1 Habit That Changed My Life

Hey,

I hope you had a nice weekend. Mine was super busy and stressful, but thankfully quite productive. It's been 3-4 years since I got into productivity and decided to level up my life and become the best version of myself. Since then, I've read dozens of books, articles, and blog posts, and watched tons of online courses and videos, investing both time and money into it.

Regularly learning about self-improvement and productivity has changed my life, and "Kaizen," continuous improvement, is my life motto. Of the numerous habits I've tried, funnily enough, the one that made the biggest difference wasn't from productivity experts, entrepreneurs, or writers, but from myself.

Since I started doing it, the tasks I used to procrastinate on became much easier to tackle, and I started to identify my procrastination patterns, understand my energy, and focus changes at different times of the day. I became more aware of myself and started to design systems accordingly.

I used to bash myself when I was unproductive and hate myself for being lazy, but I guess maturing is understanding that nobody wants to do hard stuff. We all want to procrastinate. But the difference between winners and losers is what you do with this feeling.

I used to try various productivity methods and different apps and websites to change my behaviour without doing the most important thing: feedback and reflection.

On Sundays, I usually do a brain dump and write down everything on my mind on a piece of paper. This can be anything from a project deadline to trying out a new cafe. I write down every single thing that crosses my mind to clear out my thoughts. After doing that, I use the Eisenhower decision matrix to prioritize my tasks and decide how I'll spend the next week.

My favourite thing about the Eisenhower decision matrix is that we often focus too much on urgent tasks by compromising what actually matters to us. Our passion projects, hobbies, and goals are usually pushed to the corner, waiting years for us to do them. Doing tasks that don't mean anything but we're obligated to will make life suffer.

That's why it's important to always make time for the things that matter to us. By using the Eisenhower decision matrix, you'll have a clear understanding of what you should ignore and rather focus on.

After deciding what I'll do that week, I open my calendar app and time block the tasks. I always start with my hobbies and fun activities I want to do before assigning work and study sessions so that I'll always have time for fun stuff and not burn out. After filling them, I allocate time for my gym sessions, work/study sessions, and reading sessions.

During the day, I try to follow the schedule as much as I can and always put a timer to see how much time that specific task took for me and how it compared to my expectations. By doing this, you will have a better understanding of how much time tasks actually take.

At the end of the day, I compare my expectations from the day with the reality and give myself feedback. What I could have done better that day and the lessons I've learned.

Let me show you an example from the last 3 days so that you'll have a better understanding:

As you can see, I struggled to study in the afternoons at home, and I found myself day after day reading hours of manga rather than studying. I tried going to a cafe to study, and it did wonders for my productivity.

So, from now on, I know what I need to do whenever I feel the urge to procrastinate during my afternoon study sessions.

By doing this every day, you'll realize your patterns and create a system that works for you. Honestly, this has been a game-changer for me, and it can apply to anything, whether you want to become a YouTuber and create videos, or study for your work, workouts, etc.

I can make a video about it if you want to learn more in detail. Let me know 🙂

📝 My Review of the Week

1. Achievements: Celebrate your wins, no matter how big or small. It helps build a positive mindset and fuels motivation for future tasks.

• Got the majority of my assigned tasks done

• Opened my company and personal bank account in Dubai

• Got my company checkbook and credit card

• Started doing Pilates to improve my posture

• Filmed a video

2. Remaining uncertainties: It's normal to have uncertainties or concerns about work or decisions made. Acknowledge them; it's the first step to finding solutions.

• Could have studied more → Go to your favorite cafe whenever you can’t find the motivation to study

• Could have gone outside more → Spending the whole day at home is not good for my mental/physical health → No matter how lazy you feel, go outside once a day

• Could have limited my manga reading time more → I read on average 4 hours of manga every single day→ It’s good that I’m not using Instagram anymore but replacing it with another addiction is not the way to go

3. Challenges: Reflect on what you couldn't achieve and try to identify the hurdles that hindered your progress. This reflection helps in learning from failures and improves problem-solving skills.

• I couldn’t send the email newsletter on Sunday. → I underestimated the time each task takes and also didn’t put buffer time between my tasks. From this week, put 15 minutes of buffer time between each task and take the Sunday off so that you won’t burn out.

🚀 Youtube Course Update:

I have started creating lesson materials for my small YouTube group coaching. The course has sold out, and we now have five students. I will be working with them directly for the next 10 weeks and will teach them everything I know about YouTube.

Every week, we will cover the lesson material, and then I will assign homework to each student, track it, and give feedback so that we can continuously improve our content.

An idea I came up with during my gym session (workout sessions give me so much creativity lol) is to create their first week's video during the course and compare it with the last week's video to understand how much of a difference the course made.

Often, we only focus on numbers, but when it comes to YouTube, the results come with time. You need consistency, patience, and 1% improvement in each video.

Since this small group coaching is a high-ticket product, I want to create the best YouTube course ever. Based on the feedback I get from the group, I will start working on my first huge YouTube online course. We'll see how it goes.

📖 What I'm Reading

I'm still reading 100 Million Offers by Alex Hormozi alongside 2 other Japanese books. Is it just me? I really enjoy reading multiple books at the same time. My ADHD brain gets bored too easily, lol.

💬 Quote of the Week

Have an amazing week,

Ruri