Ever since the pandemic began, I have read quite a lot of productivity and self-help books. And while most of them have different approaches to different subjects, a lot of the time, there are a few things that they say repeatedly; a few things that, judging from how many books repeat the same thing, are almost more than essential for success in life.

Certain essentials like these are: 

1. Planning of one’s days, which is something that I am proud to say I am getting more and more consistent with, 

2. Waking up on time to do certain routines, which is one topic that is a bit controversial in the self-help world, but that would be a topic for another day, 

3. Being organized and 

4. Being accountable, most preferably to an accountability partner.

Now, I have to say, some of the authors that talk about this aspect of productivity; in fact, a good number of them, are very vague when they come to this subject area, in the sense that you never really can tell, even though this is something that they advise readers to do, that they do this. But I will get to that later.

So, in essence, what or who is an accountability partner? 

This is someone who keeps you on track of your goals; and who you give an account of how far you have gone with the goals that you have set out for yourself whether on a daily, weekly, or a monthly basis. He or she is also someone who sometimes m has the power to dish out some form of punishment if you fail to accomplish the tasks that you have set out for yourself.

The reason why having an accountability partner is so popular amongst productivity experts can be perfectly captured in this statement given by Simon Sinek in an interview on ‘Capture Your Flag’:

“…as social animals, we feel the responsibility to each other… you can wake up in the morning and always come up with an excuse why you should not go for a run today, always. Sometimes I am good at it, sometimes I am not, but when I have a running buddy and they’re waiting for me, I don’t want to let them down, I don’t want to ruin their run… so the whole point of having other people invested in whatever work you’re doing means that you’re more likely to do it not because of you, but because you do not want to let them down…”

Productivity Youtuber Hafu Go in one of his videos titled: ‘How this morning routine changed my life’, shows a practical way in which one can function with the help of an accountability partner. According to him, every morning, by 8:30 am, he has an accountability call. This means that he places a call to his accountability partner, and then they tell each other all that they plan to do for the day.

According to him, if he is late or misses the call, he has to pay a hundred dollars to his accountability partner. The same goes for the partner as well. Also, he says that at the end of the day, they also place another call to each other to check whether they accomplished all that they had set for the day.

In his book, ‘Atomic Habits’, James Clear provides yet another version of how one can use an accountability partner to sustain habits that one wishes to build. He makes mention of something called a Habit Contract which; according to him, is a verbal or written agreement in which one states one’s commitment to a particular habit and the punishment that will occur if one does not follow through. Then one can proceed to find other people to act as one’s accountability partners and sign off on the contract too.

He also provides his view on why having an accountability partner is great for success. According to him, we are always trying to present our best selves to the world. We care about the opinions of those around us because it helps if others like us. This is precisely why getting an accountability partner or signing a habit contract can work out so well.

Of course, if I begin to give details of all the productivity gurus in the world and what they have to say about keeping accountability partners, I will never be able to finish this book. The logic of having one is simple. It is easy to let ourselves down; too easy, at times, as I can tell from experience. But when you have someone or a set of people who hold you in some regard, it becomes difficult to let them down, unless you belong to that very rare group of people who do not give a care in the world what other people think about them. The idea is a very nice one, and it can be great for one’s productivity if one can get a committed accountability partner.

But the question and one that I have seen no one address is; how plausible is it to have a committed accountability partner? How possible is it for every person who wants to grow to have someone to call twice a day to tell what the person wants to do and how the person plans to do so and then give a report as to whether the person did so?

It is not, unfortunately. Even in one’s closest group of friends, it is difficult to have a person with the same plans as one has, and that is willing to develop this habit of always being accountable to the other person and vice versa.

And this is not just an opinion, it is an objective fact. In an ideal world, every person will find it easy to get another person to grow together with, but for some people, probably even most, this is not the case.

At first, I thought that I was the only one who was finding it difficult to find an accountability partner. I had tried telling some people, including family members and friends, of my need to have an accountability partner, but no one was really in for it. And I thought that I was the only one with this dilemma. 

But then, in every video that I watched that had something to do with accountability and the importance of having an accountability partner, I noticed that there were a lot of people in the comments section who seemed as perplexed as I was on how to find an accountability partner. Even amongst the few people that I had in my Whatsapp contact list, I saw a bunch of people who were practically begging for people to be their accountability partners on their statuses.

Clearly, I was not the only one that was having problems with this area of productivity, and the fact that I could not find any to assist me was telling on my productivity as being committed to a particular habit that I wished to perfect was something that I found increasingly difficult to do.

But then, one day, after finding out that there was one of my friends that had somewhat of an accountability partner and then asking the person to be mine, only to receive an unenthusiastic response, I began to wonder, was the traditional, literal meaning of an accountability partner the only way to get myself to be accountable?

 Surely, there had to be another way, surely I could not be doomed just because I could not get that one person that was willing to watch over my life for me and make sure that I was doing all that I needed to. Of course, if I could get such a person, my life would be great, but did the fact that such a person was unavailable mean that I was just going to give up on accountability all together?

But then, after some thinking and praying, I began to receive some divine insights. And then I realized something, I was taking this accountability partner thing a bit too literally. An accountability partner did not have to be one person, it could be a bunch of people for different sorts of habits that you may want to work on. It could be a team, a club, a checkmark drawn across a calendar each day, or an app that tracks the days that you do a particular thing. An accountability partner could be any group of people or anything. The point is that it had to suit my goals and be the push that I needed to achieve the things that I needed to achieve.

Going a little further on the interview that was given to Simon Sinek, when the interviewer asked him who his accountability partner was, I expected him to mention the name of some guy that he had that kept tabs on him, just like the Youtuber had, but then he gave this reply.

“I have my team. I have the people who have taken bets on me and risks on me, anybody who says I believe in you and they just leave me to go do it… my publisher says, see you in a year, and well, I have to give him something really good to prove to him that it was worth it.”

These were his words. He did not say, “Yeah, well, I have my friend Jimmy over here. He has been the person that I have been talking to twice a day for the past five years, and the fact that I communicate with him is the reason that I am as successful as I am today.” All he did were list a bunch of people that he worked with, calling his team and his publisher as his accountability partners, and then mentioned a very vague group of people, who I do not know where to categorize into. He did not have the sort of accountability partner that I had been looking for, and he had managed to be as successful as he is today.

I had been going about the wrong way in my search for an accountability partner for a very long time.

THE USE OF DEVICES FOR ACCOUNTABILITY

Even before my eyes were open to understanding that there were several things that were actually serving the purpose of being accountability partners; there were a lot of apps that served the purpose for me. Of course, the one thing with apps is that they can never really be substituted with humans, as you can decide to close your eyes and delete an app every time that it got on your nerves, or ignore the open gaps on your phone’s calendar where you did not check off certain boxes that you should have checked off, indicating that you may have missed some days of a habit.

But one thing that I have found is that if you put your mind to it; your apps could serve as your productivity partners. They have worked for me sometimes too, like during:

·        times in which I had downloaded exercise apps and was determined to finish the entire 90-day exercise programmes, not ending till I was done,

 

·        the periods that I have been determined to sustain the streaks on the Bible app on my phone,

 

 

·        and times in which I made sure that I reached the level of a champion on the app that tracked the amount of time that I spent on my phone, especially on unproductive apps, and almost completely cut off all of my social media as a result,

 

·        and that time that I used the study bunny app to ensure that I read for some hours every day- although I have moved from the app to Study YouTubers.

In fact, upon further research, I have found that there are productivity gurus that do not subscribe to the typical accountability partners I sought for and have found ways of keeping themselves accountable, ways that have been just as effective as having a person to report to.

They are:

1. Habit Tracking:

One of the ways that a lot of the productivity gurus use is a means or method that Cal Newport calls “the chain method” in his book, “Deep Work” and something that James Clear calls a “Habit Tracker” in his book, “Atomic Habits”.

This is a very simple way to keep yourself accountable and it works in a way that keeps you willing to go on when working towards a particular goal by ensuring that you do the hard but necessary things daily. This is how to make effective use of a habit tracker or a chain or a streak:

a)     You need to use either a calendar or a little book with gridlines.

The one to use depends on whether you want to track just one habit or many habits. If you want to track only a habit, like perhaps studying daily, I would suggest that getting a calendar and ticking off days that you read would be effective. But if you would like to track multiple habits, I suggest that a gridded book would do just the task for you. In that way, you can write the days of the week on one edge, the activities that you would like to do at the other end, and then tick off the days that you did each of the activities, ensuring that you leave the spaces on the days missed.

b)    Ensure that you limit the use of this to just a few tasks. As the author of Atomic Habits stated, it can get exhausting and demoralizing if you decided to track every single habit or activity that you do daily.

 

c)     If you do not think you would be able to make use of a book, your phone calendar can be effective for the same purpose.

The benefit of using your phone is that it drops notifications informing you of tasks that you have set out to perform and all that you would have to do is to click a button if you have accomplished that task. If you feel that the use of a book would be too exhausting, make use of this. But if you are like me and hate the sound of notifications and have put your devices in the do not disturb mode for years now, this might not quite be the choice that you should go for.

And that is it; it is as simple as that.

Now, during school days, I make use of a gridded notebook to track just a singular habit, the amount of time that I spend reading, using the grids to track hours spent. It is easy for me to keep track of this because a lot of the time, I make use of the 50/10 Pomodoro technique used by study Youtubers and I can just tick or shade after an hour has passed.

 

2. The Progress Journal:

There is another way to use a book and a paper as an accountability partner, and I have to confess, that while this may work for you, it has not been much of a help for me.

It is something known as a Progress Journal. Now, this is not just writing about the goals that you were able to accomplish as most people use the Progress journal for, but according to Cal Newport in his book, “How to Win at College”, the optimal use of the Progress Journal is to list both what you set out to accomplish for the day at the beginning of the day, and then at the end of the day, record those activities that you were able to accomplish. 

The idea behind recording any discrepancies between the work that you set out to accomplish and the work that you actually accomplished is that the thought of having to record in your journal that you accomplished none of the work that you scheduled for the day should be enough to motivate you to do the work that you are expected to do. After all, the fact that it is written down makes it permanent in a sense and no one wants a permanent record of their temporary laziness.

Now, I prefer ticking work accomplished rather than having to use a work progress journal but if you think that this is just what you need, then get onto it. 

But, again, you cannot replace the effect that people have by the use of paper or apps on your phone. As I said before, it is easier to give up on using paper or pen whenever you want but with people, it is far more difficult.

REPLACEMENTS TO THE TYPICAL ACCOUNTABILITY PARTNER

But as I said earlier, having the ideal accountability partner is just not idealistic for most people. So, how do you get the people element required for you to get work done?

Now, this is one that has been giving me quite a headache, but I think that in some activities, I have finally cracked the code.

Take reading for instance. I love reading, but I prefer novels to productivity or spiritual books, although I have read tons of productivity books. I can sacrifice hours of my days to finish a series of books but with self-help books, I tend to be very relaxed, can get bored sometimes, and tend to take my time. Even more important is the fact that because reading productivity and educational books are not something that a person tends to do on autopilot, I needed to have to exert myself to choose those books instead of the novels that I loved reading. After I noticed that the time I spent on the books I needed to read was depreciating, I decided that I needed a way to sort of compel myself to read at least a book a month, jot down what I had read, and then review the book so that the contents stick to my mind. 

After wondering how to go about that for a while, the Holy Spirit dropped exactly what I needed to my mind. Of course, an online book club!

So, due to the fact that I had received the divine instruction to begin the book club in the fellowship in which I am an executive, I started with it. And one thing that I have noticed ever since I started with the book club is that whilst not every member of the club is as active as I would want all of them to be; because I am the one that manages the club, I am compelled by the forces of not wanting to appear as the most irresponsible and incompetent leader ever, to finish the books and jot down all that I need to talk on before I begin to ask other members if they have also done the same. By creating a group of people, sort of a family, and being the one acting as the leader over them, I have no other choice but to do the needed, not only because of the benefits that reading the books would bring to my life, but because I do not wish to appear incompetent and undisciplined to others.

Again, I have noticed that my spiritual life has had a boost ever since I have become an executive of a fellowship. Not only have I taken on new consecrations, but I am actively working towards building my faith because I understand that I am a leader and I do not want to fail in that regard. Therefore, even on days of weariness, I find myself pushing as much as I can to do the things that I know would boost me spiritually. 

I think that this should be called the power of belonging in a group or a team of people with like interests. Why have only one person to give you the peer pressure that you need to grow when you can have a group of people to do the same thing for you?

HOW TO GET AN ACCOUNTABILITY TEAM

Getting a group of people to serve the purposes of an accountability partner works in different ways.

1.     Groups and Communities: 

 One of such for students is a study group. I do not belong in any formal study groups back at school because I have not taken that to be a priority for me- I mean, the fact that I need to maintain my CGPA is enough motivation for me to ensure that I do the necessary reading, but I believe that it is also a means of getting the accountability you need if the fear of exams does not do it for you.

2.     Online Communities: 

T

 This is also an effective substitute to the physical ones. For instance, if you love to exercise, joining a group chat in which all the participants are expected to report on their exercise regime can do it for you. There are several communities that are available for all sorts of habits and if you only take the time to look, you will find one that suits your needs.

3.     Social media influencing: 

There is another way to do this, an even broader way. But sadly, this does not apply to everybody. If you are like me and you are invisible in the world of social media, this may not be ideal for you.

But if you are, then I know of a woman who makes use of social media to keep herself accountable as she tries to get fit. The rule for this is simple. If you have a reasonably large following, and you promise them that you are going to do a particular thing daily, then that is all the motivation that you need to do that thing daily and announce it to your followers. Any day that you miss doing that particular thing, it will not be a secret that you can just keep to yourself, but you can be assured that the entirety of your followers would be aware of that. And if you think that your self-criticism is bad, wait till you promise to stop doing something to your reasonably large followers, only to end up coming the next day to your followers to tell them that you slid back to your toxic habits. 

There are a lot of YouTubers and influencers that do this, using the fact that they have a large following of people who may sometimes, not be so caring when they feel that they deserve to be frank to the person, to ensure that they keep tabs on what they are expected to do.

One of the most extreme versions of this is when the people not only announce that they have performed a particular habit but actually film themselves doing the said habit.

I think that this is the point in which I do a little introduction to the people that have completely altered how I viewed the limits on human energy and have transformed the way that I used to view reading; Study with Me live streamers.

These are the set of people that, because they have an obligation to the people watching them, have actually dedicated their time to streaming themselves reading long stretches of time at a day, and hence achieving their academic goals. We have people like Heleen of Study Vibes, Ari Horesh, A Studies, and James Scholz- who managed to read 12 hours a day for an entire year- think about that for a hot minute. 

As Heleen once confessed in one of her videos, she is fully aware of the fact that without the channel, she would not be reading as much as she does currently. Of course, this is a scary concept even for me, but you have to admit, if you can pull it off, there is no better way to push yourself to do the needful for your life.

When I am talking about social media, this will also be mentioned as a great way to show the world that social media is not just a toxic platform where Gen Z’s go to let the last of their brain cells die, compare themselves to others and quarrel over irrelevant topics.

Even if you have a small following, if you think that this is the way to let yourself get on track with your habits, then get on with it.

I had this in mind when I decided to start this online diary. Having promised that I will be releasing a personal growth diary at least once a week, this is enough to ensure that I grow and study books on what I need to do to help me grow.

Now, we individuals are fickle-minded and find it difficult to stick to habits on days that we lack motivation. But if you can find your way to keep yourself accountable, whether it is through the traditional way or some innovative way that you have thought out for yourself, it is a great way of ensuring that you do the needful and move forward in life.

Now, before I end this long piece of prose; before you go about to start looking for a mere man to be an accountability partner for you, let the Holy Spirit be your accountability partner, especially when it comes to the spiritual things. If you are sensitive enough to pay attention to his thin, small voice, you will notice that he is constantly ever ready to push us to do the things that we are expected to do, things that we need to work on, not just to edify ourselves, but also God in heaven.

REFERENCES

1.     Atomic Habits by James Clear.

2.     Deep Work by Cal Newport.

3.     How to Win at College by Cal Newport.

4.     Simon Sinek on How Accountability Partners Keep You Committed: https://youtu.be/qd10-f9bzu0.

5.     How this morning routine (quickly) improved my life: https://youtu.be/Aj-LeB3ioGw.

 

 

 

In every human brain, we have what is known as the limbic system, a system, which, according to Chris Bailey in his book, “The Productivity Project”, is the emotional, instinctual part of your brain that includes, amongst other things, our pleasure centres and pushes us to give in to emotions and temptations. It is the limbic system that pushes us to spend hours on social media or television, even with the awareness that there is something important that we need to do. It pushes us to procrastinate, to wait till the very last minute before we begin to engage in tasks. It makes us go to parties, indulge in food, and so on.

The limbic system is only interested in the activities that are deemed as pleasant to us at the moment. It does not consider the future or any other thing other than our present comfort.

In contrast to this is a part of the brain known as the prefrontal cortex, which is the logical part of our brain that pushes us to do certain things that result in our productivity and development. It is the part of our brains that plans, calculates, and makes decisions. It innovates and finds solutions for problematic situations and is located in the front of our heads. It is also the core of creative thinking and innovation, which is what is responsible for our plans on how we can improve any aspect of our lives. The thoughts that occur inside our prefrontal cortexes ultimately define who we are as individuals.

It requires discipline for us to allow the prefrontal cortex to lead us and guide our decisions, for most of the time, giving in to it means letting ourselves do the hard things, the things that most of the time, we would rather not do.

And these two systems undergo a series of battles every single day with every single action or decision that we take, with the limbic system pushing us to relax and cave in to our desires and cravings and the prefrontal cortex trying to push us into making the right and logical decisions. The constant struggle for dominance between the emotional limbic system and the logical prefrontal cortex is what guides the decisions that we make throughout the day. It is also what makes us human. 

With every decision that we take, one of these systems takes dominance over the other. When we choose to move to the next episode of a movie instead of studying, that is the limbic system taking over. But when we decide to wake up early despite the urge to ignore the alarm; that is the work of the prefrontal cortex.

 But there is no way that one of the systems can be in control for the entirety of a person’s life. No matter how productive we wish to be, there are times in which a system takes dominance over the other and vice versa. The only difference is this, when we let the prefrontal cortex take control more often, we tend to be more successful than those that let the limbic system take control more often.

The major key to productivity boils down to this. Most of the time, we know what we ought to do to be successful, and whilst it is good to read development books, it is not that much of a necessity per se to make a person know that the person has to study to be successful or work hard to earn more. What I believe self-help books do is provide some sort of easier way to get these things done, and provide proven steps to make it easier for people to give in to the demands of the prefrontal cortex.

However, the problem is that the prefrontal cortex is a lot weaker than the limbic system. If we are not actively thinking at any given moment, the limbic system will dominate over the prefrontal cortex, and we will start a mental journey towards comfort. In fact, engaging ourselves with constructive and creative thinking in general, is hard work.

Hence, the limbic system, most of the time, has a stronger hold on people than the prefrontal cortex. This is because it is easier, mind-numbing, to do some of the easier things that it craves, easier to slip in and let loose, to work on autopilot, than to perform the sorts of tasks that are demanded by the prefrontal cortex.

The limbic system in the brain is also what I believe contains what is biblically known as ‘The Flesh’, which is what we Christians know as what pushes us to do sinful actions such as sexual immorality, impurity, debauchery, hatred, discord, jealousy, rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, etc. Now, whilst not all aspects of the limbic system or activities associated with it can be said to be sinful, our sinful actions with regard to others do involve the limbic system when they manifest our lack of self-control over the urges of the limbic system. Now, do not get this wrong, the drives targeted towards our present comfort, which is what is associated with the limbic system, are not wrong, but what is wrong is when, as a result of these drives, we perform sinful actions. 

Hence, whilst procrastinating or deciding to take a well-deserved break or a vacation, all actions that are associated with the limbic system, are not sinful in and of themselves, adultery, committed because we do not properly control our sexual desires or false testimony, given out of either fear or anger by a person who chooses to lie and feel good rather than accept the consequences of speaking truthfully are sinful actions which can be associated with the limbic system. 

We all have found ourselves in a lot of situations in which the limbic system has taken control of our brains for hours or even days at a stretch, and as long as we are not sinning or halting ourselves spiritually (such as instances when our limbic systems prevent us from performing certain necessary spiritual activities or letting the limbic system prevent us from moving forward in life), I say that there is nothing wrong with loosening up and giving the gears to it every once in a while. If we used the logical part of the brain all of the time, we would never have fun or let go and do things that excite us because we would rather use that time to work and do activities that are deemed productive.

I have, as part of my productivity journey, been trying my best to do all that I can to make use of my prefrontal cortex more than my limbic system for most of my day, and that has boosted the amount of time that I spend in productive activities and drastically reduced the time that I spend doing things that my limbic system craves, like scrolling through social media or binging movies.

But there are times, though, that, though not in a sinful way, I let the limbic system take over completely. These usually occur during the beginning of every holiday or immediately after the exams, in which I take at least a week to do whatever it is that my heart craves, mostly binging books and movies, and I think, most of the time, that I have more than merited the break. 

But what I have realized is that more recently, I have begun to feel guilty whenever I take a break from my work, even when it is an inevitable break as a result of some social responsibilities.

For instance, this Easter break has been sort of frenzied for me, but not due to work. Not only did my uncle have a big ceremony that took an entire day, but we had guests come over to the house and for the time that they stayed, it was very rowdy. Also, as is routine during the Easter period, we had a lot of outing days, which I made sure I did not miss for the sake of work.

But that was not entirely the reason why I sort of relegated my work to the background, apart from those that I just had to do to get my monthly pay. Truth be told, I let my limbic system take the ride for almost the entirety of the three whole days of Easter, and for that period, not only did I not give any attention to my academics and very little attention to my writing, but I completely disrupted my sleep routine, sleeping and waking up late, even though I am an early riser, eating as much as I wanted, doing whatever it was that felt good at the moment, and generally having a really good time.

Of course, this is common for most people during the holiday season. I would say, as a bit of advice; that people should work intentionally towards having the time to take a big break and have some of the fun that they deserve. Life is short, after all, and not all of our time should be spent working.

But mine was not intentional at all. I did not plan to spend three days doing essentially nothing, it just happened and I took certain questionable decisions that led to it.

For instance, on the night before my three day period of letting the limbic system take gear, I was looking for books related to a particular mental illness that I wanted to know more about in my favourite online library when I stumbled upon a particular book that caught my interest because I remembered seeing such a cover before somewhere. Before getting the books that I needed, I decided that there was nothing wrong in downloading the book (which I later found out was the first book of a series), and then that night, I decided that there was nothing wrong in having a look at it. Let’s just say that I slept way past my usual time that night (which is one thing that I particularly regret, for it had its effects on my being able to find time to do the spiritual activities that I normally do first thing very early in the morning).

And then the next day, it was like that for me. I spent the entire day alternating between being a party usher and food server in my uncle’s ceremony and reading the book. It would have ended that day, but because it was a trilogy, I ended up craving knowledge of how the book ended and spending the remaining two days alternating between low-level work, outings, and the novels. I had a blast those days, even though there was a layer of guilt that I tried to ignore but that did not leave the back of my mind.

But the moment I dropped the novels, the guilt that I had been ignoring hit me like a whirlwind, and I spent a long time pondering on the things that I should have done, that I could have done during those periods that I spent wasting my time on the books. Of course, one of the things that really weighed on me was the fact that the books robbed me of my sleep schedule and hence, the special time that I used to carve out for myself, very early in the morning, for my spiritual activities. That, to me, was the sin of omission, as I had let myself sacrifice a special time that I should have used for the lord, shortening it, just to please my desires.

But then after asking the Lord for forgiveness, I decided to reflect and see whether I could get any life lessons from what had just happened to me. And there were quite a few that I gained from the experience.

1.     There is nothing wrong with planning a time to retreat and get some time off to relax, reflect and have fun. Ever since I started reading self-help books, I have come across a lot of honest authors proclaiming for a fact that they have had moments in which they have felt guilty about taking any breaks or having fun at all. Sometimes, they have claimed that their quests towards total productivity have made them engage in work until they burned out. I for one have heard people warn me a lot of times about the likelihood of my getting burned out due to overwork, and there is a part of me that feels like these three days of madness were a result of some form of burnout as I had been exerting myself for weeks before that point in time. So if you feel as though you deserve a break, by all means, plan the break, take that necessary break and have the time of your life. You will feel, and I can say this from experience, a lot more rejuvenated by the time you get back to work.

2.     Sometimes, your lack of self-control and ability to control the drives of your limbic system can be used by the devil as weapons against your spiritual growth: Although I did not fall into any of the above-listed sins, I did let my limbic system drive me towards choosing fun over a list of activities that I engaged in at night so that I could have some extra personal time with God. But for some of you, it may be that your limbic system pushes you to sin in order to satisfy your flesh and feel good. Remember that as Christians, no matter what, there is a level of self-control that is expected and required of us. The drives of the limbic system can come in form of temptations and overcome them, we need to develop healthy habits of thought (Romans 12:2) and shun thought patterns that cause us to dwell on, and subsequently, act on sinful desires. 

3.     Apart from times when you need rest and need to have some fun, caving in to the drives or desires of the limbic system for most of your days will always lead to negatives consequences: These can come in the form of sin, laziness, lack of productivity, procrastination, which either have negative consequences on our current lives or the life to come. Remember that no matter what it is that you feel, you need to find ways to subdue the limbic system so that you can achieve and fulfill your purpose in life.

 

Disregarding the limbic system can be very difficult. But it is destructive to give into it most of the time. Yes, having fun and placing yourself in a level of comfort and pleasure is good for our wellbeing, but in all, we should ensure that we practice moderation, something that I failed to do during that time. Never let the limbic system be what guides you throughout your days and be guarded against the periods of time when you begin to work on autopilot. Note that even when our limbic system conveys strong motivations to act in a particular way, we still have the ability and responsibility to think and act in a manner that pleases God. 

 

REFERENCES

1.     The Productivity Project by Chris Bailey

2.     Why Emotions Matter - The Limbic System vrs the Prefrontal Cortex by Helina Mellanen. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/why-emotions-matter-limbic-system-vrs-prefrontal-cortex-mellanen

3.     The Limbic System and Christian Sanctification by Tony Jelsma. https://inallthings.org/the-limbic-system-and-christian-sanctification/

 

 

 

 

So, one of the things that I have been trying to do quite recently is inculcating a lot of planning into my life. Over the years, even since I started my productivity journey, I have tried to plan my years, weeks, and days. I have also tried a lot of things to ensure that I stick to the plans that I make for myself, making use of sticky notes to write down the plans, flashcards, full physical journals, and even got a few pages off a journal that I saw online, geared specifically towards college students.

There was even a time that I put my academic plans as the home screen wallpaper on my phone, just to ensure that they were the first things that I saw the moment I set my eyes on, and during the period that I was making use of flashcards, since the clothes that I used to wear had no pockets, I found myself slipping them into the pouch of my phone so that I could walk around with them in hand, although sometimes, I ended up forgetting that they were even there, to begin with.

I have also tried to use fun names for my plans, like calling them plans of attack, implementation intentions, missions, goals, ‘what to do’ etc. I even made, to ensure that I did not slack off from my duties, a ‘not to do’ list, listing out things that I did not want to do in excess, like spending too much time on social media and the television and the likes.

Over the years, however, I have also discovered something about myself. I hate planning. Like, absolutely hate it. Most of the time, I have a rough sketch of a plan on what my day would be like but putting it on paper is a hassle for me. That may stem from the fact that I am dealing with the issue of overburdening myself with tasks that I do not end up being able to complete before the end of the day and then ending up feeling guilty about that fact. And as everyone may know, there is a clear difference between just feeling guilty over plans that were made in one’s mind and actually writing something down and having a reference as to how unproductive you have been.

Nevertheless, I usually try my best to write my plans early in the morning, which is what is advisable, of course. But the problem is, at that point, due to the fact that I am a morning person, I am rejuvenated, feel alive, and I have no idea of the vitiating factors that may come into my life, and that may end up resulting in my day being so warped that I would not be able to finish the tasks that I have set out for myself.

That has been a problem for me at this period of time. At this point, the federal universities in Nigeria are on strike and so I have left my private residence in school and I am back to staying with my parents. And if there is one thing that I can say, it is that it is so much easier to plan one’s day and stick to those plans when one is in school than when one is at home. In school, the timetable has already made your day pretty organized and all that is left is to chip in some more things that you would like to do in between or after the set structure of the school timetable. You also know what extracurriculars that you would be engaged in, and know almost exactly how your day would go. Your day going completely awry from what you have organized is something that happens very rarely.

But when at home, I wake up each morning, the day being a completely blank slate, having completely no idea what may pop in, what tasks I may be expected to do, what emergencies may pop in that may demand my time, and that tends to make me spend so much time planning the day, only to then end up at the end of the day, completely disoriented, and having no idea how time and things that came up managed to completely swallow up my time.

For instance, I came home yesterday after church planning to actually create a blog post. But the moment I stepped into the house, my mother decided that we had to engage in spring cleaning because it was almost Easter and that we would be having visitors coming very soon.

That was all that it took to completely mess up my day. By the time I was done with the cooking and the cleaning, it was late in the afternoon and I was feeling so exhausted that I went to the first bed I could find, lay my head on it, and had the longest siesta that I have had in a very long period of time. And then, by the time that I got up, I had an online meeting that I had to attend in the evening which I had to attend whilst both preparing another cooking and also doing another typing. I had no time at all to do any academic reading, read any of the self-help books that I usually try to read daily, and no time to even begin writing any blog post. So yeah, yesterday, I really did not accomplish much, although I have to say that the house is completely set for the Easter celebration that is to begin by Thursday.

Although I have to say that not all days are like that, there are a lot of days that tend to be like that for me at home. However, I have had glorious days, especially during the time when my siblings were at school, and I was not sent out to do anything, when I could spend all the time I wanted seating at my desk and doing all the work that I wish to. But when I have days like that, it really is a frustrating experience, and most of the time, the thought of the fact that there could be other things coming up that could potentially ruin all plans that I have set out for the day, is enough for me to lose all motivation that I have to even set out the time to plan it.

But, a lot of the time, I still force myself to do so, and there are a lot of reasons why I do that:

1. Have you ever had this feeling, when you wake up a fresh morning, only to realize that you had managed to be a day past the deadline of an essay competition that you have been researching and planning to write on, or that you had been planning to write an application to join a particular club or organization or some internship and you had just managed to miss the deadline for that? And then you end up feeling guilty and angered with yourself because you knew that you had planned and wished to write the essay and join the organization or participate in the internship and you cannot believe that you were stupid enough to miss something as important as that?

 

I have and it sucks. I have felt that feeling so many times that I got completely tired of it. That was the main reason why I began writing plans for the week, writing important applications that I needed to fill, plus writing down the dates of their deadline because I have realized that most of the time, just taking a screenshot of the flier and saving it in my gallery, even under a separate folder, titled ‘things to work on’ is hardly enough to get me going on the tasks.

 

And then after that, when writing the things that I have set out to do for the day, I carefully chip in times in which to work on the tasks at hand, because if I do not, I have found that I tend to stay up till 11:50 pm, sweating and hoping that the internet works for me as I ram down on the keyboard. And if you are like me and have had days just like this, especially here in Nigeria, then you should know that these days are the exact points in time in which the internet decides to turn against you, and decides to mess up till it is like, 12:04 the next day.

 

I hate days in which I feel disorganized and have to work last minute to get things done, things that I had all the time in the world to get done previously, or even do not have the chance to put in that last-minute work because I have managed to jerk out of my bed by like 4:00 am the next day.

 

So planning is not one of my favourite things to do, but I hate missing out on opportunities even more than I hate planning. So I silence all the cries of the limbic system in my body, pushing me to start the day with no plans and flow with the waves, and actually get the planning done.

 

2. Academic planning may be the only form of planning that I find tolerable, and may even enjoy doing. Maybe it is because I do so during the time that I have the most control of my days. Or maybe it is due to the fact that I have set out a sort of planning that works for me.

 

Unlike what most conventional books and academic advisers teach, I do not have some sort of timetable that I set for the day, because I have tried such and it just does not work for me. I have realized that it is almost impossible for me to stick to a timetable that sets out the subjects to read and time to be dedicated to reading for it for an entire semester, because the likelihood is that I may only go ahead with what I have set out for myself like 10% of the time, not by choice, but because of the certain things that tend to pop up during the school days, just like quizzes or competitions or meetings that may tend to make me deviate from time to time.

 

So what I do is that instead, I set weekly academic goals for myself, highlighting the sections of the textbook that I would like to study and beginning the week from Monday, so that if there is anything that forces me not to meet my goals during the weekdays, I can finish it on the weekend. Then I make a list of all the topics that I have for each course of study, tabulating and making three sections for each of the subjects that I plan to deal with i.e. read, notes, and cases learned (law student stuff). And then if I am done with each of them, I give a tick mark, and hence it is very easy for me to see how far I have progressed with my studying. And I find it very easy to challenge myself to do more by the time that I tabulate my academics like that.

 

3. Have you ever had the feeling, like, just randomly in the middle of the day, like you do not know what to do, whilst at the back of your mind, you know that there are a lot of things that you have not yet done?

 

Well, even up till now, there are times that such happens to me. And then I feel sort of sluggish, whilst I have the load of the responsibilities that I have not even started on, weighing just at the back of my head. I have found that whenever I have that feeling and do not have something to remind me that I have targets that I plan to reach before the day runs by, especially when there is no upcoming deadline in view, it is very easy for me to relax and whip out my phone and then realize forty-five minutes later that I have managed to waste forty-five minutes of my life, even though I am well aware of the fact that I have a lot of things to do that I have not even begun to bother with doing.

 

But when I have my list, especially when it is just nearby, I can just stretch my eyes, and boom, I get the motivation to stand up and do something except on those rare days when my energy and will to do anything are completely wasted.

 

Hence, I have found that with a clear plan of what I am to do for each day, it is very easy for me to find reasons to be productive spend the rest of the day productively as I have externalized all that is waiting for me to a sheet of paper, and have not just left it hanging at the back of my mind.

Again, I still think that the act of actually sitting down to make plans for each day is a habit that can be as difficult for me as exercising tends to be, and I have not been very consistent with it, am usually more consistent during the school time or during those few holiday days that I spend before I return home than during the periods when I just have a long stretch of time and have the knowledge that I may end up not even doing the things that I want to do with that time.

And I know that there are certain self-help authors that talk about how easy and pleasurable it is for them to make to-do lists and it is for them to tick off the list

But I do not deny that even in my inconsistency, which is something that I am seriously working on, I have found that planning my days have helped me to achieve a lot of things that I would have not achieved otherwise. Things like being able to work towards artificial deadlines that I have set for myself, being able to find the motivation to do certain difficult things simply because I have written down that I had to do them in the day that I had set out for them and being able to have physical evidence each day that I have worked on, and have accomplished something, are just a few benefits that I have found comes with planning my day.

In case you have been wondering whether it is worth it to actually get a planner and join the set of people that plan their days, weeks, months, years and decades, I would say that it is an activity that would definitely be useful for you, especially if you are the type that has chaotic days.

So I started my productivity journey during lockdown. I do not know exactly how it started, neither do I remember exactly what was the trigger for me, but with the extended lockdown plus the strike that public universities had begun before the lockdown even started, I had a lot of time on my hands to do whatever it was that I wanted. Like, literally anything.

I dabbled into a lot of things during that time, including but not limited to calligraphy, chess, origami, meditation, yoga, took a writing course on Coursera, and even tried to start a Youtube channel. I went wild with activities, like, literally trying anything I could get my hands on, wanting to do all that I could with the time that I had and the resources that were available to me. Currently, I do not engage in most of the things that I did during lockdown, but I do not regret the time that I used in exploring these hobbies. I was young, ages 17 to 18 at the time, and I could have spent that entire time doing nothing other than watching television and scrolling through social media. So I deem the fact that I engaged in all of the above as nothing more than a plus.

One of the things I dabbled into during that period of time, that shaped the way that period went for me and how the year after went for me was productivity. I stumbled into a self-help book, began reading, and then it became an addiction. Soon enough, I spent most of my time reading all the self-help books that I could get my hands on, both soft copy and hard copy, and even the ones in audio format, which I used to listen to whilst performing house chores. I will give a list of the ones that I have found most impactful in my life in another blog post.

And I have to tell you, there is no way that you can read that many books without having a life transformation. By the time I had dug myself into all of Cal Newport’s books, did my chores whilst listening to Atomic Habits, and went through scores of videos by channels like Alux.com, I became restless with the way that I was living my life, how I was basically being a mediocre and felt the urge to do more, be more.

And so the journey started.

By the time I had read the earliest of Cal Newport’s books, the ones that dealt with succeeding in college, I began to look for YouTubers that could teach me more of the secret hacks to achieving that. I stumbled, not only to channels that talked about hacks and tricks to reading faster and succeeding whilst engaging in other activities, such as that of Elena Handtrack, but I also began to spot ‘study with me’ channels like the kinds of Ari Horesh, James Scholz and Study Vibes, realizing, to the greatest of my surprise that there were people out there that could study for up to twelve hours at a stretch. I will drop another blog post in which I explain my experience with engaging in those sorts of programs, and how I have been able to maintain a first-class CGPA in law as a result.

And then, by the time I began to indulge in books that dealt with health and the impact it had on the brain, I began exercising. Furthermore, I began to study books that dealt with the negative effects of social media, and soon, I had deleted most of my social media accounts, save Whatsapp, and had downloaded an app that tracked the amount of time that I spent on my phone daily.

There were several other books with their own messages but by around July to August 2020, I had begun:

• Journaling

  My first ever journal

  
  
• Planning my day (Making to-do lists)
• Habit tracking
  
  
  
• Meditating
• Caring more than I used to about my hygiene
• Yoga
• Trying to maintain a strict sleep to wake up time of 10:00 pm to 5:00am
• Reading self-help books almost every day
• Reading the academic books that I had abandoned up until that point
• Working on my typing so that I could be efficient as a writer

Of course, I was not as consistent as I wanted to, being more consistent in things like exercising (till I experienced an exercise burnout) and reading than other things like meditation, which I found to be difficult and pointless most of the time I tried it.

But they were the hallmark of the changes that I experienced during that period, and they gave me the necessary discipline that I needed at the time.

But then, months after the lockdown had ended, the strike was called off.

And then came the downward spiral.

But not all was lost. For one, the fact that my exams were slated for just a month after the strike was called off gave me the motivation to study for an average of eight to ten hours every single day. But then, with so much of my time invested in just one thing, I dropped so many of the habits that I was trying to build.

For one, I reinstalled Youtube for the 'study with me' channels and found that it also served as a great way to get my body relaxed after so many hours spent studying. Then, I dropped exercising because I also happened to be doing the long stretches of studying during the period of time in which I was engaging in the annual twenty-one days of fasting and prayers in my church and I was certain that if I exercised as well as all the pressure that I was putting in my brain, I was going to have a terrible burnout, probably collapse in the process.

Furthermore, with the beginning of the school year, one in which the school management all so generously decided to compress two academic years into a single year, I found it difficult to continue with all the habits and hobbies that I had built up.

I want to make it clear that discipline was never gone, per se. With the knowledge that I could exert myself the way that I did when I was doing ten hours of reading in a day, there was no going back on that and the fact that I never let my academics go anywhere but higher, plus began to engage in so many other extracurriculars as well, was only proof of the fact that I never lost it.

In fact, by November last year, I gave myself an even stricter sleeping schedule, sleeping by around 9 to 10 and waking up by three so that I could chip in at least an hour and thirty minutes to three hours of spiritual activities like reading the bible, spiritual books and praying (am still very much consistent with that) and two hours of reading before heading off to school. So I was working just fine and there were only a few times that I tried to draft implementation intentions, habit trackers completely forgotten.

However, we are back on strike after only a year of normal schooling, and I am back to reading self-help books and reexamining my habits.

And boy, do I have some work to do.

For firsters, I have realized that I have been working on autopilot, just letting myself venture into things without even sitting down to consider what I was doing, and hardly ever planning my day. Sure, I planned them at the back of my mind sometimes, but there is nothing that compares to actually being able to sit down and properly structure the day before beginning. I realized that because I never structured my day, I ended up either having disorganized days, or days in which I would end up forgetting to do the one thing that I had set out to do. The most painful were the days that would end with me wondering what I had actually achieved, knowing that I had been busy but not being able to point to one achievement that I had gotten as a result.

And then I realized how much I have backtracked in terms of my fitness. Just recently, I engaged in just two days of intense workout and was rewarded with an additional two days of not being able to climb up the stairs without wincing in pain with every step I took, which put me off exercising for a while.

There are a lot of things that have changed in me ever since I put a hold on personal growth. Sure, there are places that I have improved, but there are so many habits that I know that if only I had maintained, I would have become so much more of a better person than I am at the moment.

Why am I telling this long story?

Well, I once again have free time on my hands, although, due to the fact that I have matured into an adult and have a lot of online opportunities plus a bank account, I am more engaged than I used to be back then, and I have decided that I am going to become more intentional about my personal growth, both physically and spiritually.

As a result, I am going to be detailing, at least once a week, on how things are going for me, on this journey of growth that I am retaking. It is going to be difficult catching up on a lot of things that I want to catch up on, things that should have been second nature by now, but then again, I cannot let myself fall and remain on the ground. I am rising. It is going to be difficult, but I know that in no time, I will be up on my feet once more.