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Self Improvement & Productivity

Armed with self-awareness, self-care and stress management, the idea here is to take responsibility of your own behaviour, form good habits and to channel your energies to become as effective as possible.

 

How to move from self-awareness to self-improvement

With self-awareness, you have an understanding of your strengths, weaknesses, feelings, thoughts, and values; as well as they they affect the people around you.But that’s just half of the story, as shared in this article. You will need to pair it with an important skill: self-management.

Self-management is a conscious choice to resist a preference or habit, and instead, demonstrate a more productive behavior. It’s a four-step process:

  1. Be present. Pay attention to what is happening in this moment — not what was said 15 minutes ago or what will happen in your next meeting.

  2. Be self-aware. What are you seeing, hearing, feeling, doing, saying, and considering?

  3. Identify a range of behavioral choices. What do you want to do next? What are the possible consequences of each action? What feedback have you gotten that might inform your choices? What are some alternative choices you can make — even if they’re not what you want to do or what you usually do?

  4. Intentionally choose behaviors that are believed to be the most productive. What behavior will generate the best outcome — even if it’s not the behavior that comes easiest to you?

How to break bad habits

Do you have any of these bad habits and you wish to break them? We found a Control Alternate Delete Method (Ctrl Alt Del) method that might be worth trying:

  • Control: Master your desire

  • Alternate: Find a replacement

  • Delete: Remove temptations

10 Incredibly Easy Ways To Improve Your Productivity

The key is to work smarter, not harder. As the saying goes, “it’s not the number of hours you put into work, it is the amount of work you put in those hours.” In this 3-minutes read (with plenty of science backing it up) the author shares the following tips:

  1. Take regular breaks

  2. Eat the frog (the most crucial task on your to-do list): Develop the lifelong habit of tackling your major task first thing each morning.

  3. Learn to single-task

  4. Follow the two-minute rule: if you have a pending task that can be completed in two minutes, you should do it right away as it'll take longer to review and finish it later

  5. Plan each day the night before

  6. Take advantage of your commute

  7. Get organized: Science says that people with a messy workspace are less efficient and more frustrated than those who have an organized work desk

  8. Eliminate digital distractions

  9. Make a not-to-do list

  10. Get enough sleep

You Are What You Listen To: 11 Podcasts To Inspire Yourself

Self-improvement and productivity is about channeling your energies to become as effective as possible. We found a curated list of 11 podcasts to inspire yourself, challenge your thinking and find greater happiness in life.