Top 5 Productivity Hacks For Entrepreneurs, Copywriters, and Freelancers In 2021 💻

Hey, so today I want to talk about productivity hacks for freelancers, copywriters, entrepreneurs, really anybody who wants to be more effective. This stuff is based on my own personal experience and it's made a huge difference for me and for a lot of people that I have taught it too. So I'm going to get right into it and just share a few things and I'm not going to be preachy, but it might come across a little bit like I am. You'll see what I mean in a second. Because really the first one is every morning when I wake up, I, I focus on my biggest needle mover or biggest task right away. So I wake up, I make myself coffee, I have one cup of coffee a day. I wake up at about 5, 5:30 in the morning. Personally we'll get into wake up times in a minute. I wake up pretty early, but then I go to my computer and I jump right into whatever my biggest task is for the day. So a lot of the times it might be like writing copy for a client or doing something for my mastermind or some consulting coaching, whatever it is I'm doing, I focus on that first. But what's really important to understand is that I do not first go on Facebook. I do not first go and check my Gmail and reply to emails that I've gotten. I do not go on Skype, I do not go through Slack, I don't do any of those things. I started doing this maybe six months ago and it's made a dramatic difference for me in my life. And the reason why is pretty simple. When you do even little things like that, when you're like. Because what happens is a lot of times people will tell me, oh, you know, I gotta get tuned up, I gotta get warmed up. I, you know, I don't wanna go to work here right away. And I used to always be the same way. This is my morning ritual. I check my email, I respond to it, I go on. You know, I read the newspaper, I would read the Wall Street Journal and all. But all that's happening is there's a million things that are now accosting you and your senses and distracting you and taking your brain in a million different directions. So your brain when you wake up, as primed to go right into that deep work and to do whatever is most important. But you start checking emails and oh, there's one email from a client who's pissed off or from a friend who has a problem or a reminder of something that you didn't do previously. And Suddenly your mind goes to that. You're instantly distracted, or you're anxious or you're worried or even excited. Maybe it's a good opportunity. And suddenly you want to reply to that, so you do. And then you reply to a couple more emails and suddenly it's a half an hour, 45 minutes after you woke up and, and you still haven't actually got on your biggest needle mover. And then God forbid you go on Facebook and you start seeing all the notifications and you click on that and you reply to somebody who's tagged you and then you see some pictures and you start scrolling and you get an argument about politics or God or whatever it is you argue about on Facebook. Next thing you know, now it's been two hours and you still haven't done your big needle mover and oh crap, now you've got a meeting or the kids are up, or you've got family stuff to do, whatever it is. And you still never get to your big needle mover for the day. And the day just passes you by. It's 2 o', clock, 3 o' clock in the afternoon and you feel like, I'm exhausted, I don't want to do this. I have no mental energy. So now it becomes a big thing of resistance and you're fighting yourself to do it and you're just feeling no desire whatsoever to get done. So then either you try and you struggle and it sucks, or you don't, you put it off and then you hate yourself, you feel guilty, you feel bad about everything and, and your whole day, even your evening is crappy. You take it off on your friends, family, loved ones, whoever else. That's the experience for me. But the magic way you get rid of all that is you just do your biggest needle mover first thing in the morning. And it sounds easier said than done. I understand, but it will change your life. Do the first hour and a half, two hours. Put that aside. I personally do Pomodoro's. That could be number two on our list here with Pomodoro's. Basically you do 25 minutes of intense, focused work and take a five minute break. 25 minutes, five minute break. So you do sets of Pomodoros. I'll do, you know, four of them. Three or four of them. But you'll be amazed if you have all distractions minimized and you actually focus on deep work. You'll be amazed and shocked at how much you can get done in 25 minutes. I mean, it's crazy what you can get Done. The problem is we start working for 25 minutes and then we check our email, reply to an email, get a message, get a notification on our phone, do all this crap. And again, the 25 minutes goes by and it feels like it flew by. Nothing got done. It's because we weren't actually working, having deep, focus work. So I love Pomodoros on top of that. Speaking of my phone, I always put my phone face down when I'm doing deep work. And really most of the day when I'm working in general, I also always keep my phone on. Do not disturb. I cannot tell you the last time I had a ringer on my phone. It has been years. I don't understand why you would do it. Don't do it. Phone being quiet. You control your phone. Your phone doesn't control. You look at your phone when you want to, on your schedule, when you, when you have time to do that. And the same thing goes for desktop notifications. Like if you use Slack people, Slack constantly tries to prompt you early on, especially when you go into a new channel to do desktop notification notifications. And I'll be talking to somebody and hear that, like that little clicking sound that Slack makes. And I just kind of quietly judge people for having that going on and also gives me anxiety. God, you're trying to do deep work and it's like, how the fuck is that not gonna distract you? So I think Slack's evil for even doing it. I think all the, any, any website, any app that says they wanna give you desktop notifications or push notifications can go fuck itself not doing it. I control my time, I control my attention. These apps do not control my time or my attention. I think that's really important to understand. So what do we have? Okay, we have Focus, Deep work. We have Pomodoros. We have minimizing distractions on your phone, the desktop notifications. Speaking of Facebook, I would really encourage you not to go on Facebook until several hours into your day. A lot of days I'll wake up at 5.35am, 6am on the later side, and I won't log into Facebook for the first time until 10:30, 11 noon. Because once I get on, I'm gonna start replying to our tags and looking at comments and interacting with people. And they've done countless studies that it's basically little dopamine hits to your brain, just like a slot machine, right. Every time there's a new notification or a like or whatever. Same thing with Instagram as well. There's like Little dopamine hits to your brain and your brain gets frazzled, it gets worked up, it gets in a heightened and aroused state. Which is cool, I guess, if you're trying to get off. But it's not the coolest thing. If you're trying to focus, it drains you. It drains you. It's the same reason if you've seen someone who's been playing a slot machine for five hours straight and they're smoking cigarettes and their eyes are all bloodshot, but they can't get up. That's us on Facebook. And I'm not talking shit about Facebook. I do a lot of business on Facebook, but we have to control our usage of it. I also never scroll through my newsfeed. Cannot think of the last time I just spent time endlessly scrolling through my newsfeed. Really should try not to do it. Dopamine hit. Call it Endless Scroll. Nur Eyal, I think is the guy's name who wrote the book Hooked all about how you could get users hooked on your products. It's like the Bible in Silicon Valley because they've actually made these products addictive and they're trying to get you hooked. Then, by the way, he wrote another book a year or two back called Indistractible or Undistractable and. And that's all about how to unhook yourself. So the guy felt so bad about getting everyone addicted to technology that he tried to the drug dealer who then develops the antidote. But really trying to minimize Facebook is awesome. Now, when it comes to bedtime and when you go to sleep and when you wake up, I think that everybody's different. I truly believe some people in their rhythms. Early morning does not work for them. And they're just not morning people. They maybe can become morning people. But I'm not going to sit there and tell you that you have to wake up at 4:30 or 5am for me, it works. And I didn't used to do it. I started doing it. It was a struggle. Gradually got earlier and earlier. I started doing it, by the way, after going to an event in LA in 2019, November of 2019, and hearing magic Johnson, Kris Jenner, Mark Wahlberg, I got to spend time listening to all three of those people in a really intimate setting. I got to actually meet Magic Johnson, super nice guy, and talking like a room, room of like 100 people. Really intimate setting. And all three of those people, Mark Wahlberg, Magic Johnson and Jenner, all like were together and watched at different times. But one of the things that they all shared was that they all wake up really early in the morning and I finally clicked. I was like, you know what, it's interesting. They all have this habit. Let me try it. For me, it's been a game changer. I get deep work done then before my family's even up, I build wins, I build momentum. If I stop in the middle at 2 o' clock in the afternoon, I think it's about 1:40, 1:30. I'm filming this right now. I'm up in Park City, Utah with my family on a vacation. Well, trip, half vacation. My wife's filming. So she's smiling because, fair enough, I'm shooting a video. Not a full vacation. But regardless, after this, I'm done and we're going to. I want to get some snow pants and go play with my daughter in the snow. We might go sledding and I'm done. But I started working really early. I got a ton done. I've had a great day. I have no guilt about stopping at 1:30, so for me that works. But just find the schedule that works best for you. If you can do early morning, I recommend it. But if it's not for you, that's cool too. So anyway, those are my main tips for now. I actually have more, so maybe I'll do a part two. If you like this, make sure that you comment and say, hey, this is valuable and let me know. Hit the like button or smash the like button as Graham Stephan says, and I like to steal that from him. If you're not subscribed to my channel, you should definitely be subscribed. But yeah, leave me a comment. Let me know if you want a part two. And if you find this valuable. Or also if there are other tips that I do missed out on that are really important and I just totally forgot it, let me know. Maybe I can talk about that in a future video as well. So thank you.