Best Productivity Tips For A Powerful 2023 | Jim Kwik

So let's talk about your different intelligences.

How do you organize information to better understand and also to better remember?

Thousands of years ago, a couple thousand years ago, the Greeks believed that these 4 elements, everything in the world were made up of these 4 elements.

How do I calm and quiet my mind?

I believe every single morning you have a chance and you have a choice.

Right?

To make things better, to be able to grow, to be able to move yourself in the direction that you desire and that you really deserve. And so what are those 4 choices that you could make? Because when you could change your brain, you could change your body, you could change your bank account, but it requires agency. The things that you might not think all the time you have influence of, that you have control over.

Okay.

So the first thing is Do more of something.

What do you wanna do more of? What are you currently doing but you wanna do more of? Maybe it happens if we're talking about your brain, maybe it's eating more of those brain foods, right? Those avocados, the blueberries, the wild salmon, right? Maybe it's, hey, I'm already meditating and I wanna do more meditating. I wanna spend, instead of 10 minutes, I wanna spend 15 minutes. Or maybe I wanna do it one more time a day. I wanna do it twice a day. You're doing more of it. Now, the other powerful thing you could do is doing less of something. Maybe you're doing something right now that's not yielding you the result in your life, in your relationship, in your brain health, right? In your business. And you want to just cut back a little bit, hack away at the unessential. So what are you doing right now that you want to do less of? Maybe it is binge watching your favorite streaming show. Maybe you want to cut back a little bit and spend 30 minutes less, one less episode a day. Maybe it happens to be staying in, in bed a little bit. You know, maybe you're spending too much time in bed and you wanna be able to get outta bed more quickly and you spend less time doing that. Maybe you wanna spend less time procrastinating. What is the habit or the routine, the behavior you're currently doing, but you'll get benefit by just hacking away and reducing it? You don't have to eliminate it. But you're reducing it. Now, the third choice you can make to be able to change your brain, your body, your business, or anything in your life is what do you wanna start doing? What does that mean?

How's that different than doing more of?

You're not currently doing it, but you wanna start it. All right? And remember, you don't have to go if you, from not working out to, to starting doing an hour workout every single day. What's a small, simple step that you wanna start? Maybe it's just a, a 15-minute walk.

Mm-hmm.

Maybe you've heard me talk about having a dream journal and the power of remembering your dreams. Maybe you wanna start doing that. And your small, simple step is going online and buying a journal and keeping it by your nightstand. Maybe it's next time you're at the grocery store, you buy those blueberries, right? You make that brainpower smoothie. You're taking a small, simple step. What's good for your brain? And then finally, the 4th decision you can make each day to better your brain, your body, your bank account is To stop doing something. So you're not just doing it less, you're going to commit to stop doing that thing. So what are you doing? Here's the question that's hurting you, that's harming you, that's, uh, that's taking you away from your goals, the things that really light you up, right? And the things that sometimes, if you're honest with yourself, you complain or you make excuses because the truth is you can't be upset By the results you didn't get from the work you didn't do. So what do you wanna stop doing? And think of all the benefits you'll gain from stopping something. There's a great book from Jim Collins, Good to Great, says, say no to good so you can say yes to what? To great, right? That good is the enemy of great. So what do you wanna stop doing that might even be good, but it'll leave you more room, some time and attention, some space in your life to be great at something else, especially great. For your brain. So maybe you wanna stop smoking. Maybe you wanna stop watching something that's not nourishing you or inspiring you. Maybe you want to, to stop fill in the blank, cuz we're all different, right? And we all have different struggles. But the reason I bring this up, it gives you a filtering system throughout the day. You could ask yourself, what's the best use of this moment, right? Do I wanna do more of something because it's nourishing? Do I wanna do less of something? Do I wanna start something brand new to get a new result, right? Because insanity's doing the same thing over and over again, expecting what?

A different result.

Or do I wanna stop doing something and just empty that space? Sometimes it's easier to stop doing something than sometimes it is to reduce something.

Now, there was research done in the '80s by Howard Gardner, who was a professor and researcher out of Harvard University that said there are actually multiple intelligences. that there's not just one way to view intelligence or a level of genius, that there are actually multiple categories. And here's the thing, it's not fixed. So let's talk about your different intelligences. Let's start with one, verbal-linguistic. We mentioned that. These are individuals that are great orators. These are individuals that love to read. They love to write. They feel connected to that. After verbal-linguistic, let's go to mathematical intelligence. And when you think about mathematical intelligence, how do you feel on a scale of 0 to 10? How good are you, or do you feel it's your element to do some algebra, to do some geometry, and so on? How, do you have a fear of numbers? And how does that express itself and manifest in your everyday life? Do you not like to look at your finances, or potentially invest or save money? Body kinesthetic intelligence, right? And so some people, amazing with their physical acumen. These are individuals that pursue maybe something, and maybe it's you, Athletics, you love to move your body, sports, choreography, some kind of dance, some kind of martial arts. And that's an intelligence, right? To be able to express yourself, your self-awareness. Musical intelligence, and certainly this is a form of intelligence. How would you rate 0 to 10? Do you play a musical instrument? Do you enjoy, are you proficient at singing and karaoke? Think about the professions which are kind of obvious people would pursue. Let's go into the area of interpersonal intelligence. Interpersonal intelligence, and this is certainly a form of genius. People who are great with other people, self to others. People who have a great ability to connect or influence another individual. Many leaders would be proficient in this area. Maybe an orator, maybe a talk show host, right? A negotiator, maybe even a therapist, somebody who could connect with somebody else. Now you have interpersonal intelligence as self to others. I want you to think about self to self, and that's Intrapersonal intelligence. Intrapersonal intelligence is self-to-self. These are individuals who are highly proficient in the understanding of their own human nature. Maybe you think about a psychiatrist. Maybe you think of some leader that really knows the human condition. Some people might think of Freud or somebody else. Self-to-self. A couple more intelligences that we could talk about. Visual-spatial intelligence. Now think about it. If somebody has strong acumen or proficiency in visual-spatial intelligence, maybe they'd be an artist or graphic artist. Maybe they're some kind of designer, interior designer. And then finally, the 8th intelligence in Howard Gardner's work, when he talks about frames of mind and multiple intelligence theory, is that of the environmentalist. And the environmentalist is that who has a connection to nature. What careers would you think? Maybe a park ranger, some kind of ecologist, right? Environmentalist, somebody who's really connected with nature, understands the science of nature.

How do you organize information to better understand and also to better remember? I'm gonna give you 5 ways, and I want you to remember the word LATCH, LATCH, L-A-T-C-H. Now here's the thing. The ways of organizing information are finite. It can only be organized by location, alphabet, time, category, or hierarchy. I'll say those again. This is your LATCH. L stands for location, A stands for alphabet, T stands for time, C stands for category, and H stands for hierarchy. These modes are applicable to almost any endeavor, from your personal filing cabinets to multinational corporations. They're the framework upon which annual reports, books, conversation, exhibits, directories, conventions, warehouses are arranged. So while information may be infinite, the ways of structuring it are not. Once you have a place in which the information can be plugged, it becomes that much more useful. Your choice will be determined by the story you want to tell. Each way will permit a different understanding of the information. Within each of many variations, but recognizing that the main choices are finite and limited makes the process less intimidating. So if you were preparing, let's say, a report on the automobile industry, you could organize cars by model, which is category, year, which is time, place of manufacture, which is location, or let's say some kind of online consumer rating, which is hierarchy. Within each, you might list them alphabetically. Your choice could depend on what you wanted to study or convey about the industry. If you wanted to describe the different types of cars, your primary organization may be something like category. Let's say, for example, convertibles, sedans, 4-wheel drive, etc. Then you might want to organize by hierarchy from the least expensive to the most. If you wanted to examine car dealerships, you You would probably organize first by location and then maybe by numbers of cars sold, right? So once the categories are established, the information about the cars is easily retrievable. Each way of organizing will permit a different understanding, and each lends itself to different kinds of information, and each has very certain reassuring limitations that will help make the choices of how the information is presented easier.

Thousands of years ago, a couple thousand years ago, the Greeks believed that these 4 elements, everything in the world, were made up of these 4 elements. And these elements, in no specific order, of course, you know, that there's air, there's fire, there's earth, and there is water. How can you interject and install, if you will, more of these elements from nature into your morning and evening routines to help you become a limitless learner and also to uplevel your limitless life. The first thing I'll do is I'll have, when I wake up, is I'll have a glass of water, right? So that's, that's the water part. Because what happens at night is you can lose water and your hydration, if you will, and you wanna stay hydrated cuz just a little bit of dehydration and you can lose water at night through respiration and perspiration could actually impact your reaction time, your thinking speed. The next thing I'll do is within the first 10, 15 minutes of when I wake up, I want to get that fire. What does that mean? I want to get that sunlight. And what do I do? I go outside and I get direct sunlight. Even if the sun is not shining out bright, maybe it's a little foggy or a little misty, I want to go outside. I also get grounded. What does that mean? I find a patch of grass or a patch of, uh, like maybe a stone or rock to sit on. Maybe it's sand on a beach, wherever you happen to be. And I sit there and I get grounded and I take my shoes off because I want to be grounded to the earth, right? So that's the earth element. And from there, I bring in and invite oxygen and air. What does that mean? Of course, my breathing exercises. And whatever breathing exercises you happen to do to help you to be able to clear mental fog, to help with mental brain fatigue, For me, I maybe will do some Wim Hof breathing. So maybe I'll do 30 reps and do a few sets of that. We've talked about in previous episodes box breathing, alpha breathing, fire breathing, whatever methodology you subscribe to. And I stack these things. So at the time, I have my glass of water there, so I have my hydration, and I'm getting this, the sunlight, which is the fire. I'm getting the fresh air, and I'm getting grounded all at the same time. And for me, This is something that only takes about 15 minutes, and yet it is a huge delta in terms of the return I get on that investment of time, of attention, the amount of energy and productivity I invite back into my life.

How do I calm and quiet my mind? Your brain isn't designed to work at full steam all the time, so regularly Simmering down with a few science hacks is a really brilliant move for your well-being and really for your life and your career. Here are 5 quick ways to quiet and calm your mind. And I want you to remember the word quiet. Q-U-I-E-T. And so the Q stands for questions.

Ask yourself better questions.

And you'll get better answers. Questions that focus your thoughts and filter out the nonsensical noise that's been cluttering your mind. Questions like, who are you? Now, the U in quiet stands for unplug. One of the easiest ways to calm the mind is to turn off as many sources of distractions. My favorite way to connect is to leave my phone And get out in nature. Get out in the yard, go for a hike, go for a swim. It's incredibly grounding. Now, the I in quiet stands for integrate.

And when I'm talking about integrate, I'm talking about sensory integration. So what does this have to do with having calm and peace of mind?

Well, scientists now know that it's possible to regulate how aroused you are through your 5 senses. Through sight, hearing, taste, smell, touch, as well as through our sense of balance and body awareness, right?

Our vestibular and our proprioceptive.

So techniques such as dimming the lights or sitting under a weighted blanket or listening to nature sounds or gently swaying when you're sitting on, let's say, an exercise ball. to help you to maintain your balance. That helps you to be able to get into your body and out of your mind. E in quiet stands for exercise. If you follow me on Instagram or on Facebook where I do regular quick tips, you may have seen recently my post where I asked actor Will Smith what he does every day to keep his brain focused and his brain sharp. And he says, Jim, I run and I read. You know, you exercise your body and your mind. Finally, the T in quiet stands for transcendental meditation. Now, it doesn't have to be that form of meditation. Obviously, I'm using it because it stands with a T.

Many of you are familiar with TM.

It's one of the most widely practiced and researched meditation techniques. Transcendental meditation movement is a non-religious method of relaxation. Stress reduction and self-development. Meditation— many of you practice mindfulness. We've surveyed a lot of our social media, a lot of our community. It's really identified and defined as a practice where an individual uses a technique such as focusing their mind on a particular object or a thought, a mantra, or activity to achieve mental clear and emotionally calm state. And that's really what this podcast episode is all about.