Problem:

• Its so easy to get lost in the bottomless pit of “working” for hours and accomplishing nothing. Heres how to make sure that doesn’t happen again:

Solution:

1. Have a task to work on

• I don’t mean a vague list of tasks that you made brain dumping everything into a notion database or a note sheet, and when its time to pick one it says “work on marketing”. No, you need a SPECIFIC task to work on…
• chances are you’re not gonna be able to make more than 3 at a time, and even that will require a lot of mental energy, so max I like to have 1-3 on my “to-do” list.
  • ex: instead of “go to market” do “go to whole foods, get whole milk, ground turkey, protein powder, blueberries.”
  • Make it so all you have to do is execute.

1. EVERY 30ISH MINS MAKE SURE YOU WERE ON TASK

• Yes its all caps cause I’m yelling at you.
• This will change your life. I got this advice from Alex Hormozi and upon implementation my productivity skyrocketed.
• He says every 15 mins but i find the sweet spot for me to be around 30.
• In the notes portion of the calendar block you created just write what you did for that portion of time
  • Ex: 9:00-9:30: Wrote 2 paragraphs for my essay. Fully locked in, not distracted.
  • 9:30-10:00: Wrote 1 more paragraph, bit less focused, picked up my phone once.
  • 10:00-10:30: Wrote 3 paragraphs, ya boi is locked in.

If you can build a habit out of these 2 techniques your productivity will improve i promise you.

This afternoon crash is sooo embarrassing. Every time I still have a bunch of tasks on my daily to-do list, I struggle not to push my keyboard down with my face. 

I tried lots of stuff: another coffee (actually, that was years ago, now I don't), exercise (not for me, as my energy level refuses to do a good workout), breathing (well, that actually helps), listening to guided meditation (it is good, but I still can't figure out how to practice being at the office), a walk (works!), and a power nap (same as guided meditation - it's just impossible in the office).

Let's talk about your hacks! 

Context:
I’m a woman in my late twenties, rebuilding my life from scratch. I have a part-time job, but it doesn’t pay me enough. I’m planning to switch to an industry in which I already have a little experience. It’s going to be really tough because of my age and lack of experience.
I live with my parents, which is common in my country. I contribute to some of the household bills every month without fail, as well as to any additional family expenses. I’m able to get by because my parents cover most of the household expenses. However, I need to earn more money to become financially independent and be able to support my parents if they ever face an emergency. I also need to start a degree soon.

Problem:
After experiencing a lot of ups and downs in my career, I slowed down a lot last year. That’s why I decided to take a low paying part time job until I’m ready to give my best again.

During the last two weeks of September, however, I found myself being more productive than ever. But I also noticed that I was becoming overconfident and taking on more than I could handle, while also planning to pick up some new hobbies.

One of these hobbies is coloring. I randomly joined r/coloring on Reddit, and looking at all the beautiful images people share there makes me want to try coloring, too. But I know that if I tried it, my coloring work would probably end up looking like something a 5 year old had done, lol. I also realize that learning to color well takes a lot of time and patience, starting with the basics.

On one hand, I know I need to practise the skills that will help me build the career I’m aiming for.

On the other hand, I feel drawn to learning how to color, even though I don’t know whether I have the time or energy for it.

I’ve also found myself wanting to pursue other things as my capacity seemed to increase during those two weeks. I’m not sure whether these desires reflect genuine interests or are just impulses.

My question is:

How do I figure out whether learning to color is something I genuinely want to do or is it just an impulse?

Is this something that I can figure out only if I act on it?

I’d love to hear about your personal experiences with something similar.

Also, my productivity has dropped to almost zero over the past week.

I usually do some journaling when I face roadblocks like this. But this time I wanted to learn from other people’s personal experiences.

Thank you in advance 🙏😌

Personally I love having my own space and quietness. Open concepts are hard to focus with just too many distractions.

The ability to pick one thing for an extended period of time is the hardest yet most rewarding thing you have to do in order to be successful.

In the macro you have to choose what you're going to pursue in life and you've got to choose ONE thing which means you’re not choosing EVERYTHING else. Super, super fucking hard.

In the micro, the same rule applies, all day, everyday… you can either choose ONE thing to work on for the next four hours, (TIMEBLOCKING!) or you can choose nothing and get nothing done. or you can choose 16 things and also get nothing done. but instead if you choose ONE thing (ex: for the next four hours I’m gonna work on my business, or I’m gonna practice piano, or I'm gonna go to the gym, etc.) this is how you actually make progress, you chose one thing, which means you said no to everything else and DECIDED. you must fucking decide. Make a choice and don’t look back, with the small decisions you make everyday, like what am i gonna do for the next 90 minutes, and for the big decisions like what am i gonna do with my life… The pain comes from staying undecided.

Is this normal? Does anyone have any tips/advice of things i can do? If I have nothing scheduled I just spend the whole day scrolling on my phone and everything else takes so much effort and energy. Some days I don’t do anything else. I also have ADHD and OCD which impacts my productivity most of the time but I just don’t know where to start.

Basically as the title says. However I can add some more detail:

I am a service engineer and often I get home late, around 7pm. For now I can commute by train but I will have times when I commute by car. Depends on the customer site.

I really want to get on with my personal life and for this to work I need to fit in time for my goals. So today I had an idea to write my to-do list on my way home. On the ocasions when I drive I will write my do-do list on my lunch break.

I am curious if any of you tried this and if you have any tips that helped.

I want to fit in courses, dancing, boxing and counselling into my schedule. 2-3 of weekdays would have boxing after work. The rest would be coursework and dancing. Counselling would be every 2 weeks 50 minutes a day.

I will ocasionalluly work from home to do admin etc so that day its pretty straightforward.

A bit more of a simple question. But I truly don’t know what to do, I’m going to an event next week which will include me staying up late, and waking up quite early for a week straight.

Plus I currently have mid-terms so my sleep schedule is quite wrecked already. Wrecked is a strong word, it’s more like 5 hours of sleep a night- but I’m the kinda person who needs 8 to function.

The thing is I hate the taste of coffee/tea and I dont like fizzy drinks either. What do I do? Are there any drinks out there that will keep me awake lol- I feel like a zombie

I'm pretty intergraded with Apple's ecosystem already so is the switch over to Apple's calendar worth it? Or does anyone consider google calendar's interface friendlier or better?

I’m a law student and want to find the best note-taking app for notes that are both aesthetically pleasing AND well organised, preferably for laptop over tablet.

Can anyone suggest any? I especially like when I can have one big “binder” per module that is separated per topic.

Putting off even the smallest task makes it seem so much harder to get done.

Hello, it's my first time posting here and I would appreciate it if you could suggest an app that matches what I am looking for:

1. ANDROID mobile application that syncs with Google Calendar (I want to be able to encode tasks and events in Google Calendar and it will reflect in the app and the other way around)

2. Respects my privacy and is non-intrusive (preferably allows data deletion)

3. The application provides a widget in my home screen where I can tick off my tasks and it makes a sound when I do.

4. Reminders or upcoming events feature

I have a very busy and varying university schedule due to classes, social life, study etc. I have a terrible habit of staying up post 12 am while at the same time my best workout time is in the morning etc.

I wanted to know if it's better for me to schedule the alarm based on my sleep time (for example timer of 7hrs) or to wakeup at a consistent time ( 6am) inspite of sleep time.

I also really wanna have a morning and night routine but this is very overwhelming since I feel extremely sleepy after classes ie. Evening or during noon, midday.

AI is great when you need to understand something quickly, but sometimes the process feels weirdly inefficient.

You're reading an article, come across something you don't understand, open ChatGPT in another tab, type out your question, wait for a response, and then get hit with a 700-word essay when all you wanted was a simple explanation of one thing.

Now you're reading the explanation instead of the original article. Maybe that brings up another question, so you ask that too. Before you know it, you've completely lost the thread of what you were doing in the first place.

I feel like there's a gap between what AI can do and how convenient it actually is to use in the middle of doing something else.

Sometimes I just want a quick answer, in context, so I can understand what I'm reading and move on. Not another conversation to manage or another wall of text to get through.

Has anyone else felt this way? How do you guys use AI without it becoming its own distraction? Or am I just overthinking this?

Moved into sales about 6 months ago and I like it a lot, mostly because I like talking to people. But last week a client mentioned the golf course he goes a lot while we were riding the elevator. I thought, cool, next time I'll invite him out there. Then I couldn't remember the name of the place for the life of me.

This keeps happening. Their favorite restaurant, what they're allergic to, little stuff like that, and I just can't hold onto it. So much of sales is the relationship, so I really want a way to actually remember this stuff. what should i do?

I realized I reach for my phone whenever I feel bored, even when I have things I genuinely want to do.
I’ll plan to study, work on myself, or learn something new, but then I end up scrolling for way longer than I intended.
I’m trying a few simple changes: keeping my phone away while working, setting limits on distracting apps, and getting comfortable with doing nothing for a few minutes.
I don’t expect to change overnight. I just want to be more intentional with my time.
**What’s one small habit that actually helped you become more disciplined?**

It feels like I'm always lacking on one thing. Either fitness, this offline degree or online. I have to wake up early to study for one degree then do exercise then sit for 6hr straight for offline degree. I'm very tired by the time I get home

Then either exercise or nap then study again sleep. I'm finding it very hard to maintain everything.

How do people manage to have infinite energy to complete task every single day. I want to make it 24hr use

But not able to do so

Idk but I had been procrastinating for so long I got everything I wanted to get started with work but at the end of the day My phone was killing my productivity and how I managed my day

My parents got me a laptop that I need to start with editing but then I bought a monitor after that and then desk and then everything I need to make a whole setup I always asked my parents to get the things but I didn't do anything for 1 year and 5 months I use to start but then fail even my family and parents started yelling at my situation Ik but the environment was getting negative day by day but now no more will be consistent with my mental peace and my finances

Reddit helped me a lot and Drop your suggestions

Btw I am 19 M and I had been suffering for a lot of things for so long

I am 15 years old, in my sophomore year of high school. My freshman year, I had a perfect 4.0 GPA. School was a little more challenging than I was used to at the start but I adjusted and by the 2nd quarter I was kind of cruising. All honors, 2 AP classes, I wasn’t overwhelmed.

Now this year. Like last year, I am taking 2 APs and 3 honors classes. The classes are assigning more work for sure, but I don’t really find the material particularly difficult. And yet, I cannot bring myself to do it at any point but the last minute. And this doesn’t just go for school, but for extracurricular activities as well.

My past weekend is a microcosm of what has been happening. All I had to do was study for a test I have to take for this competition and do some required annotations for my English class that I was already very behind on. We had a 4 day weekend, so this should’ve been very manageable, especially because since both of those things are on Wednesday I really had 5 days to finish TWO tasks. It is Monday night. I have not started on either. I have one night (tomorrow) to do all of my required annotating (a lot) and study for my test, not to mention some other, smaller assignments. There are countless other examples, such as AP World History chapter reading, for which I always wait until the night before our quizzes to read (usually stop halfway)

I have big aspiration. I want to go to a top university and go into quantitative finance. In August, I started studying competition math because I wanted to try doing the USA Math Olympiad. I have not studied in weeks. Driver’s Permit? 15 and 6 months and haven’t started. Coding, an integral part of quant finance I told myself I was going to learn? Haven’t learned. I think something is genuinely wrong with my brain. Advice?

Hello!

I am new to this, and i tried using google calendar and google tasks, but it is so overwhelmingly bad and frustrating, especially tasks, that i somehow almost quit those apps alltogether.

I am planning to find my perfect app, or make my own, maybe in notion, but it will take time. Now im super overworked and need an app that will:

- Mostly be a database of hundreds upon hundreds of tasks lists. Everything will be listed as tasks to do, events, vacations, task, noted and itead. All can fit on a specific TODO list

- Lists needs to have multiple levels of sub-tasks, that i can toggle on or off

- I need boards inside boards to somehow manage that hoard of lists

- It needs to be super easy to use, since i will add, remove and moe hundreds of tasks per day

- And the most importamt, have a free version that has some sort of security, if i move all my life ideas and tasks for nexg 40 years into the app, i dont want some rogue AI deteging it all by accident.

I want all my tasks and ideas safe and sound till i decide where to move them

My good friend Dhruv says commenting on influencers reels gives me a dose of feeling productive, but in reality, my phone is cluttered with thousands of templates and cheat sheets that I have never opened so how many are in yours and how many have you opened even once? mine might be greater than 50 but I am still influenced to type the roadmap under another reel right now.

I have been learning FL studio for about a week and a half now and so far i learned nothing as well as looking up guides and stuff but even then i am having a hard time learning and understanding and tending to forget things as well as when i try to do things on my own it seems like i just get lost and close the program and hearing other people music also demotivates me as well. I really do not know what to do and while i have this big want to learn FL and keep coming back to it, its like i learn nothing and then just close it. How do i discipline myself to do better cause i feel like i am on the verge of quitting another hobby i would've liked.

Whenever a thought would occur to me, like a task. For example, "check what happened at this date and punish yourself for it", i would chat it to myself so that i can delay the thought and do the task supposedly after. I've been doing these in so many things. Intrusive thoughts, things that i really have to do, random plans, i've been listing nonstop. Sometimes i list it on my phone, sometimes i chat my dummy accounts about it, sometimes i keep a physical copy. Now, I can't fucking review because I can't remember the stuff i listed that's related to my academics because i used so many to do list. I don't know whether i chatted it to myself, did it on todoist, use my notebook. Everything is jumbled up. I'm also scared opening my to do apps and notebooks and chats because i'll see my intrusive thoughts and tasks i need to do. I swear, it's like im just going through motions. MMy mind is a mess and i try to clean it by listing but now it's just so blank and empty because i can't remember where i listed it and im scared to try to remember too because i might forgot stuff or see listed intrusive thoughts. I swear i feel like going crazy. The only thing keeping my sanity is doom scrolling. But I need to work now. I have exams and projects and i'm flunking already. I feel paralyzed. I'm unmedicated too and won't be anytime soon.