Tag: Discipline

A Very Short Guide to Meditation

This is a very short guide to mindfulness meditation. If you want a few reasons for why you should meditate, you can read my post: 5 reasons to start meditating

You will need:

  • Yourself
  • A timer
  • A comfortable place to sit

How to begin meditating:

  1. Sit down with your back straight (or lie down)
  2. Set the timer to two minutes
  3. Focus on your breathing

And that’s it.

You don’t need to get into a complicated lotus position. You don’t need to wait until the world is silent.

All you have to do is sit still and focus on your breathing. When a random thought pops into your head, gently bring your focus back to your breathing.

You’ll find it difficult at first. Your mind will race in many different directions simply because you aren’t used to slowing down for couple of minutes in the day but it will get easier. You only have to do it for 2 minutes. Then do it again the next day. Maybe in a week you’ll increase it to three minutes.

It’ll get easier and you’ll be able to meditate for a longer time. Then you’ll reap more benefits of meditating every day.

You’ll feel calm, relaxed and more mindful of the things you do.

The Productivity Trap

xkcd.com/874
“I never trust anyone who’s more excited about success than about doing the thing they want to be successful at.”

This trap is extremely easy for people to fall into.

When we treat productivity like a hobby, we can fall into the trap of spending significantly more time reading and writing about productivity instead of being productive. If you find yourself learning loads about various productivity systems and how to make the most out of the day instead of being productive, there’s a problem.

You might not have even noticed that it happens because it feels like you’re being productive (you’re learning more about productivity) and you’re always looking at things related to being productive. This way, it reinforces the false idea that you’re using your time to accomplish important things.

Keep it simple

A large reason for this might be the increasing complexity of productivity systems. Trying to juggle two different calendars, three email accounts and one hundred to do lists is extremely overwhelming and actually detrimental to getting more done in the day.

You don’t need multiple aspects to whatever system you decide to use. When you look at the different things you utilise to help you get the most out of the day, ask yourself how much you can get rid of without losing any effectiveness. For example, if you have two apps that help you make to-do lists, get rid of one or both and use pen and paper. Also, don’t rely on apps to do everything for you.

A small reminder 

Remember that reading about doing work isn’t the same as doing work.

Using all your motivation from motivational pictures to look at more motivational pictures isn’t a good use of your motivation.

Information about productivity is only useful if you go on to do something productive!

 

Do you find yourself reading more about productivity than doing what you need to do?

***

1. The comic is from xkcd.com/874. It’s a fantastic web comic. If you haven’t heard of it before, I strongly recommend reading through one or two or five.

2. If you found the post helpful, share it. If you thought it was more concise than War and Peace, you should follow the blog. Then get back to work, of course. Or be happily unproductive.

Why you’ll fail your new years resolutions

They are created impulsively.

They are vague.

They are unplanned.

They are too big.

They are ultimately unimportant to you.

Many goals start off in such a fashion. Our pursuit of them works for a short while because we’re still in the ‘This year is a new me!’ stage. We have vast amounts of motivation because we now write 2014 instead of 2013.

After all, that was the push we needed to pursue the change we want. A change of date.

When we make new resolutions on new years, we attempt to change almost instantly. If you’ve been eating bad food for years, why would it be easy for you to change your mindset towards food in a day? If you spend all your days sitting down, why would it be easy to start a rigorous exercise regime after a New Years party?

We move far too quickly with no real direction when we attempt to complete our new years resolutions. It’s why the gym is packed to the brim in January but quickly empties during February. They’ve probably told everyone about their new goals which leads them to feeling slightly accomplished about their goals (even if they’ve done very little). No one will ask for a follow up on their friend’s progress because they have better things to do. Then they’ll look back on the statement they made at the beginning of January and realise they haven’t stepped into the gym for over 6 months.

How do you stop that from happening this year?

Making valuable progress towards your goal 

  1. Start small

This is probably the most important thing you can do if you want to make progress. It makes it much more difficult for you avoid and much easier to make steady progress towards a goal. Focusing on one goal is much better than making a weak effort towards five foals.

2. Focus on a routine rather than the goal

This emphasises consistency. Working on building a reliable routine more than you do a goal means you’re more likely to work towards it steadily throughout the year instead of making random bursts of effort towards it.

If you want to improve your writing over the next year, make sure your routine involves writing regularly (if not everyday). If you want to lose weight (or gain muscle), make sure your routine involves going to the gym at least 4 times a week.

3. Make your goals specific

No more ‘I want to be happy’ or ‘I want to be a better person’. If you want to improve your grades in school, say what grades and by how much. If you want to lose weight, say how much and how you’ll do it.

A new year is not the reason why you’ll become a better person. You are. You shouldn’t depend on motivation throughout the whole year because it burns out quickly.

Start small, remain consistent and that’s the way we make progress.

Here are a few similar articles on the topic:

Are you keeping any resolutions for the new year?

Don’t depend on technology for better discipline

The internet and all of its accessories have the potential to be extremely helpful. It provides us with relaxation, helpful resources and knowledge. On the other side, it can be harmful and prevent us from doing the things we want to do. We easily push our work to the side and procrastinate into the early hours of the morning then curse under our breath when we notice that we haven’t completed anything useful.

You may have resorted to helpful programs that will help you do more work. Some applications block our most visited sites if we just waste time on them. Others help us control the amount of time we spend on different tasks or help us slowly build habits by telling us how long we’ve been doing certain things.

I did (and still do) use apps to aid my discipline. However, they can easily be used as a crutch rather than a tool.

When we go to applications as solutions for our problems, we’re making an important mistake. Self discipline should be solved by the person. Not an external application found on the chrome store.

I find this approach problematic because you’ll find extremely easy ways to circumvent them. For example, ‘StayFocusd’ can be avoided if you do your browsing incognito mode or by using a different browser. There are stronger blocks out there but the point still stands.   Maybe you’ll feel guilty after finding a way around them. Maybe not. Either way, you probably won’t do what you need to be doing.

When you’re looking for apps to help you with productivity, keep in mind that they’re just applications. Not all knowing problem solvers. Not your key to becoming super disciplined. Not the only things that can make you work. Just applications. You shouldn’t have multiple apps that do the same thing. Or apps that contain too many features which will simply prove to distract you even more. Do you really need a note taking app that stores pictures, news snippets you’ll never read, gives you compliments and tells you the weather a year in advance?

If you find yourself downloading endless productivity apps or researching far too much about the perfect app that’ll help you become disciplined, you probably need to assess your problem a bit further.

Applications are helpful but they should be used as tools. Not crutches. Remember, you can always unplug yourself from the internet completely.

Do you use productivity applications? Do you find them essential or just convenient?

Stop doing so much

Ambition is good because it means that we want to actively improve ourselves and achieve great things.

There’s nothing wrong with this. However, there is a problem with trying to do too much at once.

Is it possible to be too motivated? 

Some self improvement efforts start from struggles with depression and apathy. Others may start from moments of bliss and happiness.

In the context of self improvement, extreme happiness and motivation leads to far too much enthusiasm for a better future. This actually results in a loss of focus and nothing actually being completed.

This issue tends to get ignored more than complete apathy to improvement because it’s mistakenly viewed as a desirable trait. The person who wants to do everything is better than the person who wants to do nothing. 

Start small 

A symptom of this extreme motivation is often having a laundry list of goals that must be completed because they will make you a better person. For me, it was trying to develop in all sorts of areas like art, fitness, writing and education. Not only did I not complete everything I wanted to but I ended the summer with half finished projects. Many that I never ended up touching. If i remember correctly, I only finished one online course.

I didn’t complete anything worthwhile because I didn’t focus my efforts on a single project.

My biggest strides in self development have come from adopting habits so small I couldn’t say no to them. I would focus my efforts on them for a while. When they became routine, I moved onto something else. This stopped me from becoming overloaded with lifestyle changes and never making any substantial progress.

For example, choosing to make my bed everyday was a small enough for me to begin and continue without any strain. This would later develop to keeping my desk and room more organised without thinking about it.

Meditating everyday for five minutes a day was not difficult to start. It later developed to meditating 10 – 15 minutes daily.

Drinking an extra cup of water everyday was a small addition and quickly led me only drinking water throughout the day.

Small steps are easier than big leaps

You don’t need to read 10 books in a week or paint Starry Night in a day in order to be make valuable progress with reading or art.

Focus on one area of your life and break it down into small sections. You’ll put more energy into the project or habit which will make you more likely to succeed. If it’s something you have in mind for the long term, focus on the beginning until it becomes a ‘non-focus’. That being, you no longer need to put as much energy into remaining consistent (which is a habit!) Then you can focus on the tougher parts of the project or goal. Or a completely different one.

If you sprint at the beginning of a marathon while juggling bricks, you’ll be the exhausted runner with a sore foot after ten minutes.

Start small and you’ll end big.

An introduction: Why I’m here.

I woke up late. Again. This time by one hour instead of three but it still used up the majority of my morning and I had work to get done. Obviously, this meant that I couldn’t go the gym that morning (or anytime that day) because I didn’t want to be tired all day since that would simply stop me from doing anything productive. I’ll go tomorrow. I promise.

I wrote a list of goals that I wanted to achieve by the end of the week and took a short while to remember why I’m doing this: I want to become better. While I wasn’t in the worst position in the world, I wasn’t satisfied. In fact, I was very disappointed. I found myself continuously focusing on the negative instead of celebrating the positive – possibly because I couldn’t find much. But don’t worry, I’ll try changing that today. I promise.

I promise.

This was me a few months ago and not much has changed since then. Many broken promises and failed goals later. Rather than spending my time reading about how to improve myself, I have decided to make an example of myself instead. This way I’ll have a way to keep a log of my progress as a person. But more importantly, I’ll hopefully help people that either feel like they see themselves in my position or simply want a way to become a better version of themselves.

How will I do this? 

Slowly. Overnight success can take years.

My posts will show things that I’ve learnt and positive pieces I wish to share. For example, you’ll read reviews of books I’ve read, explanations of things I’ve been learning and my opinions on topics I want to write about. Maybe some poorly written stories too.

This is subject to change though. It’s a personal blog after all but you’ll see how it develops along with me.

Maybe it’ll be entertaining too.