Stop Wasting Life - 8 Productivity Rules of The Top 1%

the truth is successful people don't rely on discipline or willpower to be more productive but these are the rules that they follow that allow them to get done even when they don't feel like it they're the same rules I use to go from an unproductive ADHD mess to an insanely productive $100 million CEO so without further explaining it these are the eight productivity rules of the top 1% rule number one design versus default the whole philosophy I live by is design your life over defaulting to it see when I got diagnosed with ADHD at 12

years old I honestly thought there was something broken with me and I went my whole life on medication and struggling with you know taking this pill that made me completely different and then at 36 years old I decided I didn't want to take it anymore the problem was is that I became so dependent on it if I didn't take it I couldn't get anything done like literally couldn't process email or do anything that looked like financials and through a process with a friend I reduced my dosing I focused on my habits I figured out that

there was a lot of stuff that I wasn't doing that if I added to my life it would allow me to show up as me without the downside and it wasn't easy but it took discipline it took designing it and most people just live their life as almost like that's who I am that's how it is and that's their default that's not how it has to be if you lack discipline build a life that doesn't require it so here's a few things I do that's very different than anybody else that allows me to get more

done focusing on discipline first off I schedule most of everything I do with other people why it turns out I will do more for somebody else than I'll do for myself if I have a commitment to go work out if I have a commitment to a work session when I have somebody else involved I'll 100% show up if it's just me sometimes I'll drag my feet sometimes I'll cancel it having other people you make a commitment to is a big game Cher second part is I plan my perfect week it's a framework I teach in

my book buyback your time and the whole idea is to start with the big priorities look at the reoccurring items look at the meeting rhythms look at your goals and ensure that the week is aligned with the goals cuz if you don't then you're just going through the motions you're not moving anything forward by doing it that way you do the work even if you're not motivated or overwhelmed and it helps you stay focused on the things when you're motivated and not let yourself get overwhelmed the other thing I do is batch work you know

essentially I look at different days of the week and I theme them to focus on content or creation or businesses that are all similar because most people think that they can do context switching they think that they can go from like one thing to the next thing to the next thing to the next thing and it turns out you suck at it if you just look at like counting 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 all the way to 26 and then doing the same thing AB bcde e fgh all the way

till z you could do that quite fast most people can do it about 6 seconds if you go 1 a 2 B 3 C onward a minute plus so right off the bat the math does a math and that's why my favorite thing to tell people is batch the work and focus which stands for follow one course until successful meaning to do similar type of work and focus on it so you have the same energy and get it all done at your highest level another area is for me is manage your energy I don't believe

you manage time you actually manage energy when I wake up in the morning my ability to connect to my Creator and design and think and problem solve it's at the highest level so when I wake up I have a morning ritual that I follow to allow me to produce and create my best work I don't save that till I'm tired in the afternoon in the afternoon I schedule meetings because I love being with people and it energizes me so I always look at right time right action throughout my day there's certain types of work that

I'm going to put and insert so that gets the right type of energy that I've got for that activity so that's why I'll even split up my day with workout so that I can reset my energy so I come into the next meeting focused if you asked me to talk about the thing that had the biggest impact around designing my life versus the default reaction it's understanding my calendar design creates my reality so if you only use this you'll be ahead of like 99% of the people but if you want my template for the perfect

week I'll tell you where to get it at the end the problem is is that you're probably struggling with discipline and that isn't enough which is where rule number two comes in build your habits when I started in business I used to think getting into flow state was something that happened randomly some like magical moment throughout my week where I'm like oh my God it was like I was working and I felt connected it was the best thing I ever did and it wouldn't happen for a while and I'd be like why am I struggling

so hard to get in into work but then I learned you can actually make it happen by Design and it all comes down to your habits one of my philosophies around this is your habits determine your future so all I got to do is look at what you do every day and I will tell you what your future will look like the crazy part about being in flow state is that when you're in it it feels like you can do anything I mean you don't have a desire to go to the bathroom you're not hungry

it gives you energy because you're focus on a task and using parts of your brain which is familiar and you know how to do it but at the same time it's stretch in you and then building the habits that precede it it's just like shooting content before I shoot content I have a whole process that I use to get into the energy of communicating if I didn't I wouldn't be able to come consistently to shoot and to share with you the way I think about habits is I break them down into two things rituals and

triggers and those things can help you get into flow so for example in my home I have this specific chair that I use to trigger me to Vision when I sit in that chair it's this beautifully positioned place where I'm over looking the city that I live in and I'm allowing myself to dream that chair has become a trigger another example is my ritual around working that I need to put headphones on and I usually put EDM music with no words I want the beat there so it keeps my mind Focus but that ritual of

when I do deep work allows me to get into flow a lot faster you can use location as trigger it's like when you walk into your office you can use the door frame as the trigger to remind yourself the kind of work that you're there to do and it's just these simple mental frames these identity resets that allows High performers to perform at a level that most people again they just go through their life by default there's no design to it so one of my favorites is when I sit in my car every time I

have these really cool cars I'll review my goals list so I have this list of the 12 goals I want to get done for the year and I just review them I ask myself is my calendar reflect this do I feel in the energy of receiving it and I just go all in sitting in that car in that environment for me for that trigger allows me to get more done but if you really want to be insanely productive you got to change your thinking which brings us to rule number three systematize everything have you ever

forgotten to pack something for a trip and like you get to that place and it drives you nuts cuz like the one thing you needed maybe is your swim shorts or your sunglasses I don't know what it is but everybody's got a thing and it's nothing's more annoying than getting to a place and not having what you expected would you find it weird to know that I have a system for packing my clothes I call it the CEO packing Playbook and I've had it for almost a decade now the reason why is I don't want

to forget things I want to make sure that if I go on an Iron Man race I don't want to forget my swim cap or if I'm going mountain biking I can't forget my clip on shoes or if I go snowboarding I need my toque here's a mental quote I want to offer you is to consider this if you find yourself doing something more than twice create a system for it the coolest part is system stands for save yourself time energy and money because if you do it once you don't repeat it I'm a huge

huge fan of checklists again if you haven't read my book I talk about it all the time cuz there's three specific benefits from doing them number one is you eliminate procrastination and confusion if I have a checklist and I got something I got to get done I just follow the checklist it's like if my brain has to go and think about what I'm about to do then I'll drag my feet you know like pack my clothes get some Financial processes finished checklist help me not procrastinate or be confused and just move forward number two is

it creates consistency back in the day I used to have to check all my different social networks so make sure I responded to emails and make sure that I check this and I created a checklist so that I was always consistently on top of all the inbound messages in my life the coolest part is if you follow checklist it also allows you to avoid having to do rework right where you do something and it didn't get done right because you missed the step and then it's got to come back to you to get done that's

called the defect and if you want to waste your time and energy have defects out in the world with your work that then comes back onto your plate and then you're backed up and it just keeps a cycle of like being overwhelmed I remember when Elon launched his first car the Roadster he had so many defects that had to come back into a warehouse everybody was freaking out cuz there's like hundreds of cars that they thought they had delivered to customers but they were missing the checklist to do the delivery to make sure the car

was done and then it all had to come back for the rework number three is it allows you to buy back your time see at first you do it it's your checklist then eventually a virtual assistant so they help you out and now I have a house manager that takes care of all the things in my life they're the CEO of Martell family and they follow checklists that I created first for myself then for my assistant and now for my house manager here's a pro tip for knocking this out of the park is ADD checklist

and context in your calendar in the description you put the checklist in there so that when the notification pops up you know exactly what you got to go do but there's another rule that will make you exponentially more productive which brings us to number four don't repeat yourself this is one of my favorite philosophies that my nerdy programming background brings out of me all the time most people don't realize that if you're going to do something once you want to document it so that you never do it twice and the best way to do that

is to use a thing called a stencil or a pattern so that it makes it consistent every time if I was manually painting all the birds on the wall it would take me like hours whereas with a stencil I can get it done in an hour and that's the difference between doing manual work that you're dependent on a specialist to do versus having a stencil that allows you get a lot done so don't repeat yourself broke people get good at doing tasks rich people get good at avoiding them in many ways is I'm successful because

I don't do things that other people can do but the only reason I can have them do them for me is because I've created the blueprints the templates and the stencils for them to do the work the way I would do it because I've created that frame here's how to not repeat yourself number one stencils are exponential improvements having a template a blueprint a structure that other people follow to get the same result is a GameChanger number two is having checklists that creates the process I mean I have a system for creating systems which I

always thought was obvious but when I showed my friends they were like oh my gosh Dan that's so smart well of course cuz if I'm going to create systems I need a template and I need a process to show people how to do it so I never have to do it again and it gets done right it eliminates the steps in the process number three is packing lists are cool that's a system but a stencil is a complete copy a packing list gives you a checklist so that you don't forget anything like your toothbrush a

stencil says how about you have a copy of all the stuff in your toiletry bag and that's a separate bag so that when you do travel you just grab the bag that you know has everything and put it in your luggage so you absolutely can't forget anything because it's the same thing you took on your previous trip four is an advanced move but it's using AI to create stencils so one of my favorite prompts after I'm playing with some kind of AI chat is to ask it to give me the prompt that would generate that

specific output so then I'm asking AI to give me the stencil that I can copy and paste in the future to get to that place way faster but sometimes it doesn't matter how systematized the task there's something holding you back and that's where rule number five comes in call your shot a while ago I heard a stat that said that 22 million people in the US are millionaires but only 3 million have visible apps it occurred to me I had the first but I didn't have the second and if I did then I'd be kind

of a unicorn so I made this crazy commitment so I called it project visible ABS gave myself 90 days and I went all in and I will tell you I thought it was going to be easy until I hit a plateau for 3 weeks I didn't lose any weight and the crazy part is I had St stes meaning that if I didn't do it I had to enter in a fitness competition as is on stage in a freaking speed up that's kind of bananas what made it different for me is I believe in these three

things one you have to have a clear goal second you have a time frame three is you have Stakes so for me it was entering the fitness competition most importantly is I called my shot I invited my videographer to my house to follow me around to look at the scale and then I told the whole world everybody on the internet this is what I'm doing this is my timeline and if I don't do then there's public accountability see most people don't want accountability cuz then if they fail they're going to do it in public but

Stephen cvy used to say all the time accountability breeds responsibility if you're accountable for your action you'll be responsible to do the right thing so I want to teach you a few Big Ideas number one is verbalize your goals to activate them a lot of people have a vision they have dreams they have things they want to do projects they don't tell anybody if you don't talk your goals out loud it doesn't activate them think about all the people that you follow on the internet they call shots non-stop Elon Musk we're going to colonize Mars

Gary ve I'm going to buy the New York Jets these are things that people that hardly know these people know about them because they don't stop talking about it number two is they commit to others they text the friend they let the person know this is my time frame hold me accountable so they use their peer group not as a negative thing as a positive thing I call it a positive peer group where you then have your friends ask you how you doing with that you I heard you're trying to do that project visible ABS

is that was that happening being accountable to other people that see you every day and they see you make decisions you go to dinner with them and they go hey man doesn't look like you're doing that thing you told us about that'll keep you on track I also learn having other people involved makes it easier for me to stick to so if I schedule time to go to the gym with my trainer I'm not going to quit on them if it's just me I'm probably going to bail if I'm not feeling up to it number

three is competition makes it fun so not only did I have a stake if I didn't hit it I had to enter in a fitness competition if I hit it I gave myself permission to buy one of my cars a Ferrari Pizza one of the most beautiful in my mind cars and then it became a thing and everybody asked me did you get your car yet what are you doing are you on track and it was just like a fun experience cuz I remember the day I hit my goal I showed up and we made

it a whole event and everybody on my team came out to see it and it came out and it was delivered and I had that car for weeks prior before ever driving it because I wanted to honor the process number four is make a public commitment on social media decide what goal you want to hit what timeline post it on Instagram and tag me D Martell TW Martell on Instagram I want to see you make a public commitment to your future call your shot but if you've committed you still might struggle with spending too much

time on things which brings us to rule number six which is compress the timeline anytime I've launched a product my business coaching my fitness program my mindset program anything I've announced it before I ever had it built it's just been my default I learned a long time ago to default to action if I hav't a thing that I want to create I just have to start selling it because most people think about all the things I could do to start it and get ready to started and d and I'm like the only thing to do

is to get a customer and then that'll be a forcing function to move forward it actually helps you compress the timeline because it gives you a real feedback loop of what's important and what's just noise Parkinson's law says work expand to fill the time available if you ask somebody to get something done they say I'll get it done by Friday just ask them can you get it done by Tuesday I can't do Tuesday how about Wednesday yeah I could probably do Wednesday ding ding ding all of a sudden now people are getting things done a

lot faster for you which means you get more done in a calendar year which means you make more money I remember one time I was coaching A Private Client they flew all the way to Colona for us to sit down for a half day to review their 10year plan their big goals they wanted to build a 100 million a year business over the next decade and I was like cool but then I asked them a simple question how probable do you feel it' be for you to accomplish the 10-year goal in one year 1 out

of 10 if you had to make it happen are you confident you could get it done in a year and everybody replied there was a few other people and they all said ah probably like a three or four I said interesting I said could you get it done in a year if you knew at the end of the year if you didn't hit your goal that you would lose all of your business your bank accounts would zero out and you'd never be able to start another company for the rest of your life they said well

now it's a 10 I said interesting what changed motivation all of a sudden now they made it a must not a nice to have that's Parkinson's law the work will expand to the time you give it most people are scared to choose aggressive timelines but what I've learned is doing that actually gives you the creativity to force you to come up with the answers so I'm always trying to find Opportunities to create forcing functions if I can put myself in a situation that forces me to get something done faster by making a commitment to somebody

else or just deciding this is when it's got to get done by tomorrow morning and not delaying it that creates a better product having shorter timeline forces simp licity you can't over complicate it which is usually the thing that stops people from actually being successful and it turns out Simplicity scales most people struggle in business cuz they do 1,400 different things instead of choosing the one to three things that actually makes them money that they love to do that the customer wants and if you do that simple scales complexity fails the human mind is designed

to add complexity so you get a fight against this and over the years I've learned a goal without a deadline is Just a Dream it's something people want they aspire to it but it doesn't have any meat because there's no timeline the one thing I do all the time with my team is just ask me give me a date give me a date give me a date now all of a sudden I've activated the execution of that project but here's most entrepreneurs cryp Tonite their phone you have access to the entire world in seconds which

is why number seven to be insanely productive is cut out distractions here's a big idea turn off all your notifications on your phone turn them off I dare you there was a life before your notifications before they even built that feature and there will be alive afterwards and if you want to save your time your energy your focus turn them off no more vibrating no more buzzing no more screen time you decide when you go check in don't let any person in the world just automatically disrupt your life did you know your inbox is nothing

more than a public to-do list for strangers on your time crazy turn them off a while ago I had the privilege to be invited to spend a week with Richard Branson his home in Switzerland and what I saw was a guy that not only refused to have a phone or have any distractions or have anybody bug them honestly was his process for taking all the inbound requests on his time emails text messages everything and he got filtered through his assistant why cuz he only wanted to look and be presented to things that needed his unique

perspective everything else somebody else could deal with that changed everything I saw him do that and I go wow now I understand why he has all the time to go skiing with us or do all these crazy PR stunts or charity events and that's when I changed my whole life so a lot of people brag about inbox zero how about zero inbox that's the way I live my life it's a whole inbox GPS process so I break this down into three types of distractions number one digital distractions these are your phone notifications the apps the

notification Jewels even having access to Netflix or YouTube downloaded videos when you're trying to get work done and you're like oh man I just want to go watch some stuff and reset my brain those digital distractions on those devices are the killer of getting anything done you want to be the most unproductive have those available to you all the time you want to have discipline and get rid of the digital distractions number two are physical distractions it's everything from having the mental distractions of staring at a messy space to not having headphones on that really

dial you in and focus to having any person just be able to come in and bug you when you're in your focus time I remember having a client once that used to brag he says yeah I do these things called gas meetings and everybody loves them and I'm like what's that he goes got a second meeting are you serious what part of working with me made you think that that was a good idea no these times throughout the day you can walk into my office and we have a conversation but godc meetings is a distraction

it also tells you that the person doesn't plan well enough and that they're always bugging you to interrupt you when you're focused number three is internal distractions and these are things from lacking Clarity to having too much stress feeling the overwhelm and it usually comes from like not having a vision or not dumping your task or not prior izing anything that's why like even something as simple as going to the gym for me is about getting my mind right that's why I always say exhaust the body to tame the mind that internal distraction that mind

clutter sometimes needs a rhythm that you have in your life meditation writing things down productivity apps so that you can do your best work to keep your mind focused on the task at hand but here's the real truth if you're struggling to get the work done you might be missing something else which brings us to the last rule know your purpose so this crazy story of a musician named Oliver Anthony he wrote this song called Richmond north of Richmond it was about essentially taking a stance a lot of people tried to use it for politics

but I like the message I like the energy and I remember reading his story to find out that he used to live in a trailer park drove a 20-year-old car struggled his whole life with addiction and drinking and here's this moment that shifted everything and he was on a podcast and somebody asked him what changed and he said two things one I discovered God and two I stopped making about myself and I started making about other people and when I heard him say that it occurred to me that I'd seen this pattern in so many

people from Oprah to Elon to everybody that's had success they stopped making about themselves it wasn't to be rich to be rich it was to be rich to be of service they started to get purpose if you have a why that's bigger than your fear then you'll do it most people focus on the how when they should be focused on the why the bigger the why why the easier the how I Mentor a lot of Youth and I get asked this question all the time like how do I discover my purpose how do I discover

my why how do I discover my vision for my life well here's what I know pain is inevitable every human being by the fact that you're alive will go through pain suffering is optional the thing that's missing so that the pain doesn't become suffering is purpose it's the antidote find that and it makes the zest for Life a lot easier to deal with all the challenges a way to keep it front of mind is to have a vision board you know and I put mine on my phone I put it on the wallpaper of my

laptop so that I have a vision of my purpose what I'm trying to do and why it matters to me in all the different components the personal the fitness the relationships the health the impact it's all there and I review my goals annually 5 years 25 years out every week every month and honestly every day for the year cuz I have purpose daily it's not something I do once and I forget about it I just build the plan and put it in a drawer and never look at it is something I put all around me

I have a guy in my office he has it printed out on his desk in a framed envelope we have our goals on the wall here you know and they're all stacked like a ladder so that everybody sees it if you visualize it it makes it easier to hit most people are trying to hit a Target that they don't even know what the target looks like so one of my favorite ways to do that is make your progress visible and I'm talking dashboards or habit tracking you can use apps you can write it down keep

it old school if you want but just make sure that you see the progress towards your purpose cuz if you do that nothing will stop you in many ways the way I think about your ability to create and attract your future into your life it takes 300% Focus you have 100% Clarity of what you want to create and you have 100% belief you can do it and 100% of the time you believe and have that Clarity that's how fast you can bring into your life now is it easy nope is it possible th% and this

is the deeper deeper stuff that sometimes I don't share is that your true purpose in your life sits right next next to the worst thing that's ever happened to you and if you're willing to explore that I think you would find a drive that you didn't know was there to support people that have gone through the thing that hurt you the most the most pain maybe the most shame you've ever had helping other people get through that easier or avoid it could become the most important thing you do with your life a lot of people

talk about happiness I like to think about fulfillment you know I don't want life to be easy I want it to be challenging to shape Me and My Philosophy is two things I wake up every day to try to be the 10.0 version of myself the person that is the most connected and graceful and determined and confident in many ways I think about becoming the person I needed most In My Darkest Days the person I would have listened to and if you wake up every day to strive to be that person and do the second

part which is to share yourself with the world and that could be your kids cuz that's probably your world or your community or your CrossFit gym or your church or honestly I'd encourage you to consider social media as you become your 10.0 version and you share yourself with the world that is fulfillment and no matter what happens in the world you will feel incredible about that Pursuit so as I mentioned earlier if you want to get started quickly with your perfect week just head over to Instagram D Martel TW Martell and message me the word

perfect on my Instagram account and I'll send it directly right over to you and if you want to learn how to get more done than 99% of people click here to watch the next video