Practicing Gratitude and Daily Productivity With 3×5 Life

I’m always looking for ways to improve my morning routine to better serve my personal development goals. Being more positive helps me be more productive. So, when I heard about 3×5 Life, I was really intrigued. Originally, I got the 3×5 Life cards to help me with gratitude practice, but I found that the section for a to-do list has actually helped me increase my productivity every day by keeping me on track with my daily tasks. The 3×5 Life daily productivity cards have made a positive difference in my morning routine. 

Here is my review of this personal development product…

Gratitude Practice Leads to Happiness

I think one of the biggest keys to happiness is to practice gratitude. This is nothing more than taking a few minutes to think about things you’re thankful for in a day. Focus on positive aspects of your life. For me, it could be anything from my family to a cup of hot coffee. Make this part of your morning tasks and then keep track so you can turn this into a routine.

Studies have shown that gratitude is consistently associated with greater happiness. Most studies that have been published about gratitude practice showed marked improvement in a person’s general health, ability to stay on track, and well-being. It’s impossible to have negative feelings towards something when you express thankfulness for it…which is particularly true when you are going through a difficult time. The 3×5 Life daily productivity cards can definitely help with this.

Productivity Also Leads to Greater Happiness

Not only does practicing gratitude lead to greater happiness, but so does productivity. Studies have shown that when you are more productive, you get tasks done faster and have more time left to do other things you enjoy. Those that work to reclaim their time are happier in life. 

While I’m a person that gets a lot done in a day…I wasn’t as efficient as I could be. It was hard for me to remember all my tasks and complete them all. I used to work from really large to-do lists that didn’t give me a daily breakdown, which was probably doing more harm than good…and overwhelm. When I started using the 3×5 Life cards (this link gives you a 10% discount), it caused me to hone in on the top priorities I needed to do in a day. I could focus on the tasks I had and stay on track so much easier. And I’ve felt a lot more productive with this approach.

How I Use 3×5 Life in My Morning Routine

I’ve got a stack of these 3×5 Life cards in a holder on my desk and keep them there all day long. I grab one 3×5 Life card each morning and work on the front side of the card where it has a place for gratitude and wins. There’s also space on the back for notes and to-dos. It takes me about 10 minutes to fill in the to-do’s, notes, and gratitude section. I save the wins for the evening.

Note: You can buy the 3×5 Life cards at a 10% discount here.

Gratitude Section

Like I said, I originally wanted to use the 3×5 Life productivity cards to help me with a gratitude practice. It’s so important to celebrate your wings, and an easy way to do that is with daily productivity cards. I was using an app, but I’m trying to get away from using my phone as much as possible during the morning. It’s really easy to get distracted on it…especially with notifications popping up. 

In this section, I write down anything that comes to mind like meeting new people, seeing friends for breakfast, scary movies, deep breaths, fall weather, reading 12 Pillars with my girls, etc. I just write down a couple of words to remind myself later what I was feeling thankful about. 

I’ve really liked using pen-to-paper for this. It just feels better (tangible) to write down these things by hand.

To-Do Section

Before I got the 3×5 Life daily productivity cards, I wasn’t making a specific to-do list for each day. I’ve found that it’s been really helpful in keeping me on track each day for my most important tasks. Of course, there’s not space for everything I need to do in a day, but my top priorities make it on the list. There’s space for 10 things.

I don’t stress if I can’t get everything done on the list in a day. If that happens, I just move it to the next day. Because of the to-do list, I keep the 3×5 Life cards at my desk all day, which helps me remember what I did during my morning routine all throughout the day. It’s much easier to stay on track with my tasks and maintain my positive and productive mindset this way.

Notes Section

There’s a section for notes, which I use to write down how I’m feeling…both positive and negative. I put a few words to describe how I am feeling that morning. It’s good to get my thoughts out in the morning and look back at how I was doing later on. 

PM Section

One thing I haven’t been good about is a night routine. The 3×5 Life cards have a PM section for me to write down my wins…sometimes I do this during the day since the 3×5 Life daily productivity cards are at my desk. But, I take a few minutes to just look back over the day and write down my wins, which I look back on every weekend.

How I Use The Cards For My Weekend Re-cap

Every Sunday, I look back at the week of cards. I look at what I did, what I accomplished, what was on my mind, positive events, wins, etc. It’s really important to re-cap your week and find weak spots that can be tightened up as well as celebrate your wins. 

I also take some time on the 1st of every month to look back at my progress. Having a stack of cards to thumb through makes it really easy. When the month is over, I wrap a rubber band around them and put them in the storage box that comes with the product. I can easily see what tasks I completed, how on track I was, and use that to gauge how productive I was. This can also correlate to a positive mental boost if I had a great month.

Why I Use 3×5 Life Cards

I interviewed Bryan McFarland, the creator of 3×5 Life on The Morning Upgrade Podcast. It got me interested in checking them out to see if I liked them better than what I had been using (I really like trying new ways of doing things).  

There were a lot of benefits to the 3×5 Life cards. For one thing, I wasn’t doing much with my PM wins, so I knew that section was going to really help me. Also, I really liked that it would help me get rid of my phone during my morning routine. Having a to-do list was another big benefit to me since I wasn’t in the habit of making a to-do list for each day’s top priorities. Which made it harder to keep up on my tasks. I decided to try them out for 30 days and I like it so much that I have officially incorporated them into my routine. 

Where to Get 3×5 Life Cards? 

I highly recommend you try adding these 3×5 Life cards to your morning routine…and if you don’t have one, using this product is a great way to get started. If all you do as part of your morning routine is fill out each section…and then end your day with your wins…I think you’ll see great, positive benefits in your life over time. You can buy them here at a 10% discount.

Key Takeaways

• Gratitude practice and productivity leads to greater happiness
• Start the day on a positive note with gratitude
• Write a short to-do list for greater productivity
• Go over your wins at night
• Use 3×5 Life cards to help you with your morning routine