Declutter: Keeping Productivity Sustainable

Wew - what a week it has been for me! Work can get pretty hectic and I thought it would be an appropriate time to post an entry about keeping productivity sustainable - in essence, staying motivated. It serves as a reminder to myself to keep pace over the long run. I thought it would be nice to share some pointers of what had helped me :)

Note that these ideas are not by me at all and are taken from the creator of the bullet journal. I summarised them in my own words.

1) Defining your goals, sprints and tasks: this is primary step - ensure they are quantifiable:

• Goals: the overall milestone
• Sprint: a broken down goal that can be done within a sustained period of time. The duration should be focused and contained
• Task: simple steps that adds up to the equation to complete the sprint
• Finishing each task keeps you going, that allows you to finish a sprint and ultimately enables you to finish the goal

2) Breakdown your goals into sprints

• Instead of using the traditional method of trying to sustain motivation over a long haul, sprints keep your motivation going - we're looking for as little willpower needed to sustain motivation.
• Furthermore, sprints give you small breaks and time to reflect on your goals such as how to work on things better, what's currently value adding and what's not.
• I totally recommend break-sprints - meaning you work on other projects/hobby you enjoy before getting back to the next sprint - it really helps clear the mind.

3) Ask yourself 5-whys:

• I found this is extremely useful for me. Sometimes we need to ask ourselves what's the intrinsic motivation of these goals - i.e. what's the point of all this? 
• Oftentimes, when we reason ourselves the first time, reasons end up pretty superficial or politically correct. But asking the second, third and forth "why" typically drives you to think a little deeper and more connected to your tasks.
• I recommend working on this by saying out loud or writing it down - doing these consolidate your thoughts better.

Happy Saturday!