12 habits to balance wellbeing and productivity


Teaching is a great way to refine one’s thoughts on a topic. As my thoughts on wellbeing and productivity topics gain clarity, I am increasingly sharing my presentation notes. The notes shared in this post are from a recent presentation on habits for balancing productivity and wellbeing. Reading time (post) ~ 3 minutes. Reading time (presentation) ~ 60 minutes for full read. 


Last week I got to asked to present to med students as part of a Flinders Medical Students Society (FMSS) Mental Health in Medicine event.

I was very warmly welcomed by all and preceded my presentation with some excellent nachos and a presentation by psychiatry resident Michael Fyfe.

The title of my presentation was “12 daily habits to balance wellbeing and productivity”.

This is a presentation I have been working on for a while and I was super grateful to get the chance to road-test it.

The presentation looks at the different areas of life we may need to optimise in order to manage the demands of studying/working in a university. I actually wrote about the 12 areas in a previous blog post.

If the ideas in that post interest you, then you might be interested to access the full presentation. This is the full slide deck, with my presenter notes and references and links included.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/1kvdlaxjxrnpi2u/Science%20of%20wellbeing%20and%20productivity%20-%20with%20written%20notes%20edition.pptx?dl=0 

Sharing it is part of an ongoing commitment I have to utilise this blog for transparent sharing of content related to the presentations I give and programs I run.

I’ll be working further on this presentation in the coming months and looking at different ways to distribute and dig into the content. One possibility that I am excited about is creating a coaching program built around these ideas, that students can join at any time. I’m meeting with the boss this week to start discussions about it.

In terms of the Med students told me that the more interesting elements were those found in the sections on Mental Nutrition and Balanced Self. Those covered non-sleep deep rest, meditative practice, other connection and leisure time. Other sections of the presentation that covered more familiar topics (e.g. sleep, nutrition, time management, focused work and physical activity) were stuff they had heard before.

But your mileage may vary.

Put simply, investing time and effort in making improvements in any of these areas is likely to pay dividends in terms of wellbeing and productivity. Whether those be the more traditional health areas like physical activity, nutrition and sleep, the more ‘esoteric’ areas like meditation or the oft-ignored areas like leisure.

If browsing the presentation gets you thinking you want to learn more on any of these topics, feel free to contact me – gareth.furber@flinders.edu.au

Otherwise enjoy and share freely.

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