What they don't tell you about productivity (TIPS FOR ENTREPRENEURS 2023)

This is what they don't tell you about productivity. Productivity is not about working as much as you can. Instead, it's about being smart and leveraging both your strengths and weaknesses to get the best outcome for yourself and your business. In this video, I'll give you 10 tricks to achieve maximum productivity in the shortest amount of time.

You don't necessarily want productivity, at least in the long term, to be an exercise of will. Now, in the beginning, like getting into any routine, might take some will, right? But ideally, you know, you don't want to have to rely on willpower. It's less than ideal. The greatest productivity secret in the world is to work on things that I'm passionate about and to figure out ways that I can get other people to work on the things that I'm less passionate about. What really matters is whether the goal or currently motivates my behavior, makes me feel like doing stuff and being in action. And so for me, it has to start with, is this outcome something I'm really passionate about making happen in the world? And if it isn't, then maybe it's not the right time for me to actually focus on that. I like to listen to techno music with no lyrics when I'm writing, when I'm working on a presentation or something like that. I have different Spotify playlists, so I use like Brain FM sometimes when I'm writing, if I'm writing something where I need to think. But if I'm working on something and I want to be like, upbeat, I'll play techno and I'll blast it here in my office. And so I have a standing desk here that goes up and down obviously, like most do. But I find that I want to attack the keyboard or attack the presentation, and I find that it's easier for me to do that when I'm listening to the right music, when I'm standing versus sitting, etc. People who spend too much time in the office often become greatly inefficient because.

They use their excuse that they'll be.

Working later to get done the work that needs to get done. A lot of entrepreneurs don't really know what it's like to be 80% effective. In other words, that if you were in the office for 10 hours, that you really got eight solid hours of work done. In fact, most people are not even 20% effective. If you want it to be 80% effective, then the only way that I know of to radically change how you approach things, which is what has to happen, is to actually cut your work hours Way down. So let's say that you're 20% effective and you spend 10 hours a day in the office. So you're spending 50 hours a week, Monday to Friday at quote, unquote, at work, right? But if you're being honest with yourself, you really only get two really highly productive hours done. If we cut your hours down to three hours a day, as opposed to 10 hours a day, what happens is that the first day that you go to three hours, you're not going to.

Get two hours of work done.

It's probably not going to happen. In fact, you might not get any work done. But by the second and third day, the pressure to get work done is going to start to build on itself. And what's going to happen is that at some point that first, first week, you're going to start making different decisions. The phone is going to ring and you're not going to answer it because you know that's going to cut into the three hours that you have. You're only adding hours back as long as you can maintain that level of effectiveness and efficiency. And after a few days, you will get into a totally, like, different mode of working. And it you will notice for yourself how different that difference is. I cannot say I don't feel like doing something unless I'm actually doing it. Many times when I don't feel like working out, once I start working out, I do feel like continuing, and I do feel happy that I did work out. So I have a rule for myself that I will work out for five minutes and then I will decide whether I want to continue or not. Things in motion tend to stay in motion. Things that don't tend to not. I'm almost never in the mood to do something other than what I'm currently doing unless I don't like what I'm currently doing. And so I can't really decide whether I feel like doing X or feel like doing Y when I'm doing A. Because, like, more. More often than not, if A is more pleasant than X or Y, I'm not going to feel like doing X or Y. I also find that I am most productive if I start my day, like with a mind map, thinking.

About all the things I want to.

Get done, how they're related to other things, and organizing my day in kind of a kind of creative way as opposed to just a to do list. I try to schedule fun things on my calendar so I have stuff to look forward to because a lot of times what I used to use as a rationale to procrastinate was like, once I start this, that's going to take up all this time. I'm not going to be able to do this, that or the other thing. But I find that having certain things on my calendar that I'm looking forward to doing are therefore help me get stuff done. I just have some notes about my motivation strategy. I think everyone is different, right? So you got to look at what it is like. When do you feel most motivated to take on certain things versus not so for me. I have this list here and it's like my motivation strategy. Is the opportunity big? Is there an external slash, real deadline? Am I motivated? Does it feel right for me? Are the stakes high enough to be excited about and would I be letting someone down that I care about? If I can answer those questions with the opportunities big, the stakes are high. I would be letting someone down I care about and there isn't a real deadline. You got to figure out when are the times that you've been most motivated and can you boil that down into a couple of characteristics that you can then attached to the things that you most feel like you would like to get done. If you consistently are wrong about how long things take you, you can end up not necessarily doing the most important task or like getting done what's most important because you're not clear. So hand in hand with choosing the right things is also recognizing that an estimate of how long it's going to take you and and then revisiting that estimate after the fact to determine do you consistently think it's going to take you a lot less than it actually does? Do you consistently think it's going to take you a lot more than it actually does? Good time management kind of depends on knowing the value of your time. And you can't really know the value of your time unless you know what that you can do in that amount of time. It's easy to tackle the simple tasks and leave the important but time consuming projects undone if you're just doing that on a to do list basis. So for sure, knowing what you can accomplish realistically in an hour or a half hour is vital. The more activities I can combine, the more likely it is that those activities get done. If there's times I want to read, I get on the elliptical. When I want to work out, I'm doing reading. Anytime I'm doing my inversion, I'm meditating. And the more things that I can combine that way, the more likely it is for me to be doing those tasks. So I'm constantly looking for ways to get more leverage from the tasks that I'm already doing and figuring out ways to inject more into those things without it becoming burdensome. Right? Because if it becomes overburdensome, then I won't do it at all. But I find that for me, having core activities that can have two outcomes really makes a big difference for me. The more activities that I can do that way, the better off I am. Making it easier for your future self to follow through because the to follow through will be the path of least resistance. I have to recognize that I want that my future self is no better than my current self and therefore if I can make it so that the default easiest thing to do is actually to get the work done that I need to get done, the likelihood is that it will be much higher, right can you work where there's no WI fi? Can you turn off the WI fi and you and you set up rules? You're not going to shower until you've gotten your writing done? If writing is a challenge for you, trying to reduce and eliminate any friction points that don't need to be there in your day to day life, Eliminate those friction points so that life can build the momentum in and of itself.

What if you find yourself in a slump and can't get back on track no matter what you do? Don't worry, I have just what you need. You can check out my video on how to get out of a slump and get motivated again in no time. I'll include the link at the end of this video. Or if you're an entrepreneur with ADD and struggling to get work done, you can check out my live stream on tried and tested productivity tips for ADD entrepreneurs. Don't forget to like, comment and subscribe for more insights to higher profits and beyond.