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Time blocks to beat procrastination. Start a new habit this week. Best way to improve your thinking

Hi guys! This is Max, the author of this Productivity newsletter.

Every week I research and share some of the best insights on how to be productive and achieve more. This issue is going to be special since I plan on starting it with an offer.

🎉 A limited offer: Start a new habit this week!

Do you want to start a new habit in 2023? Now is the best time for it. More than that, I’m going to help you.

Suggestion:

  1. Think about the one positive habit you’d like to start
  2. Share it with me by replying to this email
  3. I’ll reach you back in 3, 6, 9, and 12 months from now, asking how it’s going.

Explanation:

  • It’s a proven fact that accountability boosts your chances to stick to the habit and make it work. So, why not use this opportunity?
  • I’ll start first: I promise to keep writing these emails every week for the rest of 2023.
  • That’s my commitment, so feel free to reach me in 3, 6, 9, and 12 months from now – to see if I keep my word. 🙂

P.S. The offer is limited to the first 50 subscribers only, so don’t miss your chance.

⚡Framework: Time blocking as a way to beat procrastination

Problem:

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  • People used to procrastinate a lot
  • It may have different shapes: we check our social media, go have some coffee, read recent news, etc.
  • What’s common between these forms of procrastination is a lack of progress with tasks we work on
Read also:  How to start any habit you want in 2023 in ‘Beginner’ mode

Suggestion:

  • What might help to avoid it is time blocking in a calendar
  • I tried doing this and it works for me

How to do it:

  • Go over your to-do list for the day and allocate time blocks for each task right in your Google Calendar
  • Visually having your schedule on the timeline helps you understand: you have a limited amount of time for each task

Here is an example of how it looks like:

Explanation:

  • The calendar view is visual and helps you estimate the approximate “progress” toward your goal
  • Time blocks create a sense of urgency
  • When you see the next time block coming, you are going to speed up – to avoid collapsing into the other one
  • This exercise of time blocking helps plan your day more efficiently, by making a line of tasks to work on

🧪 Experiment: Starting with a ‘simpler’ thing helps in the study

Idea:

  • This experiment was designed to study the effectiveness of foreign languages study among children
  • Prof. Helmar Frank worked with 2 groups of students who participated in this experiment.
  • Their native language was German, and their goal was to study English.
  • Group A started learning Esperanto for the first 2 years. After that, they switched to English for another several years.
  • Group B was learning English for the same total amount of time
  • Results of the experiment demonstrated that students from group A got higher results on average, compared to their peers from group B
  • Moreover, they were able to speak two languages: English and Esperanto (not just English)

Hypothesis:

  • The explanation behind this experiment suggests that Esperanto is considered to be easier to learn compared to English
  • Hence, starting to learn easier subjects allows us to develop the needed skills quicker
  • Once we obtain these skills, it makes the further learning process easier as well
Read also:  A ‘Cookie Jar’ framework

Suggestion:

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  • You can apply this approach in other areas
  • For example, if you study programming, find the easier coding language to pick first
  • This will give you a better idea about the general concept and help progress further with harder concepts

⚒️ Tool: The best way to improve your thinking

Idea:

  • Journaling helps us share our thoughts and self-reflect, improving the way we think
  • A daily journaling habit allows us to structure our thoughts, extract lessons and collect takeaways for the day

Suggestion:

  • If you are struggling to establish a journaling habit (just like I did), I wanted to show you a tool that might work for you
  • I do journaling with Google Forms. It’s a free tool that’s easily customizable that supports a questionnaire form
  • If you got curious, here you can find a 5-minute setup guide

Extra tip:

  • Besides that, I use a URL shortener (bit.ly) to customize my Forms link – to have a quick way to find it.
  • For example, you can have your journal available at bit.ly / MyJournal1 – to memorize the address
  • This works for both mobile and desktop

✍️ End note

That’s all for today! Thank you!

If you have any questions – please, let me know by replying to this email

Have a great and productive day! ☀️


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