I know that many of you were looking forward to this day. Monday Confessions are finally back. As its beginning of the week I wanted to share something I learned in my student and working life, 5 things that dragged me away from being productive. We all want to be more productive, so if you are doing any of these things its time to stop!
1.Saying YES to everyone
This can be a very dangerous one, specially if you are surrounded by a lot of people. Just imagine yourself being a student, preparing an exam and one friend invites you to go clubbing, the other friend asks you to help her clean the house, your mum needs help with shopping, your sister asks you to cook together. Ok, if you say yes to everything you basically have 0 time to study, or to rest after study. You would either have to miss out on sleep or on studying, either one means stress. And a lot of stress. Make sure to prioritise, and to say NO to people. This can be sometimes really difficult if you have friends that won’t stop annoying you until you go out drinking with them. In those cases say no and if they keep harassing you just switch your phone off, don’t pick up,or reply to their texts. Think its rude? Well isn’t it rude not to support a friend when they need to study? I am only slowly learning to do this, saying NO when things don’t work for me is a long working process, but a crucial one.
2.Social Media in the Background
“I am studying, but Facebook is in the background. Yes, I just need to tweet this quickly and I will be back to work!” Let me tell you straight away, it doesn’t work like that. If you are studying, working, writing dissertation, switch off all of the distraction. Tell your friends you will text them after you are done, and focus on what you are doing. The reason why social media breaks don’t work is because they never last only 1-2min, they sometimes go on for hours.
3.Being A Perfectionist
This is my biggest problem. If only you would know how many videos I film and never upload. They are never just good enough. I often feel that every photo I take for my blog has to be amazing, every post needs to tell the story, outfits can’t be too similar, video has to be good quality, interesting, not too long…Too many high standards make me not produce as much as I could. Why? Because in order to film I used to prepare for hours, edit for hours and then still delete the video. Nowadays I am much more regular in terms of posting, because I understood that if you wanna watch a perfectly produced video, you would go to cinema. Like Tolstoy said wisely “If you look for perfection, you’ll never be content.”
4.Doing Everything by yourself
We all have talents, but so do other people. Doing everything yourself can feel good, because you are in control, not relying on anyone else, but it can also make you miss deadlines, reply to emails after one month or make you very tired. You need to let people help you with certain things, as that will make your life a lot easier. My sister helped me take some shots yesterday that I was going to do myself. At the end, I realised how much better it is when other people help you, when you work as a team. Not only we were done quicker, but we used extra time at the end of the day to watch a movie, and cooked.
5.Working Long hours
I can work up to 16 hours per day, and for me it wouldn’t represent a problem. The problem happens when after 16 hours I try to reply to some important emails and start making a lot of mistakes, all sorts of mistakes. Thats when I have to force myself to stop.It can be hard, but working long hours (too long hours) doesn’t equal productivity. You need breaks, you need sleep and you need to clear your mind. So make a schedule, space out stuff in a good way and work a lot, but not too much!
Beginning of the week is the best time to implement changes. Start from today, stop doing these things that are dragging you down, become more productive and also more successful. I am still working on some of them, so lets do it together :) Wishing you all a lovely day ahead.
————————————————————————————
Znam da su mnogi od vas jedva docekali ovaj dan. Ispovesti ponedeljkom se vracaju. S obzirom da je pocetak nedelje, zelela sam da podelim sa vama nesto sto sam naucila dok sam bila student, pa i kada sam pocela raditi. Uvidela sam 5 stvari koje sam tada uveliko radila a koje su me cinile manje proudktivnom. Svi zelimo da postignemo vise u manje vremena, zato ako radite neke od ovih stvari ispod, vreme je da prestanete!
1.Vas odgovor za sve je DA
Ovo moze biti posebno opasno, pogotovo ako ste okruzeni mnogim ljudima. Zamislite sebe kao studenta, imate bitan ispit koji spremate, a onda vas zove drugarica i moli da veceras izadjete, druga drugarica vam trazi pomoc oko spremanja kuce, mami treba pomoc pri kupovini, sestra vas pita da kuvate zajedno. Ukoliko kazete DA na sve ovo, ostace vam 0 vremena da ucite ili da se odmorite posle ucenja. Morali biste ili da ne spavate ili da ne ucite, u svakom slucaju stres. Mnogo stresa. Obavezno ponovite sebi sta je prioritet, recite NE ljudima. Ovo moze biti nekad zaista tesko ako imate prijatelje koji ne prestaju da dosadjuju dok ne kazete da, ali u tom slucaju vam predlazem da im objasnite sta imate za uraditi i ugasite telefon. Mozda zvuci nepristojno, ali nepristojni su oni koji nemaju razumevanja za vase obaveze. Ja polako ucim da kazem ne ljudima, ali je za mene ovo dugacak proces- ipak, takodje i veoma bitan.
2.Drustvene mreze u pozadini.
“Ucim, ali Facebook je samo upaljen. Da, moram ovo brzo da izbacim na twitter a onda se vracam na posao”. Odmah cu vam reci da ovo ne moze tako. Ako ucite, radite, pisete dizertaciju, ugasite sve oko sebe sto vam odvraca paznju. Recite prijateljima da cete im pisati cim zavrsite s obavezama i koncentrisite se na ono sto radite. Razlog zasto drustvene mreze ne mogu biti odlicne za pauze, je sto ove pauze nikada ne traju 1-2min, nego satima.
3.Perfekcionista ste
Ovo je moj najveci problem. Kada bi samo znali koliko sam ja videa snimila i nikada ih postavila. Jednostavno nisu bili dovoljno dobri. Moje misljenje je da svaka slika koju postavim na blog ili drustvene mreze mora biti odlicnog kvaliteta, svaki post mora imati pricu, video mora biti savrsen, zanimljiv, ne predugacak, ne prekratak, kombinacije ne previse slicne…Previse visokih standarda mi odmaze u stvaranju. Zasto? Zato sto da bih snimila video ja spremam ideje, set, opremu nekoliko sati pre toga, editujem ga nekoliko sati i onda opet nisam zadovoljna jer jedna stvar nije uspela. Video nikada ne ugleda svetlost dana. U skorije vreme sam mnogo redovnija u izbacivanju sadrzaja, jer sam shvatila da ako zelite savrseno produciran video otici cete u bioskop. Kao sto je Tolstoj mudro rekao “Ako trazis savrsenstvo, nikada neces biti zadovoljan.”
4.Sve radis sam
Svi mi imamo talente, ali imaju ih i drugi ljudi. Ja sam uvek volela sve da radim sama, jer sam imala kontrolu nad svakim korakom. Nikoga nisam cekala, osecala sam se bolje, ali sam bila pod stresom, nisam stizala da odgovorim na sve mejlove, propustala sam neke rokove, nisam mogla obaviti sve sama. Ponekad vam je potrebna pomoc, dozvolite ljudima oko vas da vam pomognu. Juce mi je sestra pomogla oko nekih slika koje sam nameravala slikati sama. ispale su mnogo bolje nego sto sam mogla sama da uradim. Ne samo da smo sve zavrsile brze, vec smo na kraju dana uzivale u prelepoj veceri i filmu jer smo imale visakslobodnog vremena.
5.Radis previse sati u cugu
Ja mogu bez problema da radim 16 sati na dan, za mene to nije problem. Problem se javlja kada nakon tih 16 sati ja krenem da odgovaram na mejlove i napravim milion i jednu gresku. Jednostavno mozak je umoran, ja sam umorna, slova se mesaju. Tada moram sebe naterati da prestanem, jer zaista nisam produktivna. Trebaju vam pauze, treba vam san i rasciscen um. Napravite raspored, drzite ga se, rasporedite obaveze na dobar nacin, tako da nikada ne radite previse sati u cugu.
Pocetak nedelje je najbolje vreme za promene. Pocevsi od danas prestanite raditi stvari koje vas vuku dole, koje vam ne daju da budete produktivni i samim tim uspesni. Ja i dalje radim na nekim od ovih stavki, tako da se mozemo baciti na posao zajedno :) Zelim vam svima prelep dan!