How to Rewire your Brain to Optimize Productivity – Be More Productive

What do you think about when you see the word productivity maybe you think about focusing on a single task maybe you visualize a full list of tasks that have already been crossed off or maybe getting into a flow at work where
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time seems to pass you by and you hustle through all of your assignments whatever productivity means to you it’s something that you can achieve see productivity isn’t just a course of action productivity is a state of mind and I’m
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gonna give it to you hard a lot of recent research says that productivity is correlated with the trait called conscientiousness it’s a personality trait that you can’t really change but there’s also research that contradicts
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this and says that you can push your boundaries if you work on it you can change your brain and I’ve seen it happen I’ve seen lazy people change their efficiency but that’s because you’re literally changing your brain now
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we can mimic some conscientiousness habits and through those habits we can start to rewire our brain to become more productive and I’m going to show you those habits if you can rewire your brain to be more productive you will
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start writing to-do lists and crossing everything off of them before you even know it tip number one is to start in the morning some light tells our brains when to get up and when it’s time to wind
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down so I suggest setting your alarm clock as the Sun rises and specifically if you can a little bit earlier to give yourself time to get things done earlier have you ever experienced a morning when you wake up feeling refreshed and you’re
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ready to take on the day only the next day you feel groggy and irritable well when we sleep our bodies move through different cycles if we wake up at the wrong time in those cycles we might feel tired and lethargic throughout the
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entire morning well a simple way to combat this is by downloading an app something like sleep cycle at night you give the app a range of time when you’d like to get up and you place the phone near your bed based
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on your sleep cycle the app will get you up at a time when you should feel refreshed and ready to take on the day and trust me I’ve tried this before and it usually works tip number two is a segmented schedule so you’re up and
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you’re awake and you’re ready for the day now what well you need to rewire your brain to think by the hours of the clock from 9:00 to 10:00 you will focus on project a from 10:00 to 11:00 you will focus on project B from 11:00 to
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noon you will focus on project C I recommend setting your schedule ahead of time to fit in all of the tasks that you’d like to get done for the day a lot of people nag and they say I can’t work by a schedule I feel constrained well
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then you’re setting up your schedule wrong you should set it up with stuff that you want to do – you should reward yourself treat yourself like a worker that you’ve hired and if you don’t reward or
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pay that worker and you just give them a whole bunch of stuff to do you’d hate that schedule to a schedule should be a helpful tool not a confining jail also don’t forget to add breaks to your schedules leave your distractions or
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miscellaneous tasks to these designated break times something like an email a Facebook message or a daydream can completely derail your entire focus and if your brain knows that it has a break coming up in a few minutes it’s more
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likely to put that distracting thought aside until that break something I highly recommend looking into is the Pomodoro Technique the Pomodoro Technique is a way to schedule two hours of work with small breaks and long
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breaks in between it’s one of the most effective and proven ways to focus on a task at hand for just the right amount of time tip number three is productive awareness now it can be hard to stop yourself from getting carried away with
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distracting thoughts this lack of awareness is like the number one killer of all productivity luckily it’s easy to take control of your awareness and use it to your advantage awareness requires recognizing where you
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are and what you are doing in the present moment kind of like meditation take some time to be aware of your surroundings right now what’s happening in the room where you’re sitting what parts of your body are making contact
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with the chair to the table or computer or the articles of clothing that you’re wearing what do you see what do you hear even weirder what do you smell have you been reading and digesting the words in front of you or have you been
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distracted by other thoughts if you know that you get distracted easily and have trouble staying aware of the present moment I highly recommend meditating or taking a workshop based on mindfulness these activities can help you stay aware
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of your surroundings and thoughts all day long and on the same note you need to control your environment as much as possible trying to find a place where distractions won’t creep up on you people won’t come up to you and you
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won’t be daydreaming out the window as you learn to be more aware of all of your thoughts you will see distractions coming from a mile away and hopefully you’ll be able to shut them down tip number four is to hold yourself
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accountable schedules work because they give you an idea of what’s coming up and they also give you a goal to pursue when you see that it’s 2:30 and you know you have another half hour left to complete an assignment you know that you can ramp
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up your focus or maybe give yourself a little bit of slack everyone works at different paces and if you want to be truly productive you have to find the pace that works for you as you create your schedule give yourself some time to
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make notes throughout the day when did you feel tired what helped you focus maybe what distracted you you probably start to notice patterns after a couple days maybe you always feel tired at 2:30 in the afternoon or maybe
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you’ll feel better on the days that you do yoga in the morning I give a more in-depth guide to tracking your natural productivity states in my full psychology a Productivity course but I’ll talk a little bit more about it at
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the end of this video once you start to recognize the times when you feel most productive of the tools that help you you can start to create a schedule that works for you and makes you more productive tip number five is positive
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validation did you accomplish your first task of the day in a timely manner well congrats that’s great that you did that make sure you take a moment to cross that task off your list and pat yourself on the back metaphorically positive
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validation can train you and your brain to chase anything including productive habits and a laser beam focus just use basic conditioning to reward yourself see our brains naturally seek rewards and they try to retreat from pain if you
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can rewire your brain to frame productivity as a truly rewarding way to live your brain will start to crave productivity and it will look for a day full of accomplishments affirmations and positive validations show your brain
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that you truly want to cross tasks off your list you want to stay healthy that you want to make money or do whatever it is that you actually want to do for example when I’ve had a really productive day when
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I’ve gotten a lot of stuff done I’ll take some friends to a movie or I’ll go out to eat at a nice restaurant I want to rewire my brain so that productive day equals fun evening and it’s working too because when I start thinking about
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what I want to do in the evening for fun my brain automatically looks for things to work on I know it’s kind of weird and it’s kind of a difficult feeling to explain but you should definitely try it number six is to manifest your
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productivity do you really see yourself as a productive person maybe you don’t today is the day to rewire your brain and change your own attitude you need to throw out any doubts or memories of lazy days because today you are a productive
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person that’s just who you are get it you need to continue to manifest positive thoughts and visualize yourself as a productive person that you want to be to give you some insight into this I created a full to our course on the
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psychology of belief and within the research process I learned that the best way to be motivated towards something is to think of that trait as part of your identity you might think I’m a productive person who gets loads of
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meaningful work done and you should tell yourself that that would be an affirmation and you need to tell yourself that until you start to believe it because the sooner you start to believe that you’re productive the
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easier it will be to sit down scheduled your task for the day and actually get them all done I suggest creating a mantra or an affirmation for yourself that says something along the lines of I’m
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productive keep this mantra in your back pocket and repeat it every morning whenever you feel like you’re not being productive and your brain starts to pick up on this mantra it will rewire itself and you will believe that you can get
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everything done on your list see our minds are fascinating subjects to study human minds have similar habits and certain habits can trick anyone’s mind into becoming more productive this is the idea behind the psychology of
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productivity it’s an online course that I created that will help make you a more productive person if you want to learn more about the specific tactics and mechanisms that make someone a super productive industrious person the
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psychology of productivity is a proven system to accomplish more helped you defeat procrastination and take control of your day using tactics backed by psychology you can check out more about the full course and some of the results
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that past students have had by checking out the link in the description also there’s a 30-day money-back guarantee so it’s completely risk-free and I also want to let you know I’m thinking of raising the price because of how popular