Do It Today: Overcome Procrastination, Improve Productivity, and Achieve More Meaningful Things

by Darius Foroux

“What thing(s) should I eliminate to make my life so simple that it’s easy to focus?”

To improve your focus, boost your serotonin activity. Research shows that exercise can do that. But something else, that’s equally effective, and a lot easier is a simple mind-exercise. All you need to do is remember positive events that happened in the past.

When you procrastinate, you might feel better on the short-term, but you will suffer in the long-term.

Willpower Doesn’t Work. Systems Do. What you really need is a system for doing work. A lot of people shy away from routines, systems and frameworks because they want to have “freedom.” I’m sorry to disappoint you: Freedom is your enemy. The fact is that, if you want to get things done, you need rules. What are some things that research proved to be effective? Self-imposed deadlines. Accountability systems (commitment with friends, or a coach). Working/studying in intervals. Exercising 30 minutes a day. A healthy diet. Eliminating distractions. And most importantly: Internal motivation.

For example, one of my personal rules is this: Never complain. Another one is: Read and exercise every day. And: Close the day every evening by setting your next day’s priorities.

Every evening I take 10 minutes to journal about my day. In a few sentences, I write about what I’ve accomplished, what I’ve learned, and anything that’s worth remembering. That simple exercise helps me to: Remember what I did (sounds stupid, but we forget most things we do). Review my progress and see whether I’m doing all the things that I should be doing (like reading, working out, spending time with my family, writing, talking to people I work with).

Review Tomorrow’s Calendar This is essential. When you wake up, you want to know exactly what your day is about. Do you have any important meetings or calls? Deadlines, maybe? What do you have to get done? When are you working out? Do you have any pressing items on your agenda? When are you dealing with them? This simple exercise takes away almost all stress and anxiety I have. Most anxiety comes from unsolved problems.

So why not prepare your outfit so you don’t have to use your precious brainpower in the morning?

Because I’ve gone through my calendar earlier, I know what my day will look like. Next up: Visualize the next day in detail.