Author: sadellefitness

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Health

8 Toxic Habits You Need to Quit Right Now

1. Comparing yourself

Our society is built on comparison. From social media where people only show the amazing moments in their life to make others feel bad about their own life, to people getting jealous after not having the newest phone or the most expensive bag. But comparison tears down your confidence in ways that will impact you deeply in the future. Comparison should only be used in one way, to build up your confidence. The way to do this is to only compare yourself to the person you were yesterday, last week, last month, last year…

2. Checking your phone as soon as you wake up

This toxic habit is way more influential than you think. Checking your phone as soon as you get up can pretty much ruin your day. It makes you cranky, it makes you less productive, but worst of all, it makes sure that you are thinking about other people instead of yourself, right when you should be focusing on your own wellbeing. The morning. The morning is for you, it is where you chose how you set up your day. Don’t let it go to waste by focusing on other people’s lives through social media.

3. Not letting go of the past

This is a toxic habit I am still struggling to let go of. If we are always holding onto the past, it can affect our present. The mindset of our worst moments in the past that we relive over and over again in our head can seep into our thoughts, actions, and hopes in the present. The past is the past, the present is the present, and the future is the future. We need to let go of the past, be in the present, and hope for the future.

4. Burning out

This toxic habit can ruin all aspects of our life. Has there been any moments in your life where you have wan’t to do everything, all at once? Raise your hand. *Raises hand.* These thoughts and feelings our totally normal in our get stuff done world, where it is too easy to always be wanting to get stuff done. But too much of this leads to burn out and exhaustion. Make sure to eat, breathe, sleep, exercise, get outside, get off your devices, and take breaks when you need them.

5. Getting no sleep

You might feel that sacrificing a good night’s sleep to get more work done or watch more episodes of your show is a good idea, but that is not the case. Anything you can do at 2 a.m can be done way faster and better in the morning. When you stay up late and don’t sleep, you are sacrificing a whole day of productivity ahead of you. If you have a deadline and you need to work at 2 a.m, so be it, but if not wait for the morning or whenever you work best to get it done.

6. Not drinking any water

If you are anything life me, drinking an excellent amount of water at school can be hard. Now that it is summer + online learning, drinking water should be much easier. Check out the 17 benefits of drinking more water here, to build your motivation. My number one tip for how to drink more water is to make it interesting. Get some aesthetic mason jars and metal straws, cut up some fruit to add flavor, do whatever it takes to make yourself excited to drink water. Or build a routine. Every two hours I will fill my water bottle. After I go outside, I will fill my water bottle. Make it interesting, and/or make it a routine.

7. Not believing in yourself

How can you do anything in life if you don’t believe in yourself? Something i’ve noticed about believing in yourself is that it is easier when you have accomplished something. You feel confident after you have accomplished something, and that confidence is exactly what you need to have belief. If you want to believe in yourself more, find more instances in your life where you can have confidence.

8. Being surrounded by toxic people

You might feel guilty cutting people out of your life, I know I do. But when you look back on it a month, a year, five years from now, you will see how much cutting out toxic people benefited you and you will say wow, thank god those people are out of my life, they were only dragging me down.

Thank you for reading!

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Health

How To Have an Amazing Study Session Early in the Morning

Every student wants to be able to get as much done in the morning as possible. If you get everything off of your to-do list by say 12 p.m, you have an entire day of freedom! Doesn’t that sound amazing? Alas for a lot of us, it is not that easy. Sometimes it is very hard to get started in the morning, when you are still groggy and half asleep. Even though our willpower is pretty high, it doesn’t feel like that. Follow the plan below to be able to get everything done by 12 p.m!

The night before:

Clean your study space

There is nothing less motivating than a messy study space. When you get up and you see a space that needs to be cleaned and set up, all so you can study, there is a very small chance you will be able to study anytime that day. If you clean your space the night before and build a habit of it, you will always be able to get straight into studying in the morning while your willpower is high. If you have done nothing before you start studying that will take your willpower such as clearing your space, you will be able to get right in!

Make a study plan

What are your top priorities for your study session? How long will your session last? Will you take breaks? What are the methods you are going to use to study? What are the goals for your study session? I know it may seem like I am taking this overboard, after all, it’s only one session, right? But every session matters. If you answer all of these questions to create a great study plan, then your study session can be super valuable.

Get a good nights sleep

If your brain is still tired and woozy when you try to sit down and study, no clean space or study plan will fix that. The only way to fix that is to get more sleep. Getting enough sleep is super important overall for students. Click here to learn about the benefits of enough sleep and how to make sure you are getting enough sleep.

In the morning:

Don’t hit snooze

Right when you get up you need to get straight out of bed. Don’t think about it, just get out of bed, and make your bed. Hitting snooze and getting ten more minutes of sleep doesn’t actually give you more energy, it just wastes time, and makes you moody because you will eventually have to get up. Force a smile on your face, and just get right out of bed.

Do something that will boost your mood

For me, this means meditation, yoga, or journaling. For you, it could mean anything. You definitely do not want to study if you are feeling sad and angry. Do something you know will boost your mood, such as reading or having some tea. One thing I feel I need to point out is that when I say do something that boosts your mood, that is not an excuse to go onto YouTube, Netflix, TikTok, or anything else that will distract you. Social media or any online distraction does not boost your mood. Try to stay away from those when you are boosting your mood.

Check your plan

Remember that plan you wrote the night before? Well, it is useless if you don’t remember and use it. Check it over before you begin studying. I don’t recommend it, but if there is something that came to you at night that you need to study for, you can add it to your plan. Just try to not change your plan too much. Set it up somewhere you will see it while you study, to make sure you will follow it. Be strict on yourself, because that plan was created by someone that had your future self in mind, not this “I actually have to study” person.

Set a timer

Don’t just work endlessly, or even till “everything is done,” because everything will never be done. Set a timer for the amount of time you are going to study for. I recommend 25 minutes at a time. That is called the Pomodoro technique, and it is very widely used for productivity. Do 25 minutes of work, then take a five-minute break. You can repeat that cycle as many times as you want, but make sure that every four cycles you take a longer, 15-20 minute break.

Study!

You got this!

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Health

11 Simple and Easy Ways To Make Your Day the Best Day Yet

Everyone wants to have a great day.

Write what you are grateful for in the morning

Gratefulness sets an amazing tone for the day. It gives off an amazing vibe, that makes you feel light and excited, ready to start your day and enjoy every part of it. The best place to put your gratefulness is in a journal, and I spill all the beans on gratefulness and journaling here.

Do a self care activity

A self care activity a day keeps the doctor away. 🙂 But seriously. You can’t develop true relationships with anyone unless you have a deep and connected relationship with yourself. The way to build a self relationship is self care. A bath bomb, paint your nails, if you want some easy self care idea’s, check this post out. The rest of your day will be easier because your body and soul will feel well cared for.

Go outside and move your body

Get some exercise girl! Build up a sweat, feel strong. Exercise is respecting your body. You don’t have to do a Pamela Reif workout, a quick ten minute walk or yoga is great too. OUTSIDE. Get that vitamin D. Not to mention just being outside makes you feel lighter and happier. And so does exercise! Getting outside and moving your body is like the ultimate mood booster. Way more than YouTube and ice cream.

Make some tea and read a book

Reading is the best way to learn new things in my opinion. There is so much you can learn even from a fantasy book. You also get lost in a world that’s not your own. Sometimes thats what we need in these times. Any type of book that interests you. Fiction, non-fiction, fantasy, historical, read anything. Tea is a great way to calm your nerves, and to get some extra water in throughout your day. (Drink your water people!)

Create something, anything

Most people in first world countries are mainly consumers. They consume tv shows, video games, YouTube videos and more. Take some time to create. Create a painting, take some photos, write a funny play, even just dance to your favorite song. Dancing is creating. Sing a song, and sing it your way. Make up a yoga practice. Anything where you are creating. Creating gives us such joy, it’s a wonder we are all not creating all the time.

Get one thing done that gets you closer to your goals

Just one thing. If your goal is to lose 10 pounds, eat one healthy meal, or do one workout. Have that satisfaction of being this much closer to your goal. Every day can matter. Make sure it does. If at the end of the day that one thing you got done was the only thing you did, your day was not a waste. Do not let any day be a waste.

Organize someplace in your house

Organization is key to a productive fulfilled day. Organization can be as small as making your bed, or it could be as large as doing your spring cleaning. Something you can do every day is make your bed. Studies have shown that people who make their beds in the morning are more productive throughout the day. So start small, so your day can go right.

Take some deep breathes

When I say deep breathes, I actually mean meditation. But the basis of the basic meditation is deep breathing. Every morning I make sure to take at least ten deep breaths, sitting in a relaxed upright position, even on my busiest days. You can read more about my morning routine here. The minimum is at some point during the day, take a couple of deep breaths to reset your mind. If you want to go all-in, sit down, and do as many minutes as you want of meditation.

Have some social interaction that makes you smile

Right now, social interaction is hard to come by. But humans are not made to be in isolation. Some ways you can get social interaction are to call a friend, go on a social distance walk, face time someone, meet up and do something social distant. Getting some social interaction that will make you smile just makes your day so much better.

Get off your technology for one hour

Take one hour per day to be in the present. Only one hour, continuously. Not your five-minute breaks that will add up to an hour, one continuous hour of being present in your life. Some ideas are reading, doing yoga, exercising, going for a walk, having your social interaction, or doing any of the other tasks on this list that are not online.

Do something you have never done before

Do something you have never done, experienced something you will never experience again, see something new. Make every day an adventure. Go a different route on your walk, get up an hour earlier, or two hours, or more to see the sunrise. Go to the beach to see the sunset. It is too easy to let the days pass you by when everyday includes the same activities. Do something new, every day. Small or large, make every day a learning experience.

Thank you for reading! To make sure you are able to come back to this post any time you need, pin it! Also make sure to check out my instagram, and email me at sadellehealthylifestyle@gmail.com 😉

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Health

5 Necessary Habits of Successful Students

From paper writing, to time management, to productivity, to managing stress, these 5 habits are habits that are necessary for being a successful student.

Being able to make a plan and stay organized

Whether for a test, or a paper, or just your regularly scheduled homework, a plan is always the way to go. A plan is the best way to know if you have time for something in your day, it is the way to see your entire week, and month ahead. But a plan is not just a planner. It is a plan for success. For your plan, you plan out when exactly you are going to study or write a paragraph, and that way when the time comes you will be less likely to procrastinate because that time slot is for your studying. You will stress less with a plan because you won’t have annoying thoughts such as “when will I ever have time to do this?” because you will find time using your planner. The time block planner I suggest is here, and the more journal like planner is here.

Schedule and batch your work

The first part of this ties in with making a plan. Scheduling your work periods allows you to know when your free time is, what days you can take extra work, and more. But when I say schedule, I do not just mean work and study time, I mean free time, friends time, Netflix time, (we need a lot of that because in our day and age who actually only watches one episode of a show at a time??) The most important pieces to plan out are your exercise time, outside time, mealtime, social time, and work time. Those are key components of a healthy day. Make sure they are planned out, so you will get them done.

Batching is a great time management technique. Find more in-depth about batching and more time management techniques here. Batching is putting similar tasks together. It has to do with scheduling because when you schedule a work block, you can schedule that block for a certain type of work. This will allow you to check more things off of your to-do list at a quicker pace.

Do not multitask

I see you multitaskers. You think that you are winning the productivity game, getting more things done faster because you are doing more at once. Well, I hate to break it to you, but it doesn’t work like that. Our brains can’t focus on multiple tasks at a time. When you are multi-tasking, your brain is actually just switching from one task to another, really, really fast. This isn’t good because it takes your brain five minutes to fully get focused on a task enough to do it competently. When you are multi-tasking there is a good chance none of your tasks will come out well. Do Not Multitask. Put all of your focus into one task and do it well. You will find that all of it will get done faster and better if you take it one step at a time.

Keep your space organized

A clear space means a clear mind. Not to mention all that time you spend looking for stuff will be gone once your space is clear. An organized desk space means you know where everything is, and you can access what you need quickly and easily. Have a dedicated space for every item you own. Don’t have items that just end up wherever you left them last. Create a space for everything.

Get enough sleep

Who doesn’t want to get enough sleep? But as a teenager and student, it just seems so hard. All those papers to write and tests to study for, who has time to sleep? But in reality, you are hurting yourself so much by not getting enough sleep. We need enough sleep. To heal, to rejuvenate, to get our energy high, to keep our mood good, to live longer, and to do better on tests and get better grades on papers. Getting enough sleep boosts your brainpower. Please check out this post for how to create a sleep schedule that matches your exact needs. Thank you for reading!

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Health

How to Incorporate Gratitude into Your Journaling to Change Your Life

Gratitude’s importance

Let’s start with gratitude’s importance because if you don’t know that, then why would gratitude go in your journal? Gratitude is amazing. It not only raises your vibration so you will be able to manifest what you want, but it also has a lot more benefits that are unbelievable. Gratitude will improve your physical health. Grateful people experience fewer aches and pains and they report feeling healthier than other people, according to a 2012 study published in Personality and Individual Differences. Gratitude reduces aggression and enhances empathy, gratitude helps you sleep better, gratitude boosts self-esteem, and gratitude increases mental strength. Overall, gratitude will change your life.

Why should you put gratitude into your journaling?

If you use a bullet journal, then gratitude is an element you should certainly start incorporating. If you do not yet have a journal, I suggest getting a gratitude journal. The one I use that has changed my life can be found here. The benefits I have noticed from using a gratitude journal are clear. I have understood a lot more about myself through this journey of appreciating everything in my life. Take a minute now to appreciate the fact that you have internet so you can read this, and a computer, phone or iPad on which to read this. Another benefit is that stress is reduced. There was a time when I was not able to write in my journal, and even my family noticed the heightened stress in my life. That is why you should gratitude have within your journal, or a gratitude journal to dive deeply into understanding yourself.

How gratitude is apart of my journaling

Gratitude is an important part of my journaling. I journal in the morning and at night. It helps me set an intention for the day, so I don’t mindlessly wander through my day and it makes sure I am feeling positive and ready to face the day. There is a big chuck that is all about what I am grateful for, no guidance. Somedays I feel like writing the big things, some days the small things, but there is always more to write, that come up every day and night. (Unintentional rhyme ;)) I take my focus for the day and use it to come up with what I will be grateful for that day. This is how gratitude is apart of my journaling. Thank you! Be sure to check out my gratitude journal here.

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Health

I am a Teen Trying to go Vegan, Here’s my Process

Why am I trying to go vegan?

When I told my family I want to go vegan, they always asked me why before any of the logistical questions. Following a vegan diet lowers the risk of cancer, lowers the risk of diabetes, lowers the risk of cardiovascular disease, improves your mood, gives you healthier skin, makes fewer green house gas emissions, makes a smaller water footprint, helps save the oceans, and leads to less deforestation. “Sigh.”

These are actually not the original reasons that I decided to attempt to go vegan. It all started when I was watching some youtube, and came across a video that said to watch the documentary on Netflix called What the Health, if you want to make healthier food decisions. So I did. After watching that documentary I moved on to another, and another, until now I have watched around five documentaries about the dangers of a meat based diet. That is how my journey started, and why I am trying to go vegan.

What are the steps I am going to take?

Going into this I am definitely not going to jump right in. There are some steps I am going to take to make sure that I enjoy this. The first step is going vegetarian. Currently I am living with a vegetarian in my house, so for dinner while the rest of my family has hamburgers, I have whatever she has. This has been going pretty well so far, because I am not feeling like I am missing out on much.

The next step I am going to take will be The Transition. In this period I will be figuring out with my family how to make sure I get enough nutrients, and what I will need at the grocery store. I will need a vegan substitute for many things like milk, (I am thinking coconut milk, what do you think?) butter, cream cheese and more.

After this period I am going to become vegan, expect allow myself a couple of cheat meals per week. Ice cream, whatever it is. After this, I am going full in. Those are the steps I am going to take.

What are the challenges I am worried about?

Obviously, there are some challenges that I am worried about. The first is what do I do when me and my friends go out for ice cream? This is weirdly specific, so it could also include, what do I do when I go over to someones house and they are serving hamburgers or another meat based dish?

Another section of challenges is lunches. I am going to actually have to learn how to cook. “Gasp.” Instead of my parent just making me a bagel, I will learn how to make my own vegan lunches. These are the challenges I expect to face.

How do I plan to overcome those challenges?

For my first challenge dealing with friends, when we get ice cream together I can get something from a nearby Starbucks or bakery, or not get something. I don’t always have to get a treat.

When I am going over to a friends house for dinner, I will make sure to let the family know in advance that I don’t eat meat, or if I feel that that is too much, I can always say, “I don’t eat that” and just eat the vegetable side dishes.

I am excited about having a lot of different lunches. There are so many food options to explore as a vegan, and I am excited to have more tofu, edamame, fruits and vegetables. I think that I can learn to love making my own lunches and having great dishes. I think knowing how to cook is an amazing skill to have, and I can’t wait to learn it.

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Health

What are Keystone Habits and How Can They Change Your Life

What are keystone habits?

Keystone habits are the basis of change in a life. They change one element of your life which leads to many more elements of your life being altered. Some examples of keystone habits are exercise and meditation. Exercise can ripple out into your life, and effect the way you eat, sleep and think. Meditation also ripples out into your life, making you calmer, more aware, and more grateful. If you feel unsatisfied with your life but you don’t want to make a lot many changes, try out a keystone habit. I have a list below with great keystone habits to change your life.

  1. Exercise
  2. Meditation
  3. Journaling
  4. Strong willpower
  5. Getting enough sleep and waking up early

Related: 7 Easy Steps to Developing a Healthy Habit

How can you use them to improve your life?

Focusing on a single keystone habit

Like many others, I have sometimes thought that I should try to make as many habits as possible at the same time, to create the most change. But spreading yourself out like this will only increase the likely hood of failure. If you want to make some big changes in your life, focus on one big habit. The keystone habit I suggest for beginners is meditation. Meditation is a skill along with being a habit. You build up the time you meditate, and the success of your meditation. You can start with only three minutes a day, and have profound changes in your life.

Setting a routine to enforce that habit

This is a bit misleading. Habits can only form with three parts. The cue, the routine, and the reward. Foe example meditation, my cue is finishing my journaling. The routine is the meditation. My reward is a sense of calm and peace. You get to choose what your cue is, but remember that you can’t form a habit without all three parts. When choosing your cue, you should be able to easily do your routine. Meditation can be done anywhere, anytime, but I suggest early morning. Your cue could be waking up, or making your bed, or finishing whatever is first in your morning routine.

Track your habits progress

I suggest the app called Productive. It is the habit tracking app I use to track my habits. You can choose any tracking method, but make sure it tracks your streaks. Productive gives you rewards for your streaks, which makes sure you keep on going. You can use a written calendar or journal, or another habit tracking app. Just make sure you choose a tracking technique that allows you to track your streak. Your streak will give you motivation, to keep going. Thank you for reading!

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Health

7 Amazing Tips For Teenage Confidence

1. Try a quick fix

If you are dealing with a small burst of “am I good enough?” or “i’ll never be able to do this” thinking, than there are a couple of quick fixes you can use to regain your confidence. The first quick fix is listening to music and dancing. If you don’t like music or dancing, try doing anything creative to let yourself wander and focus on yourself. The second quick fix is imagining yourself completing whatever goal or task is making you feel discouraged. Let that accomplished feeling fill your mind. My final quick fix is meditation. You can use meditation to dive deep into the root of your discouragement or sadness. Once you find that root, destroy it.

2. Believe you can change and improve

This amazing confidence tip is if you are looking to make a long term change. Consider how you think of your abilities and skills. Do you think that you can improve on them and change? Or do you think that there is no way you can change, and your abilities are set at birth. If you resonate with the first, congrats! You have a growth mindset. You are looking to learn and improve your skills and abilities. But if you resonate with the second one, then you have a fixed mindset. You don’t believe you can improve. You believe that for the rest of your life your abilities and skills will remain the same. This is definitely a cause of discouragement. Try to work on your mindset. To do this, check out this post on how to master your mindset.

3. Practice and face failure head on

Failure is a part of life. No one can say anything different. But how to face failure is what allows you to build confidence or not. If you face failure head on, you are able to learn from your failure and get better. Your confidence can get better, when you learn from your failures and will be stronger next time. When I say practice, I mean learn to live and thrive off of failure. Get used to it, and expect it.

4. Clean out your social media

Only follow social media accounts that make you feel good and powerful. Check out this post for an in depth guide to using social media in a positive way.

5. Embrace your imperfections because they are what make you unique

If everyone were perfect, we would all be the same. Our flaws our what make us unique and special. That acne on your cheek is what makes you different from your peers. Or take your freckles. You might be insecure about your freckles, but remember there are so many people that draw on freckles everyday. Your insecurities are what make you beautiful and human. Remember that you are unique.

6. Don’t put yourself down (even if its a trend)

You read that right. Self deprecation? A trend? No way. But think about it. Have you ever seen a comment on a TikTok that goes a little like this? “My wide ribcage could never.” This is not a very harmful one for someone’s confidence or mental health, but these types of comments are the ones that always get lot’s of likes. This is because people agree with the comment, and while that is good because it is showing the person who commented it that they are not alone, it is also bad. People comment these things to get more likes on their comments, and more people who might click to their profile. The more they comment these things, the more likes, the more clicks, and the more confidence they lose. Overall, never comment or say anything that puts yourself down.

7. Don’t compare, accept that you are different

Raise your hand if you have ever compared yourself to someone else. I bet everyone reading this has a raised hand. Even in a small way. Comparing yourself is stupid. If you compare your writing ability to a classmate in the same class, with the same oppurtunities, it might be fair, but so many circumstances aren’t. Comparing your body to someone else’s is wrong. Everyone is different. Everyone’s genes, circumstances, problems, issues are different. Remember that the next time you are comparing yourself. And remember all of these tips the next time you feel a lack of confidence.

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Health

Life Lessons to Learn For Successful Teenage Years

1. People who push you down are the ones that make you grow

There are two ways you can take criticism. You can go cry in your bed, let the criticism wash over you and make you think you are nothing, or you can stand up tall, and take that criticism and use it as motivation. As long as you don’t criticize people back, you will always remain above those that have to push people down to make themselves feel up. As humans our basic instincts are to value human approval. As teenagers, the media is telling us we have to fit a certain standard to think we are beautiful. Since we value human approval, when we don’t get it, we can use that to motivate ourselves to grow.

2. You noice your flaws more than anyone else

That acne on your face, that one stupid thing you said in class, they all appear as a bigger flaw in your eyes than anyone else’s. Remember, everyone else is only focused on their flaws too. Nobody spends their time looking at everybody else’s flaws, they look at their own. You are not alone. Most people around you also think they are being judged every moment. Nobody has more time to judge you than yourself. If you try to “fix” yourself for other people, remember that they are also “fixing” themselves for you. The best way to stop focusing on your flaws is to improve your mindset. Focus on all the amazing parts of you instead of the flaws. Focus on the amazing parts of other people too. You will be a healthier, happier person if you focus on the positive.

3. Don’t let your grades control your life

Our society is built on the notion that the only way to get a well paying job and have a good life is by getting into a good high school, and then getting into a good college. In reality life can be so much more than just your grades. Focusing on your grades too much will make you miss out on wonderful oppurtunities. Enjoy your life and build your skills. While college is great, and totally a wonderful path for certain career paths, open your mind to all the other career oppurtunities there are outside of college. For example, starting a blog. 😉

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Health

11 Amazing Time Management Tips to Skyrocket Your Productivity and Give You More Free Time

Intro:

1. Know your priorities

Having a long to-do list with tons of tasks that you have to get done by the end of the day will just stress you out. Prioritize your tasks so you know what actually needs to get done. Let’s say you have 15 tasks on your list. Looking through them you realize that five are your highest priority. Those tasks are both urgent and important. Just start with them. Now there is a lot of stress off your shoulders because you only have to get five tasks done. Now what if you get them done and you still have extra time? Move on to your important but not urgent tasks, such as working out, meditating, meal planning and so on and so forth.

Related: How to Be Productive While Stressed

2. Have a schedule

Schedules can be annoying for those of us who like to live in the moment, but they are also important to stay organized and know when you have time. Having a work schedule and a home schedule will keep you organized, and most importantly you will know when you have time to get your to-do list done. A to-do list without time to get your tasks done only produces stress, not results. Work with your family, your boss, and anybody who could give you commitments to work out a schedule.

Related: 7 Habits of Productive People That You Can Use to Change Your Life

3. Utilize time blocking

You now have time in your day created by your schedule. What do you do with that time? That is when time blocking comes into play. Time blocking is when you take the time you have, let’s say 8-10 a.m, and plan out what you are going to do and get done during that time. From 8-8:30 I am going to write that paper. From 8:30-8:45 I am going to check and answer emails… so on and so forth. That is time blocking, and it extremely useful for not stressing over when to get your stuff done.

4. Set a timer

Sitting down and saying, “I’m just going to work until everything is done,” is not the way to go. First of all, getting everything done could take three hours and sitting for three hours in front of a computer is very detrimental to your health. Second of all, you have no idea how long your work could take, so you are facing the gloomy unknown of forever working. Set a timer for 25 minutes, and then you just need to work that long. After the 25 minute session, you take a five-minute break! Telling your brain that it only has to work 25 minutes, will make sure you are getting work done. You can do 25/5, or 50/10, whatever suits you.

5. Batch your work

Batching your tasks has many benefits. What is batching? Batching is when you do similar tasks in the same work period. You don’t do a paragraph and then check emails, and then another paragraph and then a phone call, you do two or three paragraphs, take a break, and then do your emails and your phone call. Batching keeps you in the right mindset for your tasks, and will also help you get more done in less time because there is less of a transition period for your brain.

6. Break your big tasks down

A big paper can seem daunting to write, so you will probably end up procrastinating on it. If you break it down into very small tasks, you will find that you are able to get a lot done. Breaking your tasks done is a technique to prevent procrastination while getting a lot done. A broken down big task might make your to-do list a lot longer, but keep batching in mind.

7. Plan time to be on social media

I don’t know about you, but while I try to stay as much in the real world as I can, I cannot resist my time on social media. This is expected and okay. In this new digital world, social media is a big part of life. To make sure you are not letting social media affect your productivity, plan out times during the day for social media. I suggest ten-minute increments. Between tasks and during meals I find are the most popular options. Keep in mind if you go on social media during breakfast, to try and still mindful eat. If you find that social media makes you feel bad and negative, check out this post.

8. Take breaks!

Don’t work yourself too hard. Take time during the day to get out of work mode, and take a step outside of your head. Whether you take five minutes to stretch, or a Starbucks break, taking time to reset your mind for your next section of work is necessary.

9. Keep your space organized

A clear space means a clear mind. Make sure you are planning out your decluttering time in your schedule. You might wonder why an organized space will help you with time management, and it is because it is all connected. Organization, productivity, time management, they are all connected. An organized space means a clearer mind, which means better work. Better work means less time you are spending on a task which means more free time.

10. Review each week

At the end of the week, review how you did with time management. Look at your time blocks, look at your organization, look at your to-do list, and what you got done. Also, review how you did on your weekly goals. I do this review on Sunday, so after my review, I can use the information to write my next week’s goals, plans, meal prep times, decluttering times, and everything I need to prepare for the following week.

11. Know when you work best

Some people are early risers like me so we prefer to work in the morning and go to bed earlier. Other people are night owls, so they get their best work done at night, while us early risers are asleep. In society right now, there is a lot of talk about how the secret to productivity is to wake up earlier, and while this may be true for early risers who haven’t realized they are early risers, for the night owls this just doesn’t work. You need to find what works best for you, and not just try to conform to societies productivity standards. Working when you work best is the best way to get things done.