Here’s My Counterproductive Ways to Improve Productivity: A Radical Approach

The moment I decided to remove clutter in my life, things began to change.

Author’s note #1:

If you like to read more of my soulful writing and practice your writing superpowers with exercises like these, I have more in my new book, Essentialism in Self-Publishing, which is now available for a special presale price of $0.99 until August 30, 2024 (official book release date).

It is only available in EPUB version.

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Author’s note #2:

Starting this month, I’ll release more paid content in my newsletter to help me continue writing quality, soulful content and support my creative brain.

Paid content includes in-depth personal stories and early video releases (without ads) now. In the future, I plan to add LIVE author Q&A sessions via Zoom and author Behind-The-Scenes (BTS), where you can interact with me while teaching you lessons to help you move forward with your life positively.

Even if you aren’t a writer, my writing exercises can benefit you soulfully through the downloadable worksheets you receive. The LIVE sessions and my videos aren’t solely focused on writing. I’m talking about life and other things that interest me a lot.

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The moment I decided to remove clutter in my life, things began to change. From personal to professional lives, I hadn’t skipped anything, re-evaluating my beliefs, knowing which ones were mine and weren’t.

When I fail, I don’t beat myself up for being unable sometimes. I don’t berate myself for disappointing more and more people simply because I have begun to love and respect myself in a way I hadn’t done before.

But that wasn’t the case in the past because I was once the type who followed strict, rigid routines, thinking that doing a lot meant accomplishment. It felt great when I ticked those boxes on my to-do list.

However, what I hadn’t realized was that underneath the desire to be at the top was a volatile energy vampire in the making, wearing a fragile ego.

Underneath the mask of a successful woman was a crying girl, screaming for parents’ love and attention and her heart’s release.

Underneath my seemingly controlled life, I didn’t have control in my life. Learned helplessness was a big thing. My life decisions were already prepared years before I could even think about it. There was no space for me to ask, “What do I actually want?”

As a bonafide overachiever, having more accomplishments meant a lot to me. It was a source of power that fueled my drive to achieve anything and everything. My ego was heavily tied to external validation as if it were the air I breathed. I wasn’t content with myself, telling how proud I was.

Because I couldn’t. I wasn't brazen enough to tell myself I did it. My way.

Because I knew it wasn’t my dream after all. It was theirs. Not mine.

Guess what? I spent 16 years at school and an additional 14 years to prove my worth and to show to them that I, too, deserved some love and attention; while throwing my life away in the process.

After university, I was paralyzed. Stunned by the fact I realized I didn’t actually know what I want. Not knowing what to do next. Fear has embraced me tightly ever since.

Oddly enough, this fear inspired me to write my first novella, “My Name is Pepper,” which centers around Leslie’s fear of her next chapter, entering adult life.

About Essentialism

It wasn’t until I read Greg McKeown’s work a few years ago that I learned the first Essentialist philosophy. Funny. If you think about it, how could I ever think of the essentials in my life if I couldn’t even give myself the very basic thing: love?

Though married and in the middle of a four-figure writing business, I was high as fuck, surrounded by other loud junkies underneath the sea of loud, banging bases out of loudspeakers that were half my size.

I’m 152 cm. I know it doesn’t sound relevant to say that here. Just saying that I’m small—I mean cute—but I’m proud of it. Because despite my size, I have big dreams. Twice bigger than those tall Germans around me. If not more.

At times, expressing those dreams was too much to handle. Most people weren’t prepared for such a weight of burden. Too early for breakfast, as they said.

Yet, oddly enough, the loud base didn’t affect me despite being highly sensitive. As if the base was calm I needed to alleviate the pain I felt of losing those dreams day by day.

Of course, I knew how to achieve those dreams. I understood that I needed to change something. A habit or a mindset. Whatever. Whatever it was I thought I needed to start and finally move forward to a place where I belong. To the paradise I’d already seen behind my eyelids a long time ago.

But at that time, I wasn’t ready to accept such a chance. My soul was guilt-stricken, couldn’t move an inch to the dream fictive life I once imagined. Too afraid to speak my heart, to be disliked, to disappoint people.

In my mind, I was convinced I would be forever trapped in this cycle of chase: forcing myself to make myself available to everyone, to write as many articles as possible to earn and pay the bills on time to please bosses and clients while, at the same time, forgetting those daydreams and fantasies with drugs and alcohol and, of course, work. Just work.

I’m a writer anyway. That’s my job, right? To write?

So I shouldn’t be feeling this way, right? Tell me.

“I should enjoy it,” I told myself, holding a bottle of wine. Drunk as hell.

Clearly, at that time, I wasn’t enjoying it. The fun had vanished, just as I wrote in the book wherein I said,

“Everyone’s eyes were on me because I was an achiever who later became this desperate high school teacher who had left her professional job for a year. So, the social pressure fueled that drive to prove myself and the weight of my decision through writing. An alibi I could say whenever family and friends asked me about my job.

My writing was not something I could play with, having fun with it like a child. With my well-inflated ego, I couldn’t bear the failure of becoming a fool, so I chose to shape my career to fulfill everyone’s expectations.”

— Excerpt, Chapter 2, Essentialism in Self-Publishing

“Essentialism allows you to prioritize and weigh different options while being grounded and self-aware and focusing on the things and activities that truly matter to you,” I wrote in my upcoming book, Essentialism in Self-Publishing, wherein I spoke a lot about how this philosophy saved my life. Click here to read a sample.

It is based on Greg’s radical philosophy, popularized in his book, Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less, which encourages you to remove as many unnecessary plans, commitments, and projects to make significant results.

“Even if it means embracing the feeling of being disliked. Even if it means losing people who didn’t actually understand who you are and what you truly want.”

(— Excerpt, Chapter 2: Setting Clear Goals)

That meant establishing a radical approach in my life, setting it as a foundation of my structure. A solid, concrete structure to follow that allows me to propel toward the goals I’ve set as a writer. To improve my productivity level and be able to finish my manuscripts instead of leaving them behind the dusty shelves (just as I once did).

It was hard. And still hard.

Until now, I’m in the middle of practice, patiently retraining my system with a new dynamic I taught myself using the Essentialist 4 fundamental principles, such as: