Tag: “Habits”

Your performance, and largely your productivity, is determined by your ability to give full attention to one thing at any moment. Everybody can do it and, indeed, we all do it unconsciously when we are totally committed to what we are doing or when our brain accepts, without any doubt, that the thing at hand is a top priority issue.

Many people think that a personal productivity system consists of some software and/or a calendar and/or an ordered to-do list and/or a series of notes or documents relating to all this. However, this is nothing more than the physical, tangible part — the least important — of a personal productivity system.

Something that all the people interested in the existing methods of personal organization and productivity have in common is a deep desire to reach a future state much better than today’s. These people have control over what is happening and, therefore, seek ways to do things better, faster or easier. They are people willing to admit that they might need to change some habits. This leads to a paradox: people who want to be more productive are actually those who need it the least.

Have you ever reached the point where, despite feeling like going for a walk (or any other banal activity), you do not do it because you think it will be a waste of time? I certainly have been there.

Routines are sets of actions we perform frequently, almost automatically, without much effort. They are mechanisms we devise to make our life easier. By turning many of the things we have to do into routines, we establish habits that allow us to free our brain, since they are tasks of which we do not have to think too much to carry them out.