1. Have a good night sleep

• Good sleep promotes productivity, it improves attention, memory, motivation, speed of decision making and other cognitive functions. Try to get at least 7 hours of sleep.

• Faced with a challenge you can't solve, go to bed. Sleeping helps you to acquire insights without your conscious participation. 

• Choose a sleep cycle your body prefers. Do not chase the early rise trend if you know that it doesn’t work for you.

• Don't use caffeine after 4 pm, turn off the blue screens on your devices an hour before going to bed, ventilate the room before going to bed and use the bedroom only for sleeping.

  2. Be physically active

• Sport directly affects memory and learning. Aerobic exercises 3-4 times a week for half an hour will improve your productivity.

• Consider combining work with active warm ups. For example, you can spend 25 minutes for mental work and then for 5 minutes do a very short and light warm-up (walk along corridor, sit down several times, make planks for a minute).

  3. Use less devices

• Fully disconnect multiple times a day for productive work and reflections. 

• Fix specific time for replies to mail and messages. You do not have to do it instantly and constantly be distracted. 

• Turn off sound and visual notifications for messages.

• Turn off all screens 1-2 hours before bedtime. And don't take gadgets to your bed.

• Don’t use your phone as an alarm and leave it out of bedroom for the night.

• Phubbing is when you ignore your companions in order to pay attention to your phone. Don’t do that, it’s rude.

  4. Do not multitask

• Alternate periods of continuous, focused work with resting periods. Rest is very important for long-term memory and creativity. Assimilation and processing of information, as well as valuable ideas happen during periods of cognitive unloading. 

• Group similar tasks and handle them together instead of switching between very different tasks. 

• Complete tasks consequently. It saves your energy, time and increases quality of work. 

  5. Learn new things

• At every age human brain is capable of learning and forming new neural connections. Conscious learning keeps cognitive functions toned and lowers the risk of their weakening with time.

• Make a conscious effort when you want to remember new actions and information. Concentration activates the frontal cortex. It is the control center of our behavior. 

• We can influence our brain structure through repeated actions. Practice often and each time your neuro connections will become stronger and you’ll get better. 

  
  6. Meditate

• Meditation increases your ability to self control and self regulate, skills important when you indulge in complex mental tasks, perception and emotional control. Even 5 minutes of meditation per day done regularly changes your brain for the better. 

• Start with a simple guided practises, for example use Insight Timer app (it’s free). It is easier to start this way, but there is more effect when you do it alone. 

• Educate yourself on this topic to decide what kind of benefits you might gather from this practice.

  7. Train your discipline

• Make small steps every day. Willpower is a muscle, it will get easier the more you train it. 

• Believe in yourself. The degree of your self control depends on your beliefs. The more you belief that you can, the more you will be able to accomplish. 

• Decrease the amount of temptations around you. For example, instead of relying on your self control to not eat junk food, do not put it on the table, or avoid passing it by in the shopping mall. 

• Eat nutritious food and have a healthy lifestyle to support neurogenesis - the process of new neural path formation. 

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