Inception is one of my all-time favorite movies. In it, characters find themselves in dream worlds without knowing where they are or how they got there.
That’s how I used to feel throughout the day… every day.
One minute I was focused on the most important thing on my to do list; the next I was on a news site or on social media with dozens of tabs open in my browser. Once I started noticing myself on Facebook while I was driving, I knew something had to change. Constant distractions had rewired my brain and were having a direct impact on my success and even my safety. We all are, and while there’s much to be said about making time to relax and implementing ways to manage stress, we can’t just ignore our to-do lists, right? We’ve all got a lot on our plates, and we’re all doing our best to juggle responsibilities carefully and keep all balls in the air. It logically follows that it would behoove us to find a way to work more efficiently in order to get a ton of stuff done in a day.
But why stop at getting a lot of things done? Why not map out a strategy that ensures you’re getting a lot of high-impact, purposeful things done as well? It sounds like a lofty goal to aim for once—let alone daily—but with a little planning, it’s relatively easy to ensure you’re spending your time wisely every day. Here’s how:
Plan Accordingly
This is as simple as matching your best self to your most important
goal, and repeating the process until you’ve structured your most productive
day. Let’s imagine your goals rank like this: 1) weight loss 2) creative
projects 3) promotion at work. Let’s also imagine you’ve determined you’re at
your very best in the morning, after you’ve had some time to wake up.
Your re-worked schedule might look like this: Wake up extra early, have
some coffee, and spend some time reading, listening to music, or whatever gets
your creative juices flowing. Once fully awake, hit the gym and give it your
all (best self). Afterward, spend an hour or two on creative endeavors (second
best self) before heading into work (third best self).
This is a basic, yet often overlooked practice to put in place, and it’s
easy to see how doing so can help you squeeze the most out of your day.
EXPERIENCES
We’re the sum of our experiences and not our material things. Experiences stay with us forever and build us into who we become. Material things get lost or thrown out or lose their usefulness.
A good experience for me is: where I meet friends, where I learn something new, where it’s material I can write about. These experiences last with me forever and I carry them around in a little closet in my heart. If an experience doesn’t belong there, then I don’t do it.
Start every day with an intention, focus or meditation.
Starting your day with a clear idea of what you want to do changes EVERYTHING.
Have you ever had a day where as soon as you woke up, there were already missed calls, text messages and emails screaming for your attention? You felt like you were struggling to stay afloat before breakfast. Oh, that sounds like every day, you say? That needs so stop.
If you like, you can meditate. You know, cross-legged, a candle, with some nice music playing in your ridiculously expensive Beats headphones. But if that's too much, you can just "take 10."
Take 10 slow breaths, think about your main objectives for the day, then get moving. This seems too simple to have an effect, but it’s not. If you’re used to getting up already in battle mode, then you’ve probably forgotten how it feels to have a moment to yourself.
Take a few of those minutes back to refocus yourself. It really helps. You can also use that time to create a better to-do list.
Physical activity. Do it.
Working out is probably the highest-leverage tool in your arsenal. It predictably and reliable makes you feel better and keeps you both physically and emotionally healthy, year round.
To have the mental energy to take on the full calendar of to-do’s that people want from you, you have to be in the gym.
Period.
Training yourself physically not only gives you benchmarks to hit on a regular basis, but it also creates a predictable backbone in your daily life that you can count on, even if everything goes wrong. Mentally, that’s very comforting.
Trust me, I know that integrating these habits into your life won't be easy at first. But if you're not healthy, your business can't thrive anyway. Consider them a long-term investment in your business.
- Say goodbye to the energy
vampires in your life (the negative souls who steal your enthusiasm).
-Run routines. When I studied the creative lives of
massively productive people like Stephen King, John Grisham and Thomas Edison,
I discovered they follow strict daily routines. (i.e., when they would get up,
when they would start work, when they would exercise and when they would
relax). Peak productivity’s not about luck.
-Don’t say yes to every
request. Most of us have a deep need to be liked. That translates into us
saying yes to everything – which is the end of your elite productivity.
- Outsource everything you
can’t be BIW (Best in the World) at. Focus only on activities within what I
call “Your Picasso Zone”.
- Workout 2X a day. This is
just one of the little-known productivity tactics that I’ll walk you through in
my new online training program YOUR PRODUCTIVITY UNLEASHED (details at the end
of this post) but here’s the key: exercise is one of the greatest productivity
tools in the world. So do 20 minutes first thing in the morning and then
another workout around 6 or 7 pm to set you up for wow in the evening.
Drink more water. When
you’re dehydrated, you’ll have far less energy. And get less done.
-Work in 90 minute blocks with 10 minute
intervals to recover and refuel (another game-changing move I personally use to
do my best work).
-Write a Stop Doing List.
Every productive person obsessively sets To Do Lists. But those who play at
world-class also record what they commit to stop doing. Steve Jobs said that
what made Apple Apple was not so much what they chose to build but all the
projects they chose to ignore.
-Use your commute time. If
you’re commuting 30 minutes each way every day – get this: at the end of a
year, you’ve spent 6 weeks of 8 hour days in your car. I encourage you to use
that time to listen to fantastic books on audio + excellent podcasts and
valuable learning programs. Remember, the fastest way to double your income is
to triple your rate of learning.
-Be a contrarian. Why buy your groceries at the time
the store is busiest? Why go to movies on the most popular nights? Why hit the
gym when the gym’s completely full? Do things at off-peak hours and you’ll save
so many of them.
stay poductive
