In this episode, we’re going to be discussing six tactics and strategies that you can use to make yourself more productive. And specifically, we’re going to be talking about making yourself more productive in terms of making it to the gym or fitting in some movement, flexibility, Yoga, anything to help you get a little bit healthier and move your body more.
Three of the strategies we are going to discuss are going to be tactical and three of the strategies that we’re going to discuss are going to be more mindset or metaphysical. So let’s start off with the hard tactical ones first. One thing that I find most important to help me be really productive and to make sure that I get my workouts in is to make sure that I start each week with a hard schedule.
So number one, hard schedule. And what I mean by a hard schedule is at the start of each week, whether you’re using your agenda or your iPhone, that you have everything written out as detailed as you can. Whether it’s down to the minute, 15 minute, half an hour, whatever works with your mind. Do that so that at the start of each week, from Monday to Sunday, you have a relative idea of the things you need to get done, the time that’s going to be available and prioritizing in writing the things that you want to happen.
So if we are specifically talking about movement or exercise, make sure that you literally pen or pencil in that 15 minutes of stretching in the morning or that hour and a half in the gym at night after work or whatever it is that’s going to help you get to your physical goals requiring or giving your body the movement that it requires. The more detailed that you can be, the better the benefits of doing this in terms of strategizing with a hard schedule or that you’re not going to be overwhelmed when you start your day.
You know what has to get done and you’ll have an idea as you plan things out, whether you have bitten off more than you can chew and make sure that you have that time scheduled in for exercise. If it’s in writing, you’re much more likely to stick to it. Then say, ah, I’ll go to the gym at five o’clock so start your week. That way it takes about 15 minutes on Sunday or if you do strategy number two, which I’m going to recommend in terms of block scheduling, you won’t have to do this as much every week if your schedule is fairly consistent like mine. So one of the most important changes I made to my life a couple of years ago is blocking my schedule. And what I mean by blocks is having certain periods of time each week where I know the exact task I should be working on.
So we’re in terms of my schedule, I know what hours I’m in the office each week and I know that outside of those hours I have certain things and I’m going to be doing during certain times and I won’t have anything to do otherwise. So as an example, I know on Monday I practice from seven 30 until noon and that between noon and three I work on only a couple of things and nothing else I can work on making sure the podcast goes online, making sure all of the youtube videos and Instagram videos I produced last week go online and that between those hours I can only do those things and if I can only do those things and they’re already done, then I prep stuff for the following week. Now at three o’clock I have a hard shut off time or sometimes it’s four o’clock on a particular week where I will work on some paperwork and then until four o’clock and four o’clock is the absolute shut off time four o’clock to five or five 30 I know his time to be on the bike or in your case it might be time to work out and the real benefit of making sure that during specific days or specific times of the week you only are going to be working on certain tasks is that there’s never this question of when am I going to fit my workout in or what am I supposed to be doing right now?
If you know that five o’clock to six 30 every Monday, Wednesday, Friday or whatever it might be is the time when you are in the gym, then you know that this is a dedicated time where you probably don’t have time to go get a coffee with a friend or you can’t make it to that meeting or whatever it might be that tries to interfere with it. If your working out of your movement is of the highest value and you have this dedicated time, you know that you need to be doing that during that specific time and that’s going to help you be most productive. And in terms of productive, I mean in this case, making it to the gym or getting your movement in and blocking your schedule again is going to reduce the amount of stress and anxiety because you’re going to be able to have a pretty good idea of making sure you have enough time to get the stuff done you need to get done each week.
Now, another hard tactical tip, which seems simple and you know something that everybody needs is getting a lot of sleep. Now again, I block out my schedules and I know that between nine and 10 o’clock every night is when the sleep routine starts. And then I’m always going to give myself my seven to eight hours of sleep that my body seems to need. Now, yes, scheduling that sleep is important. But the reason why sleep is so important for productivity is, you know, if you wake up and you’re lacking energy or lacking motivation because your body needs a couple more hours, sleep is going to be very tough to number one go to the gym. It’s going to be very tough to be productive in the first place. So a lot of times we noticed practice members have trouble making it to the gym or have trouble being productive.
It’s usually associated with a lack of sleep or an inconsistent sleep schedule. And that’s a really, really thing to modify. So those are three tactical things around scheduling that I would change. Now the more mindset in the more metaphysical things come down to value goals and not doing dumb stuff. So in terms of your values, this is where you want to make sure that the things that are scheduled in your life are harmonious with what you want. So if you really value your health than you value your nutrition, then you’re going to have to make sure that there are times allocated that in your weekly schedule. If you’re at a time in your life where you’re raising kids or you’re opening a new business, those things might have greater value. They might have greater priority and they might require more time and they might realistically kick time out of that time you might otherwise use for movement and you might otherwise use for preparing nutrition regardless of what it is.
There’s no judgment in that. It’s simply the fact of recognizing what’s really valuable, what’s really important in your life and making sure that your schedule matches that. Now hopefully, and especially if you’re listening to this podcast, hopefully you value your health and just so remember that when you are scheduling through the week that there is that time allocated where I’m going to address that value that I have, that I’m going to be in the gym, we’re going to be doing something good for my body and the reason why I’m doing it is because I want to maybe live a long and prosperous life. Whatever it is or whatever the reason is. Why you value your health. Also makes sure that when you’re scheduling, you know mindset tip number two or overall goal or tip number five is that your exercise and the things that you have scheduled are in line with your goals.
So know that if you are going to be running a marathon in a few months, think about how much time has to be allocated to movement in that particular day or if one of your goals in terms of movement is to make sure that you are able to go to yoga and remained flexible and that you’re not so much interested in muscle mass, but just being flexible that might only require 15 or 20 minutes of movements in a morning routine. So don’t feel overwhelmed that you have to go to the gym for two hours or have to go for a two hour bike ride. Make sure that when you’re scheduling things, things are aligned with your goals and are reasonable. That the purpose of this is to make sure you don’t produce any unnecessary anxiety or any unnecessary stress and don’t feel that you have to skip the gym or skip the workup because you only have an hour.
You could probably get done a lot of good things for your body in 1520 minutes, half an hour. And the last thing that I want to talk about is just making sure that when you have this schedule that there’s not a lot of time to do dumb stuff that’s not important to you. It’s, it’s really easy to get caught up on your phone or caught up on youtube. Um, or doing something I Netflix and you know, quote-unquote wasting a lot of time when it is more important to you are more valuable to you to be prepping your nutrition or working on the gym. The more that you are able to schedule things out to block off your schedule so that you know there are specific things you should be doing at specific times. It doesn’t leave a lot of time to be doing dumb stuff that in the end is not valuable to you or not important to you.
So one of the best examples of this is getting home and benching or watching Netflix or youtube before bed when realistically it would be much better for your health to read a book or work on your, your nighttime routine. And a lot of us inherently, we know this, uh, but I think taking a step back and seeing the forest for the trees and putting things in perspective and understanding that this is not going to help me achieve my overall goals and things that I want from my life and from my health is really, really important. So it’s great to distress to have some things that you escaped, escaped with, but make sure that it’s not interfering with your schedule and the blocks that you’ve set up and your ability to be active, to be productive and in our example to make it to the gym.
So I hope that that provides some inspiration for you guys. A couple of tactics or strategies that are going to allow you to be a little bit more productive on your day today. And if that productivity means making it to the gym, I hope that gets you there a little bit more often. As always, you’ve had any questions, comments, concerns, send me a message, send me an email. I’m always happy to help and if you need help with your health, always feel free to reach out. Doctor Alex here, guys signing off, have a great day.
