Favorite Productivity Resources
The elusive productivity
In medicine and in life, productivity seems ever elusive! As a mom of two active kiddos, a mentor, a researcher and a clinician, there never seems to be enough time in the day, the week. Especially since I have been working on prioritizing my own time for downtime, exercise, and relationships. How do I ever even get any work done? Enter the productivity books and resources! Maybe I listen to (I love audiobooks for commuting and automated tasks like doing the dishes and folding laundry) and read these books to make myself feel better. Or maybe I’m just a sucker for self help books. Either way, I genuinely know that these books have helped me change my mindset and outlook on work and life.
What to do when you are working:
Eliminate distractions! I know this sounds so basic, but we have so many distractions these days! Most of them come from our phones and smart devices. We get so much reward (dopamine hits) from social media likes and the doom scrolling is super addictive. Figure out how to turn off notifications (including the ones on your laptop about a new email or message). Put the phone in another room or on do not disturb mode, if possible.
Create a habit for starting your deep work. I love first pouring myself a cup of my favorite warm beverage. Then sitting down, and doing a brain dump into my journal to get any random thoughts and to-do’s off my mind.
Set an intention and goal. What needs to be accomplished to call it a successful work session? What is the biggest and hardest task to tackle first?
(A lot of this can be found in the book Deep Work - link below!).
When you are ready to dive in, listen to 40 htz binaural beats. Binaural beats are how your brain processes sound when you hear two tones at different frequencies at the same time. You can find this by searching for music with 40 htz binaural beats on YouTube or Spotify. Often times other music will be playing with the binaural beats in the background. Some interesting research shows that this can improve working memory and change your emotional states. Most say you don’t need to listen for very long - even 20 to 30 minutes can induce the desired changes and result in more focus and improved memory. (1)
Books on Purpose and Work:
Greg McKeown put a lot of concepts on how and why we should pursue less. He details why we need to figure out what is truly non-essential, and avoid these at all costs. Great examples and practical tips throughout the book.
This book truly resonated with me during a time when I had way too many projects on my plate. Too many pots on the pan, and I felt like I was pulled in too many directions. It helped me trim the fat, so to speak. As with many things, you need to meditate on what is truly important to you, before you can do this. However, once that hard work was done, these concepts helped to execute.
This one is one of my favorites!
This book is based on the premise that we all only have 4000 weeks in our lives (on average) and that’s assuming that we live to be 80. It is important to not take our own existence too seriously, and it’s ironically impossible to do everything perfectly with productive precision. So we need to come to face the reality that there will never be enough time for everything, and so we have to make do with what we have. It’s philosophical. It’ll make you question your existence. (And it’s a little depressing at times!) But it’s real! Plus, it’s the perfect compliment to Essentialism (above).
This one is a quick read on how to focus during the time we have and how to eliminate distractions. A lot of tips on how to use writing, thinking, reading time effectively as a busy mom/ doc/ teacher/ writer/ researcher was based on these principles.
One of my favorite tips: have a routine for getting into the deep work zone. For me, it’s a warm beverage, noise cancelling headphones, and phone on Do Not Disturb. So good!
References:
Nantawachara Jirakittayakorn, Yodchanan Wongsawat, Brain responses to 40-Hz binaural beat and effects on emotion and memory, International Journal of Psychophysiology, Volume 120, 2017, Pages 96-107, ISSN 0167-8760, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijpsycho.2017.07.010.(https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167876017300387)
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