50 Simple And Easy Productive Things To Do

Being productive doesn't mean moving the mountains every single day. With this ongoing pandemic impacting everyone from loss of job to loss of loved ones, it's tough to stay focused and productive. Don't guilt trip yourself for this. Taking care of your mental health is the top productive thing you can do, as without it everything fails. Here are very simple and easy productive things which you can do, without being stressed. 

Simple and Easy Productive Things To Do

1. Watch a TED video - I have stumbled upon several awesome authors through their TED talks.
2. Watch a TED-ED video - some of these are mind blowing. One of these says how you can die properly to become a fossil.
3. Read an awesomely researched and written answer on Quora.
4. Watch a crash course video - there's no better way to get an overview of something in short span.
5. Read a page from a book. Start a goodreads reading challenge.
   
6. No free hands rule - always carry something when you leave a room, this way you can keep things in their place. Going to kitchen from room? Take the coffee mugs and half eaten chips packet with you.
7. Drinking game - every time coronavirus is mentioned on TV, take a sip of water.
8. Whenever you try to store a mental reminder, just write it on a paper with it's due date(if any) and duration it takes to be done- The Pending Things List. Come back to this periodically and revise.
9. Do one lesson from any language on Duolingo - it just takes 5 minutes.
10. Waiting for that server to start so that you can resume your work? Check your "Pending List" - look for the things that only take 2-5 minutes to finish. May be, it's forwarding an important mail to your colleague or doing that fun quiz created by your niece.
11. Stop wondering if someone's birthday is today - just use any birthday alarm/reminder website and save all the important dates in it. You will get a mail beforehand and also on that day. Saves many relationships!
12. Scan away those id proofs/bills/receipts/health reports etc and never worry about not having them with you anytime.
13. Got a brilliant idea? Nope, you won't remember it after 5 minutes - just save it into Google keep/notes/evernote/any note taking app. In fact, you can use tags/labels to add to your idea - as you keep expanding on it.
14. No one's got your back? Or you are fickle and you won't have today's motivation tomorrow? Send your future self a motivating mail using sites like Futureme, that will send the mail to yourself on a future date. It's awesome getting a personal mail! (Somehow my past self keeps sending me mails calling me 'doofus').
    
15. Outsource your brain to bullet journal - one stop destination for everything - things to do, books to read, recipes to cook, daily logs, food log, gratitude log - it can be anything you want, as you expand on the standard BuJo template.
16. Doodle something fun whenever someone annoys you or when you are stressed. At the end of the year, you will have an awesome sketch book.
17. Take a selfie and a one second video. See yourself and your life at the end of the year. I went through all my photos and noticed how my face got bigger and rounder last year and then better this year - I would have never really noticed this if not for these pics!
    
18. Master power napping. A twenty minute nap can reset your brain and delete all that's been bothering you.
19. Have trouble with procrastination? Just start. Quit after 5 minutes if you can't go on. Chances are you won't, as your brain has overcome the inertia.
20. Batch all the things that can be batched - calls to multiple people, chores, paying all the bills etc. This way you don't have to be distracted and disturbed by them multiple times.
21. Don't multi-task the important ones. Can't meme while trying to solve a coding problem. Can meme in that boring useless meeting which you can't get out of.
22. Start a streak for the priorities of your life - better chances of you sticking with them consistently.
23. Log everything - it helps in understanding yourself and the patterns of your life.
24. Disable all notifications. Don't let anything override your schedule.
25. Only once - mails, social media, youtube, memes etc - check them all only once per day. Uncheck "Remember me". Make it tough for yourself to check them.
26. Remove the apps that are time waste from phone or set a time limit on them. Better way would be to just use laptop to check them once.
27. Bad day, but got a ton of things to do? Pick the top priority things which you must absolutely do today and give yourself a break. You will pick them off with more intensity next day.
28. Slip tongue and say things you shouldn't? Create your own whatsapp group with just yourself(you need to add someone else first and then remove them to get a group of just you) and send messages here. Resist all the negativity by just dumping it all here.
29. Bored? Pick any activity from your "Pending List".
30. Still bored? Pick any of those chaotic drawers full of loose photos, papers, books etc and organize them.
31. Hyper and don't know where to channelize that energy? Just pick 30/60/x items you can declutter from your house under 60 minutes and discard them.
32. Adding to the above point, clean up your mail or that overloading phone memory.
33. Take backups of everything.
34. Drop a message to check on your besties.
35. Update the just completed project on your resume.
36. Walk.
37. Improve in something - like typing speed, vocabulary etc.
38. Found a new favorite song? Add it to your playlist before you forget it after some years. Create playlists for those bad days and just tune into them.
39. Take note of the professional and even personal mistakes - root cause and lesson learnt.
40. Not good at some "being adult" thing like investing, cooking, etc? Get better at this by learning something new everyday.
41. Plan your week - doesn't have to be perfect.
42. Meditate. Sit in silence.
43. Throw away the food beyond expiry in fridge and pantry. Make a list of food inventory with expiry dates and stick it to the fridge.
44. Extending the above point, do the same for medicines.
45. Have a side project, but don't have time? Do one simple thing for it every single day. For example, if you have a blog, you can work on it's layout by changing just one thing everyday.
46. Pamper and treat yourself.
47. Add whatever inspires you to a vision board.
48. Start/end your day with comedy or whatever makes you laugh. A comic a day will keep you happy. There are many which you can follow on instagram instead of photoshopped beauty standards that makes you feel low about yourself.
49. Make your bucket list.
50. Stalk people and compare yourself with them? It's going to only hurt you. Block them all everywhere and stop comparing yourself with anyone.

~