The key to being productive is to say to yourself “all I have to do right now is…”
A few years ago, I served a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It was a SUPER cool experience, and it taught me hundreds of things, including how to serve those around me and that everyone is a child of God.
You may know what missionaries do (some knock on doors, some pray for you, and some teach you and your family about God, Jesus Christ, and the Book of Mormon), but you PROBABLY don’t know what they do when they’re at home in their apartment.
I’m getting to an important, relatable point, I promise.
Every morning, during their scripture study, missionaries read out of a book called “Adjusting to Missionary Life.” That book was a lifesaver to me countless times! It taught me ways of managing stress, how to better develop relationships with others… Basically, it taught me how to make sure I was taking care of myself generally, physically, spiritually, emotionally, intellectually, and socially.
The link is here: Adjusting to Missionary Life
I remember LOVING this book, and we would study it every morning to get ideas on how to be more productive, get along better, not be as homesick, etc.
I think Adjusting to Missionary Life would be better called “Adjusting to Adult Life,” and I think EVERYONE should read it. (Obviously it talks about missionaries, but you can easily relate it to your own life and just read the parts that are applicable to you.)
I promise this post isn’t ONLY about Adjusting. I just bring it up because it taught me two VERY valuable lessons that I forgot about until now, and one of these lessons are about being productive.
See, I had fallen into a productive-slump, if you will. I wanted to get up and exercise every day, I wanted to do my homework without complaint, I wanted to be a more effective employee, but I just couldn’t get myself to do it.
So I read an article (found here) on Pocket, a REALLY awesome app that I recommend, about how to beat this slump.
One guy said to break your initial task into a small, 2 minute task, like if you want to go running, start with putting on your shoes. It is obviously a task that you HAVE to do in order to run (unless you’re one of those weird barefoot runners), and it only takes about 2 minutes.
Putting on your shoes is easy, right? So the idea is if you put on your shoes, you’ll probably follow that action up with going outside, then going for a run. Objects in motion stay in motion. (Thanks Newton!)
Adjusting to Missionary Life, all those missionary years ago, taught us “all I have to do right now is…”. It actually says it in three different parts of the book! It says it under “managing a stress emergency,” “pace yourself,” and “break your work into small pieces and take on only one task at a time.”
To be honest, I had completely forgotten about Adjusting until this morning. I had read this article, I was like “yeah, that’s a great idea, I’m going to do that to get up by my alarm tomorrow morning.”
And then the morning rolled around, I thought “All I have to do right now is go to the bathroom,” (to get myself to get out of bed) and then I had a realization the entire time I was on the toilet, the whole time I made my morning Calm (magnesium drink, lowers stress), and up until I started up my computer and started writing.
So there you have it! The key to being productive (if you have a hard time getting started or staying on task) is to say to yourself “all I have to do right now is…”
Lifechanging, right?
Now all I have to do right now is publish this blog post.
The Journey 