If only I knew then, as I know now, that there is wisdom in uncertainty??it opens a door to the unknown, and only from the unknown can life be renewed constantly, says Deepak Chopra on what he wish he knewyounger.
I genuinely believe reflecting every week is important. But reflecting on your year is way more important as the key lessons you learned throughout the past year guide your decisions in the following year.
Today, Im going personal for a chance to share time and money-costly lessons I learned this year when it comes to overall productivity, sanity, and happiness.
Here are the six productivity lessons I learned in2021.
Lesson #1: Healthy intentions over checked-off to-dolists
How you do things is more important than how many tasks you accomplish.
I learned this from my high performance coach mentor, John Peitzman, but I didnt intuitively understand it.
Your intentions is how you think about your work and the meaning you give to it. For example, there are two writers who have the same major task??writing a book. Writer A might see it as a daunting, mundane, and should do task to build authority in his field. But Writer B sees it as an act of service to his audience??writing a book that could change his readers livesforever.
Your intentions are way more important than your to-do list. Achieving for the sake of achieving is just hurting your physical and mental health. Before showtime, set your intentions first.
Thats why your morning routine is so key as it sets the tone for the whole day??and setting your intentions on how you want to feel the first thing in the day is the key to being joyfully productive. A big lesson I learned thisyear.
Lesson #2: To achieve your highest productivity state, weaponize yourhours
Whether you call it Deep Work or being in Flow state, working on your masterpiece for longer hours with absolute-zero distractions is the only way to achieve peak productivity. Period.
Why is it important?
Essentially, you become more efficient and effective when in flow because your brain is in the momentum of producing happy hormones like endorphins and dopamine which accelerates your focus and performance.
If youre a writer, this means you write faster and better articles??happily. If youre a sales closer, you close more deals with confidence and excitement.
Working with zero distractions in less time is the secret to producing more qualityoutputs.
I realized late this year that if I had strategically blocked out long deep work hours, I wouldve produced more outputs (writing articles and creating content) that matter for my ambitions.
There were times where I would schedule shorter unrelated tasks all in one day which zaps your mental energy over the long term. Because juggling on many to-dos is also a form of distraction.
A time-costly mistake this year, but a lesson that will make my 2022 (and hopefully yours too) more efficiently productive.
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Lesson #3: Sunday Weekly Review/Planning is everything.
My last point about weaponizing your hours??doing long uninterrupted deep work sessions??wont work unless you plan the whole week, or even better, the whole monthahead.
If its not in the calendar, it aint gonnahappen.
Because I felt my plate was full due to my Church obligations, client-hunting, social media work, and my writing business, I avoided facing them at times and didnt plan the weekahead.
Again, it was late this year that I intuitively learned to get disciplined on reviewing the previous week and making adjustments the weekahead.
If you know your top priorities, important events, crucial meetings, and your deep work sessions by Sunday prior to the week ahead, your stress just lowers down, your focus increases, and you just cant help but your productivity toimprove.
To elaborate this point, heres an excerpt from my previous article on weekly planning:
Using your day as a timeframe to get things done is very constricted because you can only get so much done within 24hours.
A better way to plan your to-dos and tasks is to use the week as a timeframe when scheduling your projects. Why? Its a long enough timeframe to spread out the subtasks of your iPhone project (your main project) and short enough to get themdone.
Lesson #4: Stop being selfish. Be extremely consumer-centric.
This is the single biggest reason why Jeff Bezos Amazon and Gary Vaynerchuks personal brandwins.
I learned this a year ago but I realized this year how much I didnt execute on it yet. In the beginning, I wrote social media posts and articles without doing research to see what my target readers are struggling with within the topics I was writing about so I can write better content forthem.
When I got that Aha! moment of realization, I went all in late this year, did keyword and audience research, and I finally brokethrough.
My email list starts getting traction, my content improved drastically, and the direction Im going towards with my content is crystal clear??all because Im focused on delivering excellence for myreaders.
When you put your audience as your top priority, you can create something they actually want and need instead of what you think they mightneed.
Thats why the number one question Jeff Bezos always asks that made Amazon Amazon is How can we improve the customers experience? Its all about customer obsession, Bezos says, not competitor obsession, business-model obsession, or product obsession.
If youre a freelancer or a business-builder, being customer-obsessed or consumer-centric will save you a ton of time from writing selfish content, selfish cold emails, and selfish products.
Lesson #5: Lead with SOPs when delegating
I learned the concept of SOP from Amy Porterfield.
See, delegating could become extremely unproductive. Let me share with you a quick story to create more context foryou.
In our Church, I and other church officers are in charge of the monthly meeting event for our brethren who are 18 years old and above who arent married. To have a successful event, we need to prepare the poster (to market the event), find a speaker, and prepare the wholeprogram.
What I often did for several months??which is a big mistake??was repeating the how-to of a task to the person I was delegating the task to. With designing the poster, for example, I would tell the church officer in charge So put the date here, put the venue details down here, make sure the design is appropriate, put the time here month after month aftermonth.
Repeating yourself about the task is very inefficient. You waste time you couldve used to focus on where youre great at instead. This is where SOPs comein.
SOP stands for Standard Operating Procedures??which is a written document that states the ins and outs of a task??for example designing a poster. It includes where to put the time, date, and venue details in the poster,etc.
If things worked, create an SOP for it, and improve it in the future. This way, you dont need to repeat yourself over and over again on how to do certain tasks whenever youre delegating. Delegate productively.
Lesson #6: Dont let other peoples stained perspective demolish your ambitions
As adults, we must know clearly the difference between constructive criticism and fear-based, destructive judgments or opinions.
What the majority do when they hear or see unexamined opinions from social media or from their relatives is they fold. They feel crippled??without realizing that 95% of people are carrying a stained perception influenced by their childhood, how other people treated them, and what they see as they growup.
No judgment??its just the reality of how most people perceive life and theworld.
If youre someone who has big ambitions professionally, financially, business-wise, and in your relationships, proliferating your mind with judgments and negativity-based opinions will sabotage your march towards yourgoals.
And if your consistency and motivation to march towards your ambitions are sabotaged, your overall fulfillment and happiness in life will remain sabotaged.
If I lessened my time with negative energy people, I would have x100 my productivity and overallsanity.
Conclusion
Learning your lessons each year might feel that it sucks in the beginning. But lets not frame our lessons as regrets.
Instead, lessons are simply opportunities to improve. And if youre alive and breathing right now, that means you still have a chance toimprove.
Thats the strong perspective successful people have, whether thats Colonel Sanders starting KFC at the age of 65, or Michael Jordan playing seven challenging years in the NBA before winning his first championship.
Lessons, be it inspiring or painful, are inevitable as we march forward towards our goals. Its how were going to use it to improve and become our better selves year in and yearout.
Thanks forreading.
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6 Costly Productivity Lessons I Learned in 2021 (And How to Take Advantage of Them In 2022) was originally published in Startup Stash on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
