Produce First

Choosing to Produce Before Consuming…

When you wake up, do you even think about what you do? Most people act on autopilot.

How many times have you woken up, then “quickly” checked your phone, then ended down a rat hole of email, news, Facebook, Reddit, YouTube, etc. ?

(These sites were made to have you keep consuming.)

The same thing probably happens when you sit at your desk with the intent to get some work done.

Next thing you know, you’ve wasted an hour (or way more) of your time with nothing to show for it. How does that make you feel?

When you consume first (and this is very easy to do), you cloud your mind with thoughts about random things that may not be top priority for you.

When this happens, you will feel as if life is outside of your control. And this is not a good feeling.

So what should you do instead?

• Get up early. No kids, no phones, no email, no social media, no video, no audio, not even books.
• Choose to make something.

This is very similar to the act of giving first. You might have noticed that it feels better to be the one that gave first.

Why would this make you feel better?

When you deliberately make a choice to wake up early and make something, when you make an effort to give, you are in control.

This is a different feeling you get when you consume (receive) other people’s content. The choice you make here is not as deliberate. When you give second, it feels more like an obligation than a choice.

Action steps

It may differ for you, but the general idea is to deliberately choose to do something —

At first it can be choosing to get up early than usual…

then you can choose not to look at distracting apps/websites

then you can choose to produce. (Take it one step at a time)

For me, the easiest thing to produce is writing. You might want to produce something else if writing isn’t your thing. But give it a go before you dismiss it.

Here are some ideas:

• What were some key ideas that stuck with you?
• What are your plans for your project?
• What is it that you are grateful for?

You can keep your thoughts private or publish them online — you’ve probably guessed that for me, it’s to use the Medium editor because I feel it keeps me very focused.

If you think writing is pointless and it isn’t worth your time, pretend that you are writing advice to make your parent’s/child’s/friend’s/a stranger’s life better. When you make something that will help someone else, that will make it all the more worthwhile.

Try it and let me know what happens.