Put all your business aside and pay attention to what I’ve got for you today. Not only have I put together 9 super helpful takeaways for you that will not only teach you how to be as productive as possible, but will also help you start working on yourself. Interested yet? Then pour yourself a cup of tea-coffee and sit back. This is an excerpt from Brad Stalberg and Steve Magness’ book, “Peak Performance: Elevate Your Game, Avoid Burnout, and Thrive with the New Science of Success”

Here we go!

1.The Divide and Conquer Tool.
Have you ever had one of those days where your eyes get wildly tired, your neck won’t turn, and your back turns into a piece of wood after working at your computer for a long time? I have a solution for you! I advise you to divide your work time and rest time into intervals of 50 minutes of work and 15 minutes of rest, and so on until the end of the working day. Concentration will increase many times over and work will no longer be so hard. I’ll leave a link to the timer I use for you at the end of the article.

2. Make the work a little harder than you can
Have you heard that the brain is often compared to a muscle? Well, in order for the muscle to get bigger and stronger, the workload has to be constantly increased. And so it is with the brain. Just a little bit, but you have to increase the amount of work every day. You won’t recognize yourself afterwards, that’s for sure. That’s why there’s a practical exercise for you at the end. Yes, yes, exactly for you, don’t miss it.

3. We don’t need multitasking mode
Yeah, yeah, we all know that Julius Caesar story, but we’re not him, right? If you can do a lot of different things at once, good for you, but if you focus on one thing at a time, you’ll see how much your productivity will increase. The trick is that your brain won’t have to constantly switch between things, it will be able to focus. Remember, single-tasking will not only save you time, it’s fun.

4. Change your attitude toward stress from “threat” to “challenge”
From the book ” Peak Performance: Elevate Your Game, Avoid Burnout, and Thrive with the New Science of Success ” I learned one incredible story of how an ordinary American worker witnessed a car collide with a young boy. Putting his doubts aside, he managed to lift the auto weighing 1.5 tons to help the boy get out. But he wasn’t even an athlete, how did he do it? This is the very attitude towards stress. If at the slightest worry you don’t say, “Oh no, not again,” but take it as a challenge to become stronger, you will.

5. Turn on the blue light filter
If you don’t know what this is, I’ll explain. In today’s world, blue light is common. You can see it in your smartphone display and energy-saving bulb. If it’s harmless to you during the day, it becomes an enemy at night. Blue light interferes with the production of melatonin, which is responsible for how quickly we fall asleep. From this, the quality of sleep deteriorates, respectively, and productivity drops. Such a filter is in almost every modern smartphone, but if you don’t have one, download the app, it’s free. This action is not complicated, but very useful.

6. Minimize moments with choices
We are faced with choices on a daily basis. It is a very energy intensive process that takes quite a lot of time. For example, many people, especially girls, stand in front of the closet with clothes for a long time to choose what to go in today. Completely abandon this is unlikely to succeed, but try to reduce meaningless thinking as much as possible. If you want to save energy, put together sets of clothes in advance so you can just open the closet, pull them out and put them on. It’s the same with everything else, give it a try.

7. Linking work to a “high goal” improves performance
Let’s draw a parallel with sports. Sports and business are similar, because in both cases, we put in our best to get results. Imagine a marathon runner who is running the last kilometer, but it is so hard that he is ready to stop. But then he remembers his father, to whom he promised to set a record, and he gets a “second wind”. This is what is called working not for yourself, but for others. This approach will help you work on yourself better.

8. Talking to yourself
Yes, it sounds strange, but in a difficult situation, talking to yourself is a must. It will help put your head in order and speed up problem solving. If you are shy to talk in real life, try it in your mind, but do it.

9. Do a daily productivity assessment from 1 to 10
I hope you have goals you’re moving toward? If not, be sure to set some, because this conclusion is about them. The authors of the book “At the Peak” advise this:
Get yourself a productivity notebook in which you write out your goals, and then analyze yourself every night. Rate how much you’ve done to get closer to your goals. If it’s 1 to 5, think about why and fix the mistakes. When the result is 8 to 10, it’s motivating to keep the bar set.