Productivity rules that work for me

This list is based on what works for me. Comment on what works for you, if you don’t mind.

Productivity rules:

• Build a regular habit for long-term skill building (i.e. learning an instrument). Work on it every day. Try not to break the chain otherwise it adds friction, making it harder to do it as time passes.
• Stop eating when you’re 80% full. Don’t eat so full because your stomach will have to work really hard and it is not good for work and productivity. You might get tired the whole day because your stomach uses too much energy.
• Inbox Zero if you don’t want to get flooded by your emails coming in. It’ll give you headache. Flow-e can help you with this.
• Keep track and record all of your upcoming events, to do list on a digital calendar or a personal Kanban system. That helps to reduce the burden for your brain to carry. Use flow-e for this too.
• Go paperless. This is because writing your schedule on a notebook does not have the same support system like notification as in an app that has reminders.
• Use a meal planner and set recipes for the next week in advance. So you don’t have to think too much about what to cook before the meal. It happened to me a few times where it’s time to cook and I don’t know what to cook and if I have enough ingredients. Check my meal planner here for reference.
• Keep your room, bathroom and kitchen clean. It boosts your mood.
• Combine a boring activity which you’re not willing to do with an activity that is pleasant and passive. Like listening to a podcast while you’re doing chores. You’ll be amazed how much easier it is to do things you feel bored.
• Checklist: keep a checklist of essential things for travel or whenever going out. I forgot my wallet sometimes and have to go back to home. Checklists make sure I don’t forget.
• Do things in batch. Like reading all your news at once rather than scattering it to different times in a day.
• Make rules for email: such as checking mails only 3 times a day.
• Don’t drink or eat too much before sleep. This will make you fall asleep harder.
• Focus on your next action. This is the GTD method. Specify clearly what you need to do on each project. Don’t make it abstract. For example, you want to create some self experiments to try on yourself, and you want to eat fruits for breakfast every day. What you want to do is not writing: “eat fruits for breakfast every day”, but “make breakfast with grapes, cherries and some frozen fruits on every day of the week”. This can help you to be clear on the action you need to do.
• Do a weekly review. This is to follow the GTD methodology.

To be updated.