Busy vs. Productive | How To Complete Your Tasks

Do you have million dollar habits or dollar habits? As crazy as this sounds, we have to cultivate discipline in our life. Sometimes we get the next level thinking, we get the capabilities, and then we want the next level results, right? Don't we? Like, I went through the course, I felt inspired. I get it. Give me the results, right? But the one thing that we're missing that's so important in the middle that the word action, it's the next level action, right? If. If we want next level results, we need next level thinking, but we got to take next level action and implement in the middle. And how do leaders go to another level is they know how to replace being busy with being productive. Let's just say it like it is. We want to be more successful. You wouldn't be here. You want to be happier. You want to have more time, more freedom, more control, right? So if we want those things, we got to make other adjustments. Leaders know how to be beyond, not just busy, but be productive. Because we're all busy. None. I don't think there's any of you watching me right now saying, I just got five hours a day. I don't know what to do with myself, Dean. But I guess the question is, are the things you're working on actually moving the needle in your life or just keeping you busy? Because we can get on the treadmill of life and always be running. Never get anywhere. Like, it's almost like being on a treadmill and it's on number seven, and you need to get downtown. So instead of getting off the treadmill and being productive and moving, you just put the treadmill up to nine. You're going faster, faster, faster, but you're still running in place. So how many of us have felt like we're running in place? Right? So I want you to think in absolutes, like, no gray area. Okay, so let me give you some examples of binary thinking. You're either climbing or you're sliding. No. Hovering. No, it's okay. No. In between climbing or sliding, there's only two activities. Things that move the needle in your life and things that don't move the needle. There's activity that either drains you or energizes you. Either a yes or a no. It's either victory or death. Burn the boats. So what does that mean? It's like, so I'm obviously setting you up for something to really make hardcore decisions. Because here's one thing we all have. We all have 24 hours in a day. Like, how does one person seem to get so much Done that. They invent time machine and they actually got 36 hours in a day. Or do they know how to say no? Do they know how to look through a lens of black and white? It either moves the needle in my life, takes me towards a bigger future, more income, more happiness, more joy, better health, better connection, better intimacy, or it moves me away from a better version of me. More money, more happiness. And it's. I don't want to oversimplify it, but when you start looking through the lens of binary thinking, it's either yes or a no. You have to be brutally honest with yourself. So here's productivity habit number one. The big, ugly questions you got to ask yourself. Is this situation or the relationship I'm in moving me forward or backwards? Again, this is pretty harsh. This is binary thinking, right? We're not giving you any gray here. I know you can't go from one extreme to another, but if you can go more towards black and white and less gray in your life. Gray are the things that eat up the time. Gray is when you go online and get sucked into hours of surfing when you shouldn't. Gray is hanging out with the people that put you in a bad place and drain your energy and don't charge you up to make you question yourself, doubt yourself, ding your confidence, and don't feel like you can move forward. Gray is when you're with a friend that says, I'll stop eating like a bird, Eat the burger and stop complaining. It's your single friend telling you all your relationship, he's just not right for you. She's not doing the right thing. You should move on. It's your broke friend telling you how to get wealthy, and it doesn't cause you to stop. It causes you to go into the gray. I'm just going to encourage you today to ask these big, ugly questions to stay out of the gray. Life is moving too fast. We only have this one life. At least that's what we know. We might as well squeeze all the juice out of it. So what's some other big, ugly questions? Am I simply busy or am I being productive? Oh, that's one you got to ask yourself every day. That one could sting. Oh, my God, can that sting? Does this activity make me money, make me happy? Force me to grow? I mean, listen, there's other criteria besides making money, being happy and forced to grow. But you set that criteria. And when you're doing something, you say to yourself, does this activity take me towards where I want to go? Remember, we said either yes or no. Try to get rid of the maybes. Okay, here's a good one. Ready for this one? This will really mess with you. You've heard this before. Who does it better than Tony Robbins? But you're here with me right now and I want to share the things that have moved the needle in my life. If I keep doing these habits, where will I be in five or ten years from now? Just think, if you don't get massively productive, if you keep running on the treadmill, if you keep missing that next level opportunity because you're letting the wrong distractions come in, then where are you going to be in five or 10 years? And how's that going to feel when you look back and realize you missed another half a decade or you missed a whole decade? Right? Overwhelm. That's the next thing we kind of lean towards. It's like, okay, I'm getting it, Dean, I feel it. But I'm overwhelmed. I'm stressed. I have too much going on. But overwhelms a part of a bigger problem. Overwhelm has symptoms such as lack of clear cut objectives. Lack really means clarity. When people tell me they are too busy, I just say, you're not clear. What does that mean? You don't know how to say no to the things that don't serve you. God, your bigger future, your family, your friends, your money, your happiness, your joy. You're saying yes to too many things. You're in like a hypnotic rhythm of things you used to do. But the things that you used to do got you to where you were. But you want to go to another level. So you have to say no to the things you used to do so you can go someplace else. And that requires clarity. So where is it that you really want to go? And the things that don't serve where you want to go need to go away. Black or white, not an easy thing. This is how you get there. Deadlines, right? You say, I'm going to tap into that course. I'm going to read that course. I'm going to start that new business when I'm going to get to. It doesn't work. I'm going to. I'm going to finally start focusing on the marketing and sales of my business because it's been neglected. When I'm going to get to it. No, that ain't never going to work. You need a deadline and a time frame and you need to schedule it with targeted deadlines. Like. Like. Like the world is going to collapse if you don't get it. Done. Because it really is. You're going to just go right back to where you were, right? Doesn't mean your life is horrific. But if you want to stay where you are, then keep doing what you're currently doing or make deadlines. The third one is lack of focus. You're easily distracted. Like, you know what? I'm working on marketing today. Let me do it. Let me just check my Facebook account, see how many likes I got on that picture. Oh, look at TikTok. My kids don't know I'm on TikTok, but that one's funny. You know what? I might as well check that one thing on Instagram. Let me check my bank account. Oh, my God, two hours have gone by. All right, let me go. Let me go grab dinner. Maybe I'll do it later. Focus. We must focus on the things that allow us to move the needle to get us in flow state. When you're in flow state and you're focused and you say no to everything else, that no to all the distractions, that's when you condense time. The next one is lack of a system for productivity. Productivity doesn't just happen. You have to schedule it. You have to create a system. I set my day up for productivity. I have a system. I have a morning routine. If I follow it, I'm massively productive. If I don't follow it, I mess up my day. What is your system? Do you just hope you're going to be productive in a day? Do you just hope you're going to do the things that move the needle? Do you keep hoping that you'll get to the marketing, get to the sales, get to the startup, get to the scaling, get to firing the person you should have fired, Getting to hire the person you should or making the relationship better. Are you hoping it happens? Or do you have a system to be productive to make sure it happens? I want to tell you something. I hated discipline. I hated that word as a kid. Like discipline meant to me. Like I had to follow someone's rules. Like I abide by what someone else created. Honestly, to this day, I still frequently freaks me out. I don't know about you, I don't like following rules. I can't. Like it drives me crazy. But I've learned to convert what discipline means to me into something completely different. Discipline is not like rules, structure. Follow me. Discipline is disciplining yourself to be the best version of you, to be massively productive. Your life is the sum total of what you do in a day. But your day is really sum total of the actions you take within that day, and your daily actions are the result of your daily habits. You could say habits, discipline. But what are your habits? And here's the big question. Do you have million dollar habits or dollar habits? Do you have habits for intimacy, passion, and happiness in your relationship? Or do you have habits that drive you apart? Do you have habits that put you in incredible shape and feeling good and alive with the right mental focus? Or do you have habits that make, you know, lazy and lethargic and, and like a procrastinator and not clear thoughts? Right. It's. It's as crazy as this sounds, we have to cultivate discipline in our life.