I love taking notes and I have several journals including digital notepads. Are you a note junkie like me? Do you use Google Keep or Evernote?
The other day (talmabout some months ago), I was decluttering my Keep notes and I stumbled on quite a number of write-ups I had drafted but never shared on the blog. Immediately, I started copying and drafting them directly to the blog and that’s when I stumbled on this note, it is something I read from Robin Sharma (I love Robin Sharma’s books, you can check out The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari)
Basically, it is a list of 21 things you can inculcate to become the most productive person you know, I find some of them quite useful and I thought to share them with you. I hope you find some of these helpful.
Let’s get into it then… Here are 21 tips to get you to your best productivity:
1. Check your email in the afternoon so you protect the peak energy hours of your mornings for your best work.
2. Stop waiting for perfect conditions to launch a great project. Immediate action fuels a positive feedback loop that drives even more action.
3. Remember that big, brave goals release energy. So set them clearly and then revisit them every morning for 5 minutes.
Suggested read: 7 Steps on How To Switch To A Career in Tech
4. Mess creates stress (I learned this from tennis icon Andre Agassi who said he wouldn’t let anyone touch his tennis bag because if it got disorganized, he’d get distracted). So clean out the clutter in your office to get more done. Basically, try decluttering.
5. Sell your TV. You’re just watching other people get successful versus doing the things that will get you to your dreams. Say goodbye to the energy vampires in your life (the negative souls who steal your enthusiasm).
Esther’s Comment: Let go of energy that distracts you from achieving your dreams, this can include social media time, unnecessary outings, etc.
7. Run routines. When I studied the creative lives of massively productive people like Stephen King, John Grisham, and Thomas Edison, I discovered they follow strict daily routines. (i.e., when they would get up when they would start work, when they would exercise and when they would relax). Peak
productivity’s not about luck. It’s about devotion.
8. Get up at 5 AM. Win the battle of the bed. Put mind over mattress. This habit alone will strengthen your willpower so it serves you more dutifully in the key areas of your life.
Esther’s Comment: This is one of my fave hacks, and it has worked for me so much that it has basically become a habit to wake up at 4.30 am.
9. Don’t do so many meetings. (I’ve trained the employees of our FORTUNE 500 clients on exactly how to do this – including having the few meetings they now do standing up – and it’s created breakthrough results for them).
Esther’s Comment: Send this particular one to your bosses and HR folks (on a lighter note).
10. Don’t say yes to every request. Most of us have a deep need to be liked. That translates into us saying yes to everything – which is the end of your elite productivity.
11. Outsource everything you can’t be BIW (Best in the World) at. Focus only on activities within what I call “Your Picasso Zone”.
12. Stop multi-tasking. New research confirms that all the distractions invading our lives are rewiring the way our brains work (and drop our IQ by 5 points!). Be one of the rare-air few who develops the mental and physical discipline to have a monomaniacal focus on one thing for many hours. (It’s all
about practice).
Esther’s Comment: Well, this goes both ways, but I like the principle of monomaniacal focus when I want to get high productivity.
13. Get fit like Madonna. Getting to your absolute best physical condition will create explosive energy, renew your focus and multiply your creativity
14. Workout x2 a day. Here’s the key: exercise is one of the greatest productivity tools in the world. So do 20 minutes first thing in the morning and then another workout around 6 or 7 PM to set you up for wow in the evening.
Esther’s Comment: Omo * 1 million o, I think the key here is to inculcate consistent exercise into your routine.
15. Drink more water. When you’re dehydrated, you’ll have far less energy. And get less done.
16. Work in 90-minute blocks with 10-minute intervals to recover and refuel (another game-changing move I personally use to do my best work).
17. Write a Stop-Doing List. Every productive person obsessively sets To-Do Lists. But those who play at world-class also record what they commit to stop doing. Steve Jobs said that what made Apple, Apple, was not so much what they chose to build but all the projects they chose to ignore.
18. Use your commute time. If you’re commuting 30 minutes each way every day – get this: at the end of a year, you’ve spent 6 weeks of 8 hour days in your car. I encourage you to use that time to listen to fantastic books on audio + excellent podcasts and valuable learning programs. Remember, the fastest way to double your income is to triple your rate of learning.
19. Be a contrarian. Why buy your groceries at the time the store is busiest? Why go to the movies on the most popular nights? Why hit the gym when the gym’s completely full? Do things at off-peak hours and you’ll save so many of them.
Esther’s Comment: Well, this makes me feel good, as I still haven’t watched many of the trending series on Netflix.
20. Get things right the first time. Most people are wildly distracted these days. And so they make mistakes. To unleash your productivity, become one of the special performers who have the mindset of doing what it takes to get it flawless first. This saves you days of having to fix problems.
21. Get lost. Don’t be so available to everyone. I often spend hours at a time in the cafeteria of a university close to our headquarters. I turn off my devices and think, create, plan and write. Zero interruptions. Pure focus. Massive results.
Inside gist: This post took me months to complete even after putting the draft on the blog, God have mercy on me o, lols.
P.S: Hope you found this helpful? which of these principles are you going to start practicing?