How to balance it out? ⚖️
Today, in 3 minutes or less, you will:
Learn about balancing productivity with self-care;
Find ways to prevent overwhelming clutter;
Understand the power of self-check-ins.
Hi there! 👋
Sometimes I feel like keeping everything in a good balance is nearly impossible. You’re either super productive and knocking things out one after the other or in a slump, scrambling to get basic shi%$ done. Keeping it at a sensible level somewhere in between seems really hard. But once you get a hang of it, you really notice how small habits and improvements here and there can make a lot of difference.
Here are a few things I have learned along my healthy productivity journey when it comes to keeping everything in balance.
✨ Small acts of kindness for your future self
When you’re feeling good, refreshed, and energized, it’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking you’ll have the same energy and willpower to do tasks later. So thinking a little bit ahead comes a long way. For example, while making breakfast, consider how during your workday you might not be able to carve out time to prepare a meal for lunch, or you’ll be too tired to cook dinner, so while you brew coffee or wait for your eggs to boil, prepare some ingredients ahead of time that you will need for lunch or dinner, so all you have to do later is throw it together. Acts like these, when you think about how to make your future self’s life easier, are simple ways to show yourself the care and consideration you deserve, ensuring that when challenges arise, you’re already one step ahead.
⏳Do it before it gets too overwhelming
This is not easy to do, especially if you live with other people, but it’s absolutely worth it. Maintaining the environment around you - taking the extra step, to keep your environment tidy and clutter-free, before it gets too overwhelming to do a full-on clean up. For example, fold that small load of laundry straight away, before the one load turns into five that rest in a pile on your bed and is too overwhelming to even think about. Or putting a coffee mug and a dirty plate straight into the dishwasher instead of leaving it on the counter to grow into a pile of dishes by the end of the day, again, too overwhelming to tackle when you’re tired after a workday. It’s much simpler to keep it tidy by just doing a few extra movements during the day than to devote an entire Sunday to doing a “Sunday reset”.
🧘Checking in with yourself
I enjoy journaling, but it can also be done through meditation or breathwork, or honestly, whatever works for you. I find that writing helps me get clarity and focus. It makes me conscious enough to follow my trail of thought and catch the thoughts that are negatively affecting me, so I can turn them around by thinking about it differently. It’s called Cognitive reappraisal - changing the interpretation of a situation to feel better emotionally. Checking in with yourself multiple times a day can become a powerful tool you can use to hold yourself accountable. Each of us responds to stress differently, I for example am an overeater. When stressed or bored I often reach for something to eat and it can turn into a bad loop of guilt, shame, bad mood, feeling physically ill, and so forth. So checking in with myself during the day and reminding myself of the consequences that I do not wish upon myself has proven to be effective.
Last week I did a 5-day Productivity Challenge on TikTok. It was a fun and interesting experience. If you’d like to see what we did and do one yourself, here are the videos, you can follow one by one. Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, Day 4, Day 5.
Quote of the week:
"Success is the sum of small efforts, repeated day in and day out."
- Robert Collier, american author
Feel free to reply or leave a comment - share your own take, suggest a topic, ask for advice, whatever it is, I’m here to listen and respond.
Happy Productivity!
-Ance