Five Productive Habits that Changed my Life During Quarantine.

Productivity has been a major concern for the world during the pandemic. When you are stuck indoors it is difficult to be productive, watching Netflix and eating popcorn is much easier than finding a new way to get things done faster.

Everyone watches productivity videos on YouTube, some of you may have read many books about productivity, I know I have, out of all these books and videos I found five habits that have changed my life. These habits will help you too.

1. Schedule Your Work According to Your Attention Level.

While you may agree that time is very limited, attention is even more limited, if we sleep for eight hours, we have sixteen waking hours, in those sixteen waking hours, we have four frantic hours that go into maintenance activities such as eating, brushing and commuting and then we work for eight to twelve hours. I am going to be using twelve hours as your work time.

There are three types of attention levels, proactive attention, active attention and inactive attention.

Proactive attention is when you are in the zone, you are fully focused on a task and you are ready to take on challenges and tackle complex activities. This period lasts for three hours.

Active attention is when you are focused, and you are ticking along but you are slightly flagging, you are easily distracted, occasionally brilliant but you can be sloppy as well.

Inactive attention is when there is not much brainpower left, you will not be able to complete a complex task and your attention here is next to nothing.

You only have three of your best hours during a twelve-hour workday, I would recommend that you find out when you are proactively focussed, during this time you should do the activities which matter to you, watching cat videos on YouTube during a period of proactive attention is a waste.

The activities you do during proactive attention should be challenging, meaningful and important. These activities are the ones that will be the most rewarding, they may be complicated but you can complete them successfully because you will be in the zone.

The tasks you do during the active attention hours should be ones that you find easy, a top tip is to schedule your attention levels according to your strengths. Active attention tasks should be something you are good at even if you are distracted, for example typing an email is easy for me, I can do it while going through my Instagram feed.

Inactive attention tasks are those which require low brainpower, these are physical activities such as working out or making dinner etc. They are easy and I like to do them at the end of the day when I am drained and I have nothing left to do.

2. Have a Daily Highlight.

This is based on the previous habit, a daily highlight is an activity that you can do every day to achieve your goals. If you want to learn to speak German, your daily highlight will be your German class. Doing your daily highlight during your proactive attention hours will increase your chances of success.

My daily highlight is writing and editing my articles, this is an important task for me since I like writing and I want to become one of the top bloggers.

What is your daily highlight? Which activity is important and will help you achieve your goals? Identify these activities to achieve your goals faster.

Once you have found your daily highlight, write it down and set aside time during proactive attention hours to do this activity. I set a reminder on my phone which reminds me to write and edit.

3. Make Your to-do Lists Smaller.

Most of the stuff on your to-do list is useless, the activities require low brainpower and are not rewarding. Keep a smaller to-do list which consists of high brainpower, goal-oriented activities. If your goal is to become a writer, writing and editing should be the only activities on your list.

Having many activities on your list will lead to frustration and overload. Do the stuff that matters, and nothing else.

A smaller to-do list is more achievable as well since there are fewer tasks to achieve and if you achieve them every day, you will feel good since you’re on the right track.

4. Wake up Early or Work Late.

I am not a night owl, but I am a morning person. If you want to increase your productivity find out which category you fit in. Experiment.

Working late and waking up early for even an hour extra a day will give you an additional fifteen days in a year. The math is simple, 365/24 gives you 15.2 more days in a year.

You only need six to seven hours of sleep, if you sleep for eight hours, you’ve lost fifteen days!

I wake up at four in the morning, that means I have two hours extra which translates into having one more month than the rest of the planet, don’t believe me? Do the math.

Finding these extra hours gives you quiet time, I can focus without getting distracted, as I write this article, it is five in the morning right now, no one is awake, all I can hear is the occasional bird chirping, that’s it.

So are you an early bird or a night owl?

5. Be an Information Minimalist.

Your mind is like an apartment, it is stuffed with furniture, you have two industrial fridges full of unhealthy information you don’t need. If you are someone like me, you probably have read loads of self-help books, you have spent hours on the internet watching videos on getting better and being more productive.

You don’t need another book or webinar, you have enough information to act on already. You are wasting time, according to a recent study by Pew Research Center, twenty per-cent of Americans feel information overloaded. That is around fifty million people.

Fewer media consumption is more productivity in today’s world. Minimalise the information you need.

You don’t have a lot of time, you have even less attention, it is wise to downsize and stay informed on what truly matters to you.