Keeping the mind happy makes work effortless. This is the skill for productivity.
How to keep the mind happy and stress-free? Understand stress. Stress is when you have too much to do, too little time, and too little energy. Now, to deal with it, either reduce your workload, increase your time, or increase your energy levels.
Increase your Energy
It is hard to reduce your workload and everyone has fixed twenty-four hours in a day. So the only option to deal with stress is to increase your energy levels. There are four ways you can increase your energy levels:
a) Proper food
Not too much, nor too little. Also, pay attention to keeping a balanced diet, and freshly prepared food that is easily digestible.
b) Sleep
You need 6-8 hours of sleep. Not more, not less.
c) Breath
Breathing is a lesser-known but very critical source of energy. Regular practice of breathing exercises like pranayam is an effective energy booster. Breathing exercises help in improving perception, observation, and expression, all vital to boosting your productivity at work.
d) Meditation
Meditation is conscious, deep relaxation. Just a few minutes of regular meditation can relieve all types of stress. About 15-20 minutes of meditation during the morning and evening is good enough. Meditation also helps us get in touch with our inner space – the source of joy, peace, and love.
Have the Confidence that You can Do It
You must see to it that you go with the feeling that you have time. When you put this thought in your mind that you don’t have time, then that itself becomes a block. Everybody has only twenty-four hours, whether it is the Prime Minister or a clerk working in the bank. You have to hold on to this aphorism ‘I can do it’ because the pressure of time is more when you do not feel confident of accomplishing your work. Even when it appears to be impossible, even then you should have confidence, and probably give miracles a chance. This very confidence in yourself that ‘I will be able to manage’ will take you through.
Develop Healthy Habits
Our life is mostly governed by our subconscious mind. Habits are something that is ingrained in our subconscious mind. Not all habits are wrong. For example, brushing your teeth every day is a habit. If you don’t brush your teeth, you don’t feel comfortable. Taking a bath is a habit. You take a shower every day. And if you don’t feel like taking a shower, you don’t feel good. Practicing meditation and pranayama are healthy habits that can boost your productivity.
Reclaim your Time from Social Media
Over the next week, take a vow that you will not touch your phone for more than an hour. Not one minute more than one hour. You take such a vow for one week – I am going to do this – and you can do it. If a habit is deep in you, that you feel you cannot get over it, take a limited period of time, say 10 days or one month and tell yourself that you won’t do it. This is easier for you, one step at a time. You will be successful.
Do not defend or justify one’s habit, knowing it is no good. And no need to feel guilty about it either. So it is a fine line, not to feel guilty because whatever you feel guilty about it and you find yourself getting into that spiral again going down and down and down, and it will lead you into depression. Along with this, take a vow or promise someone very dear to you, that you will abstain from it for a period of time. Never mind if you break it, start again from that time. Don’t give up.
So What if you Get Distracted
Why do you want to be focused all the time? So what if you get distracted? Think about it. You know, our run for perfection becomes the cause of us getting distracted. Let’s take life the way it is. Then you will find that you’ll be more and more focused. And even if you are off-focus, you’ll get back very fast. That is what we must aim at.
Tap the Power of Emotions and Breath
If you love something, you don’t need to focus. The focus is already there. Love brings focus along with it. Greed may help you focus on a place you don’t love. Fear takes the focus along with it. If none of these three work, the fourth one is dispassion. Dispassion can bring focus. And the fifth one is pranayama – breathing. Breathing can focus your mind.
Allow Procrastination to Fall Away Naturally
When you are expecting a result, know that life is eternal. But when you have to act or put in effort, know that life is short. When you realize life is short, procrastination falls away.
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The secret to increasing productivity lies in being happy and stress-free. Work becomes effortless when you are happy. You can sustain happiness and overcome stress when you raise your energy levels. The right food, quality sleep, and breathing & meditation practices can help to do the same. Along with that, the right attitude, healthy habits, and vows to eliminate distractions can help you become more productive.
