Almost all productivity hacks focus on systems and processes that help you optimize your time. There is an even greater predictor of your productivity that you should check each time you feel overwhelmed or demotivated to complete the task – your mood.
Your mood is determined by HALTS.
H (HALTS) – Hunger
Perhaps if you are jumpy or unnecessarily engaging in verbal wrestling with a peer or your better half or your sibling, see if you had your meal on time or are in the middle of a fast. Noone talks about the impact such long pangs of Hunger have on your mood. Once your mood is ruined, it is tough to be productive. Identify the reasons for the hunger. If you are on a Fast, use alternative quenching (water) techniques to manage hunger. If it is your work/study schedule that is affecting your mealtime, reorganize your task in such a way that you eat on time.
A (HALTS) – Anger
Anger is a reaction to hurt – real or imagined.
Real hurt is manageable as you know the events, the cues, the triggers, and the story around it. Once the narrative is defined, time heals most of the hurts. It is the unresolved Anger that plays back on a loop in your mind and takes away our scarce resource – attention. Once attention is minimized, time has no value. You can sit for hours working on a task without accomplishing anything. Your attention is gone. Don’t just sit and waste more time. Journal the cause of your hurt. The unresolved hurt.
L (HALTS) – Lonely
Interact with at least 3 person everyday. It could be your better half, your parents, your siblings, your children, your school or college friends, your colleagues. Even your neighbor. Or a person in a grocery shop or the street. When I am cooped inside my writing room and feel the tasks’ overwhelming weight crushing me, I go out for a walk, feel the fresh air and my mood is back on optimum for productive work.
Go for a drive and see the madness of the town. It is important to witness people. See their joy. You won’t feel lonely. A social media group or an interest group in your device is not your community. The real world is. Meet people if you can or talk to your loved ones every day.
T (HALTS) – Tired
Another easy hack to elevate your mood is sleep. We are tired, either from working long hours, or doing tasks we don’t particularly enjoy. For the latter, pretend that you love the task. Anyway, you must sit hours doing it. Why not pretend that you love it. All forms of mood deprivation are closely tied to the quality of sleep. Not the hours. Some can function with 6 hours of sleep while many need 7 to 8. A few pushes the limit with 4-5 hours. But such extreme hacks are not sustainable for a week. You can do it for 2-3 days before your mood declines.
S (HALTS) – Sick
Our underlying medical conditions have the most impact on our mood and therefore our productivity. It could be a life-threatening illness, an allergy or a pain from an injury that went too long without diagnosis.
Get your diagnosis and manage the condition. Once you have reasonable health to remain focused on the task, productivity is about managing HALT. Of all the preventive medicines and routines, exercise is the single biggest predictor of your health.
Spend 45 minutes every day on moderately intense exercise – resistance training, weight training, and cardio. Walks are the cheapest and no-excuse way to meet one of the three conditions.