A mental warm-up

“A warm-up” - is usually what you hear when it pertains to physical activity, but now think about how often you exercise every other part of yourself beyond the physical. How productive are you when you jump into work, schoolwork, or anything requiring critical thinking? Of course, you probably have to do it in those cases, so it gets done, right? The mental warm-up is intended to increase productivity, increase your time spent on self-care tasks on a smaller scale, and help you focus on the necessary task at hand.

If you do physical exercise often, you know how helpful a warmup is. According to the Mayo Clinic,

“Warming up helps prepare your body for aerobic activity. A warmup gradually revs up your cardiovascular system by raising your body temperature and increasing blood flow to your muscles. Warming up may also help reduce muscle soreness and lessen your risk of injury.”

A warm-up should not be strenuous, exhausting, or daunting. You can find mental exercises from your everyday life that could help you feel accomplished or creative. Using small tasks on your to-do list is one way of warming up. Contrary to other mental warm-ups, this one focuses on you, your attention span, interest level, and, most importantly, your productivity rather than warming up your brain for the challenge.

Take 15 minutes before a task on your to-do list that you dread doing or will require a lot of mental capacity, and use that time to do a smaller task. You're intentionally putting time in to accomplish more with the time you have.

Sometimes we get lost in an ‘internet spiral’ that serves no purpose. In reality, I sometimes like an ‘internet spiral’ where I am not thinking about anything. The key to this is not limiting yourself to a smaller task on your to-do list. You can think about tasks like calling to make an appointment, having an ‘internet spiral’ searching for tools for personal development or making a grocery list, etc. You can use something like an interest of yours to help get you in the mood for doing the larger task you need to accomplish, but it may also be beneficial to your time.

Perhaps you like creatively expressing yourself, like painting, drawing, or learning something new about a topic you're interested in. For example, I like to learn about coding and how to code. I used an app a while ago called Grasshopper that made it super easy to learn, but it was also fun. Set the timer for 15 minutes and see what I can learn in that time. Just imagine doing that at four random times throughout the day. Easily start to learn coding or whatever it is that may interest you.

The warm-up helps me balance my productivity by motivating me to finish stuff. I usually do one warm-up for a bulk of tasks, and depending upon the task, that will determine what type of warm-up I do. There are many methods to hack the productivity level madness, like the popular Pomodoro Technique or “Eat The Frog.”

Lastly, if you need a longer warmup, don’t forget that you’re doing something that requires physical or mental energy to prepare you to accomplish the bigger task. I’ve even gone to the point of doing a long warm-up, like cleaning up the house before I sit down and do work.

Now I know this may not be for everyone based on where you work or how you work. But if you have the opportunity to try the mental warm-up, please do! Come back and tell me how did it go.

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