4 Ways to Improve Yourself in a Week

Along with the increased consumption of online content, there have been more and more productivity apps sprouting up. They tell you how to spend your time and what apps to use, and they all mean well, but if you’re doing nothing but just watch productivity channels without actually improving your productivity, there is something wrong there.

Rather than procrastinating, start with the following tips that will help you see improvements in your workflow in a week:

Focus on one task at a time

Multitasking may be a good way to use your time when you’re cooking, watching your favorite shows, and buying your cosmetic products online, but when you’re working on several attention-heavy tasks, this just won’t work. What you’re actually doing is dividing small amounts of your attention to different tasks. In the end, you’re not achieving anything. The improvement is to focus on one small chunk of work at a time, to give yourself that happy boost whenever you accomplish something.

It doesn’t matter how small it is. Break down big tasks into more manageable chunks, and slowly tick them off your list. After each item has been ticked off, you may move on to another task, but make sure you are giving each task your full, undivided attention.

Know what to be

If you aim for perfection, you’re already doing it wrong. Rather than aiming to be faultless, which is an all-encompassing term that does not define anything, choose to be at most three things per day. You can choose to be a productive employee, a compassionate partner, and a happy individual. The next day, you can choose to be a helpful sister, a friendly neighbor, and a forgiving mother. These help give your day a direction, and whenever you’re stuck on what to do, go back to what you have decided to be for the day, and embody that.

Think of what you feel

Aside from knowing who you want to be, you should also be mindful of what you feel. At the end of the day, give yourself a couple of minutes to look back on the day and to assess whether you were happy, disappointed, sad, or angry. Write the things that stood out on that day as well. The two don’t necessarily have to be connected, but in the long run, you will get an idea of the things that you deem important, and of the feelings that you need to pay attention to.

Eat one healthy snack a day

It’s easy to reach for the junk food and salted chips when you’re stressed. It’s more deliberate to go to the fridge, prepare a smoothie, cut up some fruits, or get yogurt. Switching to healthier snacks will do two things for you: it will curb hunger due to boredom, and it will improve your mood. When you eat junk food, you become dependent on the salt or sugar you are consuming, which makes you crave them more and more. On the other hand, when you have to prepare your own snacks, because of the additional steps involved in food preparation, you get to ask yourself if you’re really hungry and want to exert the effort. If you really are hungry, well, the fruits or yogurt definitely give good things to your body!

It’s the small habits that can give you the best results over time. Be mindful of what you feel, eat, and prioritize and see the shift in your mindset in a week.