How Some Routines Can Kill Productivity and How to Escape Them

We all have dreams. Learning a new musical instrument or a language, being the best student in class, working on that side project of yours, building an amazing body. We need time to do all of this. Unfortunately, sometimes we may feel overwhelmed with life. It may feel like there is no time in the day to do anything. However, at the end of the day when you look back, you really didn’t do anything that takes you closer to your dream.

If you have experienced this, it’s really not your fault. We’ve all felt this at one point or another. The important thing is realizing how this happens and how to break out of it.

The automatic mode

My college classes are scheduled in the starting of the year. Nothing really changes. Almost every class, lecture, lunch break is as it has been for many years before me.

Every day it’s like this: Wake up, Get dressed, Skip breakfast, Run to class, Listen to the lecture, oh…the bench looks so comfortable…just sleep for 5 mins.., WAKE UP, answer your roll call, go to the next class, Lunch, next class, next class, and then…FINALLY, I’m in my room.

All alone.

I felt this weird feeling. It’s like when someone has been holding on to you, all your weight, and they just suddenly let go. No one to tell you what to do. You feel violated. Almost your whole day is gone, you haven’t done much. Some small talk with your friends, some sleep here and there.

If you are working an 8 to 5 job, or just doing something that automatically happens without you having to think about it, we’re all in the same boat.

The important point here is, you haven’t made a single conscious decision on what you want to do that day. Everything is on automatic because most of the decisions have been made for you.

We are creatures of habit and for the whole day we’ve been put on “automatic mode”. Your will-power is low. Your self-esteem is low. You will do anything to get some instant gratification.

Invariably, you take out your mobile phone and check those notifications. Instant dopamine. You turn on the TV and watch another episode on Netflix. Instant gratification. We have surrounded ourselves with “Pablo boxes” everywhere. We pay for these devices, and the device manufacturers need to design it such that you are trapped inside it forever.

And before you know it, the day is gone. You go to bed to wake up to another day on automatic mode.

Breaking the cycle

Now you do really want to work on things that matter to you. Days of automatic mode will turn into months, and soon years. Nobody wants to look back at their lives and say, “Ah, if only I hadn’t wasted so much time…”.

Fortunately, we can break out of this automatic mode. There are many ways that many “gurus” preach, but this 2 step process is what has worked for me.

1. Turn off the Internet

Most of what you “consume” on automatic mode comes from the internet. The more you consume, the more you want to consume. This may sound very simple and direct, but there’s nothing more to it. Just turn the internet off.

Turning it off manually again takes some willpower, and as we’ve seen, when we are zombies on automatic mode, we really can’t do that. So what to do instead? Configure your router to disconnect automatically right after you get back from work/school (Look it up on google how to do it. It’s called “access control” and it’s pretty straightforward.)

Now that the internet is off, you really get bored. You don’t get any instant dopamine hits from your phone. Actually, turning off the internet for the first time made me realize how useless our smartphones are without it.

If your work depends on the internet, (as it many times does. I’m looking at you StackOverflow and Wikipedia) then download the StayFocused extension for Chrome. On mobile, there are other extensions available too.

Now to move on to working on what really matters to you.

2. Break your work into 20 minutes of focus sessions

No matter how much you like something, it becomes ‘boring’ after a while. You don’t play the guitar as much as you used to. You don’t code as much as you used to. And it’s only natural to reach the plateau of “good” when your dream was to become “great”.

Masters of their field know that nothing comes without paying the price. They follow something called deliberate practice. It’s doing something every single day whether you like it or not on that particular day. For things like your side projects, or study you may need to do the same thing in order to go from “just good” to “great”.

The most practical method that I’ve found is breaking up any kind of work into 20-minute sessions. Have a really huge chunk of work that you can’t finish in 20 mins? Spend 20 mins to break it up into smaller chunks.

This technique is called the Pomodoro technique. It works, and that’s all I care about. Now buy yourself a good manual timer. Because your phone as a timer will only act as a distraction.

Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion — Parkinson’s law

When you set yourself a goal and a time limit, your brain automatically does what is necessary to accomplish it. If you want more time, do another 20 min session. This way you stay razor sharp when working. No more checking your Facebook feed and Whatsapp messages during work. You can do that in the 5 mins after every session ends.

The dopamine rush you get out of doing a 20 min session is much greater that what you get with your phone. It works on the principle of delayed gratification. Maybe do just one 20 min session today. Take that guitar, play it for 20 mins no matter what happens. Tomorrow you will probably want to do more.

Conclusion

I hope with this, you realize the existence of the automatic mode. I hope you can break out of it to actually work on your dreams. If this has helped you in any way, please share this with your friends and family.

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