Speaker 1: Congratulations. You clicked on this video which means you have officially taken the first step in getting your life together, being more productive and finally just getting the work done and achieving your dreams, okay? Because we all know that procrastination is the cost of the life you could have lived and even though we all know that, it still doesn't stop us from procrastinating. But guess what? I am going to because I got all of the tips and tricks and I am going to spill all of the secrets to you in this video. I graduated from university last year and I graduated with a first class degree. Before that when I was 16 and I was in school, I got straight As in my exams. Right now, I am a full time content creator. On top of that, I run my own business, I have several streams of income. So throughout each week, I have many tasks to juggle and organise and just have my life together so that I can be productive but also live my soft girl life which is extremely important and this video is going to be talking about my magic formula that I have learnt over years of studying, doing essays, exams and also working. This formula is rooted in the structure of your daily routine because what a lot of people get wrong about productivity is they think, oh I just have to work more. No, it's actually your day to day habits that you don't even think about that are secretly having a knock on effect on your productivity. So not only am I going to be sitting here talking, giving you all of the secrets and advice like I normally do but throughout this video, there will be vlog clips throughout to show you what a productive day in the life looks like for me, how I make my daily routine work in my favour as well as many scientifically proven hacks to help maximise your productivity. So, consider this the last day of your lazy lifestyle and the first of your success story. But before we start, a quick announcement. This video has kindly been sponsored by HelloFresh. And if you don't know what HelloFresh is, it's a meal kit delivery service where they literally ship to you fresh ingredients and a recipe card to help you make meal time much easier. The boxes contain pre-portioned ingredients for preparing your meals including sauces, seasonings and garnishes. Literally everything you need so you don't have to go to the store to go and buy the ingredients or even think about a shopping list. It's so easy to use. You literally go on the website, type in your food preferences, dietary requirements, select your favourite meals and then they get delivered to your doorstep. It literally took me 5 minutes as opposed to the 30 minutes I'd spend doing a traditional food shop. HelloFresh has truly made my life 10 times easier as a busy girl with so many tasks and work to juggle. I can literally eat nutritiously, balance my fitness goals alongside these meals that they're delivering to me, cut my cooking time and stress in half and then maximise all of the success I have in my working life because meal time is just done. But I'll show you a little bit more about how they actually fit into my routine later on in the video. The first step to increasing productivity, waking up early. How do I do it? It's so hard. To be honest, I've always been a night owl and I've hated the thought of waking up early but now I do it with ease. You know why? Because I have a slow morning with no work scheduled. That's the secret. You're waking up for your own enjoyment and most importantly when you wake up early you are about to romanticise the hell out of your life. Let me show you how it's done. No one wants to get out of bed when they know they have to go to school as soon as they do or they have to go to work or they have a desk full of work, emails, tasks and admin waiting for them. Ew. Like why would I want to wake up early for that, you know? So instead I prioritise doing something that I enjoy in the morning so I literally leap out of bed in excitement. But people don't do that. They try to maximise their rest and they're like, oh I'll just wake up 20 minutes before so then I rush out of bed, get ready and then go to work. Because that means every day you wake up you're dreading the day ahead and that dread is what leads to procrastination. The preferences for everybody is going to be different but ultimately the rule is to introduce some magic into your day. Because when I was a uni student and I hated studying, I was no good at it, but I would wake up every morning and act like I was a movie character and I would play my favourite song and I'd leap out of bed. You know I dance most mornings. I literally wake up, I dance to Hannah Montana. I start the day with the feeling of happiness and then as soon as I get ready I head to the gym first thing in the morning and I know what you're thinking, that's work, that's boring, that's a chore. It doesn't have to be. I hated and dreaded the gym until I reframed my mindset. Now I don't go to the gym to burn a certain amount of calories or lose weight or make my body look a certain way. I go for my mental health. I go to chase the feeling of happiness, accomplishment and success. I feel when I walk out of the gym and I'm driving home. I don't stress about having to build a bigger booty or getting a flatter stomach. I don't care. I do a workout of exercises that are easy and that I enjoy because ultimately exercise leads to a spike in productivity. It's a proven fact that exercise helps to create new mitochondria, thus more energy. And more energy means that we can work for longer periods without that drop in productivity and without becoming stressed. That fact right there combined with the fact that it's going to make sure that my mental health stays stable means I look forward to going to the gym every day because I'm doing it for myself. And then the next step in my slow morning routine, which is all about happiness and prioritising myself is breakfast, which I've made an enjoyable task. And this is why we talk about nutrients and its link to productivity, which is very important and very overlooked. Most people eat cereals, crepes or pastries for breakfast, which actually make you feel sluggish and impact your productivity negatively. As a result, you need to focus on low sugar like granola, eggs, oats, avocado and toast. I like to make healthy high fibre yoghurt bowls or here I'm making my favourite protein fruit smoothie. Whatever you choose, just make sure you avoid eating foods that are high in added sugar because this will spike your blood sugar causing you to crash later and feel tired so you won't work. You're literally self-sabotaging if you're not taking care of what you eat throughout the day, especially in the morning. So I actually don't go to the gym every day. I do it every other day. So on the days that I haven't worked out first thing in the morning and I haven't had my protein shake, instead I'll make myself a iced matcha latte and I really just romanticise the process of making it. And then the first thing I do after waking up is sip on my matcha latte and I'll read a book first thing in the morning. And then that's my slow morning routine with no work. And you know, if you have a nine to five, literally wake up one hour earlier just to prioritise doing something you enjoy. This is an actual proven practice I've read in several self-help books. And did you know that getting ready, like doing your hair, putting a little bit of makeup on, putting a good outfit on, leads to increased productivity because that boost in confidence when you're feeling yourself leads to better work. And this is so true because when I try and be cosy and chill, and I don't even brush my hair and I try and work all day in my pyjamas at home, my brain is still in chill mode. Like it hasn't distinguished the change in my priorities. Okay. In my head, it's still time to chill and lay in bed and do nothing. So really putting on an outfit and getting dressed signals to your brain, okay, now it's time for a new task. So after getting ready for the day, I have task number one, which is normally packaging orders for my jewellery business and doing a post office run. I use time restrictions. So I will say I have 45 minutes to pack all of these orders and get them to the post office or else. This links into a very popular productivity method called time blocking. And this is a time management technique which will help you gain more control over your to-do list and help you procrastinate less. Whereas if you don't make this schedule and you just think, yeah, okay, I have the whole eight, nine hour day to do all of these tasks, you are more likely to procrastinate and waste time because you have an infinite sense of time as a result. So you should be timing each of your tasks so that you can set better boundaries. A very important tip that links into this is please do not say that you are going to work the entire day. This is exactly what breeds procrastination. Hours of studying or working all day does not equal success. Because think about it, you could only study from 9am to midday every single day, three hours of uninterrupted, no distraction, smart work. And you are already achieving more than saying, I'm going to study from 9am to 9pm. You're taking loads of breaks, you're scrolling on your phone, you're being distracted, and it's not focused, productive work. And then you're just wasting the whole day and then you feel burnt out because you haven't been resting and prioritising yourself. And then we have the crucial task of staying organised and creating productivity systems. It's actually very simple. I use my Apple Calendars app. I create different coloured calendars according to all of the things I have to balance in my life, whether that be studying or my business or my social media or my YouTube. I then use my time blocking technique and I make sure I do a little bit of each task every single day because when you commit one day to saying, I'm going to do eight hours of this one task, you're going to get bored and you're going to procrastinate. So do yourself a favour and create a schedule that works for you. This might take some trial and error, but you will be saving yourself so much time in the long run. When creating this productivity system, I allow for flexibility because I want to stay in my feminine energy while working and achieving my goals. And this means following my intuition rather than logic and rigid order like the masculine. It's also very important to consider what kind of work you feel like doing that day and play to your strengths. Don't force yourself to do a task that you have no capacity to do and then instead waste the whole day trying to do something you never wanted to do in the first place. How do I beat procrastination? How do I stay focused and minimise distractions? I use this hack all throughout my studying and I still do it now when I have an extremely busy work day that I just can't be bothered to do. Okay. And it's called Pomodoro timer. You Google it, it's free. And essentially this is a 25 minute timer and it makes working so much more bearable. It literally destroys any need for me to procrastinate because I'm like, oh, I literally only need to do 25 minutes of work. Then I take a five minute break or a 10 minute break, depending on where I'm at during the day. And then it's just another 25 minute session before I can take a break, take a walk, eat a snack, whatever. This is such a useful resource because it's literally based on the very common hack of only doing five minutes of the task that you're procrastinating over because 99% of the time, your biggest obstacle is just starting. Once you've started, you're fine. You've literally solved majority of your problems just in those first five minutes. I reframed my mindset. So when I used to dread going to the gym in the morning, I'd say, all I have to do is get ready right now and sit in my car. That's it. Because once I've gotten out of bed, I've gotten ready and I'm sat in my car outside of the house, I'm not going to walk back in the house. I can't procrastinate. I've literally already done the hardest part of the task. So if you're in school, reframe your mindset. It's not, oh my God, I have to study for eight hours today. It's no, I have to leave my house and go to the library, sit in the library with my laptop. That's it. So don't focus on the copious amount of work you have to do because that's where dread and procrastination comes into play. Just focus on the first step. And then I have a few other mini hacks to help with beating procrastination. For example, use pressure to your advantage. So if you're in school studying the library, because all of the other students around you, just them studying will pressure you into typing and studying. If you all sat there on your phone, this used to happen to me all the time. I feel so guilty for sitting on my phone when I was in a room of students who were studying. When I was 16, I used to set up my phone and do a time-lapse of me recording because I'd feel too bad having to watch back the video after and see me just sitting there doing something else, watching YouTube on my computer instead. I was literally setting a competition with myself to see how long I could study to keep this video going. The biggest tip that helped me was shutting down my phone, leaving it in another room or giving it to another person and telling them they can't give it back to me for the end of the day. And after this is lunchtime and we link nutrition to productivity. Like I said before, it's now one o'clock. And once I've done those first few working tasks, it's now time for lunch. And I have been using HelloFresh, which has very quickly become a part of my working and productive routine. It saves me so much time and stress while also contributing to all of my fitness goals because I'll exercise in the morning. All of these meals look so good, but I think today I'm going to go for the glazed chicken on sun-dried tomato couscous for lunch. The link between productivity and nutrition is massively overlooked. We already saw this in how I do breakfast, but lunch and dinner can be more difficult to plan, which is why HelloFresh helps me. But what I want to say is if you want to remain sharp and focused, you have to stay away from foods that will spike your glucose because when you're stressed, okay, I know this firsthand, it's easy to eat comfort food and sweets, but what you're doing is you're actually self-sabotaging in the process. When you take care of your nutrition and your gut health, your energy levels and your happiness will be so much higher and your work and efficiency will benefit in the long run. I cannot tell you how happy and satisfied I am right now. Are you seeing this? Guys, before HelloFresh, I used to skip meals because I'd be so busy in my day and I'd get so caught up in my filming schedule that I wouldn't eat because I'd literally just forget. And when I did get hungry, I'd make a very sad ham and cucumber sandwich. That is not an exaggeration. Now I'm out here eating this, the flavour. Now let's commit this portion of the video to spilling all of my top productivity secrets and hacks before I show you some more vlog footage at the end of the video. Okay, so tip number one is creating an overall life system. Okay, this is going to make just tackling life every day so much easier. So the life system I've picked for myself looks like, okay, step number one, creating my calendar, colour coding it, time blocking it every single week. That is a non-negotiable. And then they're signing up to services like HelloFresh, which make meal time easier and it means I'm cutting out time and also still meeting all of my health goals. And then there's committing every evening and every Saturday to doing things that spark joy, you know, seeing friends, relaxing, taking time for hobbies. I then commit every Sunday to getting my life in order, preparing everything for the week ahead to make my life easier. So it's not like, oh my God, I haven't hoovered in ages. I haven't cleaned my bathroom. I need to do this chore or this chore randomly on random days. I also have a habit tracker in my phone. So then I'm ticking off other goals and being productive about life with remembering to take my supplements, remembering to journal. The goal here is to prep so that you can do yourself a favour and take the thinking out of life. So like you're creating all of these systems, for example, having a habit tracker or having a calendar. So then you just know what you have to do every single day and you're not wasting time procrastinating about, oh my God, I need to get my life in order and be organised. Hack number two is increasing motivation. For me, I go on TikTok and I'll type in motivational content, motivational speeches, and I then have a collection, like a favourites tab on my TikTok profile where I've saved all these videos. Every single morning, as soon as I wake up, instead of scrolling on Instagram or Twitter or whatever, I watch all of these videos. But other than that, I do not rely on motivation. It is fleeting. It's not sustainable long-term. So instead I focus on discipline and everyone wants to know how can you become more disciplined. Discipline is about mastering self-control. And the way you do that is you start practising setting boundaries with yourself, saying no to yourself, taking control of your life. So if you want to have discipline in the work you do and how productive you are, you have to start small and create a habit out of having that control over yourself and your choices. So this starts with, this week, I'm just going to be disciplined about waking up early. Because once you accomplish that, you start forming a habit out of being disciplined. And then that discipline becomes easy for the big tasks like being productive. Three, but what if I have a load of work to do and I literally have to work for 12 hours a day? I have no choice. I feel ya, because I left all of my uni work to the very last minute and this is how I managed to work very long hour days. The key is creating separation. Because if you stay at home, if you stay in your bedroom, if I was to work at that desk for 12 hours a day, it does not work. It fails. I'm setting myself up for failure. Because you get bored. Your brain wants to give up. Your brain isn't stimulated. And this also ties in with time blocking. So my advice to you, and I did this while I was at university, while I was doing my final exams, I would spend the morning, 9am till midday, studying in my bedroom at university. Then I would have lunch at home and then I would spend 1pm till 4pm working in a cafe. Then I would go home, eat dinner, and then I would spend another 3-4 hours at my university library. Okay? Now, that's taken a full 12 hour day of work into three 3-4 hour blocks where I am in different locations. Every time you create that separation between each task and each location, you are kind of like refreshing your mind, refreshing your environment, and it doesn't feel like you've been working all day because now you have new stimuli. And you know you only have three hours of work in that place before you have to get up, eat, and then move to the next location which gives you that time restriction and helps with the time blocking. When you wake up thinking, I'm just going to sit at that desk for 12 hours, once again you have that infinite sense of time and that's what breeds procrastination. Four, I can't work properly because I have fear of failure. I feel you, I feel you because I struggled with this for so long and this is how I overcame it. Journal, write a text in your phone, write it down, okay? You are going to keep talking to yourself and questioning what the root is of this fear of failure. For example, why do I fear this? What is the worst case scenario? What is the best case scenario? Why do I feel I am not capable of doing well at this? In that case, how could I better prepare for this task to feel more confident in doing so? Keep questioning until you destroy the fear of failure with logic. And also remember, procrastination is just the cause of the fear that you don't know how to do something. So question it, why don't I know how to do this? And also remember, you are never going to know how to do something unless you take the first step to try. And like I said before, it all links into the first five-minute rule. Taking that first step sets you on a roll. Six, but how can I be productive when I'm sad, I have low mood, so I just literally don't have the energy to even get up and do it? You're going to take one day to prioritise yourself, do the things that spark joy, even if that's laying in bed, eating popcorn, watching Netflix, that's okay. This is a you day. And then the next day, you can start working and I promise you, when you wake up on that next day, you're going to be ready because you're going to be refreshed. And I know what you're thinking, I can't waste a whole day not doing anything, not being productive. Yes, you can. One day is not going to make a significant difference in the entire trajectory of your life. Your mental health comes first. Your purpose and worth as a human being is not tied to how productive and how much work you get done every single day. And then seven, how do I factor in rest on a regular to actually have a balanced work-life schedule? This is crucial to not be burnt out, okay? Because if you are going to overwork yourself and believe that you do have to work 12 hours every day, you're doing yourself a disservice in the long run. And the only key to be consistent in being productive and maintaining productivity is rest and regular breaks and balance. That's how you be consistent. You absolutely must make the time in your daily schedule to bring comfort back into your life and appreciate the little joys. That's what's going to create happiness and keep you going long term. And if you still don't understand the purpose of that or how that links into your productivity, think of it like a reward. On the days that you don't feel motivated and you don't want to get the work done, you are going to use those little joys and that comfort and that social interaction, whatever you choose, as the thing that will get you through that working day. And I do this all the time, okay? One of my favorite things to do is take myself on a little solo day. I'll go to a Starbucks drive-thru. It's literally my favorite place. I park up my car, I watch the sunset, I drink my favorite drink, and I journal. This reward motivates me to get through the working day and work smarter and not harder. It prevents me from procrastinating, so I actually get the reward and it gives me more of a life balance so I feel refreshed and happy every day. Journaling during this is my favorite peaceful practice. It allows me to just be present with myself and my emotions. I also journal for accountability, right? And this also motivates me throughout the working day to not procrastinate and achieve my work goals to be productive. And I'll literally, I know every time I journal every day, no matter what I do before bed, I'll journal. I have to write, okay, so I had this goal for today, which I wrote in my journal last night. I did it or I didn't do it. And because I know I'm going to be journaling at the end of the day, I know how shitty I'm going to feel if I know I spent the whole day procrastinating. Because if I spent the whole day scrolling on TikTok, I have to write that down. And writing it down and being aware of the fact that you really didn't show up for yourself today, it makes you feel bad, right? It's like you're your own accountability partner. And then my final productivity tip, which ties into routine again, is having a good night routine, which is also tied into joy and self-love and excitement. Just like with my morning routine, I want it to be slow, okay? It's not about work. It's about building up my energy for the day. The same as with night, it's about winding down properly. So when I wake up, I'm not like, oh my God, I didn't even get rest. I didn't even get to watch TV. I don't want to spend a whole other day hustling again. So I'll make myself a cup of tea. I'll lay in bed. I'll have my favourite pyjamas on. I'll maybe watch some Netflix or read a book and allow myself to fully wind down. That way I'm well rested for my busy day the next day and I won't be mad about it. And then I go to sleep, I wake up and I do the whole routine again. And that brings us to the end of this video. I hope you guys enjoyed it and learnt some new tips. If you did, comment down below and let me know and make sure you subscribe because I'm posting videos every single week. And make sure you follow me on Instagram. I vlog most of my days on my Instagram stories, what I get up to, what work I'm doing, how I'm balancing being a content creator and a business owner and all of the other things I go up to. So if you'd like to see and get that motivation and inspiration, make sure you give me a follow and we can be closer friends. I'll see you guys in the next video. I appreciate you for being here. Thanks for watching. Bye.