Everyone is on the lookout on the next hack on how to boost your productivity and at the same time prevent burnouts. 

So I’m sure you are too. 

Let me share with you a new hack I just learnt recently. 

The 3 zones. 

When speaking about boosting your productivity, there are 3 zones. 

• The comfort zone 
• The stretch zone 
• The panic zone 

But oftentimes the first and the last are the ones being talked about. 

Today I shall be introducing a new concept which is the stretch zone. 

But let’s talk about the comfort zone first. 

• The comfort zone 

This is the space when you’re in your own bubble and as the name implies, comfortable. 

You don’t feel the need to work or exert yourself in this zone. 

In this zone you experience low levels of stress and anxiety and you’re generally satisfied. 

The reason people find it hard to leave their comfort zone is because they believe they will fall straight into the panic zone. 

• The panic zone 

This is the zone when you have overworked yourself. 

Regardless of what you hear online this zone is very detrimental to your overall well being. 

In the panic zone you experience frequent burnouts, you have trouble sleeping and eating, you become more irritable, and you experience high levels of stress and anxiety. 

In this zone, you have exerted yourself so much that you wind up feeling endlessly tired. 

• The stretch zone 

You can think of it more as the middle layer. The space between your comfort zone and panic zone. 

The comfort and panic zones explain too unhealthy extremes of the spectrum. 

But in the stretch zone you learn to do things that are difficult to do but with a bit of practice and work you can get it done. 

You don’t need to overexert yourself and reach your panic zones when your body is on shut down mode and you don’t have to be cushioned like in the comfort zone. 

The stretch zone is filled with exciting experiences that you can adapt to with some time, patience and practice. 

How to boost your productivity?

If you want to boost your productivity without experiencing burnouts then you need to increase your stretch zone slowly so that your comfort zone begins to accommodate and adjust without ever reaching your panic zone. 

Perhaps you only read 10 minutes a day, this is your comfort zone. 

Jumping straight into 3 hours reading daily will be in the panic zone. 

So why not start with 30 minutes which is your stretch zone. 

Once you’ve done this consistently for a while it will start to become your comfort zone and then you can decide to expand it further opening a new door on your stretch zone. 

Closing remarks 

Just because you don’t feel it immediately doesn’t mean you aren’t making progress. 

“Progress happens too slowly to notice, but setbacks happen too quickly to ignore.”

Psychology of money by Morgan Housel

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