Personal Productivity
How to Lift Up Your Productivity through Writing
AUTHOR: Susan Saurel
Have you ever wondered about the true meaning of being productive? Most people would say it’s about achieving more in less time. Yes; that’s called efficiency and it’s an important aspect of productivity. But it’s mostly related to your work. When you think about productivity, you figure out it’s about completing your tasks as efficiently and as quickly as possible.
But the concept of productivity includes another aspect of your life: personal growth. How productive are you when you think of your personal goals? Let’s say you decided you wanted to learn more. Are you doing anything about it? Are you learning enough on a daily basis.
When people are engaged in their jobs too much, the personal growth lags behind. We need to do something to improve that aspect of productivity, don’t you think?
There’s a specific technique that can help us do that. It’s simple, but complex at the same time. It’s writing.
How Writing Can Affect Your Personal Productivity
1. Writing Helps You Figure Out Your Ideas
What’s your idea of personal growth? You may have the desire to learn deep within, but you need a trigger that will bring it to surface. When you’re just thinking about the ways you could live a more productive and prosperous life, you’re just creating a mess inside your head. When you write these things down, you’re practically organizing your thoughts into achievable goals.
Neuroscientists found that the process of writing with the purpose to vividly describe goals is strongly associated with the successful achievement of those goals.
2. Writing Awakens Your Creativity
Sometimes you just sit there, not knowing what to do with the free time you have. Sometimes you don’t even have free time. You have to work, but you’re stuck or you’re burned out. You’re facing a creativity blockade, and writing can help you overcome it.
Writing is not only about communicating with others. It’s a self-reflective process that gets you in touch with the subtle aspects of your being. It may trigger ideas from deep within. The technique called freewriting, in particular, is a powerful tool for getting your creative juices going.
3. Writing Trains Your Mind
Just as you exercise to keep your body fit, you should do exercises for your mind as well. Writing is such an exercise. It’s like a personal trainer for your mind. It stimulates activity that keeps it sharp. As you write, you activate different parts of your brain, and that alone does you a great favor.
Plus, you’re improving your writing skills. You’re becoming a better communicator. That will enhance your productivity in all kinds of business and private relations.
How to Rely on Writing to Enhance Your Productivity
1. Try Freewriting
Have you ever been in a situation when you know you lack something in your life, but you can’t realize what exactly it is? You have a job, your family seems okay, but you’re still not perfectly happy? The freewriting technique will help you touch below the conscious levels of your mind.
Just sit and write. Write anything! You can take a word and use it as a prompt. Freedom. Love. Generosity. Success. Money. Take a different word each day and write whatever comes to your mind.
Do not judge your ideas. Do not even think about the things you write while you’re writing. Just set yourself free and write. Somewhere along the way, you’ll reveal some hidden issues, desires, and flaws.
2. Try Journaling, Too
Journaling is a similar practice to freewriting, with the difference that it’s more mindful. You’ll be in a completely conscious state of mind while doing it. Just write about the situations you face every single day.
This will help you understand where you’re wasting your energy. If, for example, there’s negative energy between you and a fellow worker, it affects your job and your entire life. As you write about these situations day after day, you’ll realize you have to work towards their improvement.
So get yourself a nice journal! If you’re worried about your privacy, you may take things online. Penzu is a very secure journaling service, so you may try it out.
3. Write Down Your Goals
This simple technique has a lot to do with your productivity. Before you go to bed each night, write down the goals for tomorrow. This will get you prepared to face the next day even before it hits you. You’ll wake up in the morning with a clear plan of what you need to achieve.
Writing your goals down makes them more realistic. It gives them shape. Plus, when you add a timeframe to them, you’re convinced that you can achieve all of them within a day. That boosts your self-confidence.
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The best thing about writing is that it doesn’t take much of your time. Five to ten minutes each day should be enough for freewriting. You’ll spend ten more minutes in journaling and five more minutes in planning the upcoming day. That’s twenty-five minutes of a daily investment in your productivity. It’s something you can do, right?
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