Are you struggling with productivity?
Sk Sameer Hossain
October 19, 2024
Are you struggling with productivity too?
There's a difference between being productive and being busy.
I've seen people calling themselves as busy doing 8 hours of distraction work but aren't going anywhere. But, productivity is something different than being busy. Productivity simply means more work done with efficiency in less time. You can do a hell lot of things in 4 hours of focused work rather than 8 hours of distracted work.
Effectiveness and efficiency have always been a major part of productivity. You're more creative and effective when you're feeling good with your energy that is where real productivity happens. If you're not feeling good with your energy you'd naturally do more procrastination and less work.
As Ali Abdaal said in his book when you add these 3 things to your work it automatically becomes more enjoyable than it was before.
Play, Power, and People.
1. Play: When you see something with the mindset of getting it done as work it will always be a hassle to do for you. Make your work feel like play. When you do it as a play you will find more joy and enjoyment in your work process. If you are forcing yourself to do the work then you need to add play to it.
"Ask yourself- What if it doesn't feel like work anymore? What should I do to make it more enjoyable?"
2. Power: We people always want empowerment over everything, and when we have an upper hand in the game, we tend to play it more cause we have the ability and power to do things no matter what the odds against us are. Find power in what you do and you will have more interest in the work.
E.g. - When you play a video game and the challenge you find, is just above your skill level, you will seek more interest in it. Rather than when you're at level 1 and told to play with level 99. You will get anxious and lose the game before it starts.
3. People: The third one is people, the most important one. Surround yourself with people with who you wanna work with and build relationships with. Find people who energize your value and potential than sucking your time and energy. When you have the right people to work with you, support you. You will be much better at work than you were before.
Tip to find people - Who have similar interests to you, have the same goal and a vision in their head as you, find competition and you will work more than before.
Here are 8 ways to be more effective & efficient at what you do:
Wake up at least 1 hour before you have to be at a computer screen. E-mail is the mind-killer.
Make a cup of tea and sit down with a pen/pencil and paper.
Write down the 3-5 things - and no more that are making you most anxious or uncomfortable. They're often things that have been punted from one day's to-do list to the next, to the next, to the next, and so on. Most important usually = most uncomfortable, with some chance of rejection or conflict.
For each item, ask yourself: "If this were the only thing I accomplished today, would I be satisfied with my day?" "Will moving this forward make all the other to-do's unimportant or easier to knock off later?"
Look only at the items you've answered "yes" to for at least one of these questions.
Block out at least 2-3 hours to focus on ONE of them for today. Let the rest of the urgent but less important stuff slide. It will still be there tomorrow.
TO BE CLEAR: Block out at least 2-3 HOURS to focus on ONE of them for today. This is ONE BLOCK OF TIME. Cobbling together 10 minutes here and there to add up to 120 minutes does not work.
If you get distracted or start procrastinating, don't freak out and downward spiral; just gently come back to your ONE to-do.
Resources of the week:- Being busy is a form of laziness
When you’re ready here’s how I can help you: Work with me 1 on 1
Thank you for reading this newsletter,
SK Sameer.
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