PNTV: Procrastinate on Purpose by Rory Vaden (#228)

Foreign. Hi, this is Brian. Welcome back to Philosopher's Notes. Tv. Today, another great book, Procrastinate on Purpose. Procrastinate On Purpose by Rory Vaden. We just profiled another one of his books. Take the Stairs. Take the Stairs was all about taking action. Rory wrote Take the Stairs first, but he considers this book Procrastinate on Purpose kind of a prequel to Take the stairs. Before you take massive action, you need to make sure you're taking the right action. You need to procrastinate on the stuff that doesn't need to get done before you concentrate on what does need to get done. One thing I talk about in the note is the fact that Gary Keller shared an idea in the one Thing he says. Yes, it's true that a journey of a thousand miles begins with a first step, but if your first step is pointed in the wrong direction, the reality is you could wind up 2,000 miles further away from your intended destination at the end of that thousand mile journey, therefore, it's really important that we take the right steps. That's what this book is all about. Philosopher's Note, bunch of big ideas. Subtitle of the book is Five permissions to multiply your time. This is our first big idea, multiplying time. Rory says there are three dimensions to time management. The first one is managing your time, doing as much as you can in as little a time as possible. The second one is. The second dimension is prioritizing your time. He talks about Stephen Covey, important and not urgent. Quadrant 2 vis a vis quadrant 1. We talk about that in different places. That's prioritizing your time. But he says the most successful among us multiply their time. Multiply your time. How do you multiply time? He says you multiply time by spending your time today doing things that will create more time for yourself tomorrow. That's how you multiply time. And the book is all about helping us do that, which leads us to the second big idea, a focus funnel. So the book is basically organized around a focus funnel. At the top, we've got all kinds of stuff we could be doing. At the bottom, we've got the most important thing that we've chosen to do. So the five permissions are basically the structure of the book. The first one is to eliminate step one. Eliminate what doesn't need to get done in the first place. Step two is you automate. You find a way to automate repetitive tasks, right? If you're doing the same thing over and over again, find a way to automate it. Then you look at it and say, do I need to do this? You delegate. Important question here is, am I the only one who can do this? Is my unique set of skills required to do this task? If it's not, you want to give yourself permission to delegate, then you get to a point where we're moving down our focus funnel and you can't eliminate it. You don't want to automate it, you can't delegate it because you actually need to do it. But it may not be quite the right time yet. Then you procrastinate on that until it is the right time to do it. A lot of people think they need to do everything the moment they get it. But you don't always need to do that. Sometimes you need to procrastinate on purpose. That's our fourth permission. And then you move all the way down. You need to do it, and now's the time to do it. Then you concentrate. Those are our five. Eliminate, automate, delegate, procrastinate, and concentrate. Obviously, we can talk about each of them for a long time, and he does in the book, but for now, we're going to move to number one, eliminate. So if you want to multiply your time, you want to create more time tomorrow than you have today, the fastest way, the number one way to do that, is to eliminate the stuff that you're wasting your time on. You might think you need to do it, Someone else might tell you it's important, but you know that it's really just not that essential. And then, of course, we have all of the time wasters that are unequivocally time wasters. He tells us something along the lines of, the Average American, over two years old watches 34 hours of TV. 34 hours on average TV. 34 hours. Can you believe that? 34 hours of TV. Now, that would unequivocally fall into the realm of something you can eliminate either entirely or certainly greatly. Look, you just multiplied your time. You just recaptured X hours a day from no longer watching tv. If that's a place you waste a ton of time, it's not rocket science. We got to get clear on what, how we waste our time. In the note, I walk us through, like, what are the 10 things you do? What are the different things you do in your life that you just don't need to do anymore? Make an inventory, eliminate that stuff. That's the fastest way to create more time in your life. And it's one of the ways that I get a fair amount done. I don't waste A lot of time I'm really clear on what's important to me. I have this focus funnel. I didn't use the precise words and frame that Rory uses, but I do a lot of this stuff, and I'm clear on what I'm going to concentrate, concentrate on. And I've eliminated a lot of stuff that just doesn't need to be in my life. So think about that. Eliminate free up time. The fourth big idea is another good one. He says, look, a lot of people have a hard time saying no. If someone asks them to do something, they have a hard time saying no. Stephen Covey tells us it's actually relatively easy to say no if you have a really deep yes. If you have a really, really, really deep commitment to something in your life, it's much easier to say no than if you kind of sort of almost commit to something, which is why we talk about commitment all the time right now. What he says, though, is you got to get good at having a nice, kind, strong no. People respect that. It's much better to do a polite no. I really appreciate you inviting me to do that, but right now I just can't because I've committed myself to this and this and this. I wish you the best of luck, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and be polite and cool about it. People respect that. And it's actually much more kind to politely decline and say no than it is to reluctantly say yes. That's not doing anyone a favor. They feel it, you feel it. It's just not helpful. But what Rory tells us is anytime you say yes to something, you're saying no to something else. So if you consciously or unconsciously say yes to watching TV or to wasting time online, you just said no to journaling or reading or spending time with your family or creating. You're always saying no to something, so you might as well say no to the things that aren't important. It's a very big idea cornerstone of the eliminate permission. So, fourth big idea, the fifth big idea, is the number one most significant. So I'm not going to talk a lot about this, these guys. But when we move down to concentrate, the thing we're looking for here is what is the most significant thing you can do that will move you most powerfully toward what you've determined is most important in your life right now? Now, that can vary from a creative project to an email, to taking a nap, to recharge, to working out, to spending time with your family. But in any given moment, we want to ask that focusing question. What's the number one thing I could be doing right now that would most significantly move me forward in the direction of my goals? Ask yourself that question and know that anything other than that is a distraction and discipline yourself to as we talked about in Take the Stairs. Take the stairs. Take action. Once you've gone through this you can concentrate all of your energy on the most important thing. Anything else is a distraction. You are empowered. You know how to say no. You've eliminated all this stuff that doesn't need to be there. You've got your focus funnel rocking via these guys and now you're multiplying your time. So there you go. Quick look at procrastinate on purpose. What idea landed with you? Let's move from theory into practice. Figure out what little thing you can do to tweak your life, to optimize your life via what you just enjoyed. Hopefully enjoyed. And there you go. Look forward to sharing more with you soon. Have another awesome day. See you.