However, as you will see in this article, if you practice two specific types of thinking exercises, you can enhance your productivity and happiness.
Tens of thousands took the free online test titled “How to Boost Your Time Management Skills?”
Based on the data, we found that about two-thirds of people check their email when they wake up, which may not be surprising, as most people sleep with their phones by the bedside, but this is a problem.
What if we drank our morning coffee, cleared our minds, and made a plan outlining what we need to achieve to make our day successful, rather than using our phones right when we wake up? The data suggests that we would be happier and more productive if we took this simple step rather than checking our email.
Only 47% of people who start their day by checking their email say they often leave work feeling that the day has actually been a success, so if the first thing you do in the morning is to check your email, you're 82% more likely to spend half your time working.
But 68% of people who start their day with a plan say they often feel that the day was successful, meaning that 45% are more likely to leave feeling that your day was successful if you start your day thinking and planning rather than checking your email.
It does not only include the beginning of the day, where pausing and reflection yield significant results. A company outsourcing technical support evaluated people graduating from their training program. A group of trainees completed training and began receiving technical support calls for eight hours a day, while the second group spent more than seven hours taking calls.
Still, they were also given 15 minutes at the end of the day to stop and reflect on what they had learned. When the two groups were tested a month later, people who received 15 minutes a day to stop and think scored 40% higher than people who worked directly during the day. In other words, intercepting and thinking make people more intelligent and effective at their work.
But how can you apply these lessons to increase your productivity and happiness? In this article, we will mention two meditation exercises that you can use, each of which takes about 12 minutes, and you can apply one at the beginning and the other at the end of the day.
Morning Thinking Exercise
When you wake up in the morning, before you pick up your phone and start checking your emails or messages, bring a piece of paper and a pen and ask yourself: “What do I have to achieve today to have a successful day?”
There is no doubt that your to-do list is full of things to do, but there are only a few things that are of great importance to the success of your career and your sense of sufficiency, which are the essential things to determine.
Then, once you have written down one or two critical things, ask yourself: “What might be stopping me from achieving these things, and how can I prepare myself to overcome potential obstacles before they happen?”
It's good to have a plan, but in fact, you can face obstacles in your way, so you should anticipate these obstacles proactively and develop an alternative solution. The solution may be simple, such as not checking your email until you accomplish a few essential things.
Proactivity is one of the characteristics that distinguish superior people from less successful ones. A study titled “Employee Engagement Is Not Significantly Correlated with Managers,” showed that initiative was a determining factor and key to whether someone would feel engaged and inspired at work.
In addition, I found data from the “How do you enhance your time management skills?” People who planned proactively were less likely to constantly stop working, which increased their productivity.
Evening Reflection Exercise
Another meditation exercise can be done at the end of the day, just like the technical support staff we mentioned above. At the end of each day, you will devote 12 minutes and reflect and contemplate on what you have learned today.
Again, have a pen and paper, write down the key lessons you have learned, and it is best to identify at least two key lessons. The basis of this exercise is to be specific. You cannot write something like, “I worked hard today.”
Instead, you should find a specific lesson: “Whenever I feel distracted, I will set the timer for 15 minutes and focus heavily on that time, and when I finish, I will give myself 5 minutes to check the e-mail and more.”
Why should you write down your thinking exercises?
The reasons for holding a pen and paper and notation are that thought exercises are two psychological processes called blinding - blocking information and generating effect in which information is better remembered if created from an individual's mind rather than smoothly read.
Cryptography is the biological process by which the things we perceive move to the hippocampus of the brain, where they are analyzed, from where decisions are made about what is stored in our long-term memory, what to get rid of, and writing improves this coding process.
In other words, what you write can be better remembered, as neuropsychologists have identified the “generation effect,” which basically states that individuals show better memory of the material they have prepared themselves, compared to only the material they have read.
In conclusion
Is it worth dedicating 12 minutes daily to improve your productivity and happiness even more?
People who want to spend a few minutes thinking and meditating more achieve much better results than people who feel like they've been too busy to stop and think.
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