Introduction

When I first started to apply present-mindedness at the poker tables, it was with the goal of managing the anger I would feel whenever things went poorly. But the more I practiced it, the more I realized that its usefulness extended far beyond anger management; its reach, far beyond poker. I began to view myself, specifically the combination of the 3 elements of body, thoughts, and sensations, as a robot; a machine concerned only with carrying out the next programmed instruction.

The Advantages

Chances are that you know someone who, for some reason or another, seems to continually struggle with their productivity level. Maybe that someone is you. At any rate, you probably don’t have to try too hard to come up with an example or even multiple examples of people who often have trouble carrying out the task at hand. And my guess is that in each of those cases, its their own emotions that are preventing them from maximizing their productivity.

Sometimes we view tasks as unpleasant, so we put them off to avoid the ‘pain’. Sometimes our workloads seem so daunting that we get too discouraged to continue. And sometimes we’re so afraid of failing that we never even bother to get started in the first place.

No matter what the endeavor, learning how to activate your robot within – how to enter a state in which you’re unencumbered by emotions – is the key to maximizing your productivity in life.

Flipping The Switch

Kick-starting your robot is as simple as pulling yourself entirely into the present moment, a skill which I admit requires regular practice, especially at first. But as you get better, you’ll likely develop your own customized shortcuts which allow you to enter ‘Robot Mode’ virtually at will. Personally, I’ve gotten to a point where all I have to do is shut my eyes and take one or two focused breaths, and my emotions slip away almost instantly.

Programming Your Robot

There are times in life when unexpected situations arise and you’re forced to choose your actions on the fly. But for the most part, how we spend our time over the course of any given day can usually be determined well in advance. This is relevant because the decisions we make regarding how our time is spent entails both consideration of the future (in order to identify our goals) and revisiting the past (to avoid repeating our mistakes). Given that activating your robot requires pulling yourself into the present, trying to accomplishing either of those things at the same time unnecessarily consumes resources (energy, brainpower, etc.), thereby increasing the likelihood of errors.

For these reasons, I’ve gotten into the habit of setting aside the same time every night to finalize my schedule for the following day. To continue with the robot theme, this is basically like going into ‘debug’ mode to make any necessary modifications to your ‘programming’. By doing so, I can pretty much put the robot on autopilot as soon as I wake up the next morning.

Upgrading Your Robot

If the productive component within each of us is the equivalent of a robotic machine, then emotions are like rust which can build up if left untreated. A quick Internet search for things like ‘maximizing productivity’ or ‘how to stop procrastinating’ will yield all sorts of ambiguous concepts such as ‘forced efficiency’ or ‘hiding in the light’. You’ll also find reward systems that suggest dangling the proverbial carrot as a way to induce action. But the problem with most of these strategies is that they fail to address the problem at its core; they might succeed at slowing the ‘rust build up’ or even removing some portion of it, but the fix is generally either temporary or erratic. The more effective approach is to improve your robot’s resistance to rust in the first place; to focus on prevention as opposed to redundant restoration. In that respect, present-mindedness is the only real tool with which to continually improve your robot’s functionality (and maximize your production).

No related posts.