The mind is the most complex organ in the body–in fact, it’s so complicated that, to this day, scientists have struggled to decode and understand it.
Luckily, we know that there are ways you can optimize and trick your mind into doing hard things and being more productive.
Today, we will take a look at five simple tricks to help you optimize your mind for the modern world.
Thinking Fast and Slow
by Daniel Kahneman
⏱ 12 minutes reading time
🎧 Audio version available
Start the Day On A Positive Note
Our life is packed full of ups and downs, successes and failures, achievements, and broken dreams. While we might never know what the future holds for us, we know for sure that starting the day with a negative mindset is not the way to go.
Living with negative thoughts always lingering in the back of your mind will often lead to a miserable life devoid of any happiness.
You might argue that how can one be positive when nothing in life is going the right way. Perhaps you’ve recently lost your job and are barely able to make ends meet, or you’ve ended a years-long relationship with someone whom you thought you were going to spend a lifetime with. Sometimes, you might find that people who have nothing are the happiest people you will ever meet.
Happiness is not just associated with a particular person or a level of wealth; you’re the one who defines your meaning of happiness. There’s no denying that being wealthy or being in a happy and healthy relationship can contribute greatly to happiness; however, they’re not the only things in life that can make you happy.
This brings us to the point; starting your day on a positive note will make a huge difference that you might not realize until you experience it. When you wake up every day, look around and see all the wonderful things that surround you.
You have got one more day to be with the people you love, to make mistakes and learn from them, to reach goals you never thought you were capable of achieving. Start your day with a positive mantra, scream it out loud, repeat it whenever you feel doubtful of your abilities.
You will tackle this day, and you’ll come out the other end feeling victorious no matter how small your victories are.
Not only positive thinking can, and will, completely change the way you look at life, but it will also improve your physical health. When you’re stressed for long periods of time, you will find that you’re hurting your body more than you know. Stress can lead to life-threatening diseases such as high blood pressure, diabetes, and cardiovascular diseases.
The best part is, you have the key to this problem right in your hand. It might be a bit hard at first, and you might even have to force yourself to think positive.
However, you will find that it has become more of a mandatory part of your everyday routine that you cannot miss in the long term. Your brain will get accustomed to thinking positive thoughts, and you will always be ready to tackle any problem that life throws in your way.
Don’t Check Your Email in The Morning
Whether you’re a business owner, an employee, or a student, it seems like checking your email first thing when you wake up has become an instinct.
It’s almost as if it has become an obsessive behavior that’s crucial in many people’s morning routine. It’s one of the most destructive and dangerous things you can do, and it’s safe to say that it will most likely kill any productivity or motivation you have.
It puts you in a reactive state, and you will feel obliged to respond to whatever is in that email, especially if it’s from a coworker who’s looking for some documents or from a family member who’s in need of your help.
All your focus will be shifted to whatever is in that email, and without realizing it, you might end up either completely forgetting what you initially planned on doing or even having to put your concerns and priorities aside for others.
Get up early in the morning, brew yourself a hot cup of coffee or tea, start thinking about your plan for the day, what needs to be done urgently and what doesn’t–and lastly, check your email.
It might be extremely hard to resist checking your phone whenever you hear the notification ding, especially when you’re starting to try to get rid of the habit of checking up on email and social media before you even get out of bed.
You might argue that, at times, you need to check your email in the morning. If you’re in that kind of situation, you have to set a limit for yourself. Set a short time limit; 95% of emails don’t require more than 5 to 10 minutes to read and respond.
If the reason why you’re checking your email is because you’re waiting for a specific email, then only look for the specific mail. Don’t get distracted by checking all the emails that you’ve received.
Make a To-Do List
A To-Do list is an extremely effective way to get things done. To lead a productive and successful life, you need always to keep tabs on things that need to be done and when they need to be done.
That way, you can prioritize things that are the more important to tackle them first. And what’s a better way than to have everything written down to keep your day organized than to have a To-Do list?
You don’t even need a pen and paper to make a To-Do list. In our modern-day age, smartphones, laptops, and tablets have created a To-Do list, one of the easiest things to do. All you have to do is open an app and write everything that needs to be done for the day.
Since you always have these electronics on hand, you will have easy access to them all day around.
Ever heard the popular saying ‘procrastination is the thief of time’? It’s easier to fall victim to procrastination. Without a To-Do list, you will find yourself doing things that distract you from your initial plans.
You’ll spend an hour or two just checking up on social media and another couple of hours browsing the web or getting distracted by anything that crosses your path. Without realizing it, the hours will turn into days, and the days into weeks, and you will be stuck in this never-ending vicious cycle without even completing a task you were planning on doing ages ago.
Visualize Your Success
If you ask some of the world’s most successful people, you will find that most of them have one thing in common: they know how important it is to visualize success. It might sound silly to many people, and some even might compare it to being unrealistic. However, it has been scientifically proven that visualizing success does work.
One great example of this is the American comedian and actor Jim Carrey. Carrey’s journey to fame wasn’t easy. He struggled to make ends meet while living in Los Angeles.
One thing that Carrey made sure of doing every day is visualizing himself as a successful actor. He made a habit of this, and it almost became an everyday ritual. He believed in himself so much that he wrote a check for $10 million and dated it for 1994. And guess what? In 1994, the actor earned $10 million for his role as Lloyd Christmas in Dumb and Dumber.
His story is one of many stories that are solid proof that the visualization of success works. It was found that when you have a detailed image of your dreams and goals, you will trick your brain into storing that information as a victory.
When you visualize success, your brain will release a neurotransmitter called dopamine, which is nicknamed the feel-good hormone. Not only will dopamine help you see rewards, but it will also help you progress and move towards them.
Take a Break
While most of the previous tricks were tricks that will help optimize your mind to be more productive, this next trick is the opposite of that. Yet, it’s equally as important.
There are telltale signs that can help you realize that you need to take a break, even if it’s a short one. However, at times, stress might sneak up on you, and as it accumulates, you’ll end up feeling burnout and overwhelmed.
Working towards your goal is essential, but when you’re overworking yourself at the point that you’ve neglected your own mental and physical health–now that’s borderline dangerous.
Taking a break is necessary to recharge your batteries and prevent yourself from getting too overwhelmed. And who knows, you might end up being more productive after taking a much-needed break.
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