13 Psychological Tricks To Boost Your Productivity

“Mentally ‘splitting’ into a parent and child. When I’m overwhelmed and don’t have enough support or don’t know what to do, I picture myself as both a parent and small child. The parent consoles and supports the child, while the child freely expresses emotions and processes them. It’s a great way to learn how to be kind to yourself, and extremely helpful for people who don’t have a supportive family.” — xain_the_idiot

“If you are trying to change a habit, start a diet, or alter negative behaviors, don’t tell yourself you can’t do something, but rather that you don’t. I don’t drink soda anymore vs I can’t have soda, I’m on a diet. I don’t bite my nails vs I can’t/shouldn’t bite my nails.” — 77ZZ77ZZ7

“I motivate myself out of being lazy by wiggling my finger. If I’m sitting around being lazy, but need to do something like work out or whatever, I start by just wiggling my finger. Then my hands. Then my arms. Eventually I’m moving my whole body. Now that I’m in motion it is much easier to get moving on the things I need to do. I used this trick all the time when I was going to the gym regularly.” — PucWalker

“When trying to begin working on a large task or project, telling yourself that you’ll only work on it for five minutes. The biggest hurdle is to begin working on it – 9 times out of 10 you’ll just keep going once you’ve started.” — shulmand

“As a chronic procrastinator: don’t make a to-do list, make a done list. A to-do list is an intimidating nightmare that makes it hard to start anything. A done list is just a hit of pure dopamine every time you add something to it.” — Notmiefault

“If you want people to reveal more information during a conversation, just don’t talk. Stay silent and they’ll keep talking.” — Illustrious-Sir6135

“I think of myself and current me and future me. I’m a procrastinator, but one of the ways I avoid procrastinating is by getting all my things done early so ‘future me’ can relax. The thought of future me having nothing to do makes finishing stuff easier.” — Burrito_Loyalist

“When I’m overstimulated and can’t focus because I’m thinking about too many things at once, I ask myself, ‘What is my next thought going to be?’ Most of the time, that interrupts my thoughts and gives me a moment of clarity, and sometimes that’s all I need to mentally catch my breath.” — _Donut_block_

“Incubating. This is basically procrastination, except before you do nothing, you go and stare/read over/mentally absorb your task first. Your subconscious begins problem solving in the background. Then when you start the task, you suddenly have all of these brilliant ideas.” — brawnandbrain

“Occupy my brain by listening to audiobooks, podcasts, radio, or youtube so I can get boring stuff done. Work, chores, personal hygiene, cooking etc.“ — Sunlit53

“If I need to decide between two things; flip a coin. Note that the coin is mystical, it’s just that once it’s in the air you’ll generally know which option you ‘really’ wanted.” — firebirdi

“To get to sleep, pick a letter of the alphabet and just start thinking of words that start with that letter. Any words, as fast as you can. Repeating words is OK. Proper nouns (names, places, brands, etc.) are OK. Swear words are OK. Slang is OK. Baby talk is OK. Foreign-language words are OK. Literally anything starting with that letter is OK. Just keep going as fast as you can. If you can’t think of a word, just repeat words you already thought of. This constant stream of random words completely jams the internal monologue of my brain trying to worry about everything. I have a brief thought about the meaning of each word, and the word meanings are so disconnected that I can’t develop a coherent train of thought. That’s good, because a coherent train of thought would turn into anxiety. Instead, my brain is kept busy naming random words, and my body can just get on with falling asleep.” — nautilus_striven

“I like to wish for things I already have. Just simple things. Like, man I wish I had a tuna sandwich that would be so great, hey look there it is! Kind of stupid I guess but nice.” — Divayth–Fyr