A Short Tutorial on Productivity

[CreamCat]

If you want to become productive as a beginner of self actualization, you should start with a simple rule of productivity.

This video provides you with an engine of productivity.

AMRAP is an acronym for "as many reps as possible". Modern life is filled with technological distractions. However, you almost never find your mind wandering from the present moment when you are in the middle of an AMRAP workout. When you are trying as hard as you can to raise your chin to that bar just one more time, you are completely focused on the task at hand. The level of shear intensity involved in AMRAP round makes it impossible to focus on your weekend plans, video games you played last night, and so on.

Here's 4 step process of using AMRAP mentality

• Identify your areas of focus. Make sure each has a strong internal "why".
  • You should only have a few of these.
  • You should do this for micro goals as well as macro goals. Each day, write down a few things you want to accomplish, and apply AMRAP mentality to them.
• Choose one area, focus on it with all of your attention, and work hard at it.
  • When you are riding a bike, your only focus is on where you are going.
  • If you want to get where you are going with any amount of speed, you're going to crank those pedals hard.
• Switch gears deliberately with good reasons to do so.
  • Switching from one task to another task is like going from an AMRAP set of push-ups to another AMRAP set of pull-ups.
  • Your focus calmly switches to the new thing, and all of your attention becomes fixated on it.
  • After switching gear, go back to step 2.
• Do frequent re-evaluations
  • Sit often, and ask yourself "Do my areas of focus still make sense?"
  • Your time, attention, and energy are all limited resources.

Even if you apply AMRAP mentality to your life, your attention will fall off when you are exhausted or when you switch gears. If you worked hard yesterday and waked up today, your brain would still be exhausted. This is a warning that you should work a bit less or sleep more. Your brain accumulated too much waste material through metabolism yesterday.

This video helps you with backsliding. This video contains a lot of points, but the relevant point from the video is that when you find the right things to change strategically, you got to make 100% commitment. No wiggle room. You first have to experience what it means to give yourself wiggle room. And then, you need to try to be more aware of wiggle rooms. Wiggle rooms start their lives in your mind. They don't just exist in your behaviors. Wiggle rooms infest your mind long before they manifest in your behaviors. You tend to give wiggle room to distractions. For example, I used to be obsessed with trying new bistros in my neighborhood. I thought it was not a distraction. After I went back from new bistros, I became widely aware that it was just another distraction and yet another manifestation of addiction. You should build up distraction database so that you can identify distractions long before they manifest in your behaviors.

You should deal with distractions long before they create wide wiggle rooms in your mind. To do that , the following video helps.

According to this video, meditation is not just going back to breaths when your attention falls off your breaths. Being aware of being distracted from your breaths and going back to your breaths is a metaphor for the rest of your life. Going back to your work whenever you are distracted is also meditation. Your entire life is meditation. Meditation is your entire life. Thus, you should always meditate while you are awake. Apply this meditation mentality to distractions. When distractions create wiggle room in your mind, remember to go back to your work before mental wiggle room manifests in your behaviors. It is far easier to resist distractions before they manifest in your behaviors. Always remember to go back to what you could be doing while you are awake.

Another relevant point from "How To Stop Backsliding" is that you should negotiate workload with yourself when your ego is about to over-react. When addictions are trying to distract you very hard and cause ego backlash, you should consider taking a walk, working a bit less, and being more aware. Working a bit less is better than losing an entire day. Over time, you will develop focus muscle and be able to resist distractions far better.

Even though you can fend off addictions and distractions to a degree by walking outside, you should still resist addictions. There is no way around. But, it's up to you to make it easier for yourself to resist addictions. To make it easier to resist addictions, you need to improve your self image so that you will use less will power to resist addictions.

Your self image controls your actions subconsciously. If you subconsciously went to bed early, woke up early, and worked hard, you wouldn't need as much willpower to resist addictions. You can change your self image by working on your beliefs, your self image, and doing deep introspection from time to time.

The following videos help you with working on your self image.

This whole process of developing productivity muscle requires more awareness because you should be aware of when you become distracted mentally and behaviorally. I strongly recommend making it a habit to meditate for 20 minutes every day.

I can't be thorough with this because my productivity techniques are still far from perfection. But, those techniques helped me burst out of my slump immediately. Leo's videos tend to conceptualize a lot. A lot of conceptualization often leads to paralysis. I needed to scramble a simple system of productivity for myself. I'm quite confident that my current system of productivity will not kill my productivity. I'm seeing a way out of inaction. For the first time in my life, I'm confident that I am accelerating escape from inaction.

Edited September 29, 2018 by CreamCat

[Rinne]

+100 ?

[arlin]

Thank you.

[Mezanti]

thanks