Quick Notes:

Topic: Improve Productivity With Emotion Control

A very interesting article that I read this morning which is on creating a to-do list based on our emotional output. I feel that this is one way to improve the consistency in following my to-do list as from time to time I may not be disciplined enough to do everything on time. This gets interesting when the article starts to question: why am I refusing to follow everything tasks that I had planned for myself?

When looking in deeper, it is when I found out that every task has its own gratification level whereby some tasks are very rewarding, and some are very boring. Some tasks are very mental demanding which I myself will tend to avoid at all cost as I know I cannot complete the task very soon and try to make it as late as possible to start. Such avoidance is a no-no for productivity and will eventually result my whole planning to be inefficient as I could not achieve anything big. Doing a small and repetitive job is simple and straightforward, but it has a higher possibility of bringing joy and satisfaction when we complete the task in a given short time.

Thus, the article recommends us to use the emotional tag to label every task we have like anxious, boring, fear, and excited. We can pick those tough tasks that we are anxious and fear about in our peak performing time and excited and boring ones in our low time. This will balance out our overall performance to finish the planned tasks in any given day. The article also pointed out some funny example like not willing to fold our clothes well, not willing to jog for 30 minutes. These tasks are simple, yet it doesn’t bring any joy but boredom. Therefore, it is not advisable to put all these tasks in one lump which will create a worse cycle.

There are three steps to do in order to link our emotion with our daily tasks which I will personally try it out as well:

1 – create a normal to do list with all the tasks to be done, this includes every task even like bath, eating a meal, sleeping.

2 – create a relationship between the listed tasks and emotion. For example, we can link working on reports as very stressful and hanging out with friends is something very exciting. Then, things like obliged to shop for a weekly grocery to be very stressful as well which I will need to be truthful to myself emotionally (sometime only, oops @enjiliew).

3 – for those negative emotion tasks, it is best to arrange it before the positive emotion tasks. This will become a good rewarding loop that rewards us for completing a very dreadful task. Try to be a focus as possible and use as little time as possible to finish up the “negative” tasks which will then free us up for a more happy time.

Hopefully, this advice and methodology could work for me as I am very keen to improve my productivity. So, do you have any good way to improve your productivity? Do share it with me and the community.

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This is a learning notes series of mine for subscribing to Dedao App, which is a learning App available on iOS and Android. If you are able to understand Chinese and an avid learner, this app is definitely a thing for you! I was using this app since it was launched and I had greatly benefited by following the courses offered. This year, I would like to improve myself by increasing my output which is through doing study notes. I will be perfecting the notes day by day and my resolution is to make 365 notes this year every day (if missed like today, I will be putting up for the missed days).

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