How Self Awareness Can Help You Increase Productivity
Follow your intuition, identify how and why you work.
Through the years, I have learned the importance of becoming self-aware in my life.
It has allowed me to discover different things about myself and how I can use this knowledge to become more productive.
First, what is it?
Self-awareness can be defined as:
“Having a clear perception of aspects of yourself, like your personality, strengths, weaknesses, emotions, thoughts, and feelings.”
As I have become more self-aware, I have realized that the more you know about yourself, you can use this information to grow as a person.
Whereas to choose a career or even to be more productive on a day to day basis.
Thus, I wanted to share some things I have learned through the years on how to use self-awareness to increase my productivity during the day.
These are things I have implemented in my life and have helped me become more productive at work, and when completing my bachelor’s degree.
Follow Your Intuition
If you are getting started in the self-awareness journey, a good place to start is to follow your intuition. Whatever you feel your intuition is guiding you to do, try it out.
By taking action using the guidance your intuition provides, you will start gathering data about yourself, hence, becoming more self-aware.
That is, you will try out things that will work, others that won’t, nevertheless, the information is useful.
With this newfound information, you can start taking action towards the things that are working for you. As you keep following the intuitive guidance, you may move closer to the life you are aligned with.
One thing I have noticed when following intuitive guidance, it might not seem perfect.
The key is to trust and focus on making progress. That is, moving towards what makes you feel good.
So, focus on what works for you, you might be surprised.
How You Work
You can use self-awareness to identify how you work the best. Furthermore, you can see how you can arrange your environment and your schedule to fit your working style.
For instance:
- Do you like having distractions while working?
- Do you excel in an organized environment?
- When are you most productive, day or nighttime?
- Do you like working in teams?
By asking yourself these questions, you can find ways to set your work environment for your success.
“You’ve always been what you are. That’s not new. What you’ll get used to is knowing it.” ― Cassandra Clare
For example, if you like having distractions while working, you can listen to music while you are accomplishing your tasks.
If you work at home, you can turn on the TV, so you have the noise in the background.
On the other hand, if you work in an office, you can locate your desk where you have the most exposure to people and noise.
Now, knowing the time you are most productive during the day may help you plan your daily schedule so you can get more done.
Why You Work
Now that you know how you work the best, then you can use self-awareness to find out the reason why you work.
Why is this useful?
Knowing why your work can help you identify the reason that drives you to do what you do. Thus, when you come across obstacles in your career, you may have the emotional resources to go through these challenges.
Here are some questions you can ask yourself to find out why you work:
- Is it for money or other material resources?
- Is it to make a positive impact on our society?
- Is it to serve others?
- Do you want to give the best to your family?
By knowing why you do your work, you can use this information to choose a career, if you haven’t made your mind yet.
Passion will move men beyond themselves, beyond their shortcomings, beyond their failures. — Joseph Campbell
For example, if you are motivated to serve other people, then you can choose a career that allows you to work directly with people and help them in some way.
Without having this insight about yourself, you might end up choosing a career path that does not fulfill you or does not fit your personality.
Nonetheless, it doesn’t have to only apply to a career path, but to the projects, you work on as well. You can decide to work on projects based on what motivates you, thanks to being self-aware.
Takeaways
Practice following your intuition; it might lead you to the life you have always wanted. Try things out and see what works for you, also what doesn’t work.
The information you gather can help you identify how you work the best. Hence, you can use this knowledge to set up your environment and your schedule to your strengths. This way, you will get more done during the day.
Also, being self-aware can help you recognize the reason why you work. This way, you can decide on what type of career you would like to pursue if you don’t know already, of course.
If you liked this article, I think you might be interested in these articles as well:
Resources
5 Ways Self-Awareness Can Improve Your Productivity
Disclaimer: I am not mental health, or counseling professional. These tips and advice are based on my experience and opinion as a student, tutor, teacher, and software developer. Everyone is different, so the advice shared in this article may or may not work for you.