Personal effectiveness is the ability to accomplish your goals in the most efficient way possible. However, before you can become more effective, you need the right lifestyle that will give you the personal focus and willpower you need to get things done. Here are some tips for creating and following a personal effectiveness ritual.
Sleep Longer
When you sleep, you are recharging your willpower. Think of willpower as a set of coins in your hand. You only have a fixed number whenever you have to make a decision or whenever you have to analyze something, you have to spend one of these willpower coins. At the end of the day, you have no coins left. When you sleep, you recharge the willpower that you have, and if you get deep, high-quality sleep, you end up with more willpower coins to start your day.
Wake up Early
When you wake up early, you energize your focus. You also achieve a sense of newness or tap into a sense of possibility or adventure. These are essential states of mind that you need to leverage for greater effectiveness. Make it a point to wake up early and start your day with a sense of purpose.
Exercise
Exercise doesn’t have to be big or dramatic. You can adopt a daily exercise routine that doesn’t have to take up much time. What’s important is that you’re consistent. As long as you do it morning after morning, you are fine. It may be something as simple as walking around the block or just walking your dog. That’s OK. Just do it in the morning to turbocharge your focus and do it consistently, and you should be OK.
Take a Cold or Short Shower
Taking a very cold shower first thing in the morning, especially if you live in the colder parts of the United States, may seem like a form of torture. But you need to shock your system. You must have a certain bright line in your daily routine where you wake up, and the best way to signal your body is to take a cold shower. When you do this, you not only wake up in a very clear way to start your day, but you also build up your ability to withstand challenging situations.
Eat a Light, Low-Carb Breakfast
If you have followed the advice above, you should be feeling energized. Don’t throw it all away by eating a very heavy, high-carb breakfast. Instead, eat a very light, low-carb breakfast. This means that you can load up on sausages or corned beef or even scrambled eggs. Whatever the case may be, focus on the fat content so you get the energy you need without getting loaded down by a sudden spike in your blood insulin levels.
Practice Gratitude or Mindfulness
Before you start working, or before you start doing what you normally do every day at work or at school, practice gratitude. Just focus on the things that you’re grateful for. Alternatively, you can practice mindfulness. Whatever form it takes, do it. If it enables you to lock into the present moment and completely unwind your mind, give yourself the gift of a sense of urgency when attacking your task list.
Attack Your To-Do List with Everything You’ve Got
When you show up to work or when you sit down to do your job at home, look at your to-do list and focus on item number one with all emotional force and concentration. Attack it with everything you’ve got. Ideally, you should put the most challenging task of the day at the top. Give it everything you’ve got. And believe me, you will feel a nice emotional lift if you pull this off. When you accomplish this, you are able to take out the tasks with ease.
Creating and following a personal effectiveness ritual is not easy, but the payoff is worth it.
