A life that prioritizes purpose over pleasure is a life all of us should aim to achieve. While pleasure may be necessary to lead a satisfying life, pleasure being the sole aim of life—in other words, hedonism—may lead to an unsatisfying life as we tend to grow tired of pleasures pretty fast.

But we don’t grow tired of purposeful work, and even when we do so, taking a break and clearing some steam is bound to bring us back with energy.

And the main issue most of us face with a purposeful life is productivity. How can we be more productive? How can we stop procrastinating? How can we give our best every day?

All of us are seeking such effective principles and methods to achieve a life full of purpose and to achieve that purpose on time.

These are the principles that help me do my best work, and even though I’m not disciplined enough to follow them to the letter, I believe this is the recipe for a productive life. I’m writing them down to remind myself what they are, and if possible, help someone else.

I try my best every day to maximize the hours in the morning spent doing the hardest work. Everything that requires the peak of my attention has to be done during this time, or I’ll find it incredibly hard to get started later in the day. Most of the days, I won’t even get to it if I miss the morning.

Our minds are the clearest and freshest in the morning; we are full of energy, it’s quiet, the sun’s just rising, the temperature is often ideal, and the stomach is empty—little work for the body.

To put it clearer, both your mind and body have little to do in the morning compared to the afternoon and evening, and hence can provide the optimum concentration to focus on your work.

Yes, you need to do your hardest task in the morning, but it’s best to get into a flow before doing so. And that’s where starting small comes in. You do something related to the task at hand, but easier, before getting to it. This helps you reach the incredible flow state—a state of being able to do your task smoothly and mechanically.

Any sportsman will tell you how crucial it is to warm up before practice. Not only does it help prevent injuries, but it also helps you get into a flow and gain confidence.

And this applies to anything you’re doing, as flow state is universal, and confidence is essential.

For example: if you’re studying for an exam, you start with easy problems (possibly those you’ve already solved). If you’re writing an article, you can write a section that’s easier to write, or go through what you’ve already written to refresh your mind.

Something to warm you up: tell yourself that you’ve got it.

Why do we often ignore that and get cramped? If the first thing we’re doing in the morning is making us feel less confident and troubled, you can bet the rest of the day is not going to get any better.

Every day is a marathon. Don’t ruin it trying to run a sprint first thing in the morning.

Finishing work is great, but too often we finish things in a way we can’t easily get back to. Ernest Hemingway made me realize this when he spoke of his daily routine in his memoir, A Moveable Feast:

For writers, this takes away the terrifying blank page. For others, it takes away slow starts and ensures a smooth transition. If you try to eat the frog in the morning like me, you can get to it without procrastinating.

Sometimes I’m so fresh and eager to work in the morning that I’ll invest more than five hours before noon itself. But despite that hyper-productive run, I'll spend the rest of the day fighting myself to get back to work.

I would come to my desk, sit down, stare at the screen, and walk away. My mind would refuse to read more than a sentence.

Smart work? Absolutely not.

The days I worked more effectively looked like this instead: a few hours in the morning, fewer hours in the afternoon, and some hours in the evening and night. At the end of the day I felt prouder of myself and less stressed than the day I did a lot of work but also a lot of procrastinating.

Working in blocks, spread out, and with meaningful breaks in between, has been the best way to not only get good work done, but also keep myself confident.

One of the main reasons we hate ourselves and call ourselves “unproductive,” “slackers,” and other negative terms you can think of is because we take meaningless, long breaks that ruin the day.

This is because you “fall into” a break, not “take a” break.

Note the difference?

When you “take a” break, you plan what to do in the little time that will help remove some friction and clear the air. You willingly come back to work after a short period of time and work with more efficiency.

When you “fall into” a break, you unwillingly and unknowingly do something instead of working, i.e., procrastinate, and even if it was a good time, you feel horrible about it afterwards. You don’t feel like getting back to work because you hate yourself. You call yourself a loser who wastes time, and waste more time doing it.

This is why it’s important to plan your breaks and do something meaningful in them.

And when I talk about meaningful, I absolutely do not mean scrolling through short videos. They give you way too much dopamine and make it difficult to fall back to “boring” things like work and studying.

Read a chapter of a book, write a section of an article, play a simple game, a game of chess, take a walk; these are some kinds of breaks that will clear your mind but not spoil it.

In today’s world, on top of constantly seeking stimulation, we are seeking somebody else’s validation all the time. Everything we do, we need somebody else to accept, relate to, or approve of. We share our entire lives on the internet, for that matter, and when people don’t notice it, we think we are failures, that our lives have no meaning.

In the end, we feel upset for not getting fake confidence. And I call it fake confidence because we are trying to feel better about ourselves by sharing our highlight reels with the world.

Why can’t we feel confident about ourselves on our own?

In fact, those who have the self-control to celebrate on their own are the most confident. They don’t need others to vouch for them, and they can fight their battles on their own.

While it is important to share your troubles with others to relieve stress, it is important not to fall into the habit of over-sharing, which makes you talk more and more negatively about yourself. This not only ruins your self-confidence and self-esteem, but also makes you a burden to others.

Learning to accept things as they are without others’ approval also helps you lead a more grateful life.

Successful, productive people are not born productive. Neither are happy people. 

They have habits and principles for life that keep them productive, happy, and grateful for life. By adopting some of those principles and changing our mindset, we can also try and lead a more productive, gratifying life. 

Principles like doing your best work in the morning, leaving some work for the next day, working in blocks, taking meaningful breaks, and keeping things to yourself are only some of the principles that were outlined in this article to lead such a life. 

Keep researching, experimenting, and decide what allows you to do your best work.

Everyone works in different ways, after all.