A Simple Trick that Can Skyrock Your Productivity and Eliminate All Your Bad Habits
It’s actually simple, you just got to “move” to it
First of all, is this a clickbait?
The short answer is “Nope.”
Would you take a pill that can increase your productivity dramatically while overcoming all your bad habits and most importantly without any bad side effects?
“Hell yeah, sign me up please!” you might say.
Does that sound too good to be true?
Well, perhaps…
But let me share with you some facts first.
In his book Willpower Doesn’t Work, Benjamin Hardy, PhD spent three chapters writing about this concept.
J.K. Rowling became one of the wealthiest writers because of this single trick.
Former Microsoft CEO, Bill Gates makes it a habit every year to undertake this challenge at least twice a year.
The current CEO of Microsoft Satya Nadella used this trick to help him quit one of his worst habit which is smoking.
The author Henry David Thoreau wrote his masterpiece Walden because of this inspiration.
Personally, I have tested out the trick and it works like a magic.
So, what the heck is this magical trick?
Alright, make sure you fasten your seatbelt first my friend, because you are about to find out!
“You are responsible for shaping and choosing the environments that will ultimately shape the person you become and the destiny you have. Environmental design is your greatest responsibility. Choosing and shaping your environment is at the center of what “free will” really means, because your choice of environment and external influences will directly reflect in the person you become.”
— Benjamin Hardy
The Magical Power of Environment
That is correct, it is our “environment that shapes who we really are more than our willpower” according to Ben Hardy, because when we have to use our willpower to work on something in the first place then that would have already been in an uphill battle that is not in our favor.
On the other hand, we have a much better opportunity of sticking to a routine and other good habits if we just simply make the environment that doesn’t give us an option but with the only option which is to just thrive in it.
If you put yourself in an environment where your only option is to get the work done, then chances are you are unlikely to quit by the other excuses that will come your way.
J.K. Rowling wrote Harry Potter in Edinburg’s café
Before the global sensation of Harry Potter, J.K. Rowling wrote every day in a café in Edinburg, as a matter of fact, that's where she mostly finished her first Harry Potter book, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone.
Rowling shared her experience of writing in Edinburg’s café,
“This was a really great place to write, because there were so many tables around here that I didn’t feel too guilty about taking a table up too long and that [pointing to the table] was my favorite table. I always wanted to try and get that one because it was out of the way in the corner. It was just great to look up when you were writing and stop and think about things and be able to look out on the street which was quite busy.”
If Rowling could write her bestseller in Edinburg’s café, you can also write your bestseller in Starbucks, Tim Hortons or McDonald's. It doesn’t matter where it is, the environment that you find the best might be somewhere totally different or unimaginable, as long as an environment allows you to work with flow and inspiration.
In another 10+ years, you can also produce your next masterpiece like Harry Potter, as it took Rowling about 16 years to finish the Harry Potter series.
Bill Gates’ Think Weeks in a Quiet Environment
Bill Gates consistently take “Think Week” twice minimum in a year to his secret cabin in the woods by seaplane, which gave him the innovative idea to launch Internet Explorer in 1995.
Bill Gates designed an environment that allows him to find the creativity to come up with revolutionary ideas that contribute to the advancement in the technological world.
You can also design an environment that allows you to think like Bill Gates, and come up with your next revolutionary idea for the betterment of humanity.
Satya Nadella Used Environment to Quit His Bad Habit
The CEO of Microsoft Satya Nadella told David Rubenstein at the David Rubenstein Show that he picked up a bad habit of smoking when he was in college. After moving to Milwaukee U.S., in just one winter time, he had never smoked again because every time he wanted to smoke he had to go out in order to smoke, but the winter in Milwaukee was just too cold that he just couldn’t stand it. In the end, it allowed Satya to quit smoking naturally.
This example shows that it doesn’t actually have to take any effort for us to quit our bad habits. Rather if we design our environment that just makes our bad habits non-existent in the first place then we don’t even have to fight with our willpower and we would have already won.
My personal experience Working with the Environment
I am always demotivated to work at home because of the comfortable bed beside me, the playful dogs around me. And most of the time, I felt like playing online games with friends or Netflix and chilling at home.
But whenever I go to the local library, I would find myself to be way more productive and get more work done than I was to work at home. I was motivated to get work done because of the design of the library that only fosters a quiet and conducive environment to read. And because of my surroundings where people were reading and doing their work and it would just make me look weird if I were to play games on my laptop.
I highly encourage you to find an environment where you can easily get into the zone to get most of your work done in the amount of time given. For me, the library seems to be the best place to get work done and be productive with my time.
Final Thoughts
You have the power to design the environment that works best for you. If you have to stay home to do your work, and your environment is noisy, you can simply put on your headphones and turn on the music you to help you get in the flow and get work done.
Alternatively, you can visit the local library or go to Starbucks, Tim Hortons to see which kind of environment works the best for you and determine the sweet spot that will allow you to consistently put the time in the process and get more work done.
In order to get rid of your bad habits, you have to simply design an environment that doesn’t allow the bad habit to take place as the example shown by Satya Nadella. By removing the source of the bad habit in front of us, we dramatically reduce the chance of the craving for that bad habit.
As James Clear talked about in his bestseller Atomic Habits, cues lead us to crave something we desired which will lead us to respond it by doing the things that we desired to do, and ultimately we get the reward we had saught.
Make sure you choose an environment that works best in your favor. You can also amount the next great achievement just like J.K. Rowling, Bill Gates, or quitting your most annoying habit just like Satya Nadella.
We can actually create and achieve many things with less effort than we might have thought otherwise if we are willing to move to the proper environment that would easily breed our way to success.
