How to Increase Productivity by Investing in Yourself With The Happiness Loop

In late 2020, I realized that I was exhausted. Why?

Too many working hours per day. I started my content-creating hustle and I worked for more hours than I should. I had the feeling that I needed to change how I take care of myself, so I took a break. A break to readjust my priorities and set things right. I realized that the freedom of self-employment has a problem.

You don't have a steady shift as a content creator, writer, entrepreneur, etc. You work, and work, and work…

Are you taking 100% advantage of the hours you work?

I don't think so… As a matter of fact, there are researches that prove that as well.

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development found that while workers in Greece averaged 42 hours at work every week in 2014 (2,042 hours annually), employees in Germany not only clocked in 1,371 total hours in a year, or around 28 hours per week, they were also 70 percent more productive.

Your productivity gets lower the more you sit behind that damn desk. You waste time. Valuable time that you could invest in other fields of your life. Fields that can further improve your productivity and your well-being.

Another study found that happiness led to a 12% increase in productivity, while unhappy workers were 10% less productive.

Every percent matters when it’s about our life.

It’s time for a short comparison. We have two people, George (me), and Cindy (I just liked that name for a reason). George is trying to take advantage of his limited lifetime, so he invests in himself, while Cindy is working as always.

When you invest in yourself — for instance doing an activity you like, you tend to get happier. George did that, so he sees his productivity increased by 12%, while Cindy is 10% less productive.

That gives George a 22% advantage. So, in 78 hours, George will produce the same as Cindy will in 100 hours.

By the time Cindy will reach 2000 work hours, George will be at 1560. That’s about the same as Greece vs Germany in work hours. So it’s safe to assume that George will see a 60–70% increase in productivity as well, by the end of the year.

What can you do in order to become happier and more productive as well?

You Can Give Self-Love

“Don’t sacrifice yourself too much, because if you sacrifice too much there’s nothing else you can give and nobody will care for you.”

― Karl Lagerfeld

It all starts here.

Whatever makes you happy is a way of self-loving you. I love playing the guitar. So I will take a break and play. This is my way of showing self-love to myself.

What about you?

You Can Gain New Experiences

Psychological research by Mr. Howell suggests that, in the long run, experiences make people happier.

Experiences come in many ways. Travelling, books, movies, you name it. If you work, you will miss out on them.

A while ago — A rainy Sunday, I was writing. I could write for hours more, but I happened to take a look at a rainbow, and it changed my life.

As a matter of fact, I didn't write at all later that day. But it helped me write my best ever story so far, “I Found a Lost Piece of Myself Watching this Rainbow”.

And all that because I took the time to experience something new!

You Can Live Moments With Friends

When people spend time on life experiences, whether they also take someone with them or buy an extra ticket or whatever, most of our life experiences involve other individuals. People were fulfilling their need for social bonding while having these experiences. — Mr. Howell.

Some experiences are always better spent with friends Friends who are there for you, and they are craving for some experience with you. At the end of the day, you both have something to share. An experience that is a milestone for both of you. It’s an awesome loop of giving and taking.

You Can Gain Knowledge

You can drain knowledge from numerous sources. Your real friends will give you some, your experiences too. Maybe in your free time, you can read a book, start a conversation about a topic online, read my articles on Medium — now I’m not sure about this yet.

My weird free time spending activity is listening to albums and learning fun facts about the musicians, or about particular sections in a song. My friends probably don’t drain anything from this but I can assure you I’m as happy as it gets.

Don’t forget that sometimes knowledge comes at a price. Ignorance might be the only way to get happier.

You’ll Earn Wisdom

A study by Montreal’s Concordia University identified some key wisdom-related factors. High life engagement, a sense of personal control, and positive, problem-focused coping skills contributed to greater happiness and emotional well-being.

Wisdom comes out of knowledge and experiences. If you have free time, you can spend it on both. But if you are working in a routine type of job, you are doomed to not getting any wisdom at all. It’s as simple as that.

You Can Exercise

An ancient Greek saying says “a healthy mind in a healthy body.” This phrase explains that a healthy body can sustain a healthy mind.

“When you exercise, it increases endorphins, dopamine, adrenaline, and endocannabinoid. These are all brain chemicals associated with feeling happy, feeling confident, feeling capable, feeling less anxiety, stress, and even less physical pain,” McGonigal says.

There are numerous ways you can exercise. From 10 minute workouts that you can do every day, to longer sessions every other day. The choice is yours depending on your schedule.

You’ll Earn Peace of Mind

Less stress about work and fewer hours spent there brings peace of mind. Awesome, right??

In all seriousness, peace of mind comes out of personal growth too. You can find peace of mind with meditation or with an awesome experience you had with friends.

Personally, I find peace of mind in creating something on my own. May it be me creating a guitar song to calm me, or most importantly writing my thoughts down, or a story here.

Some Ideas for Self-Love

Let’s make a theoretical distribution of the hours you have available to invest in you. You need to create the loop of giving self-love to earn productivity after all, so here are some examples.

• 440 hours might not sound much, as it’s a little over an hour every day but let’s do some math for you.
• You can spend 8.4 hours each week(let’s assume a Saturday) with your friends. Having new experiences, and creating memories. This way you’ll be ready and fresh for the next week!
• You need an average of 2.8 hours to read 100 pages. That means you can read over 15,714 pages of books, stories, researches, etc. per year.
• If you work out for about an hour 5 times per week you’ll still have 180 hours left at the end of the year. You can spare your excess time by cooking something healthy and getting creative along the way.
• The average length of a movie is around 96 minutes. You can easily watch 275 movies that can make you happy and rest your mind.
• If TV series is your thing instead, at an average of 40 minutes per episode you can watch 660 of them.
• You can also buy a course on Udemy. The possibilities are endless. You’ll learn about a field that you want to master, giving you the feeling of achieving a goal.

This list could go on and on but I’ll leave you to fill it with what makes you happy.

Final Thoughts

By giving yourself time for yourself, you’re getting happier. By being happier you’re getting more productive. It’s an action-reaction state of life.

In essence, you are creating a loop where happiness increases productivity and productivity gives you more time to invest in your happiness.

These are the ways of treating yourself with happier moments to boost productivity.

1. Self-Love
2. Experiences
3. Real friends
4. Knowledge
5. Wisdom
6. Exercise
7. Peace of mind

I needed to invest more time in myself and less time in my work, and in return, I earned more productivity in less time.

Are you ready to do the same as well?

Story originally published on Medium.