Productivity guides don't work on me—here are my workarounds

I think I have a love-hate relationship with productivity preachers on youtube. I do watch their videos like an obsessed puppy, but I also kind of know that most of what they say is rehashed from each other– there’s almost nothing new to say at this point. And, most of these ideas are very subjective and may not work for my case. Still, I do watch them, time and time again and one day in retrospect I realized why I do it. It’s because this is one way I fool my brain into thinking that ‘I’m doing something to make things better, I'm doing something to organize things’. Watching those videos is only the first step, but it is often enough to calm my mind temporarily and once I hear no internal scream anymore, the incessant pleading to get my life back on track–I go back to what I was doing in the first place. So you can imagine, things aren’t going all too ‘scheduled’ and their ways are not my ways (or are they? Feedback will be appreciated!).

To be honest, I don’t think that’s bad. This is 11.53 in the morning, nearly midday you can say, and I haven’t slept since last night. Most days I stay up till 7 AM, then sleep. Today wasn’t one of those days. And some days I sleep early. But this erratic schedule did not make me dysfunctional workwise. You see, I love working late at night, the earth is usually very calm at those hours, no one is bickering at you, no sound, the atmosphere is relatively cooler and it feels like the universe is one with me. The one downside is that if I have to deal with people the next day, or I have some important appointment the next day, and I need to get some sleep ‘forcefully’, I don’t deal with it well. The point is–I don’t like or want to seriously maintain a calendar that dictates my every move. That feels very limiting in my opinion.

However, over the years I did figure out what little things calm my mind and put me back on track. Some of these make me cheer up, and lose stress and usually, these are not the things those youtube preachers do.

Developing a relationship with Coffee over the last few years has its own say, I'm moderately dependent on them now, I'd say. A cup of coffee right after I wake up sets everything right. Otherwise, I keep feeling like something's amiss!

I begin to stress out when I see piles of junk gathering up on my table, there’s a certain threshold I can tolerate up to, and when that’s past, somewhere an alarm bell goes off and until I clean things up again, make them neat and tidy, I feel a sensation of intense uneasiness behind my neck. Like a non-existent itch you cannot get to. Yeah, cleaning stuff makes me calm.

Something else I do, which will probably only be relatable to males who shave, yes, shaving makes me feel quite fresh and stress-free. As if my burdens go down the drain along with discarded beards, things of the past!

I’ve recently added house plants to my desk (the title photo) and was genuinely charmed to find out that they work as calming agents of the environment! Yes, they are kind of drama queens if you neglect them for even a day, but in the end, taking care of those plants in itself is a rewarding job. It reduces some stress, puts my mind off serious stuff, and provides me with an opportunity to get off of my chair.

I don’t do much cycling these days but when I used to live in a different city, I used to go on biking sessions almost every day, and I remember enjoying a sense of relief and calmness engulfing all of my body after each prolonged cycling session. Like accomplishing something. I miss those days and hopefully will pick it up again as soon as I leave the current place.

I’m learning French. Being bilingual, this is my third language and I’m at a point where I can think in French but I dare not speak much. Not a good move, I know, you gotta make mistakes to learn. If I weren’t a perfectionist! Trying to read French books in their original language, which is a bit stressful I think, because I’m still at B1 level–however, in scenarios with normal day-to-day conversations when I get all the things right, oh boy, that feeling can be very euphoric!

Now, another major thing I left out, and that is perhaps entirely subjective to me. I’m very passionate about literature and cinema, and interacting with them makes me feel like I'm spending my time on earth with intention and assigning myself with a purpose. This is the 'zen' for me.

Even then, I do feel the absence of a well-tuned life. I need to cut sugar altogether probably. Need to go back to the gym and perhaps start writing that darn screenplay that I’ve put on hold for more than a year. Will doing these things be enough? Dunno. But these are steps towards the right direction for sure.