Quick productivity hacks that improve your averages immediately.

[CreamCat]

The content of this post has been proven to work through my direct experiences.
It is easy to implement. It works. Although it won't change your life overnight, you will stand a better chance with it.

• Sleep // It is the most important factor in maintaining positive momentum and your energy.
  • Stop drinking caffeinated beverages at least 9 hours before you go to bed. Caffeine prevents you from falling asleep.
  • Stop drinking alcohol several hours before you go to bed. It reduces the quality of your sleep.
  • If you are deprived of sleep, you cannot take in new memories. It's like memento, the movie.
  • The duration of your sleep should be a multiple of 90 minutes.
    • Sleep for 7 hours and 30 minutes if possible. Sleep for at least 6 hours.
    • If you sleep for 6 hours intead of 7, the activity of natural killer cells decreases by 75%.
      The decrease in natural killer cell activity increases the risk of getting cancer significantly.
      Sleep deprivation is a carcinogen.
  • Pick a regular sleep schedule. Try to stick to it if possible.
    • Shift work is classified as a carcinogen by world health organization.
    • To ensure that you go to bed on time
      • Make an alarm in your smartphone that reminds you to start winding-down ritual.
      • During your winding-down ritual, stop your main activities. Do something soothing that helps with sleep such as meditation.
    • My sleep schedule // I don't exactly stick to this schedule, but my sleep schedule is close to it.
      • 9:45PM // My smartphone alarm signals the start of winding-down ritual.
        I close browser tabs and wrap up the work for today so that I can start working on it tomorrow.
      • 10:15PM // My smartphone alarm tells me to go to bed. I stretch my body, empty my bladder, wander for a few minutes in my room, and go to bed.
      • 10:30PM // I'm supposed to fall asleep by this time.
      • 6:00AM // Light alarm and sound alarm are started by Raspberry Pi.
    • After dinner, plan your time so that it's easy to stop what you are doing by the time of winding-down ritual.
      • If you conduct a major computer upgrade after dinner, it might be difficult to stop what you are doing when it's time to wind down.
      • After dinner, think twice before tackling any task that is unbounded in time. Unbounded tasks can keep you awake beyond the time when you need to go to bed.
  • Use the combination of light alarm and sound alarm
    • This combination is very powerful.
    • At 6:00AM, the ceiling lights are turned on and hit my eyes at full brightness. It's hard not to wake up as long as I had enough sleep.
      It's gentler than loud sound alarm, too.
    • The playlist of my sound alarm on Raspberry Pi contains a few songs and a few internet radio stations.
      When a song ends and a new song starts, my mind becomes sharper, and I find it easier to wake up.
      The sound alarm doesn't need to be loud because light alarm is powerful.
• Strong Morning Routine boosts your momentum and productivity significantly.
  • After I wake up,
    • I turn off the ceiling lights and turn off sound alarm.
    • Brush my teeth with hands that are opposite to the ones that I usually brush my teeth with.
      Doing so stimulates my mind and removes any degree of grogginess that I have.
    • Plug my smartphone to a power source
    • Start a warm shower followed by a cold shower.
    • I open up my morning routine checklist on my computer and execute the rest of the morning routine.
  • A strong morning routine can make the difference between a productive day and a lazy day.
  • I designed my morning routine in order to minimize resistance and to start shower as early as possible.
  • Taking a shower as early as possible is important to not allow myself to feel lazy.
    Elon Musk once said taking a shower is the most important thing for productivity. It is for me, too.
• Maintaining good mood is important for productivity.
  • If you anticipate an angry argument, try to prevent it from happening in the first place. Change the future.
  • If unpleasant thoughts come up, try not to attach negative emotions to the thoughts.
    • By attaching negative emotions to thoughts, emotions and thoughts reinforce each other and create a negative loop that's hard to escape.
    • It takes only a few hours of practice to start seeing tangible benefits from trying to disassociate negative emotions from thoughts.
    • Practicing this can make the difference between an emotionally difficult but productive day and a distracted day filled with random youtube videos and random internet browsing.
    • I guess this technique is not enough in the long run, but it can create a runway that's long enough to launch you into the next level.
• Exercise, stretch, and drink in between work sessions
  • After working for 25~50 minutes, take a break for 5~10 minutes. During each break, do a light workout, stretch your body, drink water, and walk for a bit.
  • The combination of exercise and sedona method can be powerful for maintaining positive momentum for hours.
  • If you don't do it between work sessions, you are going to lose productivity in an hour or two.
  • You can easily fall prey to negative emotions and start procrastinating soon if you don't do it.
• Avoid majoring in minors.
  • I just read https://thefitness.wiki/getting-started-with-fitness/#Avoid_Majoring_in_the_Minors which tells you to focus on the most important factors and ignore minor details.
  • Don't prematurely optimize factors that are much less important when you are starting something. Focus on the most important fundamentals.
  • I tell you this because I wasted two years on perfecting minor details and neglected most important fundamental factors.
  • A proper task management system configured to highlight most important factors can tell you when you are majoring in minors.
  • For example, you can waste months just on studying supplements and a few more months on studying other minor details even before you start working on body building.
• Avoid distractions
  • During meals, don't have a smart device nearby. If you do, you can easily be distracted because your time is unstructured during meals.
• Try to quit masturbation and porn because it is a huge time sink.
  •  Or, make a dedicated time slot for masturbation if you don't want to wet your underwears due to your wet dreams. Doing it once per two weeks is a good start.

In the short term, those quick productivity hacks are very helpful. In the longer term, you want to set proper expectations. Watch

• If you underestimate a project and try to execute it, you are going to be frustrated and give up.
  • For example, USA thought iraq war was going to be won in a few weeks because it had superior military power. It didn't plan appropriately. It failed.
• Research how experts in the field of your interest achieved what they achieved.
  • What costs did they pay to achieve what they achieved?
  • Read and watch the behind-the-scene stories of any artwork that you admire.
  • By learning about the costs and the obstacles, you can plan accordingly. If a project turned out to be 5~10 times as big or costly as you anticipated, you would plan big.
• If you are blindsided by unexpected obstacles, you can easily give up.
• My thoughts
  • Set lower limits and upper limits on your expectations.
    • When you discover that you are near lower limits, you are not blindsided, and you can plan accordingly to raise yourself up.
    • When you discover that you haven't been able to exceed upper limits for a while, you are not blindsided, and you can adjust your mindset in order to work harder at exceeding upper limits.

Edited June 7, 2019 by CreamCat