5 Tips for Personal Productivity while Working Remote (without Hustling & Burnout)

Lately, I've received a lot of questions from you guys about productivity. You know, professional productivity, business productivity, personal productivity, the gambit. And it kind of puzzled me because for the longest time I've never considered myself in any way, shape or form a productivity YouTuber, in part because the way YouTube and YouTubers tend to describe productivity makes me kind of nauseous. But given all that, I am actually going to share a few tips in this video as to what I view to be productivity and how I achieve what I consider to be productivity for myself in case it's helpful for any of you trying to find that rhythm in your day to day personal workflows. But as I alluded to at the onset, the intro here, I want to start off by getting a new definition, I guess, around productivity. Despite the kind of content that shows up on YouTube when you search for personal productivity, to me, personal productivity is about how efficiently you do what you want yourself to do in any given period of time. Okay, so it's not about doing more, it's not about making more money, it's not about hustling, it's about none of that stuff. It's just about focusing on what you want to focus on and doing what you want to do, whatever that is for you. And I know the word efficiently here is going to trip people up, so I just want to clarify that by efficiently I just mean doing more or getting more for the least amount of effort, the least amount of input. So personal productivity with this definition could look like, you know, I really want to take my Saturday morning to relax. I want to play video games and watch TV and do nothing that would be considered productive by YouTuber standards. But by Layla's definition, if I want to relax and, and I actually relax and I relax like crazy, that to me is productive. Because what I want to do is relax. What I'm doing is relax. I'm relaxing effortlessly. That is productive. On the flip side, if what I want to do is get more YouTube videos filmed and I get more YouTube videos filmed in the most effective way possible, that is also productivity. Unfortunately, the second example of getting more work done is usually what we see when we talk about this concept online. And I just want to be clear that the five tips I'm going through in this video apply to either situation. Whether it's relaxing or whether it's working. It's all about just figuring out what you want to do and doing it to the best of your ability. That is what productivity means to me and what I'll be explaining throughout this video. So with that definition aside, let me go through my five tips for maintaining this alignment between what I want to do and what I actually do. So the first tip I have around personal productivity of aligning what you want to do with what you do is providing time and space for what you actually want to do. And this sounds so basic, but I personally have struggled with this for a really long time, and only now I feel like I've kind of gotten into a rhythm with it. So what I mean by this is first, making time. Now, making time is a bit of an oxymoron, but what I mean by this is, is that whatever is important to you, we want to put that time aside, lock it out on our calendar for using a calendar, plan for it in our head by default. For example, if you really want to become more serious about YouTube content creation, you want to think about like I do here every Monday afternoon. It is my job, it is my top priority to work on YouTube videos. On the flip side, if it's really important for you to start to strengthen your relationships with your spouse, you need to set aside the time for Sunday night date night, or Friday night date night, or whatever the heck it is. Set aside that time and have it be a routine. Now, I know initially scheduling time for a date night or scheduling time to write your book might feel a little stifling, right? Like, this is supposed to be creative. This is fun. Why do I have to schedule the time? It's because you start to build a routine and expectation that this is important, right? We want our time and how we spend it to reflect our priorities. So if we focus in and block out those important things first, we're more likely to actually do them. And again, if productivity is doing what we want to do, well, let's make it easier for our future self and allow the time, reserve the time for what we actually want to do. Now, that's only the first piece of this tip because I say time and space. So I want to highlight that for a lot of things that we do in life, space, space can also be a thing to set aside. And I mean this quite literally. If you are trying to be more serious about journaling every day, if that's a commitment you want to do, if that's a priority for you, let's physically create a space, some equipment to help you do that more easily. So maybe that's having a dedicated notebook, a pen, a side table, and like a little chair in the corner of your living room. And that is the journal zone. On the other hand, maybe you're really trying to get into fitness some more and you want to be able to go to the gym every morning. Well, let's create some space for that. Not just in terms of time, but let's actually set our gym shoes, our clothes, whatever else we need to bring to the gym in a gym bag right by the door to create the physical space for that priority, to actually have the room to breathe. I know both of these sound so cliche and generic and I was kind of loathe to put them in here, but again, I. I've struggled with both of these for so long because I assumed these are silly. Why would I need these little helps to make these priorities actually part of my week. But despite my initial reservations, I'll be honest and say what you're watching right now is the product of practicing this. I have a physical space for filming. I have a dedicated time each week where I am in the mindset for filming. And I thought that that would be an impossible thing to stick to. And it has only become easier and easier as I go. Thanks. Thanks to setting both of those things aside. So, simple as it sounds, that first tip for you here is just to create time and space for whatever it is you want to have time to do, not just work. Ooh, and one quick thing I want to throw in here. A friend of mine once told me, you know, you're never going to find time. It just doesn't happen. You need to take the time and make everything else work and only then will you start to feel a little sense of ownership. So thank you, Michelle, for that advice and I just want to repeat it here for anyone else who needs that reminder because it certainly was eye opening to me. Number two is prioritize, prioritizing. Now, this sounds, again, a little abstract, a little cliche. You guys have all probably heard the concept of having to do list. But what this tip is really about is to figure out what is actually important to your life. So if the definition of productivity is knowing what you want to do and doing it efficiently, that knowing what you do piece is trickier than itself sounds. Oftentimes we think, ah, we just don't have enough time. But more often than not, we have a lot of time and we're just mismanaging it and spending it on things that don't really matter. So we end up feeling unaccomplished or unproductive because we're doing things that we think we should do. But in hindsight, that's really not what we should have been doing. So what this tip is all about is taking a moment, preferably every day. That's my preference, but if not, at least, let's say once a week. And just look at all that you have going on as a whole person with a job, with a life, with a family, with hobbies, with interests, with moods, to balance what is actually important today. What's the most important thing that you need to do? Figure that out. Because if we start moving in a direction before we figure out if that direction's the right one, we're going to waste a lot of time, kill that efficiency, and all of a sudden, our personal productivity goes out the window. Because maybe in the moment, without thinking about it, we think, that extra hour of work, yeah, I should totally do that extra YouTube video. That would be really good. But we fail to realize that if we step back and take just a second to think about priorities, we might realize, oh, shoot, I should use that hour to go walk my dogs, because that would be really good for my health and they deserve it and blah, blah, blah. If we get too focused on the details, we will lose sight of this and spend time on the wrong things. So my second tip here, another I say generic one, but one you've probably heard before, is to take the time to think in an order, in a chronological order of what is most important, and when that is done, move on to what's next. The constant feeling of, am I doing the right thing? What should I do next? That is really unproductive. So we want to take the time to decide, decide, and then do in that order. I'll actually say I make this a part of my daily routine, inside work as well. Kind of zoomed in a little bit for my workday and actually talk about it up here. Oop. This side in this video where I talk about my morning routine that I do in ClickUp, and it involves this kind of prioritization. So if anyone's, like, in the work mindset looking for some tips, check out this video here. The third tip I have around personal productivity is to embrace chunkiness. Okay? This is another way to think about monotasking or taking dedicated blocks of time, not feeling rushed or pulled in multiple directions. For example, when I film these videos, it's typically a Monday afternoon. And I know that for that entire period of time, my only job is to film one or two videos, depending on the week. That's all I have to do. If I can finish those two videos in three hours, cool. The rest of the chunk is my Free time to do whatever I want. That's my reward. I. If it takes me the full three hours to do those two videos that I've already scripted, well, then is what it is. That is the chunk of time. If I can only finish one video in that three hour chunk is what it is. That's the period of time. By setting aside these dedicated chunks with one or two core things that you want to accomplish, you can really just focus on giving those as much time and space as they need. If you have extra time, yay bonus. But it's not this rushing and never ending to do list chunking or time blocking is actually kind of opposed to a typical task list. With a task list, you might have a task list of 5 things you want to do today, and you just keep going through them one by one by one by one until you finish. And the problem with that, in my experience, is that we're always just going and going and going and going and going and we never really get a break. We're never really rewarded for doing things faster because there's always another thing to do. With this kind of chunking method, we set aside all of Friday night for date night, right. For example. And you know, if you decide not to go out on a date night, fine. It's your time to just do whatever you want as a family, great. But if we were to just have date night as one more task on our list, well, our incentive all of a sudden is just to finish that so we can move on to the next thing. Rather than focusing on one task at a time, set aside the time and space to do the things and spend the time that you want to spend. One example I like to share personally is I always have a lunch chunk or a lunch time block pretty much every day, which might be a little excessive for some people, but I take an hour to an hour 15 lunch just about every day. I'm not usually eating lunch that whole time. Sometimes I am, but rarely. But what that hour or hour and 15 is, for me, every single day is just a complete reset. It's a period of time that I can do whatever the heck I want to in the middle of the workday. And I'll usually put that chunk of time before something really strenuous. So for example, this film session right now, this is really brain drainy. So before I jumped onto the camera right now to do this filming, I took an hour and 15 to just relax. I watched an episode TV, munched on some lunch, relaxed, and then I came back refreshed for this session. So I had my lunch chunk and I have my filming chunk. And that's kind of where my day is organized. If I finish this video in 15 minutes, great. I've got an extra two hours to just relax. If it takes me two hours to film this video, it is what it is. I have this time set aside and I don't feel rushed. Now that brings me to my fourth tip around personal productivity, which is kind of the inverse of of chunks. If we think of chunks almost like a meal, right? You might have four courses in your day, four two hour work chunks, whatever those sizes are for you. My fourth tip here is to incorporate palette cleansers. What I mean by this is rather than focusing on one chunk and another chunk and another chunk and time blocking your entire day around these priorities, I want you to really embrace palette cleansers. Things that will let your brain and body reset between each focus that you have. So like the example I had before, maybe you have Friday night date night with your spouse. Awesome. But before that date night chunk, you might have some work stuff. Maybe it's Friday, so maybe you're doing some blog writing. Well, what happens between blog writing and date night? If you're like most people? Nothing. You're working, working, working. Okay, you log out and you run to the date night. That's it. It's all just go, go, go, go, go. What I'd like you to practice is to incorporate a reset button. So when you're working on that blog post at the end of the workday, you're going, going, going, going, going. And you're ready to stop your workday. Have some kind of ritual of closing out your workday. That could be just a routine of wiping out your inbox. That could be taking a moment to just clean your desk. That could be turning off your computer and doing a quick stretch. I don't really care. The idea is to just take in some kind of random activity to let your mind reset so you can become present for whatever the next chunk is. Whether that's personal, professional, creative, logical, analytical, whatever the heck it is. This can also apply during the workday. So if you are doing a lot of work right, you've got an eight hour workday. Let's say your first two hour chunk might be meetings and notification. Between that and maybe some of your focus or creative work, we probably want another palate cleanser. And I'll share one that I like to do. Here we have a pull up bar. I've been trying to get my way fighting my way into pull ups, out of chin ups, and when I am between work blocks, that's something I'll get up and do. Takes me about 90 seconds. I'll get up, go over there poorly to attempt to do a few pull ups and then I will come back to the next work session. The pull ups don't go so well, but my body and brain reset so I can enter into that next chunk with my full energy and attention. This separation helps us appreciate the purpose of each moment and helps us, for lack of better words, get in the moment for each thing that we have to do. Just like the other tips on here, I'm sharing this one because it's one that I've struggled with. I really had a hard time as a business owner unplugging at the end of the day, really closing out work, getting out of my head, moving on to grocery shopping or whatever I had to do next. I had a hard time being present in those other parts of life. Palate cleansers or whatever you want to call them have been really helpful. So whether it's doing laundry, going to the bathroom, I guess that counts. Physical exercises, going on a walk, jotting down notes, some other kind of ritual. I'd encourage you to try this, especially between tasks where you may have had a hard time switching gears. Now my fifth and final tip around productivity as someone who's not a big fan of productivity content is procrastination. Pay attention to it. I think a lot of productivity content talks about squashing procrastination, just pushing through. Use all your willpower and brute force to just do it. You know, like Nike logo here. That's not what I have found to be helpful when it comes to this more holistic view of productivity. What I've found for myself, and I'm sharing in case it helps you, is that procrastination is a really important emotion or symptom that we should really be paying attention to. Procrastination, for me at least, isn't something I ever want to ignore or rarely just want to push through. Usually if I am feeling a sense of procrastination around a task or a priority that I thought was important, but now I'm, you know, trying to do everything else except it. It's a sign of something bigger either. I don't think it's actually important and so I feel like I can just put it off. I hate doing it and probably shouldn't be doing it because for some reason I don't feel like it's actually important or I need a break. Doesn't matter really which of these three things it is, but all of them are important problems that procrastination, to me, is just a symptom of. So if we ignore procrastination, we're ignoring the underlying problem. We could end up just falling into this cycle of forcing ourselves to kind of go against the grain. And while there are certainly times where you need to push through procrastination, maybe it is just a weird fluke thing. More often, procrastination is something that we should listen to and learn from to figure out how to avoid it. What I found is that when we can start aligning what we're doing with what we want to do, and we've started to put our head in the right headspace, procrastination really shouldn't be a big issue. When I feel it on a recurrent basis, something bigger is wrong. And when I fix that bigger wrong, all of a sudden I go months without ever feeling like I'm procrastinating. And maybe this is just a weird me thing, but I have a feeling it's not. So I just want to encourage any of you who are feeling like you're not productive and find yourself shaming yourself for procrastinating, maybe reconsider whether we need to be so punitive about this very natural feeling, which might actually be you telling yourself something helpful. If I experience some type of procrastination, and I'm not immediately sure why, one of the best practices I have started to do, which sounds, again, so simple, is stop trying. Take a break. Of those three reasons for why I might be feeling procrastination, feeling burnt out or just overwhelmed is the most common one for myself. So I know this past week, I had wanted to film a bunch of videos. I was like, all right, I'm going to do it. I'm going to do it. And I got there, and I was like, oh, I'd rather do laundry than film these videos. Which is really a tell of how much I didn't feel like filming these videos. So I didn't. I went outside, I pulled weeds. I did some household chores. That actually felt kind of fun, refreshing. They were physical, so they kind of reset my. My mindset. And the next day I came back and I said, you know, let me try to film these videos now. And all of a sudden, they just float. So as much as the other tips were about, you know, planning ahead, prioritizing, organizing, getting very type A, this last tip, perhaps the most important tip, is the exact opposite. Recognize that your body slash your brain probably knows best. And if we can learn to understand the signals that we're telling ourselves, it can be okay to bend the rules. In fact, you should bend the rules to make sure that your work and the efforts you're putting in are being spent in the right places at the right time. You don't have to listen to the advice of me or any other person on the Internet telling you things that work for them. You need to listen to yourself and find what works for you. So this last tip is just listen to yourself, to your gut, and when you feel things like procrastination, pay attention to them. Yes, you can still choose to push through, but that's often not going to be the only path forward. So those are my five tips for how to be a little bit more productive. Those are the lessons I've learned over the past four years or so of working remote pretty much by myself all day. I'd especially love to hear from anyone out there who is not a huge fan of the productivity niche on YouTube. It might just be me, but I find it so depressing and just constantly hustle, hustle, hustle. And that's not at all the type of video I'm hoping this is. So if any of you are out there in the similar camp, please do drop me a comment and while you're down there like and subscribe. Thanks so much for watching and until next time, enjoy the process.