🦸 Save The Day
Sunday Scoop #36 - Before we move on to the 2nd week of KY Trials, I thought it'd be nice to share with you a 'productivity hack' that often helps me pull through the fatigue.
Hey friends,
After an extremely intense first week of Trials, we had a short weekend to buffer and recuperate before the second week commences.
However, I soon came to realize my focus was running low despite my best efforts to mentally tape myself to the seat and get some work done.
No matter how many times I took a cold bath to do a hard reset on my mind, or got beverages ready to keep me awake, I kept running head first into a mental barrier and I simply couldn’t understand a single line of the question in front of me albeit having gone through it thrice.
Unsurprisingly, this got me incredibly frustrated and I would find myself doing one of three things:
Going to my friend’s chalet to refresh
Switching between multiple tasks
Taking yet another bath
Before I realized it, the afternoon flew by and I’d gotten 2 hours of work done in 6 hours. Great.
In the midst of a mental flagellation (figure of speech), I was brought back to one of David Goggin’s quote, again resurfaced by Readwise:
You may lose the battle of the morning but don't lose the war of the day.
⚔ Morning Battle and Daily War
We all have days where we don't want to do what we need or set out to do.
You may have planned to get 3 Past Year Papers done before dinner at 6. It’s now 5 and you’ve barely gone through 1.
You’ve lost the morning battle.
That’s okay.
Plan for the night ambush.
Logically speaking, if you actually managed to get 3 Past Year Papers done before dinner, you would probably take the night a little slower and pace down your revision.
Now that you’ve lost your morning battle, its time to empty the tank for the night ambush. Tell yourself that no matter what happens, you’ll get all 3 papers done before your head hits the pillow tonight.
The benefits of this are twofold.
You actually get the work you set out to do done.
You condition your mind to understand that the next time you procrastinate, there is one hell of payback waiting for you at night.
Regardless of how tenacious you are, and how impressive your work ethic may be, there are bound to be certain days that your inner wasteman gets the best of you.
Your focus wavers and the next thing you know, you’ve allowed the day to slip through your fingers.
Once you realize you lost the morning/ afternoon battle, it isn’t time to put your hands in the air and surrender defeat.
It’s time to show your mind that you run the show. It’s time to salvage whatever time that’s left. It’s time to gear up and get to work.
That’s all from me this week. Have a productive and fun week ahead. Go win all your battles.
Jia Shing.