In the last few months or so, I have tried to literally turn 🛞 my daily routine which was practically non existent, in its head.
From waking up at 5:30 in the morning, to everything these days being a race against time ⏰, to forcing myself to sleep within 5 minutes of laying on bed 🛏️, and everything in between, I am trying with every fiber of my being to be as productive and as creative as I can. But as these are my initial steps towards my goal 🥅 of being an overall productive and creative person I do use a few things to help me along the way on this journey 🛣️.
These are simple but powerful 💪 things to propel our life towards productivity, available to everyone but we either ignore them or don’t really use them to their full potential. The next section has a combined list of equipment, routine, and everything else I currently use in no particular order.
Simple things I use for productivity
Alarm Clock ⏰
The best thing I ever got myself was a physical alarm clock, and it has since become an integral part of my daily life. Most of the people I know use alarms to wake up, I on the contrary use the alarm clock to sleep, and what amazing sleeps have I been having since the last few months or so.
Having an alarm clock ⏰ by my bed 🛏️ enables me, rather it forces me to set my phone aside by about 10:30 at night which results in me not starting 👀 at the screen of my phone 🤳 tucked under my blanket on my bed, because my phone is in the kitchen, this has increased my effective sleep time a lot, by almost an hour or so an added benefit of this practice is, when I get up in the morning by a physical alarm clock and I don’t reach for my phone I am not laying on my bed 🛏️ scrolling the feeds on my phone and wasting time, this helps me get to my routine as soon as a get up ☺️
The stopwatch ⏱️ app
On my phone 📱 in the app drawer, under the most frequently used section the first app is and has been since reading “SOMEDAY IS TODAY” is the phone’s clock ⏰ in that app I use the stopwatch feature the most.
I time the tasks I perform on a daily basis, in an attempt to beat my personal best, which ultimately results in me saving time for productive and creative work.
The feeling of competition with my previous day self has an added benefit of my mind staying focused on one task at a time, since I am in a competition to outperform myself I don’t waste my time thinking of anything else, results in me doing things faster and in an efficient manner.
The mediation
I used to think that meditation was a waste of time, such an unproductive state to be in, doing nothing, just nothing other than breathing and paying attention to breathing, but I have come to an understanding that this seemingly useless activity makes me more attentive, more focused, and whenever my mind wonders off into day dreaming, I tend to notice it more now then ever, and that is how this seemingly useless activity has made me more productive, I also have leant to live in the present due to this, and hence I am less anxious and more calm, it has now become a very important activity for my daily routine.
The AI apps 💻
I have chat gpt 🤖 do works like write me applications, prepare me a few questions ⁉️ for my class, and other such works and it saves me a lot of time.
Chat GPT can provide amazing results if we know how to provide good prompts, I have learnt a few in the past few months ( for the record I hate the prompt engineer ads on YouTube, but they actually are correct)
Consensus.ai helps me with a lot of research that I read pertaining to audiology and speech language pathology, and also psychology, it is a great tool if you want to find research in a particular field or a particular topic, or maybe if you want to find a referenced answer to a question ❓ an answer which is proven by research.
Reading and Audible
Reading has become an integral part of my day now I either read a book or listen to a book on audible reading has essentially changed me for the better and I like the way it has shaped me I am always on the look out for more reading whether a physical book an audible audiobook or an e-book sometimes I read one book and listen to another on audible it keep me learning, it keeps me creative and it stops me from wasting my time on unimportant and unproductive stuff like TV, social media and other things.
Pen and paper 📜
Sure I have Google bard and chat gpt writing my applications, helping me with sections of my resume, even making a rough draft of a PPT for me it’s easy and less time taking but somewhere in the day I pick up pen and paper and list down things and ideas and jot down a poem, using a pen 🖊️ and paper 📜 is better as compared to a keyboard I feel because I feel I get my ideas down on pen and paper more easily than I can on a keyboard ⌨️ keyboard I feel can be used when everything ends and you have a final product you want to type, it is for finalizing things pen and paper I believe should be used to start things off, I feel using them one can be more creative.
The 6 alarms🚨
I have a total of 6 alarms in a day one is the alarm clock ⏰ I referred to in one of the above sections, the other 5 alarms are resetting on my phone with tasks assigned to them if the alarm goes off, I leave whatever I am doing and do the things that the alarm was for, in that way I know again, I am not waiting my time in something unproductive, the doc alarm has been mentioned in one of my previous posts, it is a useful system and I have seen results.
Things I want to try
I have been using the audible service extensively as I can listen to books when I don’t feel like reading them myself, as the Blog title specifies I am LAZY (I still prefer reading a few pages each day through). With this thought in mind I would want to try Speechify or Listning.io to be able to listen to PDFs of the research research papers I read. ( I still would like reading a few papers, but I feel listening is just convenient at times.)
Conclusion
To end it I would say that the world is changing and so are the ways and means to be productive, if we need to be as productive as we can be, we will have to integrate Technology and AI in our routine.
But my Alarm Clock ⏰ says sometimes its also important to distance ourselves from technology to be more productive. It actually boils down to your choices and your way of life, try striking a balance ⚖️. This is what works for me and I am consistently looking to better it, find the things that make you more productive get that lazy ass up and moving 😁
Be Productive strive to be the best version of yourself and keep at it.