How to Get Out of Productivity Ruts: Pits of Uselessness

We’ve all been there. I know I have. I still do to this day.

You’re in a rut. I’m talking about those mental ruts where you’re at the mercy of your phone, been scrolling through social media for hours, and your mind is numb.

These are the worst because personally, my mental mood becomes terrible when I have had an unproductive day — and these ruts are a major cause of it.

Usually what happens is, you end up feeling bad that this happened. And my insane heightened sense of self awareness actually makes it worse. Because what ends up happening is that this awareness makes me feel even worse. By this point, my mind is so numb and I go on a negative feedback loop.

When I’m deep in this pit, I want to get out. I really do.

So I am making this post, not only for you, but also for me. To be a constant reminder of what to do when I enter these moments of being deep in the Pit of Uselessness which is a term I am labelling this inevitable event.

First, I use this mantra:

My mind has to be stronger than my body.

This pumps me up. Sometimes it’s enough, but a lot of the times it also isn’t. This is really powerful because it reminds me that I have the power to change my state. This is a power I am usually not aware of if I leave my mind to subconsciously run by itself on autopilot.

STEP ONE: Use your body to control your mind

• Are you sitting on a comfortable position? Bad posture makes you feel even worse.
• Have you been eating well? Get a healthy snack to get you back on track.
• Light Exposure: Our light exposure has such a big effect on our well being. I highly recommend listening to the Huberman Podcast to understand this at a deep and practical level.

STEP TWO: Meditate

When my mind races, it’s usually because you have strengthened your 识神 (Shi Shen: Sensory Somatic Nervous System) instead of your 元神 (Yuan Shen: Automatic Nervous System). When you work really hard, your SSNS has become incredibly powerful and that might be why it is hard to sleep.

Meditation helps calm this part of your neural system down.

I understand this at a practical level. It’s something I have experienced myself, and need to do more of. I have always steered away from meditation because I thought it wastes my time. But I should constantly be reminded that the net gain I get in time and productivity is actually positive when I adopt this as a habitual practice.

Mediation can take many forms. My one of choice is Qi meditation, but there are different forms too like Yoginidra Scripts. The point is that these help you achieve a state of complete relaxation and turn off your thinking. Huberman also recommends Sleep Hypnosis Scripts.

Dealing with the Sunk Cost

Sunk Costs refer to things that have already sunk. When making decisions in the present, often times the bad things that have already happened but we cannot change lead us to make even worse decisions.

Just as in the economics sense, when I am in a Pits of Uselessness session, feeling bad about it makes me want to rest and just crumple in depression.

What’s the right way to deal with this?

I have to accept that this happens. Be kind to myself.

It is okay to take time to calm down and meditate, even listen to some music. But make sure to truly end the mind numbing stimulus like social media and move far away from it: it’s poison.

Don’t feel bad and move on. Easier said than done, but just be reminded that this is the most logical thing to do and over the long run, the time saved remembering this mantra of “Your mind has to be stronger than your body” will add up.

Make Your Next Step as Simple as Possible

Keep a running list of tasks that would be really productive if you did it, and are specially built for times where you are mind numb. It’s for those times you don’t know what to do and will figure it out, but currently you need to do something productive.

Having this running list of micro tasks that I make as simple and specific as I can contributes greatly to my macro progress.

That’s a wrap for now. I will continually update this post as I learn more and more, I want it to be a living and breathing place where I add on to it as I try more things and have more success with it too. This post will improve and be iterated upon as time goes on.

On a side note, when my mind is on overdrive, I write. It could be here on Medium or privately. It helps a lot to have my thoughts down somewhere. When it’s written down, I have more ownership of the thought and it can be developed at a deeper level. This article is the result of a 1:40am session, where before I was literally in a pit of uselessness.

Feel free to comment how you fight your Pit of Uselessness.