Take a Wider Perspective When Considering Productivity

When in doubt, zoom out.

I can often struggle with being diligent and disciplined on a day to day basis. I can have big aspirations that I plan out on the weekends or year-long reviews, but they don’t necessarily translate into accomplishments at the end of the year.

When I scratch my head trying to figure out why exactly they fell apart or fell flat, I often have large periods of time where I am not working on them. Which sucks.

Looking back in hindsight, I’m left with feelings of guilt, wasted time, and nothing to show for it.

So it’s not like I don’t actually want to accomplish those tasks. After all, I was the one who said I wanted to do them.

What I realized is that I should be approaching my daily and weekly schedule like a budget.

What I mean by that is I need to zoom out and organize my time like I do my budget. By doing so and having the perspective on what truly matters to me and what truly is important priotized, I can save up time to accomplish it, just like I would save up money for something I truly want.

Without a budget, it can be very easy to overspend. You lose count of what you spend money on, whether it’s a couple extra drinks at meals, a couple restaurant dinners, a day or two going out for attractions and entertainment, or maybe a couple product purchases off Amazon.

Our time is very similar. It can be extremely easy to waste our time surfing the internet, scrolling Instagram, or TikTok and only recognize it at the end of the day, 1 hour before bed, that you did none of what you hoped to accomplish (whether that was learning or studying a new skill, taking a course, reading a book, practicing a new language).

Perspective shifts can truly do wonders in refocusing our priorities. Because what it does is give us a new perspective on time, something that we often take for granted. We act like we have unlimited time. That if we don’t accomplish something today, there will always be tomorrow.

But time is finite.

Sometimes a perspective shift comes with a crisis. A death in the family, a health scare, or a traumatic and sudden experience frequently reframe time and priorities.

When I say you have 24 hours a day, everyone knows that internally. But not everyone sees each hour as precious time.

Only people who have hours, days, or weeks to live weigh that 1 hour heavily.

What if I told you 262800 hours left to live?

Does that shift your perspective into thinking that 1 hour is more precious?

What if I told you that you only had 168 hours a week? If you sleep 8 hours a day, that’s 48 hours gone. If you work a 40-hour work week, that’s another 40. You’re left with 80 hours a week. Eating three meals a day at roughly 1 hour per meal is 21 hours gone. Furthermore, a majority of your free time will fall on weekends.

My point is that this kind of thought exercise really shifts your perspective into recognizing that an hour on a weekday can be valuable. It is time that can be spent being productive in accomplishing things you actually want to accomplish.

Whether it is directed towards learning a new language, studying, or practicing a new skill versus spent mindlessly scrolling TikTok or surfing the internet is up to you.

But sometimes reframing things in this manner can be an effective reset in our daily routine to actually consciously consider and potentially reconsider how we spend our time.

That subtle perspective shift in reframing time in the context of weeks, months or years rather than within a 24 hour time period can be enough of a jolt to allow you to refocus your priorities or get out of a lazy slump.