How to Make Every Single Day Productive

How often do you have have unproductive days?

Unless you are the CEO of a startup, chances are “more often than you’d like.”

There’s something about these days.

You know you have to get things done and you’re being unproductive, yet you just cannot get yourself to break free of this unproductive day.

I have always hated such days.

I am happy to report that I’ve found a solution. 🙌

In this article, I am going to share exactly that.

The key to make every single day productive and turn your unproductive days into productive ones is: breaking the cycle.

The concept of the cycles is similar to that of my previous newsletter where I talked about the cycle of success.

The productiveness of our day is determined by it’s cycle.

Here’s an illustration to explain the cycle of an unproductive day:

You wake up (may be late), you’re feeling unproductive, you get nothing done because you’re feeling unproductive. Since you do nothing productive, there’s no motivation. So you do nothing.

And the cycle continues.

The only way to get rid of the ‘unproductive day cycle’ is to break the loop.

Here’s what I do:

As mentioned in my goals for 2024, I wanted to start going to the gym almost every day. I have been doing so.

In the first few weeks, I used to go in the morning. So even if I was having a lazy day, my workout session would help me feel good and get some work done at night. I recognized this pattern.

So I started exploiting it.

I started going to the gym in the morning.

1. This helped me build a habit of waking up early in the morning.
2. Since I had to wake up in the morning, I would sleep on time.
3. After working out in the morning, I would feel productive throughout the day.

I cannot overstate how much more work I’ve been able to do since starting morning workouts, since breaking the unproductivity cycle early in the morning.

Here’s what you can do:

After you freshen up in the morning, you can

1. Go for a walk listening to a podcast/audiobook.
2. Prepare a quick breakfast.
3. Do 8-12 pushups or a small workout.
4. Do the smallest task on your to-do list or calendar.

There’s a lot more that you can do. The main takeaway is that you will need to break the cycle by accomplishing any small task.

Try to keep this task as small as possible because if the task is hard, it will be difficult to get it done right away.

Takeaway: Start your day by breaking the cycle of unproductivity by accomplishing a small task.

Question for you: How often do you have unproductive days? What do you think might help you break the cycle of unproductivity (not a real word)?

If you liked this article, do let me know via a comment down below. I would really appreciate it.

You might also like my recent video on why “You Need to Stop Learning“.

See you in my next newsletter.

Warmly,

Suraj.