How Samurai Discipline Can Skyrocket Your Productivity in 1 Week

How Samurai Discipline Can Skyrocket Your Productivity in 1 Week

 

For a samurai, discipline was a fundamental part of life. As necessary as air, as valuable as gold.

The ability to control one’s emotions and impulses in pursuit of a rational goal is what made a samurai a great warrior.

But how does this discipline translate into the modern world?

And what can you learn from the samurai to skyrocket your productivity?

Today you will discover the principles of samurai discipline and how to apply it in your life to start pursuing your goals in just one week.

Let’s get started.

Subtract

If you want to begin the path of the samurai, the first thing you must do is to adopt samurai simplicity.

Have you seen how the samurai’s rooms are extremely spacious? That’s because they adopted a minimalist lifestyle.

For them, if something didn’t have a real purpose for being there, then it shouldn’t be there. Everything that is not necessary is a burden.

As Oda Nobunaga’s kanji says, “If the cuckoo doesn’t sing, kill it.”

Take a look at your desk.

Take a look at your office.

Do you see things there that are practically useless for your work? Eliminate them without a second thought.

Everything that doesn’t add, subtract. So the best thing you can do is to spruce up your office to create a distraction-free environment that will help you focus on your tasks.

Note: this also involves your computer desktop. After all, it’s your workspace.

The Way is in Training

From the moment he wakes up until the moment he goes to sleep, the samurai dedicates his entire time to perfecting his work.

A day that has not been dedicated to perfecting oneself is a day wasted. And this was an absolute truth for samurai.

But how can you motivate yourself to follow this discipline?

A good trick is to start with the easiest task.

Scientific studies have shown that the hardest part of performing a task is getting the motivation to start. However, once you’re on it, it all starts flowing like a river in spring.

If you start with even a small part of your task, you’ll soon find yourself completing it all without even realizing it.

 

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Spend Time on Your Hobbies

Samurai discipline is not something you can only activate when you have to work. It’s a way of life. It’s a way of doing things.

What is the problem that many people face when they go on a diet? Many times it is not the fact of dieting itself, but resisting the foods that can break the diet.

That is why allowing one to eat something unhealthy can trigger a domino effect that ends up with the person breaking the diet.

The same goes for discipline.

So the best way to follow the way of the samurai is to replace easy distractions with things that require even a little discipline.

Instead of watching an episode of that series —let’s be honest, it’s never just one episode—, why not spend that time learning a hobby you’ve always been interested in?

The samurai practiced their hobbies every day. They were masters of etiquette, poetry, politics, art, etc. This not only enriched their knowledge, but also allowed them to keep their discipline at all times.

Of course, even the most dedicated samurai would empty a bottle of sake from time to time. We are human and cannot avoid easy distractions.

However, the more you manage to replace “dead time” with activities that enrich you, the easier it will be for you to maintain your willpower to do whatever you set out to do.

Meditation

It is no secret that the samurai devoted much of their day to meditation as well.

Today, the enormous benefits of daily meditation on your mental health are well known. Not only does it give you time to disconnect from the world, but it also increases your willpower and self-control greatly.

As soon as you start meditating you will realize the enormous amount of discipline you need for it. Your mind will try to go everywhere. However, it will be your job to make sure that it doesn’t.

Complicated, we know. There is nothing more complicated than controlling one’s mind.

And, to be honest, it’s boring as hell.

Even 5 minutes can seem like an eternity if you’ve never meditated before.

However, as you do it, it gets easier and easier.

Little by little you can increase the amount of time you spend meditating. The ideal is that you can eventually reach 15 minutes a day.

If you do this, you will notice how easy it is to get into other kinds of activities that you might find boring.

Apply all these points in your life and you’ll notice how in only 1 week your productivity will have increased more than you would have thought possible.

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