Well, here they are.
1. Use entertainment as a reward, not an escape.
You have plenty of control over what you do and how you use your time. It’s when you give that control to others, when you only do what they want, that boredom sets in.
Work becomes meaningless, self-improvement plans take a backseat, and social media and OTT become the only respite.
Don’t use entertainment to escape. Use it as a reward for doing meaningful work. Seek out tasks that give you autonomy, fulfillment, and a feeling of relatedness and engage in them. (For just 30 minutes a day, if not more.)
You have more autonomy than you imagine. Don’t squander it living a life that’s not yours.
Even the scriptures teach us to engage in dhārmic activities (practices and rituals) in the early part of the day, in work for artha (wealth creation) during the day, and then kāma (pleasure) during the last part of the day.
2. Saying no doesn’t lead to self-improvement.
Saying “no” is touted as the most effective productivity hack, right? (Heck, even I’ve said it.) But it can create two problems, especially when it comes to getting rid of bad habits.
First, removing the task creates an emptiness in your routine that you don’t know how to fill. In fact, the empty space makes your mind run like a bull in a china shop.
Second, your willpower is like a muscle. The more you use it to resist temptation, the weaker it gets. At the end of the day, when your willpower tank is empty, what will you do? Rush right back into the arms of habits you want to break.
The secret is not in saying no to everything, it’s in saying “yes” to what’s important. Then, you won’t have to force yourself to say no to futile things; they will fall off by themselves.
“Don’t try to say ‘no’ to the trivial distractions you find on the information smorgasbord; try to say ‘yes’ to the subject that arouses a terrifying longing, and let the terrifying longing crowd out everything else.” — David Brooks
3. Value your skills, qualities, and character.
We chase money, designation, and reputation without realizing what what they actually are: byproducts of our skills and qualities.
Besides, external aspects can get snatched or stolen. But even then, when we seem to have nothing left, our abilities and character remain. We can use them to regain what we lost.
Take good care of what is inside you. Whatever is outside will take care of itself.
4. Learning is a lifestyle, not a skill.
My core tasks are:
- Reading, watching videos, and listening to podcasts.
- Creating (writing, recording, editing, and publishing).
- Connecting (reaching out, networking).
- Meditating (including reflecting and analyzing).
- Exercising.
I don’t learn in any one of them, I learn in all of them.
Keep an open mind. You can never predict when the next idea or inspiration will strike. Instead of learning for 30 minutes a day, make it a lifestyle.
5. Learning is immersive, not forced.
Are you learning a topic out of compulsion? For a certification or degree, bragging rights, or money?
In such cases you cannot learn it, because you won’t understand the topic. And when you won’t get the reward you expected, you will feel upset.
Yes, learning should contribute to a larger goal, but let that goal be self-improvement. Everything external—fame, fortune, luxury— can be one milestone on that never-ending journey. (This applies to personal as well as professional skills. Growth doesn’t come from any one of them; it is a result of everything.)
Remove your likes or dislikes, wants and desires, and preconceived, and immerse yourself in the present. Because immersion is what leads to learning.
6. Choose your thinking wisely.
Thought is important in that it leads to discreet action. But left unobserved, it turns into overthinking, the monster that gets in the way of action. You create scenarios and exaggerations so huge that they paralyze you.
Reflect on a situation, but bring yourself back to the present moment. Refuse to give in to thoughts like “Why did this happen to me?” “What do others have against me?” “Will I never be good for anything?”
The present moment is all you have. When you can give it your best, there will be no regret or anxiety, only contentment. Plus, you will live on your terms, not according to the opinions of others.
7. Finish one task before moving to the next.
Anxiety builds when the mind doesn’t get closure. This is exactly why we lose it when we have a lot of open tasks.
Here’s the thing: You may feel productive by doing more. But pending tasks create feelings like helplessness and anxiety, because you are move in 10 different directions without making progress in any of them. No closure, no peace.
So pick one task and give it a meaningful end. Complete the report or presentation before turning to the next item on your to-do list. And if you have to assign the task, ensure you have set the right expectations.
Keep checking in with yourself during the day. Ask: “Is this what I should be doing now?” Choose what has to be done over what you want to do.
Productivity is not about doing more things right, it’s about doing more of the right things.
8. “Number of hours” is a fake metric.
Ok. Work advice.
You work 12 hours a day. But 9 of those are either spent running in circles or solving problems created by you. Of what use are those long workdays?
Clocking hours is an industrial-era mindset, where the longer you stood at the assembly line and used your brawn, the more widgets you could crank out. The knowledge era is all about results and using your brain.
Track how effective your work is in that how it contributes to an important goal. Focus on the few things that yield results, even if sometimes means doing nothing.
Speaking of doing nothing…
9. Switch off or you will burn out.
Two of J. Krishnamurti’s quotes highlight the importance of this:
“If a pencil is being sharpened all the time, soon there will be nothing left of it; similarly the mind uses itself constantly and is exhausted.”
And,
“As the soil renews itself during winter, so, when the mind is allowed to be quiet, it renews itself. . . When you come to the point where you are really allowing yourself to be as you are—bored, ugly, hideous, or whatever it is—then there is possibility of dealing with it.”
The glamorous ideology is to burn out than fade away. But would you rather be miserable AND burn out? Or would you find your own pace and happiness?
Rest and recovery should be key aspects in your self-improvement goals. It’s okay to not appear as ambitious and hardworking as your peers. Give your mind time to fallow. Be okay with doing nothing and taking 10-minute walks in nature without your phone.
Ironically, this will make you more productive than your always-working peers. As psychologist Amos Tversky said, “The secret to doing good research is always to be a little underemployed. You waste years by not being able to waste hours.”