Rapid Improvements

Continuing my previous post about having enough rest, here I’d like to take about one kind of rest: napping. Napping is a proven way to recover your body’s energy level. Numerous researches already confirm that taking a nap could boost your productivity, especially in the late afternoon hours. No wonder Winston Churchill took nap regularly in the middle of World War II. It enabled him to think more clearly and therefore make the right decision.

So, whenever possible, make a napping a part of your daily habit. Even taking a nap for only half an hour will have positive effect on your productivity.

But what should we do if we can’t take nap at work? Then at least you should have time to take a rest. Perhaps you can walk to a nearby park at that time or perhaps you can just sit back and close your eyes for a while. Just make sure that you have recovery periods within your work day.

Do you have enough rest? In this fast-pacing world, there is a danger of being too busy without having enough recovery periods. While being busy might seem to increase your productivity in the short term, in the long term it will only make your performance suffer. There is no way you can sustain high performance for long time if you don’t have enough rest.

So it’s important that you have enough rest. Give your body the break it needs. This way you can keep your energy level high throughout the day and thereby increase your performance. Don’t be so busy that your body suffers.

Whom you gather with has a great effect on how you will become. If you surround yourself with the right people, you will grow fast in your self improvement. On the other hand, if you surround yourself with the wrong people, you won’t grow as much. Even worse, they may drag you down.

That’s why it’s important to surround yourself with the right people. Look at the people you usually gather with. Are they positive and uplifting? Are they encouraging? If they are not, you’d better look for new people to gather with. It doesn’t mean that you discard your old friends. It just means that you should spend less time with them and more time with positive people. Over time, you will feel the difference in your life.

In the previous post I wrote about building reading habit. It’s important to build reading habit because that way you will grow yourself. But just having a reading habit is not enough: you must also watch what you read. If you read the wrong things, you are feeding the wrong thoughts into your mind and that won’t do you any good.

So be selective with your reading. Don’t just read for the sake of reading.

The first type of reading you should be careful with is news. Why? Because news gives you little or no value. Just think about it: ten years from now, how many of the news will still be talked about by people? Not much, I’m sure. So it’s better if you use your time to feed your mind with something that is more valuable. I’m not saying that you should not read news at all. What I’m saying is that you should limit your news consumption.

So what should you read? In my opinion, books are your best bet. Books give you real value for your time. That, of course, will only happen if you choose the right books. To get the right books to read, you can start with this list of the most recommended books to read. The list contains quality books that have passed the test of time and will surely give you value.

If you want to improve yourself, building reading habit is one of the most important things you should do. That’s because reading can give you knowledge in a way that no other way can.

Reading is like listening to great minds as they share with you about their thoughts, experiences, and ideas. It won’t be possible for you to meet most of them in person, but through their writing it’s as if you are learning directly from them.

For that reason, you should make reading a habit. If these days you only read occasionaly, make a commitment to read more and read consistently. Of course, you should start with something that is manageable for you. For example, it may be too difficult to read one book a week if you are just starting. Instead, set a more manageable goal like reading a book a month.

The most important thing here is consistency. If you are consistent, you will get the benefit in no time. Then you can increase your standard little by little and consequently improve your knowledge consumption.

If you want to be more productive, there is a simple tip for you: don’t overthink. Often the reason why we don’t do something is because we overthink it. It may actually be something simple, but because we think too much about it we end up not taking action.

How can people overthink? Well, perhaps they try to assess the situation in detail before they take action. Perhaps they try to calculate what the consequences might be. Perhaps they think about how people will respond to them. While you do need to think about these things, overthinking them is dangerous. You should think just enough to help you take action. Don’t think too much to the point where you don’t take action.

Besides, overthinking won’t help you be more successful. You will learn more by doing than by thinking. The time you spend on thinking will be better used if you spend it on doing because you will learn more that way.

If you want to have a productive life, one of the biggest obstacles you must overcome is the procrastination habit. Procrastination makes you accomplish much less in a given amount of time because you don’t do things right away. Instead, you wait until the last possible moment before you start working on it.

There are clear disadvantages of procrastination besides reduced productivity. One of them is the risk that you won’t be able to accomplish the task. While you might assume that you will be more productive under pressure, there is always a risk that you will eventually fail. Since you don’t have enough buffer time, when unexpected things happen there is a good chance that you won’t be able to cope with them.

Another disadvantage of procrastination is the stressful condition it creates. Instead of working on something in a relaxed manner, you must work on it in a tense condition since the deadline is coming. Doing this for long time may have adverse effect on your health (for example, you could have blood pressure problem).

With these disadvantages, it’s clear that you need to beat the procrastination habit. Beating it will definitely increase your productivity.