausted, resentful, and dependent on stimulants.

These are symptoms of a lack of discipline...

Symptoms that will lead high achievers to living a life-experience plagued with an overall feeling of unease...

Which eventually turns to constant fatigue, and inevitably eventually leaves the person, burnt-out, depressed, and feeling unaccomplished, afraid to face the rigors of the next day…

As high-achievers, you pride yourself on discipline, as you notoriously do the hard-things.

The issue is not the hard things.

It’s the easy things.

Here are three tips that you need to implement that will help you increase your work output, so you are PRODUCTIVE rather than BUSY:

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1?? Create a Morning Routine – and STICK to it.

Momentum is the KEY to success.

Your morning ritual must be designed to get you momentum, and get it FAST.

If you remember in high-school physics the concept of inertia, which stated that an object in motion tends to stay in motion, unless acted upon by a force.

An object at rest, tends to stay at rest, unless acted upon by a force.

This morning routine will get you into motion, from the moment you wake up.

The morning routine should include the following:

? Some form of exercise, whether it is an entire-workout, a bit of cardio such as a 10 minute-run, or a certain number of push-ups. 

? A Gratitude-Practice. This not only will improve your happiness for the sake of happiness, but for the sake of productivity. By consciously acknowledging what you are thankful for, you will increase the hormone oxytocin, and the neurotransmitters dopamine and serotonin, which simply means you are going to feel better about yourself. A better mood yields lower stress-levels, and the capacity to concentrate better.

? Cold-Therapy – For me this is a 5-minute, ice-cold shower. This will wake you up, force you to breathe deeply getting more oxygen to the brain, and create a metabolic response as your internal body temperature will go up.

? Time-Blocking – Block every minute of the day into 30 minute chunks. Give yourself a little leeway, as things may take longer than you initially plan. By doing this daily, you will have more control of your time and wont be at the mercy of anyone else’s schedule for you. You will know exactly what needs to get done, and when. Also, you will start to have more data-points in terms of your productivity. At the end of each day, you will see how closely you are adhering to your to-do list for each 30 minute window, and more accurately planning your days.

? Meditation – This is the most crucial one. Find at least 20 minutes every morning to meditate.

2?? Use the Pomodoro Technique

You cannot sprint a marathon.

Any monumental project that adds value and provides fulfillment is challenged and takes time.

You must attack it with a marathon-mindset. You must pace yourself, and only pick certain points to sprint.

If you can carry this approach into your daily work, you will get far more completed.

An incredibly structured and effective way to create these divisions of your effort is using a technique called Pomoduro.

Pomoduro helps divide your work into manageable parts.

When you are in your “deep-work” phase, where you need to churn out your tough brain-work, whether its content creation, business strategy, client-programming, or studying, you need to divide your concentrated periods up into blocks of 25 minutes

Use a timer, preferably not on your phone as this should be turned off.

Work for 25 minutes on, 5 minutes off. BE STRICT ABOUT THIS.

During your 5 minute breaks, you can close your eyes and meditate/visualize or take a quick walk.

Science says that we really should not try and do more than 4 hours of deep-work each day.

That means that you should aim for 8 x 25 minute work blocks, with 5 minutes of rest in between each work period…

No phones, no Facebook, no distractions.

3?? Find “overwhelm anchors”

No matter who you are, how mentally focused you can be, and how much grit you have, you will get stuck, and your momentum will get stifled.

This will happen at the macroscopic level, where you will have slower and less inspired weeks, months, or quarters, as well as at the microscopic level, where your creative-flow may dissipate for a bit.

The goal is not to push through these periods with force, but instead, get your momentum back as quickly as possible with poise and finesse.

I need you to have confidence and faith in your own future abilities, and STOP working in these situations. Instead, create what I call an anchor practice.

?Cue: Feeling Stuck

?Routine: Anchor Activity

?Reward: Regain Creative Flow

An anchor activity is something that you can turn to that will get you “unstuck,” when you are “stuck.”

It is something completely unrelated to what you are working on, that will allow the subconscious to come to conclusions, and make connections so that when you return to your work, you will see your bottleneck with a new perspective.

One possible example on an activity, is to clean whatever is in front of you. That could be your office, your desk, or your room.

This is what I do.

The dopamine rush that comes upon completion of this cleaning activity will create a feeling of triumph, and will give you an new found sense of inspiration when you go back to your work.

Another possible activity is to read 5 pages of a book, unrelated to your field.

A third possible activity is to meditate. 10 Minutes is all you need.

… The key is to ESTABLISH what this activity is that WORKS FOR YOU and have the discipline to turn to it when you are in need.

...To conclude...

There is a HUGE difference between productive and busy.

You know this.

It is up to you to stay disciplined and do the easy things that will force productive, manageable, trackable output.

If you ever get stuck, track back to this post and implement these tips into your life.

Let’s keep the momentum going.??