by Mark Powell D.Min.
Four ways super achievers build better days.
Building a productive life starts with building a productive day. Your first step to a more productive (and happier) day may be surprisingly simple.
Stop making so many decisions.
Source: Robin Higgins/Pixabay Jerome Paniel/Octra BondOriginal
Research increasingly shows that humans are powered by a single, integrated, personal resource. Let’s call it your Personal Power Source. Your executive functioning (mental acuity, emotional intelligence, physical stamina and self-control) draws from, and thus depletes, your personal power source.
And what’s the biggest drain? Making decisions. Decision making is more exhausting than other types of thinking or reasoning, even when the decisions are small and inconsequential.
One team of researchers conducted a series of experiments about this very topic (Vohs, et al., 2018). Two groups interacted with products—one making product choices, the other studying and rating products without choosing. Immediately following this activity, the two groups were tested to see how long they could persist in doing something they didn’t want to do. In one case, participants held one arm in a bucket of ice water. In another, they pushed themselves to see how many small glasses of a healthy, yucky drink they could stand to consume. Shots of vinegar Tang. The non-choosers were big winners. Sixty-seven seconds in ice water versus just twenty-seven. Seven shots of tainted Tang verses just two.
Here are four things that highly-productive people do to limit small decisions and get the most out of their personal power source.
Don’t Make 365 Decisions When Just One Will Do
A strong daily routine maintained for a year means one decision, but 365 productive moments. Author Stephen King has mastered the daily repetition of a single decision (yes, including his birthday and Christmas). King takes a vitamin, turns music on, and sits in a particular chair until at least 2000 words appear.
Take Advantage of Your Morning Fresh Charge
Your personal power source is fully charged after a good night’s sleep. Many rockstar achievers plan to do their best work in the morning. Jim Collins, author of Good to Great, is a brilliant and high achieving business researcher and consultant who understands morning power. He often squeezes two mornings out of a single day. If he wakes up around 3am and can’t fall back to sleep, he gets up and works a bit. Morning number one. Goes back to bed for a few hours. Gets up. Morning number two. As he says, “Mornings are the best!”
Don’t Think, Just Eat
Ever feel tired and unproductive following a nice lunch? You thought it was the food, but part of it may have been the choosing. So complex. Calories, health, satiety and pleasure. Willpower, self-esteem, energy and comfort. Food choices are uniquely taxing upon our personal power source.article continues after advertisement
Save the culinary experiences for times when you don’t have to be at peak performance. Follow the lead of many high achievers (and successful dieters): choose a healthy and satisfying meal for peak performance days, and then eat and repeat. NBA super shooter Ray Allen ate chicken and rice at 2:30 pm before every evening game of his pro career.
Replenish Your Power Throughout the Day
Since executive functioning and productivity run off that limited personal power source, think about what you can to replenish your power throughout your day. Are their moments along the way when you can stop making decisions? Some people nap. Others stroll. Oprah enacts little rituals of celebration.
Oprah says, “[A] perfect day is not just one thing; it’s a series of small things. It’s the crisp air on your face when you open the door in the morning, the reflection of mountains and clouds in a crystal lake. It’s paying attention: What does the sky look like? Where’s the sun? When you’re walking down a path, how do your feet feel when they touch the grass? I have a great appreciation for the little things that add up to that big thing called a meaningful life.”
Cheers! Here’s to your great and meaningful life.
Jeff Thomas
Publisher • Opinion Columnist • Licensed General Contractor • Real Estate Appraiser • New Orleans
Jeff Thomas is the publisher of Black Source Media and one of New Orleans’ most direct voices on civic affairs, economic justice, and Louisiana politics. He writes from the intersection of experience and accountability — as a licensed general contractor,a tech company founder and executive with over 30 years experience, and a businessman who has worked across the city’s civic, media, and construction ecosystems for decades.
His Sunday column covers Louisiana legislative politics, insurance discrimination, housing policy, and the forces shaping Black community life in New Orleans and across the state. Thomas writes in the tradition of Black journalists who hold power accountable without apology — building arguments from data, delivering verdicts from evidence, and speaking to Black New Orleans with the directness the moment demands.
He is also the principal of EA Inspection Services, LLC, a government inspection services company. Black Source Media is his platform for the civic conversation New Orleans has needed and too rarely had.
Selected Articles by Jeff Thomas
Black Neighborhoods Pay the Highest Insurance Rates in Louisiana. Here’s What They Don’t Want You to Know.
They Didn’t Yell the N-Word. They Went to Law School, Bided Their Time, and Rewrote the Constitution Instead.
Vappie vs. Morrell: Why Does Justice Look Different in New Orleans?
The State Has the Money. New Orleans East Just Needs Them to Use It.
The Failure of Mitch Landrieu
Publisher — Black Source Media
Jeff Thomas
Publisher • Opinion Columnist • Licensed General Contractor • Real Estate Appraiser • New Orleans
Jeff Thomas is the publisher of Black Source Media and one of New Orleans’ most direct voices on civic affairs, economic justice, and Louisiana politics. He writes from the intersection of experience and accountability — as a licensed general contractor,a tech company founder and executive with over 30 years experience, and a businessman who has worked across the city’s civic, media, and construction ecosystems for decades.
His Sunday column covers Louisiana legislative politics, insurance discrimination, housing policy, and the forces shaping Black community life in New Orleans and across the state. Thomas writes in the tradition of Black journalists who hold power accountable without apology — building arguments from data, delivering verdicts from evidence, and speaking to Black New Orleans with the directness the moment demands.
He is also the principal of EA Inspection Services, LLC, a government inspection services company. Black Source Media is his platform for the civic conversation New Orleans has needed and too rarely had.
Selected Articles by Jeff Thomas
Black Neighborhoods Pay the Highest Insurance Rates in Louisiana. Here’s What They Don’t Want You to Know.
They Didn’t Yell the N-Word. They Went to Law School, Bided Their Time, and Rewrote the Constitution Instead.
Vappie vs. Morrell: Why Does Justice Look Different in New Orleans?
The State Has the Money. New Orleans East Just Needs Them to Use It.
The Failure of Mitch Landrieu