In A Nutshell @inaanutshell - Tumblr Blog

We have all been there at some point, however, if you are a lucky one and sleep like a 'log' each night and feel fully rested every morning ...

We have all been there at some point, however, if you are a lucky one and sleep like a 'log' each night and feel fully rested every morning you probably do not need these tips for yourself.

For the rest of us who regularly wake up throughout the night, feeling tired and sluggish, these tips will benefit you tremendously. They will ensure you have the best chances for a restful sleep and turn a positive colour for your day ahead.

Here are some of the benefits:

Fall asleep a lot faster, no more steering into space.

Enjoy uninterrupted sleep, no more waking up and messing with your sleep cycles.

Wake up fresh and ready to start your day, no more dragging yourself around.

We all know the importance of a morning routine, it comes with benefits that you will experience once you incorporate it. Some people discover that they are more productive, and others experience a feeling of mindfulness and relaxation. Morning routines are unique for everyone.

Some of the benefits you will experience will change your life for the better. So let's dive into the matter.

#routine #moring routine #habits #building habits

10 Ways a Morning Routine Will Improve Your Life

We all know the importance of a morning routine, it comes with benefits that you will experience once you incorporate it. Some people discover that they are more productive, and others experience a feeling of mindfulness and relaxation. Morning routines are unique for everyone.

Some of the benefits you will experience will change your life for the better. So let's dive into the matter.

1. Your days will have a better structure.

Following a carefully planned routine, each morning will give your day a better structure. The repetition of these activities will make your morning and day more predictable. Once you know what will happen every day you will perform your task with greater efficiency.

2. Higher levels of energy

Many morning activities will help you increase your energy and some of them will ensure that you won't have a mid-morning energy crash.

For example, taking a long walk and consuming a high protein meal will ensure your energy throughout the morning, other examples will be yoga, meditation or for the brave ones, a cold shower.

3. You will be less likely to have decision fatigue.

The more decisions you make the less quality they will be. This is the decision fatigue. When you suffer from decision fatigue you will become less capable to make a good decision and are likely to have impulsive decisions and non-rational choices.

The morning routine will help you minimize the number of decisions you will have to make each day. The morning activities will become a habit, therefore, will be done automatically without any thought given.

If you haven't read our post on

What are Decision Fatigue. 7 Strategies For Overcoming Decision Fatigue

please follow the link.

4. More productivity throughout the day.

We are all familiar with this effect, when our day starts well the rest of it will be good too, and we feel more in control of the day. This feeling is due to having a positive outlook, more energy, feeling excited and experiencing less stress. All these benefits are because we know what we have to do throughout the day. The benefit of a morning routine is that it prepares your mind to deal with inevitable daily challenges and obstacles, without it it will derail your productivity.

5. You'll Feel Better.

Let's compare the following morning routines.

In the first one, you will start your day with a glass of water and will be followed by 15 minutes of meditation and then go for a jog, have a shower and then a high protein breakfast.

The second routine will be you dragging out of bed after hitting the snooze button the second time and having a croissant and a coffee. Then rush to the office.

No wonder the second routine will have a bad impact on your day and make you fatigued.

The morning routine should be a list of activities that are beneficial for your body and brain health.

6. Experience less stress.

We have all been there and experienced the type of stress when you get everything done at the last moment and hurry to finish everything. Doesn't matter the activity, if you are late to work, or trying to get the kids ready for school. You will experience anxiety.

A good morning routine will eliminate this stress from our lives. You will have plenty of time to address all your morning chores and start your day stress and anxiety-free.

7. Positive mindset

Is difficult to have a negative attitude when you have more energy, less stress and you are productive. Naturally, you will be much happier. This will make you more optimistic about the things you can accomplish throughout the day.

When you are positive people will gravitate toward you and you will attract more people around you. So do not be surprised by this.

8. Better health.

Better health will come hand in hand with the activities that you choose. Keep in mind these activities should ultimately promote better mental and physical health. Earlier we mentioned yoga, jogging, and healthy breakfast, well this is just to scratch the surface. There are many things you can do for this benefits. Sometimes you can choose these activities based on your goals like losing weight or improving your memory.

9. Better focus

When you start your day with a healthy morning routine you will experience greater clarity of your day. Focusing on the thing that needs to be done will become much easier.

The focus is attributed to more energy, less stress and anxiety and better sleep. If you have these conditions will be much easier to focus on any given task.

10. You will have more purposeful days.

Morning routines create a great purpose for your day. You will feel a stronger connection to the tasks and projects you working on and have better clarity of the day's most important items and how to complete them.

Conclusion and resources.

Well, I hope you enjoyed the reading and convince you to start working on a morning routine.

The above example I listed earlier and not the only thing you will experience, however, those are the most common benefits of morning routines.

Resources:

Morning Makeover: How To Boost Your Productivity, Explode Your Energy, and Create An Extraordinary Life - One Morning At A Time!

Damon Zahariades

What are Decision Fatigue. 7 Strategies For Overcoming Decision Fatigue

All of us suffer or had suffer from decision fatigue and it impacts us every day of our life. The sad part is that it happens without our knowledge. This decision fatigue is often time disruptive to our decision-making process and it can cause us to make unhealthy, irrational choices even when we are aware that these decisions do not bring us closer to our goals.

In this post I will explain how we end up with decision fatigue and how it affects our ability to make decisions, also, I will discuss how we can implement strategies to reduce and eliminate decision-making fatigue.

What is decision-making fatigue?

To better explain the decision fatigue I will give an example.

Let's say you had a long and stressful day at your job. All-day you had meetings, took important decisions for a project and dealt with clients and coworkers. At the end of the day, you feel drained physically and mentally, so when you get home you will seek peace and relaxation.

Let's imagine that your daily routine when you get home is to pack your gym bag and head for a quick workout before bed. Well, today is different because of your long day at work and instead of a workout that will relax you and eliminate cortisol from your body, you choose an unhealthy takeaway and watch Netflix. This is what decision fatigue looks like.

Decision fatigue is the phenomenon of diminishing your ability to make a healthy and good decision.

Think of our decision-making power as of fuel tank, when you wake up your tank is full, however, each decision we make drains the tank bit by bit. When the tank is empty our decision-making is impaired and we are left with poor choices.

How decision fatigue affects our lives.

Is essential we start recognizing the decision fatigue symptoms and it affects us in every aspect of our lives.

Imagine you are the groceries to pick up some essentials. Normally you would ignore the chocolate bar at the checkout but because you had a full day and you feel exhausted you will buy one.

And this example can apply to any other situation like being out with a friend for a meal. Usually, you never order more than a glass of wine because you have a lower tolerance for alcohol, however today you feel tired after work and all that meetings, so you go over the boar with drinking.

Decision fatigue affects us in some ways that we are not able to recognize sometimes.

7 Strategies to Overcome Decision Fatigue.

If you are thinking to avoid decisions, is not that feasible so is not part of the strategies. Avoiding decisions will lead us to 0 accomplishments.

1. Create routines that make decisions for you

Now, remember the 'fuel tank' theory. Even small decisions will consume some of our fuel. So setting up routines in places will reduce and eliminate fuel consumption.

For example, wake up every day at the same time and eat breakfast the same thing every day, workout every day at the same time and use a regime that you can stick to it. Instead of deciding when you do your laundry, just do it every Saturday. This small routine will save fuel for important decisions.

2. Use automation to your advantage.

The fewer decisions we have to make the better we hold against decision fatigue. So make use of automation.

Take this example, your bills might be monthly so instead of you paying for them all time, just set up a direct debit that will do it for you. Create a saving or investment account that will take money out of your bank account every time you get your salary.

3. Take care of the big decision first.

If you are going to have a long journey in your car, you will usually fill your tank first, you will never leave with a half-empty tank.

Some decisions require more fuel than others, so prioritise the important decisions first.

For example, you might have to find a supplier for your business, so the decision-making process will be a long one and with a lot of research and energy. This decision can affect your whole business, from the quality of your products to sales and financial situations.

So rather than doing this decision at end of the day, you will be better off doing it in the morning.

4. Simplify low-impact decisions.

Many decisions are not that complicated but often time we make them complicated. The more complicated the decision the more fuel we burn in the process. With this in mind, we should start simply some of our daylily decisions and make space for the actually important ones.

For example, if every morning you stay in front of your wardrobe thinking about what to wear for work, you should just build a wardrobe of similar-looking attire. This should simplify your life and decisions.

5. The importance of food in the decision-making process.

Eating has the role of replenishing your stores of glucose. Having full storage of glucose will make it easier to make decisions. Many people can't think straight when they are hungry let alone taking important decisions.

So whenever you make an important decision make sure you have a full stomach and you are hydrated.

6. Learn to say no.

Many decisions comping upon us because of others, like the coworkers who ask as favours for tasks that are time-consuming for which they are responsible.

So get comfortable with saying "no". It might be difficult at first but you will learn to appreciate this new skill. This will discourage you to force decisions upon yourself.

7. Minimise distraction.

Most of the distractions from our lives fail to add much value to our lives. They might seem important to us, or even interesting. However, if they disappear one day we won't be negatively impacted.

Distractions often time impair our ability to make good decisions. They divert our attention from the important things.

Distractions make us examine relevant information and waste precious time and attention that can be used in taking important ' decisions.

For those reasons alone is important to minimise and eliminate our daily distractions whenever we are about to make important decisions.

Resources

In this post we had used as a resource the book:

How to Make Better Decisions: 14 Smart Tactics for Curbing Your Biases, Managing Your Emotions, And Making Fearless Decisions in Every Area of Your Life! by Damon Zahariades

#decision-making #decision #overcoming #strategies #self improvement #better decisions

All of us suffer or had suffer from decision fatigue and it impacts us every day of our life. The sad part is that it happens without our knowledge. This decision fatigue is often time disruptive to our decision-making process and it can cause us to make unhealthy, irrational choices even when we are aware that these decisions do not bring us closer to our goals.

In this post I will explain how we end up with decision fatigue and how it affects our ability to make decisions, also, I will discuss how we can implement strategies to reduce and eliminate decision-making fatigue.

#decision #fatigue #decision-making #strategies #overcoming

You cannot hit your targets if you do not set them first. You cannot increase your strategic productivity without a certain level of clarity of your goals and needs, and of course, without an appropriate plan, you won't be able to achieve them.

To be more specific, efficiency is doing things right while effectiveness is doing things the right way. There is no point in doing the right things if they do not bring you close to your goals.

Strategic Productivity. How to plan more effectively

https://www.aanutshell.com/2022/06/strategic-productivity-how-to-plan-more.html

You cannot hit your targets if you do not set them first. You cannot increase your strategic productivity without a certain level of clarity of your goals and needs, and of course, without an appropriate plan, you won't be able to achieve them.

To be more specific, efficiency is doing things right while effectiveness is doing things the right way. There is no point in doing the right things if they do not bring you close to your goals.

The importance of long-term thinking.

Predicting your success stays on your ability to think on a long-term basis. By setting long terms goals it means you are saying no to infinite other options and possibilities. This is a good thing because if you remove other options you will be able to direct all your energy toward your goals. Once you know where you heading you will map out the steps you need to take and as a result, each action will have come more impactful.

We can associate strategic productivity with a game of chess where your main goal is to in, however, to do so, you will have to anticipate your opponent's moves.

Same as chess games go for your goals, identify possible roadblocks and key moves and take action. Everything you will do will be linked to the future that you want to create. If you spend time thinking about where you want to be in 5 years and you map out your steps and take actions you will have a better chance to achieve them, rather than someone who doesn't and just do things aimlessly.

The power of compounding effect.

The compound effect is another main benefit of strategy productivity and effective planning. Doing a task daily will build momentum over time and make progress each day. Having small wins every day will boost your confidence and increase your motivation, so do not underestimate the compound effect.

Each day builds on top of each other, the progress might seem invisible at first, however, at some point, you will reach the tipping point. When reach the tipping point things will start to accelerate and your success will be exponential.

In short, you have to build momentum and activate the power of compound effect, by focusing on a few things consistently over long periods.

The power of focus.

When you work each day towards your most important goals, you will tap into the power of focus. With enough focus, you will be able to achieve almost everything.

Think of focus like an axe, if you try cutting down a tree by hitting it in 1000 different places will never fall down. However, if you focus all your hits in one place you will be able to cut down even bigger trees. With sharp focus, you can achieve anything you desire.

As Bruce Lee is quoted saying: "I fear not the man who has practised 10,000 kicks one, but I fear the man who has practised one kick 10,000 times".

Many people will apply the first scenario, they will try to hit a tree in 1000 different spots wondering why nothing happens and then is no wonder why most people fail to achieve their goals.

To return to Bruce Lee's quote, for example, someone who practices karate every day will have greater chances of improvement rather than if they trained erratic and not consistent, or try to learn 3 different styles at the same time.

Conclusion

Well, strategic productivity means hitting a tree in the same spot until you bring it down. This involves:

Focus on only a few goals at the same time

Implement a proper strategy each time you approach your goals

Make daily progress toward these goals by taking actions that are aligned with your strategy.

As a resource we have used the book:

Strategic Mindset: A 7-Day Plan to Identify What Matters and Create a Strategy that Works by Thibaut Meurisse

If you always wonder what people think of you, do not worry you are not alone, We are social creatures and are normal.

I have been raised in a family and culture of a good self-image and always be careful with our actions to keep everyone happy. I wouldn't act like myself in front of new people so they won't perceive me different.

Is in human nature, that we are always concerned about what others think of us. We always wonder what people think of our clothes, hair, body, style, Facebook profile, car and the list can go on and on.

This obsession makes us fake and ignorant of our inner voice and personality. Frequently say the thing we do not mean, buy things we can't afford just to impress people.

Reasons Why You Should Stop Caring What Other People Think of You.

If you always wonder what people think of you, do not worry you are not alone, We are social creatures and are normal.

I have been raised in a family and culture of a good self-image and always be careful with our actions to keep everyone happy. I wouldn't act like myself in front of new people so they won't perceive me different.

Is in human nature, that we are always concerned about what others think of us. We always wonder what people think of our clothes, hair, body, style, Facebook profile, car and the list can go on and on.

This obsession makes us fake and ignorant of our inner voice and personality. Frequently say the thing we do not mean, buy things we can't afford just to impress people.

How it all starts and why

It all starts when we are babies and continues throughout out of life until we get older. As babies and young children, we are very responsive to other people's reactions. Observe a baby and you will realise that other emotions have a big impact on their own, your actions will create a reaction in the baby. So from an early age, we have deeply embedded seeds.

In school, our minds are not mature and prepared to deal with a social complex situation. So we learn that if we perform and follow we won't be picked by others and we are safe within the group.

We go fast forward to the adulthood when we start being mature being and start forming our own opinions and thought. However, often these opinions are silenced by our very own nature of following and blending in with others, this is a habit picked since childhood.

People are afraid to speak their minds as they believe their image will be perceived as a different individual that doesn't fit in.

Reasons to stop caring and live your life the way you want.

When you live your life based on other people's opinions you slowly 'kill' your inner self and give up your authenticity. By doing this you will never be the true you and never live up to your potential this will lead to an unhappy living and future dictated by other opinions.

Do you want to be a leader or a follower? People who let themself guided by their inner voices tend to be great leaders and be innovative. Followers tend to never do a thing of great importance.

There will always be people that will disagree with your opinions, so why not have your real opinions. This will give you higher self-respect for being your person and upholding your values and opinions.

To achieve a higher level of self-respect you should live on your terms, as a bonus this trait will give you more happiness and confidence in your life.

Your values are the most important so try to put them first, if you do not you are not developing or doing any good. Pursue your dreams and agenda, the world does not need more 'yes' men.

People will always judge no matter what you do or how good you did it. So just being yourself, is empowering

Most people do not even care what you do anyway. The reason being is that they are too wrapped in their own drama and probably too worried about what you think of them.

Conclusion

JUST BE YOU AND STOP THINKING OF OTHERS OPINIONS ABOUT YOURSELF

Follow my next post on how to find out the practice exercises on how to do it.

For this post we have used as a resource the following book:

How to Stop Caring What People Think of You: The little book on how to stop caring what other people think of you and start living your life the way you want to live it-Russell Jamieson

#caring #self improvement #selfconfident #self healing #self love #image #stop caring

Upgrade your habits and reach your full potential

This is a stand-alone post and can be read separately. It is part of the series

Upgrade Yourself

. It might contain references to the previous posts in the series. Please read it if you haven't yet.

Improve your attitude and take 100% responsibility for your life

Have a winner mindset. How to change your mindset.

Identify and Remove your Limiting Beliefs. How to upgrade your life.

Go the extra mile for your goals

Habits again? Well, YES!!!

Habits are what you do every day, not what you do sporadically, that will determine the results you get in life.

Start thinking of habits that you will commit to every day for the years to come and start going the extra mile for those. With time these will become core habits that will compound over time and will get you the results you want in life.

Every trivial habit that you do every day will compound over time and you will see extraordinary results.

I will give you an example, for me to write 3 posts every week for this blog(on my days off). Looking at this over a year will be 156 posts which will take my blog from a small to a medium-size blog in a window of 12 months. This is a perfect example of a compound effect.

When you start this journey the keyword you will look for is 'Consistent', this word will play a key role in your journey. Let me give you a few examples of daily habits in case you are not convinced yet.

Daily habits will be harder to skip when you are fully committed, by doing this you will remove all excuses. Do not cheat by skipping your habit. A few weeks later your habit will be forgotten and gone.

Daily habits will help you build momentum. Once you start skipping you will lose all that build momentum.

Daily habits will help you build discipline over time. Think of discipline like a muscle, the more you flex the stronger it gets.

How to create daily habits.

It happens to all of us when setting on a new journey of building habits we tend to be over-ambitious. We try setting big goals for ourselves and it's normal with the amount of motivation we have when we start something new. It might be fine for the next few days, maybe weeks, however, soon we will find excuses to do it. By doing this we think we will make drastic changes in a short time at faster rates than otherways will do.

Well, it won't work as is counterproductive, only a few have enough discipline to do that drastic changes in short periods.

Rember that anything worthwhile takes time and is usually more time than you think.

Start by defining your daily core tasks.

There will always be a few core habits that will help you achieve your goals, you should focus daily on these habits. Having daily habits is an efficient method to make sure you achieve your goals.

The first step will be to identify the core tasks that will help you achieve your goals. The second step will be to do something in that direction every single day. Sound simple enough?

Well is not all time. My goal is to grow my blog to a medium size within a year. So my core task should be writing every day. Well not really.

Taking into account that I have a job and family with children and pets, gets complicated sometimes.

So I work on my goals 3 times a week on my days off. When it comes to blogging my core task is writing 1 post a day 3 times a week, also promoting my blog and on the days I work I just read on the topics I have to write.

It will be your duty to prioritize these goals and make them fit in your life, is better to make small steps than not make any steps at all.

After you have identified your core task and you find time to do it just stick to it. These core tasks performed every day will give you discipline and will take you closer to your goals.

Your Daily Mantras.

Sometimes you have to fake it until you make it, so I prepare a few daily mantras that will help you stay on your journey.

I am proud of being the most consistent person I know

Every day I am moving closer to my goals

I know that it is what I do every day that is creating my future.

Resources

Upgrade Yourself: Simple Strategies to Transform Your Mindset, Improve Your Habits and Change Your Life