Fasting — Tidying up — Productivity: a Chain Reaction

Some events trigger other events. We call this a chain reaction. In the field of personality development, habits, and actions often have the same effect as events. The difference is that events are often random. In contrast, we have a direct influence on our habits and actions.

We can use this by triggering positive chain reactions in a targeted manner. I am currently experiencing one of these chain reactions myself. This article is about it.

Start of the chain reaction: Fasting

At the end of 2019, my wife and I were both dissatisfied. I was fat and did not manage to reduce my weight. My wife had problems with her stomach and felt constantly bloated.

It was my wife who had the idea on January 01, 2020, that we should try intermittent fasting. I was immediately enthusiastic because I had read a lot about the positive effects that fasting is said to have on the body and mind in the last months.

If my wife hadn’t suggested that we should try it together, I probably never would have started fasting, because I didn’t think I was capable of it.

So we decided that in the future we would only eat between eleven in the morning and seven in the evening.

So we did not have breakfast.

To our surprise, the fasting was very easy from the first day on. Of course, hunger is there in the morning when the body suddenly stops getting breakfast, but the positive effects, which started immediately, compensated for this.

Before, I always had a feeling of fullness after breakfast, and I had to burp frequently. So breakfast was never really good for me. When this discomfort suddenly became a thing of the past, it was like a miracle for me.

Even losing weight suddenly worked. Through the 16:8 fasting, you do not lose weight rapidly, but slowly and steadily. In between, there are always plateaus. Then, I don’t lose any weight at all for several days, but then the weight continues to go down.

Since January 01, 2020, I have lost four kilograms.

But the most dramatic effect of the fasting was a different one for both of us: we suddenly had more energy and were mentally much fitter.

Step two of the chain reaction: tidying up

My wife and I can’t complain about a lack of work. She works forty-one hours a week, and I write a new book every two months and several articles a week.

So in the evenings, we were both always wholly exhausted. We lacked the energy for additional projects after work.

As a result, an incredible amount of ballast had accumulated in our apartment over many years. One room that was supposed to be my office was particularly bad.

I could never use this room for work because it was full of stuff that had no place else in the apartment.

It was crammed with bookshelves containing hundreds of books that we would never read again. There were also dozens of boxes that stored unsorted papers from over twenty years.

There were old payslips, long-paid bills, greeting cards from past birthdays, old contracts that had long expired, and heaven knows what else.

It was always clear to us that we would have to eliminate this chaos one day, but only after we had the energy to do so through fasting, could we start the project.

Luckily, we didn’t know how much effort it would take to clean up the room because otherwise, we might never have started.

We spent several hours every day after work for ten days alone, sorting out old documents and destroying them with a shredder. On the weekends, we were busy almost full-time.

Also, we disposed of eight garbage bags full of unnecessary stuff, which was stored on shelves, in some corners, and on the floor. Nine boxes were full of books, and we took them to a social department store, where the books can now make new owners happy for little money.

We bought a new, small desk for me, disposed of my old desktop PC, and repainted the first two walls.

Then, when the room was finally halfway tidy again, we could start another project. Half a year ago our wardrobe in the bedroom broke, and since then we wanted to buy a new one.

The problem was that we had no place to store the clothes while the old wardrobe was dismantled and a new one was not yet delivered.

But now we had the necessary space in the office, and we ordered the new wardrobe. We used this opportunity to throw away almost half of the contents of the closet. Over the years, a lot of things had accumulated in this cupboard that we no longer needed.

The new wardrobe had now been delivered a few days ago, and so we were able to bring all the clothes from the study back into the new closet.

Next, we will paint the last two walls in the workroom, and then I will finally have my office.

It is incredibly liberating to have all this old ballast removed from the apartment. And this new feeling of freedom meant that the chain reaction that started with the fasting did not end here.

Step three of the chain reaction: More productivity

The fasting helped us to gain more energy and inner peace so that the big clean-up operation in the working room finally became possible. The tidy office then enabled us to tackle the bedroom, as well.

The result of this cleaning process gave us even more, energy and confidence. First of all, by fasting, we removed extra calories from our lives and gave our metabolism air to breathe again.

Then we removed superfluous material things from our home, which made us feel more liberated.

As a result, both of us are now more productive than before and have our goals more clearly in sight.

In the time since January, I have written and published a new book and have started the next one ready to go.

My wife has set her sights on new career goals and is bursting with ideas and energy.

At the moment, I am making such rapid progress with the new book that I will probably set a new record.

The rapid progress with my books will, in turn, allow me to write more articles for Medium, which ultimately means more income for me.

Concluding words

Whenever we make a positive change in our lives, it can lead to a whole chain of other positive effects. Every decision influences our future possibilities more than it seems at first sight.

Of course, this also applies to bad decisions and harmful habits. Therefore, with every decision, we should always ask ourselves what indirect consequences can arise from it.

The chain reaction described in this article is only a concrete example of a universal principle, but I hope that I have been able to show you clearly how this principle works in real life.

Do you also have examples of positive or negative chain reactions from your life?

Then I would be happy if you share your experiences with me and the other readers in the comments.

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