Simple, no-calorie productivity habit

You know what I love? Besides cheesecake? Or pie. I love it when you can take a bad habit, and retool it for good. Okay, maybe that’s a bit melodramatic, but what I mean is take something that is usually associated with failure and leverage it for success.

I was recently on Ash Rao’s Passion 2 Project podcast as as guest and she in her lightning round of final questions what is one productivity tip I’d like to share that has made a difference. At the time, I knew I had a name to help me remember it, but it escaped me at the time. Luckily, I did remember the tip! The best thing about this method is it flips the script on a bad habit and turns it into a good one!

So to remind myself, and also hopefully to help you, here is my productivity tip, with the name included.

The Connection Counselor’s Productivity Tip: Just one bite

Imagine this. You have one last piece of pie left. It is calling your name, but you really should save it for tomorrow. I’m not here to judge, just humor me for a moment. So what do we often do. After hemming and hawing, rationalizing and debating, we often end up here: “Oh, I’ll take just one bite.”

We all know what happens next, right? One bite becomes two, two becomes three, and at some point, it just makes a lot more sense to finish it. Cue a cocktail of regret, self-loathing, and disapproval. We’ve all been there. You see, our brains (and our stomach’s) crave completion. So the chances of you actually taking just one bite are slim to none. So how can we use this for good?

In the battle against procrastination and low productivity, one of the biggest enemies is the inability to get started. We’ll clean just about anything or dispatch any other task before doing the thing we need to be doing, whether it is writing, calling or talking to someone. Often the enormity of the task ahead of us allows us to put the thing off till another time, which turns into another day, week, etc. What I’ve found super helpful is to use our brain’s need for completion to battle this problem.

Let’s say you estimate you need one hour to complete a task. Don’t try to find one hour in your schedule before you get started. Instead, commit to just one minute, one word, maybe even one second. Just one bite. And after you do that, you might be surprised you take a second bite, and then another. Even if you don’t finish in one sitting, your brain’s need for completion will be even greater now that you have done something. Your brain doesn’t care when you haven’t started. It doesn’t take your seriously until you actually act.

As a side note, this also works great for writer’s block. I don’t care if you don’t have a single idea in your head. Just start typing or drawing squiggly lines until something coherent comes out. The rest will take care of itself.

If you do this, you will be surprised at home much productive you can be. And the best part is it won’t cost you a single calorie.