Stop confusing busy with productive. Pick one to three high-impact tasks each day, especially ones that make money or move your goals forward. A lion hunts antelope, not field mice.
Chapters
Today, what we're going to be talking about is being productive versus just being busy. And I'm sure you felt this way before, where one day you go in, you work, and you work, you're working really hard, but no matter how hard you work, at the end of the day, you still feel like you did not get anything done or you didn't get enough done. And this is one of the big differences between being productive versus being just busy. So an example of this, if you think about it, if you make a to do list of everything that needs to be done for the day, most people, what they like to do is check off as many boxes as possible. They think that if they check off as many boxes as possible, they will have gotten a lot done for the day. But what happens when you do that is when you're just concentrating on checking off boxes, what you're doing is you're getting all of the easy tasks, all the easy things that need to be done for the day. But that doesn't mean that you're going to get all of the productive stuff done. And so the difference between being productive and being busy is instead of looking at your to do list and thinking, how can I get as many boxes checked off as possible? Is to look at your to do list and say, what is my number one thing that has to be done today? What is my number two thing? What is my number three thing? And you prioritize the most important things that need to be done each day. And what you do is you don't go to bed until number one, two, and three are done. And if nothing else gets done for the rest of the day, it will still feel like a productive day. The reason why is because you are concentrating on the things that matter the most right now. Not focusing on getting laundry done or doing the dishes. You're concentrating on things that are going to make you productive or make you more money right now. A great question to ask yourself if you're in stress or if you want to make more money is just ask yourself the question, how can I make money right now? What can I do right now that might get me more money in my pocket at this second or in the future? That's the difference between being productive versus just being busy. Being busy is just getting things done, little tiny tasks. Being productive is getting things done that matter. And that's the difference between a successful person and an unsuccessful person. An analogy, a way to think of this is, if you're a lion, are you running around chasing antelope or are you running around all day long chasing field mice? Little tiny things? They're not going to fill you up. But if you chase an antelope, you get that one big thing done for the day. You get those two big things done for the day. You're going to feel productive at the end of the day if you do that. If you do this every single day, you're going to be very productive. Over a week, over months, over years, you're going to be extremely productive. And so next time you feel that you're busy, you feel like you're doing a lot, you feel like you're just stressed out because you have so much to do, ask yourself the question, what's the most important thing right now? Am I being productive or am I just keeping busy? And that's the key to being extremely productive in getting the things done that matter, getting your to do list together and prioritizing the most important things that need to be done right now.
