On Productivity Hacks
In my previous post I mentioned how some Youtube videos helped me get my shit together. I rummaged through my Youtube history to reference them (since looking for them on my own bookmarks or messy notes would be much harder as I have no idea where I put them) and dedicate a whole post to what I learned from it.
From chronological order of when I watched them:
- Get More Done In 12 Weeks Than Others Do In 12 Months by Tim Hill In the beginning, this video felt like those cliche get-quick productivity schemes that I often see flooded on Youtube, stating a lot of obvious facts and barely any meaningful substance for quick views. But I actually learned a good technique that I'm intentionally working on right now, and that's the 12-week year.
It's a good short watch with great techniques you can adopt to your lifestyle now. The main take away for me was dividing my year into 4 quarters, and treating every quarter as if it was a whole year. Instead of making goals with a year-end deadline, my goals are scattered in batches of four where each Quarter I focus on just one main task and (try to) ignore the rest.
- 3-Minute Mental Hack to Take Control of Your Subconscious by Colin Galen
This casual video was straight to the point and grounded on the real experiences of a competitive programmer while being really entertaining to watch. It's about an actual brain hack/trick where the basic idea is to condition your brain into associating a task to a key motivator (happiness, survival, etc). By narrowing on the task, smacking a default brain option over it (strong emotions), and eliminating everything in between, executing becomes so much easier as your mind will subconsciously want it as it directly leads to an emotion it can recognize.
It's funny because I've actually done this in other aspects of my life, most notably, associating certain food and drinks to relieving intense emotions and stress as well as certain music triggering vivid nostalgia of certain specific memories and moments of time in the past. Didn't think of applying it to tasks, but now I'm trying and so far it's been pretty effective.
- The Feasibility Bias: Why You're Not Happy With Where You Are by Colin Galen This video didn't particularly stuck with me in terms of productivity and life hacks, but it was still an interesting and notable watch. It gives a deep insight into our own biases and mindset.
(edit: Forgot to add this one!)
- Why It's So Hard To Be Consistent by HealthygamerGG
"How do we live a life of consistency if we ourselves change everyday?"
I love watching his videos. They talk about really important topics for fostering healthier mindset and habits geared towards gamers (but is still applicable to any human being). In this video he talks about how "you are a different person everyday," which is why we always tend to put off important tasks for later or tomorrow even though we know that we'll most likely end up in its vicious cycle. We tend to be okay with screwing things up and letting our future self clean it up in our stead.
"You only get to live for this moment in time"
Think of your tomorrow self as a completely different person, like a teammate in a group setting, whom you're passing your project onto. Just like in real life, you're more inclined to do what you're supposed to for the day as you don't want to burden them with something that they are not responsible for. This is where self-compassion comes in, and he's really emphasized this part as it was the key to getting this mindset down. If you don't love yourself, then why would you want to sacrifice now for your future?
"If you want to live a life of consistency, paradoxically, what you need to do is recognize that there is no consistency within you. You just get to live today."
These videos helped me form new habits and mindset into 2024 and I hope you learn a thing or two from it as well.