Updated: 24 hours ago
Disclaimer: This post reflects my personal productivity routine and is for informational purposes only. It is not intended as medical advice. Always consult with a professional before making significant changes to your diet or health routine.
This story is a bit like building LEGO as every topic was a building block for the next.
It started with many of the topics I shared from previous posts such as The Shift Away From Processed Sugar, Why Prioritizing Physical Health Is The Ultimate Long Term Strategy, and Blue Zone Inspired Smoothie with Black Beans and Garbanzo. From those building blocks, I shared my TEDx Talk, wrote some LinkedIn posts, and then created a Udemy course. This is the story of how I decided to create my Udemy course.
A few years ago, I had two overlapping jobs at the company I was working for. I had just started a role in January and in June, I took on a different role, but I couldn't fully exit the first role until they hired my replacement. This lasted until the end of the year.
It was the busiest I had ever been in my career.
The Rooted & Refined Living Expert Tip:
"Reclaim your childhood sense of freedom when you leave your phone behind to jump into the water."
As I had time to reflect following the turn of the next year, I realized I was highly productive, keeping the same pace and productivity all day long, regardless of if it was 8:00 am, 1:00 pm, or 6:00 pm. This pace and productivity didn't just last one day or one week, but for months. I wasn't tired nor was I burned out, two things I unfortunately had experienced in the past.
At the same time of this reflection, my alma mater, Bryant University had just sent out applications for its TEDxBryantU program, with the theme being Reboot x Refresh.
I always thought it would be great to share some of the building blocks that allowed me to reach this sustained productivity and participating as a TEDx speaker would be very cool to be a part of.
After being accepted to speak, I spent months curating the right message and then working on my speech. The topics I cover include sleep, taking vacations, managing distractions, and confidence. You can watch the TEDx Talk below.
Hopefully from watching the talk, you can see that I have a passion for helping people and educating where I can, with the balance of not being too preachy, which I get sometimes with my immediate family.
Following the TEDx Talk, I created a series of blog posts on LinkedIn on the same topics, and as it turns out, I found a love of writing which ultimately turned into this lifestyle blog website.
As well, a few years ago I was an adjunct professor at Bryant University. I taught for 3 years and loved it, only having to give it up due to my travel schedule at the time. Sometime in the future, I hope to go back to it but in the meantime, I just spent the last semester as a student advisory to an International Business capstone course. That was a great experience as I got to help students without having to grade papers!
Putting all of these topics together, with my personal experience in maintaining a high level of productivity, my TEDx Talk, the LinkedIn blog posts, and then the teaching experience, I thought it was time to create a course on Udemy, which is now merging with Coursera.
Building this course offered another set of new challenges for me, everything from putting myself on camera, to building a course that would actually be helpful to others for them to buy. As I learned with this site, along with a few other prior not so successful ventures, marketing the offering is just as important as the content itself. For this course, I honestly didn't do a great job promoting it but do have 5 stars across a small number of people who have taken the course.
The basis of the course is the following: Are you tired of feeling overwhelmed, exhausted, and stuck in a fog by 2 PM? Welcome to "Invest in Yourself," the practical guide to reclaiming your energy and elevating your performance. The goal is to Master Sleep, Hydration, and Focus to Eliminate Burnout and Achieve Peak Performance in Personal & Professional Life, to achieve high performance productivity.
Here are some of my thoughts on each of the topics to achieve High Performance Productivity: How Quality Sleep Boosts Productivity and Performance
We have all heard statements from experts as well as our parents, "you need 8 hours of sleep a night". I know some of you may require less but most of us need to be close to that 8-hour mark. However, as much as we hear the 8-hour target, do you invest in your sleep? You invest in other things like the stock market but what about investing in your sleep? Do you have a quality mattress, comfortable pillow and good sheets?
Drink Water to Boost Energy, Focus, and Productivity
For me, here is my approach (and I am better in the work week than the weekend). I drink a glass of water when I get up, 1 after my walk, 1 after a 15-minute calisthenic type exercise, 1 while making my tea, maybe a 1/2 during the 4 hours of work in the morning, 1 at lunch, maybe the other 1/2 during the afternoon, 2 at dinner and 1 while watching TV. I have also started putting some lemon in my water at times during the day which I enjoy.
Finding Clarity Through Walking
For as long as I can remember in my professional career, I would walk at least a few days a week before work. I do remember in my 30's though, there were some days when I just didn't feel like it and would wake up to a much longer hot shower than normal and bypass the walk. I thought it did the same thing, but I was wrong. When I walked, it was a brisk 15-minute pace around my neighborhood which consisted of a pretty big hill for half of the 3/4 mile (1.2 kilometer) trip providing me mental clarity and focus for the day.
How Lighting Boosts Productivity and Focus
I would encourage you to do your research (and there is a lot of it out there) on what the best lighting is for you. To help you get started, I will share what I did. When I started working in my home office, I always tried to sit facing the window. Unfortunately, the way my basement is set up, my window is underneath my porch and doesn't provide a lot of natural light. Couple that with all the trees in my backyard, it is not as bright as I would like it to be. As a result, I have to augment my office with my own lighting. I outfitted my 4 lights (2 overhead and 2 behind me on the wall) with the brightest "daylight" light I could find at the store.
The Ten-Minute Phone Free Walk Practice
How can we disconnect? First, you have to make the mental shift that the world is not going to come to an end if you are not connected to your phone. I know this is really, really, really hard but I am sure you already disconnect and don't even know it, maybe when you jumped in the pool or ocean this summer, or even the shower each day. We are all so protective of our phones, not just because of the need to be connected, but because they are so expensive and we don't want to get them ruined with water and thus, we willingly break the connection with the phone to go into the water.
In the course, I teach you how to replicate that sense of freedom without needing a swimming pool!
Start Your Own Personal Productivity Experience
If you are ready to reclaim your focus, energy, and productivity, I would love for you to join me. Below are the details to get started.
For Transparency: Some of the links in this post are affiliate links. If you purchase through them, I may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. I only recommend products I truly love and use myself.
