007 Two-Do Lists - Your Productivity (& Mood) Will Skyrocket

Foreign. This is Dr. Torrey. Welcome to the Influence Every Day show, where we make every day better and we influence for good. Welcome to another episode of Influence. Every day today we're going to go over something that I think is like, it's so important because this small tip, and in fact this is such a small tip that you're going to think it's insignificant. And that is going to be a massive mistake. Because what I'm telling you today in this episode, although it is short, it's a short episode, but this episode can completely transform. And this is in a word, where, you know, I mean, people throw that word around a lot lately, right? Especially in the sort of like self help kind of space. I'm not doing that right now. I'm like, this can legit transform your life if you apply what we're going to cover right now. Now, for those of you who are in the Simple Rules of Influence masterclass or who have taken that before, you'll recognize this as a component of rule number seven. But this one tip is enough. You don't need to take the masterclass. You don't need to dive into all this stuff and go in depth and learn this stuff. I'm telling you, this one thing can really change how you respond to the world. How you come, how you show up, how you who you are actually. It can change your state, it can change your relationships, all by managing your own to do lists. You're like, what, managing to do list? What the heck does that have to do with my relationships? What does that have to do with my job, my career? I'll tell you what it has to do. It can affect your state. When you get things done in the right way and you get the right things done, you get them done in the right order with the right energy and the right energy that you bring to it. So I'm going to tell you something that I do with my own to do list. Here's what I do. Essentially, I make a list of all the things I have to do. Like a complete brain dump. Now, I happen to do it in mind maps. You don't necessarily have to do that. I used to do this on paper, just a brain dump. Everything I have to do, everything I have to do at home, everything I have to do at work, everything I have to do with the community, stuff that I do, everything that I have to do. Brain dump. It might be related to around the house. It might be related to my relationship with my wife or my kids or my in laws or my parents. It might be related to a project that I'm working on, or it might be related to something I'm working on for myself, like my own health or my own character, whatever it is. Brain dump. Write it all down. Now, once you write them all down, by the way, set time aside where you just lock the door. I actually have a hat that says, let me focus. When I wear that hat, if people walk in, they don't interrupt because they see, let me focus. Close the door, go somewhere else, Go to a completely different setting where people aren't expecting to find you, and just sit down and brain dump all the stuff you have to do now. Why? Because then you're going to take the next step. And the next step is where the magic happens. Separate them out into the ones you like to do or the ones you love to do and the ones you don't like to do. You separate them out, you put them in two columns. Very simple. Take all that, brain dump, separate them, the ones I like, the ones I don't like, and then here's what you do. Spend time on the ones you like. Spend money on the ones you don't. Spend time on the ones you like. Spend money on the ones you don't. Now you might be like, whoa, whoa. Like, I don't have money to spend on these other tasks. Well, okay, prioritize them and put them in order. Or prioritize the ones that you don't like if in order of least liking, because you know what somebody in the world loves to do, what you hate to do, and you love to do what somebody else hates to do. Get them together. When I teach productivity, when I'm in my coaching sessions and things like that, one of the things that I cover, when you're faced with a decision on something to do, you have choices. The first is, do it Great. Can I do this? Great. The next is maybe I should delegate. And if you don't delegate, then eliminate. If you should, if you can't do it great, you don't want to delegate, maybe you can eliminate it, get rid of it. You could also automate it. Do it great. Delegate, eliminate or automate. Those are the things. Those are your choices when it comes to delegation. You. You can delegate to other people on your team. You can delegate to somebody you know who happens to love doing that thing, that might be a friend or. Or a family member or a colleague that just loves to do that thing. Or you can outsource, go to a site like Fiverr or Upwork or Freelancer and all These other sites that are out there for outsourcing, you can find people nearby that will do things on craigslist or taskrabbit.com There are all kinds of opportunities for you to find somebody who loves to do the thing you hate to do. Why is this transformative? Well, it's transformative because you know what it's like when you're slogging through something you don't like to do. Well, first of all, you might be procrastinating. It might actually be building up bad habits for putting stuff off, for avoiding things you have to do if you don't address them. But at the same time, when you sit down to do them, you it affects your mood. It affects how you relate with others. It affects how your day goes. It affects how you arrive at home when day's done. It affects how you arrive at work in the morning. If you have to slog through this thing, delegate can be to someone on your team or to someone outside. Outsourcing. And when you do that, you're freeing up time to spend time on the things you love. And when you do that, your mood is better. It's more appropriate. You get energy just by changing your to do list. Simply separate into two columns. The ones I like, the ones I don't, spend money on, the ones I don't like. Spend time on the ones I like. Very simple. And then what happens? You're spending time on the things you like. Like, what the heck? That's. Isn't that what you want to do? Spend time on the things you like and spend money on the ones you don't? If you don't have resources, be resourceful. Well, how can you be resourceful? Find somebody who loves the thing. Sometimes they just love it. Especially experts. You know what? Sometimes. Not that they'll necessarily do the thing for you, but they'll accelerate your learning. If there's something you have to learn, reach out to somebody and say, hey, do you know how I can do this? They could teach you or tell you in a few moments what would have taken you a long time to sit through videos and do all these things. People love to talk about what they love to talk about. They love to talk about their craft. They love to talk about their expertise. They love to talk about the things they're interested in. Be resourceful and ask them about it. Your to do list. Time on the things you like, money on the ones you don't. Let me just tell you a quick tip. A quick tip on the way to actually practically implement these things. Let's say my wife says, hey Ed, let's go to the park with the kids or let's all go out for ice cream and I feel like I have to go do something. Well, here's what I'll do. I'll log into Fiverr or Upwork or I also use a service called Fancy Hands fancyhands.com Fancy Hands is a is like a virtual assistant of thing, but it's task based. What I'll do is like if I have to do something and I'm going to take a quick break and go out for ice cream, what I'll do is I will post a job very quickly. It's like as, as short as an email on Fancy Hands, basically an email to a virtual assistant and tell them, hey, can you do XYZ research? Like find all of the businesses or organizations that do XYZ and put in a spreadsheet, their name, their web address and the price they offer it or whatever. What happens? I then go out for ice cream and the work is being done and 20 to 30 minutes later I get an email with the work being done. Even my downtime feels like uptime. It feels like I was productive and in fact I was. This is what I recommend. Take the things you love to do and and do them. Take the things you don't like to do and have someone else do them. Spend time on the ones you like. Spend money on the ones you don't. I hope you found this helpful. I'll see you in the next episode. 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