Increase Personal Productivity with the Top 11 Multiple Positives

Written by Editor in Chief, Pick The Brain - 45 Comments
Categories: productivity tips

Multiple positives — activities that benefit you in multiple ways — are a powerful productivity tool. These activities maximize your time by combining necessities like education, exercise, money making, and fun into a single, super productive action. The more multiple positives you use, the easier it is to get everything you want done without feeling stressed. They also free up loads of time and create a pleasant feeling of satisfaction and efficiency.

Finding your personal multiple positives can be challenging. Nothing works for everyone, so it’s important to figure out what’s compatible with your lifestyle and continuously optimize. Based on the feedback from my post about return on investment, personal experience, and hours of research, here are the top 11 multiple positives that productive people use to make the most of their time. I hope you find something inspiring, I know I have.

Enjoyable and Educational Exercise

We start finding reasons not to exercise when it becomes a tedious chore. Making exercise a pleasant experience encourages us to use our bodies more often and satisfies our recreational desires. Here are some examples of how to make exercise a multiple positive.

  • Take it Outside – Getting out of that musty gym and enjoying the great outdoors creates a completely different experience. Instead of counting seconds on the treadmill, walk, run, or bike around your neighborhood. If you’re ambitious you can even head to a local park for some interesting scenery. Try gardening and yard work for the extra benefit of getting things done around the house.
  • Make it Social – Exercise can also be quality time with friends and family. Instead of making the gym a lonesome affair, find a partner. Having someone to socialize with makes the time pass faster and gives you a chance to develop personal relationships. After dinner walks let you get some fresh air, work out your legs, and have a conversation. Another good example is coaching youth sports which also contributes to the community.
  • Make it a Game – Nothing makes the time fly by like friendly competition. My personal favorite is pickup basketball, but any sport could be an example. Tennis, golf, fishing, or even a casual game of frisbee can make exercise less work and more play.
  • Get Smarter - A great way to add still another positive is making exercise educational. Listening to books on tape or podcasts while walking, running, or using the treadmill, takes your mind off the work while your learn about a subject you’d never be able to squeeze in otherwise.

Hobbies that Make Money

Hobbies are a great way to relax and develop skills, but finding ones that generate revenue will take your productivity to another level. It may not be much, but getting paid to do what you love is priceless. Over time those income streams can amount to a substantial sum. After all, it’s all gravy.

  • Web Site or Blog – If you’re passionate about a subject, technically savvy, and enjoy sharing information, starting a website or blog could be a great idea. It’s definitely reasonable to bring in a few hundred dollars a month. The longer you keep at it, the more your income will grow. Blogging also allows you to improve your writing ability, build your personal brand, and network with people all over the world.
  • Photography – This is another great hobby that can enrich your life and lead to freelance income. It’s also a way to improve your visual skills and capture lasting images of family and friends. Who knows, if you get good enough to do the occasional wedding, those expensive lenses could pay for themselves.
  • Anything that Develops a Useful Skill – The number of hobbies that can potentially make money is enormous. This useful post is devoted entirely to the subject, so I won’t rehash it here, but profitable hobbies don’t even need to be direct money makers. Anything that develops a skill that helps you professionally will make you money in the long run. Semi-work-related hobbies are great way to focus on the aspects of work that you really enjoy and are crucial to landing the next great job.

Make the Most of Your Commute

The commute is a part of the day most people dread. We usually spend it stuck in traffic, miserable and unable to do anything productive. Finding a way make your commute useful and enjoyable can vastly increase productivity and eliminate stress.

  • Learn a Language – This is my personal favorite. I love learning languages, so listening to the Pimsleur language programs on my way home from work allows me to fit lessons into otherwise useless time. Learning a language makes the drive go faster and has helped improve my thinking and writing ability and develop a little bit of much needed culture.
  • Books on Tape – Have a ton of books you want to read, but never seem to find the time? A great way to fit them in and ease your commute is listening to audio books or podcasts. You can absorb useful information from a soothing narrator instead of banging your head against the steering wheel. One reader takes this to the next level by listening to books on tape while walking to work — combining exercise, enjoyment, education, and commute into one remarkable multiple positive.
  • Bike to Work – This is another popular one. Biking to work is great exercise, saves money on gas, makes you more alert, and is even good for the environment. It doesn’t get much more productive than that.

The Joy of Cooking

We’re often tempted to eat out because of convenience, but it’s generally more expensive and less healthy than cooking at home. I’ve found that by eating frozen vegetables and cooking on a Foreman grill, I eat for half the money and in half the time it would take to order delivery. Making cooking a social event is a great way to relax and spend time with friends. It’s a skill that will save you money and impress people for the rest of your life.

Conclusions

The few examples provided here are only the tip of the iceberg. With a bit of creative thinking you can easily find activities that fulfill multiple needs. The better you get at this, the more productivity and enjoyment you’ll be able to fit into your hectic schedule. It’s not about cramming more productivity into every spare moment, it’s about making the most of a precious resource.

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  • http://www.clarkebruce.wordpress.com Bruce

    Great post John.

  • http://www.personalbrandingblog.com Dan Schawbel

    This is a great article. You should concentrate and focus on what interests you and develop a business out of it.

  • http://www.pickthebrain.com John Wesley

    Thanks Bruce and Dan. I’m glad you guys enjoyed it.

  • Katy Ballard

    John, I’m a new subscriber and I’m really enjoying your site. Thank you for your sincerity and openness. One multiple positive that should not be neglected is social networking. This can take place at churches, civic organizations, and non-profit volunteering opportunities. Expanding your base of acquaintances and friends can lead to job opportunities, strong bodies and minds to help with personal projects, and even successful romantic relationships. You may have covered these in previous articles. Thanks again for what you are doing here.

  • http://www.pickthebrain.com John Wesley

    Katy,

    You’re right, social networking definitely has multiple benefits. I never intend this post to cover everything, so it’s great to get additional ideas. I’m glad you’ve been enjoying the site. :)

  • http://nloomis-brainstorm.blogspot.com/ Nicolas Dujovne

    Hey John, im a new reader too. Great blog, i love it. It has become a must read for me…

    Greetings from Santiago, Chile.

  • http://www.pickthebrain.com John Wesley

    Hi Nicolas, thanks for introducing yourself. It’s great see more new readers speaking up in the comments.

  • http://www.realityshifter.com Kristen

    Hi John. This is a great article! I spent several years at a job that required a very long commute each day, and I know the only reason the traffic didn’t drive me insane was the fact that the long drive provided plenty of time to listen to audio programs about personal development, educational material, etc.

    I’m really enjoying your blog!

  • http://chessthinking.com Steve

    John, nice post! I like how you always try to find ways of accomplishing several things at once. I think you did the same with the ROI article. I am preparing to take the CPA exams in the next 12 months, I don’t have much time to study books, yet, so I listen to the audio CDs in my car and at work. It is a great way to accomplish multiple things. From playing Chess, I should have thought about this! Now you have made me look at my whole life and see if there is a way to maximize/multiply the output from my input. Keep picking your brain and ours!

  • http://johnplaceonline.com JohnPlace

    I especially liked the tips for making physical activity more enjoyable. Sometimes I enjoy going for a walk by myself, but often I enjoy physical activity more if it’s a social event portrayed as recreation: like playing volleyball or hiking a trail.

  • Les

    It would seem to me that “multiple positives” are also often more fundamental to success. For example, “returning phone calls promptly”, “rising early”, “take shorter showers” all seem to be habits that, while not earth shattering in themselves, create a multiplier effect in making other, often more glamourous, goals possible.

    Excellent article! I am endevouring to quantify this idea, and apply some graphing to round out the theory.

  • http://www.productivity501.com/maximizing-benefits/285/ Maximizing Benefits at Productivity501

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  • http://practicethis.com practica

    Hmm -good find for me indeed. I am kind of in spiritual, mental, job, and familiy mini crisis. And i am in search for personal positive thinkging in all areas above.
    Funny, but tomorrow i decided to do biz meeting with my co-worker outside the office; I am trying to learn french while in traffic jam; I jsut started to do blogging. All these show in your post and definitely recharge me. Cool.

  • http://www.howtowakeupearly.com Wake Up!

    Great list, there are few things like biking to work, photography and learning a language that I’ve been thinking for a long time and think now I’m going to start at least one of those things.

    P.s. And I agree with Les completely on rising early thing :)

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  • http://science-of-wattles.blogspot.com/ Olivier

    Hi, nice post.

    The danger comes in when one tries to stuff too much in a day, for the sake of learning…

    I also wonder, Is there any online possibility to sell digital pictures? I like photography, but I now mostly take pictures of my family.

  • http://www.yursolutions.com/car/ Martin L

    Martin L…

    great job keep doing it easer for us….

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  • http://fictionway.com/ How to Write

    I always listen to books on tape during my commute. Any time I can “multitask” I’m happy. My favorite is dropping the car off at the car wash while I get my hair cut.

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  • http://ultimateproductivitymastery.com Increase Personal Productivity

    I used to ride my bike to work AND listen to books on tape while riding… Probably not the best things to do on roads with lots of traffic, but for my ride it was fine. Now I work at home so I’ve lost the ability to do stuff on my commute, but I would rather have no commute so I’m happy.

  • http://mathews-imeandmyself.blogspot.com masuba

    I’m a new subscriber and I’m really enjoying your site.
    thankyou

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    I really like cooking but it eats up time– having to prepare my ingredients, do the actual cooking, cleaning, eating and then cleaning dishes. I often just decide to eat out or have some food delivered to my home. I know it’s bad and I should stop this but I feel like I’m only wasting time. :(

  • http://zielix.com John

    I agree. but increasing personal productivity by constant persuasion is the key. Here is an article that conveys my point:

    http://wayneharrel.zielix.com/how-to-increase-your-personal-productivity/

    nice article, thanks for the tip.

  • http://screw9-5.blogspot.com/ Screw9to5man

    Those are some great ideas. I hate the gym too and I don’t know why more people don’t just play sports instead. It’s alot more fun. One thing I do is learn Spanish while having breakfast. Rather than watching any old crap on tv, I just watch the news in Spanish, so I’m able to practice my Spanish listening skills while eating, thus taking care of two things at once. 

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  • kashyap

    one more effective way of increasing productivity is to make mind still.  that can be done only through meditation. when quiet, the inner intelligence comes out.
    learn to quiet mind here….
    http://24x7meditation.blogspot.com/2011/10/quiet-your-busy-mind-in-just-5-minutes.html

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    We need to use the positive attitude to face any difficult and pressure! Then we could do something well!