HOW TO STAY PRODUCTIVE IN THE AFTERNOON - 7 STRATEGIES YOU MUST TRY

Energy is scarce and slowly decreases throughout the day. In the afternoon, we tend to have less energy than in the morning. That's why keeping creative time and highly focused type of work for the morning tends to be more productive on the long run for most people. Today, I'm going to share seven strategies to keep my energy and productivity high in the afternoon. Ready? C'est parti! Hey guys, I just wanted to grab your attention just for a quick sec. I want to share something that I'm so excited about. In January 2020, I'm starting my new online training program, The Time Flies Academy. If you are a busy corporate professional or corporate manager and you're working 50 to 60 hours a week and you are almost burning out and you never have time for the things that are truly important for you, like spending time with your family, working on a passion project or a side business or just simply taking care of your health and you wish you had a system to bring you back to 40 hours a week, then this training is for you. With the framework inside this program, you will be able to save 10 to 20 hours a week, which is almost a thousand hours in a year, which is more than a whole month back of your time. And this is where it gets really, really exciting. The first launch in January 2020 is going to be at a highly discounted price because that's going to be the first launch and that's a special price for the founding members. You definitely want to be a founding member. If this sounds interesting to you, just sign up for the waitlist. You have the link in the notes of this video or maybe in the link right here and see you there. You'll have much more information coming your way very soon. You'll be the first one to know. So without further ado, just come back to the video. Hey, bonjour YouTube. I'm Hugo and I help busy professionals be more productive and get back in control of their own time. If this sounds like you, consider subscribing to this channel for new content every week and finally get back in control of your time. You definitely want to be part of this community. At the time of recording, we are almost at 800 subscribers and three weeks ago, almost four weeks ago, we were just at 500. So can you imagine? So happy that you guys are trusting me with your time. Now, let's deep dive into my seven strategies to stay productive in the afternoon. First strategy is a prevention strategy and it's to take a lunch break and stay away from heavy lunches. It can sound very counterintuitive a little bit, but actually taking a break for lunch is good for your productivity. I say that because I'm French and in France, we tend to take an hour almost two hours for lunch not two hours every day and I see so many people here in the US working through lunch in front of their computers. I don't really like doing that. It happens sometimes. I'm only human but having a proper lunch break allows my body to renew my energy levels and also stay away from the junk food and refined carbs frozen foods and sweets that will keep you focused for a very short amount of time. So stay away from this food and so that you're going to stay focused and it will prevent your body from experiencing the famous post-lunch energy dip. Second tip that I have for you to sustain your energy level in the afternoon is to take a coffee right after lunch. I mean, I don't know if it's backed up by any study, but that's what I do. I love my coffee black plain and simple nothing added but there is something I would definitely love to try because I have heard so many good things about it. If you mix your coffee with fats like butter, coconut oil or cream fat helps caffeine to actually slowly drip into your system so that you can benefit from the energy coming from the caffeine a little bit more slowly and you avoid having this peak because of the caffeine and then having a crash. The third strategy that I have for you is to make a plan for everything that you want to do during the afternoon. If you don't have a plan for what you want to achieve, you will be unfocused scattered and more easily distracted. If you fail to plan you plan to fail and sometimes I also give myself a reward like if I finish all my tasks if I complete all of them, then I will give myself the permission to actually leave earlier that day and that's actually a very good transition for my fourth strategy, which is using the Pomodoro technique. I always use the Pomodoro technique for focused work 25 minutes of work followed by five minutes of break and I repeat this cycle four times before taking a longer break. This technique supported by a timer. I set on my phone allows me to be much more productive for deeper and intense work. If you want to know more about the Pomodoro technique, I made a video about this and if you want to do a full Pomodoro cycle with me studying or working with me for two hours, then you can check out this video. It's a video that I made so that we can be accountability partners you and me and we can study or work together. The fifth tip that I have for you is to take power naps. I only take power naps when my working environment allows me to do so. So, you know what a power nap is. You just take 20 minutes nap to quickly gain some energy back and this is the sweet spot that you need to have in order to have good amount of energy without feeling drowsy. So what I usually do is to set an alarm for 25 minutes to account for the time to fall asleep and do breathing exercise to make me fall asleep even quicker. If you cannot take a power nap, try to go to a quiet room and meditate for 5 to 10 minutes and that will do the job. And once again, it depends on your employer if you're at work and sometimes your employer doesn't allow you to take power naps. I had one of my former employers that allowed me to do so and that was just awesome. Whenever I was tired, I was going to the couch, take my power nap and then come back to work and be much more productive. So my next strategy that I use to be more productive in the afternoon and that's maybe the one that I'm using the most is to go to the gym for 20 minutes run on the treadmill and take a cold shower after. So it depends. Sometimes I'm going to go there around the lunch break or sometimes in the middle of the afternoon. As a result, I just feel completely energized and ready to tackle the rest of my day. It's sad because it can be a little bit too counterintuitive for employers to allow you to do that. But these 45 minutes from leaving my desk to coming back to my desk really allows me to tackle much more. But from the employer's perspective, if you really don't believe in re-energizing your own body, then you can feel like you lost 45 minutes of an employee's productivity. So it depends on the point of view. And my last strategy to be more productive in the afternoon is to take breaks every hour to move and to stay hydrated at all times. So it's basically when I'm not doing Pomodoro's, I'll try to take a five minutes break every hour to stand up, to walk, to go for a stretch, basically to get my blood flowing a little bit and then go back to work, preferably outside. And of course staying hydrated at all times help with my concentration and with my memory function. Do you have any other strategy that you want to share with me? These are my seven strategies that I'm using most of the time besides the one on the coffee mix with fat that I'm going to try very soon. But let me know about your techniques. I really want to try them and to see if they work with me. So if you have any, please let me know in the comment section below. Thank you for your time guys. It's been an amazing journey. Thank you for watching my videos on a weekly basis and being subscribers of this channel. If you're not subscribers yet, you know what to do or you can just stay hang out with me and watch more videos. Thank you. See you at la semaine prochaine. Au revoir.