10 Habits To Increase Daily Performance & Productivity
Unleash the leader within.
I’m a strong believer that each one of us is the leader of our own lives, and leadership is manifested through behaviors. When you also are (or wish to become) a leader in your industry/ profession, this is even truer.
You will agree with me when I say that your emotional, physical, and mental states have a significant impact on what you do, how you do it, when you do it, and how much you do it.
You probably know people who don’t have formally diagnosed illnesses but have very little energy, motivation, and willpower. They feel constantly burdened by the past, live in anxiety about the future, and approach the present with skepticism and pessimism.
Regardless of the knowledge you may have about the appropriate behaviors for each situation, if you are not in the right state, it’s challenging to put those behaviors into practice. This affects how we communicate, relate to others, and pursue our goals.
The good news is that only a few habits define our levels of mobilization and achievement because the foundation of productivity is energy.
With the right habits, you will feel more vitality and greater resistance to physical, mental, and emotional exhaustion.
For this reason, today I’m sharing with you 10 habits I continuously focus on to increase my performance, productivity, and creativity, and will surely increase yours. Although these are not ‘new’, I’m systematizing them with actionable protocols for you to implement and start seeing fast results.
Habit #1. Go to bed early.
I’ve said this before more than once, and I will keep saying it: Sleep is the foundation of energy. If you don’t get enough sleep, your performance, in addition to falling short of your potential, will continually deteriorate. Been there myself.
While some people claim to work at their best with six or fewer hours of sleep, recent research indicates that these people are deceiving themselves. Seven to eight hours of sleep are practically mandatory for anyone who wants to remain cognitively alert in the medium and long term.
For some people, sleep deprivation may seem stabilized, meaning they feel slightly tired all the time but believe they are not getting worse. This is the problem: despite sleep deprivation unequivocally causes continuous declines in mental performance, people, in the vast majority of cases, are not aware of it.
Protocol: Go to bed at 10:00 PM every night for the next thirty days.
Habit #2. Exercise regularly.
Exercise is an excellent investment in your long-term energy levels. It’s easy to skip physical activity in the short term, but within a few weeks, you’ll start losing your overall fitness, and it will become increasingly difficult to think clearly and stay alert for extended periods.
If you struggle to find time for exercise, don’t make the gym your top priority. Instead, create a habit of doing push-ups or burpees every day at home. These exercises will get your heart rate up and won’t require much time from your busy schedule.
You can also incorporate gym visits or other more intense workouts, but this small investment will keep you energized when you can’t exercise otherwise.
Protocol: Do at least 10 burpees or push-ups daily at home.
Habit #3. Meditate daily.
The popularity of meditation — a form of mindfulness practice — is growing in the corporate world, especially among CEOs and senior executives, as it helps develop critical leadership skills and ensure the right mindset to achieve goals.
Consistently, in thousands of scientific studies, numerous proven benefits have been found, including:
. Reduced anxiety;
. Increased resilience;
. Increased performance under stress;
. Development of Emotional Intelligence (Brain imaging analysis suggests that meditation strengthens the ability to regulate emotions);
. Increased creativity (research on creativity suggests that our greatest insights occur when we are in more relaxed and meditative mental states. This happens because meditation encourages divergent thinking, a key component of creativity);
. Increased concentration (our minds tend to wander about 50% of the time. Add to that interruptions at work, messages, calls, and emails, and it’s no surprise that people have a hard time staying focused. Meditation training helps control distraction, strengthening focused thinking and memory).
Protocol: Meditate for 12 minutes daily.
Habit #4. Set your intention the day before.
Energy is highly dependent on the “flow” experience. If you start working hard, you’ll overcome procrastination and remain productive throughout the day. If you start slowly or procrastinate, you’ll end up struggling against your own impulses, wasting energy on unproductive tasks.
A good way to avoid this is to set a very clear intention for your next day the night before. Visualizing this intention and planning your schedule and a small to-do list based on it will ensure that you won’t have hesitations, and your tasks will automatically flow when you wake up.
Protocol: Before going to bed, define what you intend to accomplish the next day, create a plan, and visualize it.
Habit #5. Do the hard work early in the morning.
Seek to accomplish the most relevant work in the first four hours of your workday, starting ASAP.
Like most people, my energy levels are heavily influenced by my emotional state. When I complete important tasks or projects, I feel more confident, productive, and cheerful. If I waste time on emails, draining meetings, hallway conversations, long phone calls, or fail to produce something valuable, I become more frustrated and enter the second half of the day struggling against time.
On the other hand, deep work is not always sustainable throughout an entire day. It’s much better to concentrate it on a specific period rather than inserting it randomly throughout the day. Morning is preferable because we are cognitively fresher and generally less fatigued.
Protocol: Transform your mornings into a quiet, deep, and productive work period.
Habit #6. Read & listen to good books.
The significant benefits of reading are not only related to the ideas and information we gain from books. In fact, the best books are those that subtly change our thought patterns.
Audiobooks can also be very helpful for this purpose, as we can listen to them wherever, whenever, and as many times as we want.
Protocol: Always have a motivating book and/ or audiobook available to empower you in pursuing your goals.
Habit #7. Keep your goals attractive.
You have to sell your goals to yourself very well, and part of this process begins with the packaging. How you frame your goals and projects has a significant impact on your motivation: is it something you have to do? Or is it an irresistible challenge, aligned with your Desired Identity?
You must continuously inspire yourself by reminding yourself of the reasons that led you down this path. What did you hope to achieve? Good marketers know how to make customers focus on visualizing what they want, in order to drive sales. Become a good marketer to yourself: focus on who you wish to become to ensure the energy to pursue your vision.
Protocol: Set aside ten minutes daily to assess how your actions today are helping you achieve your Desired Identity.
Habit #8. Find the right friends.
You may not be able to choose your parents, colleagues, or your boss, but you have some control over the other people in your life.
Some friends leave us excited and energized, while others leave us anxious and down.
You don’t need to exclude friends who are temporarily going through tough times, but you should avoid people who insist on one-sided emotional exchanges as the basis for their relationships. In other words, people who are only concerned with themselves. Everyone occasionally needs a shoulder to cry on, but some people expect us to be only that. That’s not the way to go.
Protocol: Set a time limit for friends who bring you down.
Habit #9. Align different areas of life.
This isn’t exactly a habit. It’s a process, a continuous effort to eliminate conflict between different areas of life.
We waste a lot of energy when different areas of our lives are in conflict. It could be a coworker trying to undermine us, a boss who doesn’t value us, friends with very different interests, a toxic romantic relationship, or even internal fears and beliefs that make us hesitate.
Instead of trying not to think about it, invest some time in analyzing the different conflicts in your life and try to find solutions. Sometimes a decision or an attitude change is enough to resolve these issues in the short term. Other times, when the conflict arises from toxic social circles or limiting beliefs, you may need to develop a plan with a slightly longer timeframe.
Protocol: Spend an hour today reflecting on what is helping and hindering you in pursuing your goals, expectations, and ambitions. How can you resolve these tensions? What decisions do you need to make?
Habit #10. Mindful eating.
The fuel for our bodies and brains is the food we consume.
I’m leaving below my list of articles about the best nutrition for your brain, as it decisively influences not only our energy levels but also our Brains' (and body’s) performance, health, and longevity.
You’re probably eating a few “healthy foods” that are damaging your brain… you just don’t know it yet.
Knowing the right foods and the right amount and time to eat them, is also important.
“Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food.” — Hippocrates, father of modern medicine.
Protocol: Spend a few minutes per day understanding the nutritional value of the foods you buy and eat, and choose them wisely. Start here. When eating, make sure you are truly present, savoring every bite, and use the 80% rule (when 80% full, it’s time to stop).
In the meantime, I invite you to share with me in the comments below the protocols you plan to adopt to increase your performance and focus on what matters to you.
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Yours truly, Sally. _