6 Things That Significantly Boosted My Productivity In 2023

#5 Delete All Social Media Apps From My Mobile

One of my biggest challenges while living in the UK was staying focused.

There were too many things that caught my attention and ultimately hampered my productivity.

In Ghana, the problem is slightly different…

I don’t know half as many people I know in the UK, and there’s usually nothing to do (to my knowledge). This meant I found myself bored more often.

My productivity was being hampered by having too much time.

Less was being done in more time due to Parkinson’s law — work expands to fill the time allotted for its completion.

To combat this, I sampled several productivity techniques.

Here’s the six that were the most impactful…

#1 Task batching / Themed days

Task batching is a productivity technique that involves grouping similar tasks together to complete them all at once.

Think of it like going to the gym…

Monday: Editing Tuesday: Client work Wednesday: Writing blogs Thursday: Client work Friday: Writing blogs Saturday: Client work Sunday: Rest

The idea behind task batching is to focus on doing similar during a block of time to avoid incurring the cognitive switching penalty, which happens when you switch your focus between different types of tasks.

Instead of blocks of time, I dedicated days to increase the amount of focus time I could have on a specific task.

Now, I write ten articles per week in 16 hours that have been spread across two days.

#2 Exercise in the morning

I’ve always been an early riser…

This year, I sampled evening workouts as I was curious to see if putting the Gym at the end of the day would force me to get more done since I knew I’d have to stop work to go to the gym.

TLDR: It didn’t work.

Exercising in the morning was actually what gave me the fuel to stay motivated throughout the day. When I don’t train before work, my brain takes a few hours to boot up.

This means I’m back to working out in the mornings, which is supposedly better for you…

According to a 2019 study published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, morning exercise improves attention, visual learning, and decision-making.

Participants in the study had a series of 8-hour days of prolonged sitting with and without a 30-minute morning treadmill walk. Some days also consisted of a 3-minute walking break that occurred every 30 minutes.

Exercise in the morning was linked to enhanced cognition throughout the day, particularly when it was combined with regular breaks.

This isn’t to convert you to a morning gym person; studies have shown physical activity improves focus and concentration, regardless of when it’s done.

… But if you’re struggling to maintain focus during the course of the day, then morning workouts may be your express ticket to ultra-productivity.

#3 Environment independence

I was recently speaking with a coaching client who was breaking down their smoking habit.

One of her triggers was a rocking chair she put out on her front porch…

All she had to do was sit in it, and she craved a cigarette.

When I asked her why she thought that was the case, she said, “Cos that’s all I use the chair for. I don’t ever sit on it unless I’m smoking.”

She got rid of the chair now (I think).

The main lesson here is our brain forms associations with our environment.

If you constantly do the same task in one space, you reduce the time it takes for your brain to fire up when you enter that environment.

For example, I have a special recliner chair (Why is it always a chair?) in my front room that I only sit in when I’m reading. I even put a book there so when I sit down, I can quickly grab something and read — it works every time.

A similar thing has been done with my workstation.

No phones. No games. No nothing.

Just work!

#4 Walking around when feeling stuck

Award-winning New York Times Business reporter Charles Duhigg took us through a flurry of scientific discoveries to explain the existence of habits and how they can be altered in his book The Power of Habit.

One of the most popular concepts from the book is “the habit loop.”

“The Habit Loop is a neurological loop that governs any habit. The habit loop consists of three elements: a cue, a routine, and a reward. Understanding these elements can help in understanding how to change bad habits or form better ones.” — Duhigg, C. (2012).

My cue to seek out the next dopamine hit was stress from feeling stuck.

What would happen is I’d feel stressed, pick up my phone and browse social media for a bit, realize I’ve been doing it for too long, and then get back to work.

This wouldn’t help me feel any less stuck, so I’d usually be back on social media in around 2/3 minutes.

As you can imagine, this played a massive role in dragging out the duration of tasks.

When I realized my cue was feeling stuck, I decided to take my mind off the problem and walk around my front room for a while.

It worked.

More often than not, I come back to my desk with a fresh perspective on how to approach the problem.

This is probably due to what happens when we walk — the heart pumps faster, circulating more oxygen around your body.

Several experiments have shown that after or during exercise, even very mild exertion, people perform better on tests of memory and attention, which likely explains why I’m much more focused these days…

I walk for 2 hours on weekends. One hour to and from the gym (30 minutes each way).

This means I spend around 7 hours doing deliberate walking per week.

#5 Delete all social media apps from my mobile

Phone notifications are designed to be hard to resist.

This prompted my first attempt to dial back my phone usage: turn off notifications.

It didn't help.

I became more attached to my phone as I constantly wanted to check it to ensure I wasn’t missing any messages — especially during my breaks.

The next attempt was extreme: delete all social media apps.

Weirdly enough, this did the trick.

Having to download an app every time I wanted to check a notification was enough of a barrier for me to stop caring about what was happening on the platforms.

Any time I go on social media now, it’s for work since it must be done on my laptop, and my laptop is in my work environment — only work is allowed to be done in the work environment.

I’m only allowed to go on the “fun” social media platforms after work at 7 p.m., so that’s when I redownload them — I delete them again before the next day.

#6 Journaling first thing in the morning and last thing before bed

Gathering my thoughts first thing in the morning and last thing in the evening has given me better clarity.

It helps me know what I care about and what’s less important.

This has helped me cut out a bunch of things that were wasting my time and attune myself to the most important tasks.

Journaling also serves as a form of progress tracking, as I can easily go back a week or two to learn how different I was from who I am now.

Final Thoughts

As much as I’ve emphasized the power of the technique in this story, I believe the real forcing function behind my productivity has been a necessity.

I’ve taken on much more responsibility since I’ve been out here (e.g., supporting families with food, putting two kids through school, and paying for a house helper), and I realized these things have made it necessary for me to focus on meeting my obligations.

Thanks for reading!

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