Productivity isn’t JUST work.
Productivity is also:
- Making time for your health
- Making time for your relationships
- Making time for your self-care
- Making time for your personal growth
- Making time for FUN (read until the end to see what I mean by this!)
Obviously we want to be more productive! However, it seems like productivity is only about the work/study/business related tasks you do!
Yes, whenever you’re studying, working, or doing things for your business, you are being super productive! But just remember those are not the only things that make you productive!
This blog post will outline what other things counts as being productive and how you can make them productive!
1 – Making time for your HEALTH
This is the most important one! Anything you do for your health is automatically productive!
One important reason is that your health contributes to your productivity! Think about how your productivity would be affected if you didn’t have good health.
Then, of course, making time for your health is not even a new advice! You don’t need to be a doctor or any medical expert to know that taking care of your health is crucial!
A big mistake anyone could make is not include sleep, exercise, doctor appointments, or meal time in their schedule because it would “ruin” their schedule or their productivity. While in the short-term you get everything done, in the long-term, think about how that would affect your health. And we all know that if our health is negatively affected, it’s going to negatively impact our productivity.
Since our health contributes to our productivity, you NEED to prioritise it. You need to make time for it… health is wealth!
How exactly do you make this productive?
When you create your daily or weekly schedule, make sure that it’s filled with activities that contribute to your health. Make sure you make time for exercise, meals, and any doctor appointments you need. Make sure that you allocate time for your night routine so you’ll go to bed on time!
Make sure that you take the time every hour to move around… especially if you’re doing a job, you’re studying, or have a business where you’ll be sitting down all day. Make sure that you take the time to have meals and snacks to boost your energy! It’s never a waste of time!
2 – Make Time for Your Relationships
This includes all relationships in your inner circle – your family, friends, co-workers, or your actual relationships.
We’ve seen this in movies or TV shows where the kids’ parents are spending their time working rather than spending time with them. Whenever the kid brings it up to the parent, the parents say that work is important and to stop distracting them.
BUT taking aside the TV shows and movies, it’s important to remember that whenever you make room to include quality family time, or catchups with friends, it’s being productive!
Social health is a thing! Social wellbeing and social self-care is a thing! One of the ways that you meet your social health/social wellbeing/social self-care needs is to actually spend time with people!
Introvert or not, we all benefit from having social interaction and meaningful relationships in our lives. That’s why, making time for them is not being unproductive.
How do you make this productive?
When you make your schedule for the week, make sure you at least see a couple or even just ONE catch-up with a friend or two. You don’t want to make life all about work, work, and work. When you look back at the past, you want to have lots of memories with your family and friends.
Invest your time in making those memories, because it’s the time you never get back! People get older, people move on, people move to new cities, people go to different directions… the best time to spend time with them is now!
Most importantly, if you have set aside a time to catch-up, make sure you treat it like an important appointment! If you would never cancel on an interview or important meeting, don’t cancel on them too!
3 – Self-Care DEFINITELY Counts!!
What I suggest you read after this is my blog post on the 5 No-No’s of Self-Care. One of the BIG no-no’s is thinking that self-care is not productive.
You have to remember that productivity is not just about those work tasks. You’re also productive when you do things that contribute to taking care of yourself! If you make meetings and events non-negotiable, you have to make time for yourself non-negotiable as well!
Switch your mindset from believing that self-care is not productive, to thinking that self-care is productive! In fact, self-care will make you productive. Time with yourself will make you more productive, rather than less productive.
How to make this productive?
When you make your schedule for the day or week, make sure that there are some blank spaces available to give you room for the unexpected! Any extra free time is a bonus. You don’t always have to use it for more work!
Then, also make sure you schedule in time for your self-care. Whether that’s in the evening, morning, or the middle of the day, schedule it in! Here’s the important part – treat that self-care time like an important appointment! If you would never cancel on meetings for work or appointments, don’t cancel on yourself!
If you are struggling to motivate yourself, the best thing to do is first, motivate yourself to do your self-care regularly. No matter what you do, whether you’re working, studying, or run a business, you need time for yourself! You need to have routines and habits set in place to make sure that you don’t miss it.
Definitely have a self-care routine that is very you! Have activities in mind that YOU enjoy and will help you feel recharged and refreshed. Keep a list of go-to activities that you’ll do when it’s time for your self-care.
If you want to see the types of self-care for every area of your life, definitely read this blog post on the self-care actions you can do for every area of your life.
4 – Personal Growth COUNTS (it’s not even a question!)
Personal growth is something that you definitely want to invest time and even money into!
This is an important area of our life where we need to make time for it! Any time that we spend on our personal growth is never going to be a waste!
And also, making time your personal growth is the most flexible thing you can do! For instance, most times you can read a book and listen to podcast as a way to increase your personal growth! It’s very flexible because you can read a book anywhere at anytime, and listen to a podcast anywhere at anytime.
This is different to doing self-care where you have to actually set a time for it. Even for your health, you actually have to schedule in time for exercise and meal times. Personal growth is more flexible because you can do many personal growth related tasks at anytime.
How do you make this productive?
You can be very flexible with how you do your personal growth. You can fit them in between work sessions, or do them before bed or in the morning… it’s very flexible!
These three things you can do for your personal growth that are very flexible:
- Reading
- Listening to a Podcast
- Watching an educational YouTube video on self-improvement
You can do these things at any time in the day! For instance, you can read during your lunch break, and you can listen to a podcast while commuting to school or work! You can watch a YouTube video during dinner… you can do them whenever you want, wherever you want.
Since you can be flexible with it, there’s literally no excuse!
5 – Make FUN productive
YES! You can make fun productive!
You can agree or disagree with this, but it’s also productive when you have fun experiences! What do I exactly mean by this?
By spending time doing fun experiences, you obviously enjoy yourself, but you also discover yourself in the process!
Because if we’re being honest here, it’s hard to discover yourself when all you do is work or study. You actually discover yourself when you’re in a completely different zone doing something different!
For instance, when you try new activities that you’ve never done before, it’s scary at first! But that’s the best part! You have nothing to lose by trying something out!
I’ve started doing the following things that I thought was super scary at first! They’re not even BIG things, they’re just small things that were out of my comfort zone because I was doing them on my own:
- Eating at a restaurant by myself
- Going to the cinemas by myself
- Hikes and coastal walks on my own
- Beach days on my own
- Cafe work sessions
Doing these things by myself was so scary at first! But once I tried it, it helped me discover myself.
The point here is that you never know unless you try. There are countless activities out there that you can make time for! When you’re in the zone of having fun, you’re discovering yourself… and that’s productive!
How can you make this productive?
Think of at least 5 activities that you’ve never done before! Big bonus if they are out of your comfort zone! Then, simply each week do one of them!
Pinky promise it’s not going to “ruin” your productivity. If you end up liking it, YAY you discovered something new. If you ended up hating it, YAY you saved time and at least you know!
You’ll never know unless you try!
Your worth is never determined by how productive you are
Just remember that no matter what, your worth is never determined by your productivity!
You don’t have to beat yourself up whenever you have to make time for appointments and it disrupts your work sessions.
You don’t have to beat yourself up when you need that extra sleep.
You don’t have to beat yourself up if you did something for yourself because you felt burnt out!
It’s all okay! Our days are not meant for it to be perfect and stick with a schedule all the time!
Our days are meant for progress. Whether it’s progress in our goals, or progress with just ourselves!
-Lauren 😊
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Mentioned Articles:
10 Actual Ways to Live a More PRODUCTIVE Life!
Build a Successful Foundation for Your Productivity
Easy Productivity Tips for All Areas of Your Life!
Mistakes People Make When Trying to Be Productive
Things to Remember When Trying to Be Productive!
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Hi, this is Lauren! I’m a law grad from Melbourne, Australia. On laurenbarri.com, I create content on all things personal development, productivity, self-care, and habits! I am super passionate about these topics because of how they helped me in all areas of my life, and I want to share it with others!
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