I wanted to share another productivity hack that’s so useful and can be used to optimize so many different systems in your life. This productivity tip is to promote visualization of progress.
Visualizing progress is a very important tool towards shifting your focus from short-term benefits to long-term benefits, and it is something so simple to implement in your life, but can be used so widely throughout your days.
In Atomic Habits, James Clear wrote about an ordinary salesman who began bringing two jars of marbles with him everyday to work, one had 120 marbles and the other had 0. After completing a single sales call, he would move one marble over to the other jar. He wouldn’t stop his sales calls until he shifted every single one of the marbles to the other jar, thus completing his day. This simple technique allowed him to visualize his progress, thus earning his firm millions in revenue and allowing him to increase his salary dramatically.
The trick here is that short term rewards are a lot more tempting than longer term returns. We want to take a break from work and watch TV because that’s relaxing. We want to skip the workout and stay on our couch because that allows us to stay lazy. We want to eat candy rather than vegetables because they are more sugary. It’s not really our fault because our brains are wired to prioritize immediate benefits over longer term benefits that we have trouble seeing and visualizing.
The trick then is to shift our focus using visualization tactics, those that will help us “see” our longer term goals every day, and encourage us to make decisions that contribute to our overall improvement.
This is why crossing things off our checklists is so satisfying. It’s nice to see things crossed off on a list of things to do because it gives us a small sense of accomplishment for work and things that we’ve done.
If you are focused on eating healthier, cross off a day on your calendar for every day that you ate at least 80 percent healthy foods. At the end of the month, if you have several black marks, you’ll know that you are meeting your goals through visualization. If there’s only say 5 or 6 black squares marked, then you’ll know that you need to improve your systems to better achieve your goals.
If you are trying to stick to your workouts without giving up in between or before, then try to incorporate some visualization techniques. I was trying to complete 100 pushups a day, ten sets of ten with various forms in each set. I would take 10 markers and put them to the left of me. Every time I would finish one set, I would move one marker to the right of me. Even though the last two sets were very difficult variations of push ups, I wouldn’t give up because I was motivated to see the last two pens move to the other side.
If you have trouble saving money, you can put every dollar you save into a bank account and name it “cruise vacation” or “dress”, and that way as you see the number go higher and higher towards your goal amount, you know that your decision to save rather than spend is helping you towards your long term goals.
There are so many ways that you can better mark and track your progress, helping you shift your focus towards long term goals, and making you a more productive human. Visualize your progress in 2021, and as always, stay safe and hope this was helpful!
Naman
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