READING TIME: 2-MINUTES

If you want to be more focused, energized, and productive, you need to hack your own psychology.

Don’t worry, it’s not as complicated as it sounds. I’ve spent the last year researching and writing about the cognitive biases that influence behavior.

Now I’m going to show you how you can use these mental models to increase your own productivity.

Here are 5 ways to hack your own psychology to be more productive:

1.   Write out your incentives.

If you haven’t done this already, sit down and write out your incentives. These are all the reasons why you are working on your project.

Are you doing it for money? For exposure? For status? To get a better job? Or just so you can express your creativity?

Everyone is incentivized differently. When you nail down exactly why you are putting blood, sweat, and tears into your project, you’ll push forward when you’re not feeling like you want to.

The difference between success and failure is doing the things you know you should do when you don’t feel like doing them.

Use your incentive-caused bias to hack your psychology and get to work.

2.    Surround yourself with other creators and builders.

Social proof means that you act and think like the people around you.

You can use social proof to hack your productivity by seeking out and then surrounding yourself with other people who are continually building and experimenting. That way you are more likely to stay on track with your own projects.

Entrepreneur and motivational speaker Jim Rohn has a quote that reads:

“You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.”

But don’t just look at the people around you. Look at the media you are consuming, the books you are reading, and the podcasts you are listening to.

These can be sources of inspiration if you carefully select what you expose yourself to.

I am continually motivated by people I’ve never met. The writings and words of Charlie Munger, Warren Buffett, Naval Ravikant, Tim Ferriss, and many others serve as my social proof hack. When I need a boost, I can always turn to them.

 3.   Start anywhere.

Commitment and consistency bias is the tendency for you to stick with the commitments you’ve made.  

You can hack this cognitive bias by starting anywhere.

If you don’t know where to start on a project, just write out what you think the project is or what you want it to be. There. You’ve started.

Then, make a commitment to yourself to push your project forward each day, no matter how small the step is.

Do this for 60-days straight, and you’ll be riding your own commitment and consistency bias to the slow, incremental, constant progress that builds empires.

Now, I don’t mean that you should keep banging your head against the wall day after day trying to turn a bad idea into a great one. It’s okay for your projects to change and evolve. Just get started and keep pushing in whatever direction the process takes you.

You will be astounded at the progress you can make over the long-term when you use consistency bias to support positive habits instead of negative ones.

4.    Create a loose association between your productivity and your well-being.

Influence from association bias means that your behavior is influenced by the associations you make between ideas.

You can hack this bias to improve your productivity. One of my strongest associations ties a calm, present, grateful internal life to productivity.

This means that I am most calm and present just after I post an article or finish a project. I have created an association where my accomplishment gives me an opportunity for calm reflection. This drives me to increased productivity because this calm state is one I want to be in.

These are the best moments for me to spend time with friends and family. Where I’m not distracted by all the things I “should” be doing. Instead, I am basking in the glory of an accomplishment (no matter how small) and being present with the people I love.

Start to monitor how you associate your well-being and your work. Maybe there’s an opportunity to hack your psychology and boost your output.

5.    If you’re stuck, ask a question and then experiment to find the answer.

When you’re stuck on something, you can hack your own natural tendency to be curious by asking a question. Then, come up with an experiment to try and answer it.

I wrote about how you can use this scientific process to build specific knowledge in your field.

The better the question, the faster you’ll break through whatever wall you’ve encountered.

It’s natural to look at yourself in mirror when you’re stuck and wonder what the hell you’re doing. I do this at least once a week.

Just make sure you leverage this question + experiment hack to break out of that slump faster than you would otherwise and get back on track creating.

Now, back to work.

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Photo by Sabri Tuzcu on Unsplash