Productivity is not as simple as exercising willpower or working longer and harder.  Most of us are beginning to embrace the ideas of working smarter and aligning ourselves with our true passion.   But this is just the beginning.  This article introduces three powerful productivity hacks that will help you maximize productivity and live the lifestyle of your dreams.

1. Environment

Our mental, emotional, and physical context effect our thoughts, feelings and actions. Our immediate physical environment can result in us being healthy or unhealthy, productive or unproductive, energized or tired. Our environment has a significant influence on how we behave and who we become.

I spend all morning in a gym full of healthy people and am inspired even passively to be healthy and fit – herd mentality. After my last client in the afternoon, if I go home I am likely to eat too much and pass out. I take myself instead to a coffee shop with my laptop to empty my to-do list, clear my inbox and apply to engineering jobs.

2. Desire

We want things. Some things we are inspired to work for. Some things require denying ourselves. This is a conflict of desire – long term vs short term. When we are faced with the opportunity to indulge in a short-term pleasure, it is not willpower by which we restrain ourselves but by the recognition of its conflict with our greater goals. Whether you are conscious of it or not, it the stronger manifestation of your productive path than your indulgent moment which results in the self-restraint.

After I get out of work each afternoon, it sure would feel nice to eat and pass out. This won’t help me get to where I’d rather be in the long run. It doesn’t take much to recognize that I can avoid getting fat and being lazy and unproductive by taking myself to a coffee shop where the food is less appetizing and more expensive, there is a coffee buzz in my cup and the air, and I’m happily stuck with my laptop as my only distraction.

I skip the pastry shelf and stick to sandwiches. I get over my shyness and meet everyone at my table before retreating to headphones which lock me into my virtual productivity machine. I allowed myself to spend money on a new laptop because I expected the time and energy saved using this new tool to pay off ten fold. I allow moments of Facebook but stay conscious and cut them short as soon as I’m distracted by anything as useless as reviewing pictures from a party I missed. I unfollow friends that I’d like to stay in touch with but who insist on sharing their negative perspective or posting pictures of themselves wasted from the night before. But when I’m tired of applying to jobs, I give in and let myself code into the wee hours of the morning.

3. Choice

Every day we are faced with choices. Some are more important than others. Your boss cares more about you getting to work on time than whether you flossed last night. If you make good decisions at the grocery store then you alleviate the need to deny yourself every time you walk through your kitchen. If he asks you to marry him…

These are what I call potent moments.  They are relatively few and far between but they are the most important decisions you make. These decisions can be whether to get out of bed on time, talk to that stranger that has you intrigued, or accept his proposal.

One of the most difficult choices I face every day is when to wake up. My productive afternoons often digress into coding and web development until well past midnight. At 4:25 AM my alarm reminds me that I need to be at work and have 5 minutes to get on the road. Commitments to people are the only things that have ever gotten me out of bed in the morning – without them I’m liable to sleep until noon and feel cloudy all day. I know this about myself and so I intentionally book clients as early as 5:00 AM. Once I’m awake and at the gym for my client, I’m awake for the day riding my roller coaster of health and productivity.

Someday I’ll sleep.