So if you don't know this already, in South Korea, there are thousands of teenagers who wake up every day and spend more hours doing schoolwork than you spend being awake. Literally. And many people look at these students and think, But, in reality, most of them just wanna get out of school and join an esports team, a good portion of them don’t even shower at all, and the most popular productivity hack, is to drink an entire Iced Americano in between each subject.
So how do they do it? What's their hidden secret to being so productive all the time? It’s actually very easy.
And I was about to spend weeks reading these productivity books to find the answer, but luckily, thanks to Shortform, I was able to read all of them in just a few hours. That’s because Shortform gives you full guides, to pretty much any book you could ever want, including the most popular books in genres like Money and Finance, Productivity, and Business. For example, I read the guide to Ali Abdaal’s Feel-Good Productivity, and Shortform even gave me exercises to actually apply the information at the end.
And here’s 3 things I learned and that’s why I only upload once a month. But unlike me, Shortform drops new book guides and articles every single week, and subscribers get to vote on what books are covered. So if you wanna get a 5-day free trial, join Shortform through my Special link, shortform.
com/easyactually, or click the link in the description. Sooo in the end what i found, is that productivity is basically just a cycle. And this is what it looks like.
First, let’s say you get motivated. Motivation makes you wanna do work. Finishing some work, makes you feel good, and that gives you motivation, to then finish more work.
Around and around it goes. The more motivated you are, the more work you do. And the more work you do, the more motivation you get.
So, every time you think of productivity, just think of this cycle. Because even though it simplifies a lot of stuff, it’s easy to remember just this image whenever you wake up and don’t feel like doing anything. And it explains pretty much everything.
For example, how can you spend 3 weeks not writing an essay, but somehow, 30 minutes before it’s due, you turn into prime Shakespeare? It’s because when the due date is in 30 minutes, your motivation goes sky high, and therefore, the cycle goes much faster, and no amount of distractions, sleepiness, or boredom, will be enough to stop you. The cycle also explains why you can get so much more work done when you have a to-do list.
Because each time you cross something off the list, you’re very obviously telling your brain, I finished something. I did a task. And that makes you feel good.
And now that you feel motivated, guess what? Here’s another task that’s gonna give you an even better feeling once you cross it off. And this is why the most productive people almost always have a detailed to-do list.
Cause if you split up a big task like “homework” into each individual subject, and even better, you split it into each individual task, then not only is there less confusion about what you have to do, but you get to have that boost of motivation after crossing off every little task. So if you wanna make the cycle as smooth and efficient as possible, make a to-do list, and make it detailed. More detailed.
More! Ok that’s good. And it’s important to know that if you don’t have a lot of motivation, you can still start up the cycle and get it running, by using some self-motivation tricks.
And here's a few: - First, remind yourself what drives you. why you’re doing this, and what the end goal is. - Next, remind yourself what you enjoy about your work.
- Third, challenge yourself to see how much work you can do in the next hour, and race against the clock, as if you have an essay that’s due in one hour and you haven’t started. Because you know what they say, procrastination is the best motivation, so why not just give yourself your own time limit? - And finally, make work into a habit by doing it every day around the same time, and by making it part of a bigger routine.
For example, a lot of people have a morning routine of wake up, shower, breakfast, gym. Or they have an evening routine of come home, change clothes, eat food. And if you just stick a work session into these built-in routines, then eventually it’ll feel weird, not to do work.
And what better motivator is there, than not wanting to feel weird? But having said all this, you also don’t have to start with motivation, to get the cycle going. If you wanna turn the cycle on, you can just start here.
With work. For example, if you wake up one day and you feel really unmotivated, like you don't want to do anything, just start working anyway. It can even be just one minute of work.
Literally one minute. Whatever it is, once you finish that bit of work, you’re done, and you can go back to lying down in bed and doing nothing. But chances are, you probably won’t want to go back to doing nothing.
Because finishing that one task will almost always give you enough motivation to do the next task, and that motivates you more, and before you know it, the cycle is running at full speed. And this is the secret. Don't wait for motivation.
Start working now, and get motivated as you work. It’s said that students at Oxford University in England spend at least 40 hours a week studying. Which means that even on those days with no motivation, they still have to wake up and go study for 6-8 hours.
And they’re not sitting in bed telling themselves, Cause that’s a huge task that they don’t have the motivation for. Instead, what they actually do, is wake up and think, And 12 hours later someow, they’ve finished 2 textbooks, written 4 essays, and colonized 78 countries, Cause getting stuff done, is what motivates you, when nothing else will. Of course, the cycle can’t go on forever.
Things like tiredness, confusion, boredom, anxiety, and distractions are all things that make this cycle less and less efficient. But the good news is that you can deal with all of these. And one way to tackle them all at the same time, is to just take a break and go for a walk.
Especially if you go outside, a walk will give you some extra energy,. A walk helps you collect your thoughts and plan out your next move. It gives you something to do that’s not work.
It calms you down when you’re anxious. And during a walk, you can take in all your surroundings, and allow your mind to wander now, so that you don’t need distractions later. But besides walking, here’s how you can deal with each problem.
. . .
one thing that works way too well and pretty much never fails is switching up the location you work from, even just facing a different direction. You can honestly work from even the most nonsensical of locations, but be warned that people might look at you weird. Doesn’t matter though cause it’s fun.
Anxiety: The best you can do is ask yourself some questions: For example, if you have a biology test coming up you might feel too anxious to study. Why? Because you’re worried you might fail anyway.
Is this reasonable? No, cause studying always helps. Will this matter in the long run?
No, because the two hours you spend studying now is not that much time in the long run. And what can you control? Obviously, you can study.
And even if you do fail, you can always just draw over your grade and change it to an A. And lastly, distractions. according to many books, distractions are the enemy to deep, productive, work, and they also stop you from reaching a state of flow.
And the best way to stop this, is to simply take your phone, put it on silent, and put in another room, or just hide it somewhere. This is way better than just turning off your notifications, and I personally I don’t even miss anything cause no one calls me in the first place. Anyway, I’m collecting donations in the form of subscribes to fund the next video.
