12 Hacks to Be 99.9% More Productive That Cost Nothing

I'm going to share with you the 12 hacks that keep me insanely productive 99% of every day these strategies will allow the top 1% to get more done in a day than most people get done in a week they're what I use despite having crippling ADHD to become a millionaire by age 27 sell three companies and build $100 million business Empire so without further explaining it these are the 12 ways to be more productive that cost nothing the first hack is to increase your cycle time a couple of years ago I was hiring a bunch of copywriters and I noticed that one of them was 10 times more productive than the other two it was interesting cuz eventually I ended up meeting up with them for a work session and I saw one copywriter type with all 10 figures using hot keys while the others just type with two fingers like fifth graders it never occurred to me that a copywriter wouldn't know how to type the person who is 10 times more productive they also never touched their Mouse they were using hot Keys the whole time which made their output be that much faster the first rule of productivity is to just get faster at the thing you're doing increase the speed of your mouse if you go in there and just fast forward the speed of your mouse it might feel weird at first but you'll eventually get used to it listening to playbacks on any type of audio put it at 1. 5 2x just gets faster learning how to type taking typing classes typing. com learning the hotkeys for your email tool your productivity tool to make sure that everything is just one keyboard click away from getting done an advanced version would be automation with AI think zapier or other tools like it where you can plug into workflows and use the AI to understand what your manual ually doing for it to process it and automate the whole thing so you never have to touch that work again it could be everything from processing comments on your social media to connecting your inbox so that once a day maybe twice a day you get a summary of all your emails using AI to figure out which ones are high priority which one are low with even recommended text to reply to those emails learning how to automate and increase workflow and be productive cost you nothing but improves the cycle time which brings us to number two which is to make a stop doing list when I'm speaking at a Recovery Center or at a group home for troubled youth I always allow the kids to sit in my McLaren and often times they ask so what do you actually do and I usually respond with it's not what I do it's what I don't do most of us are doing things that take up our time and we don't understand this core principle called the 9010 principle it's 10% of your work drives 90% of your results so the key thing is to figure out what are your strengths what are you great at Double Down on those stop trying to become great at something you hate do enough so that it's not a deficit but definitely don't spend all your time trying to take something you hate doing to try to make it something great when you're good at something and go be world class at it also look at all your vices when I say it's what I don't do I don't drink I don't hang out with my friends and talk about other people I don't gamble I don't Vape there's all the stuff I don't do to create the space for me to be more productive I'm also a big fan of finding people that are good at the things I'm bad at and love to do the things I hate there's people out there that literally play at things that I consider work my bookkeeper she would rather sit there and stare at a spreadsheet and reconcile bank accounts than anything else I would hate to do that I'd rather be on the phone talking to people I'd rather be at an event presenting so just understanding there's other people out there that could buy back your time that could help you out you can trade you can ask for favors another idea is to actually make a list of all the things that drain your energy things that you did in the last 6 months that you wish you wouldn't have done make that list be clear and then ask yourself in the future when those opportunities come up I'm going to make sure I immediately say no and it's as simple as a no reviewing the last 6 months and deciding what things you did that you would never want to do and put that on the stop doing list is a good strategy which brings us to number three which is to create urgency I don't know if you can relate but I'm the kind of guy back in the day where I would wait till the last minute to work on a big project either homework for school or big presentation at my work so that I created a sense of urgency to get it done I used to tell myself some weird line about like oh that's when I'm most creative when I have pressure on myself but it turned out it made it really bad for everybody else in my life it meant I didn't prepare and it just created a lot of emotional shrapnel that didn't need to exist this is exactly how I do it today first off is I set an earlier deadline for completion I know I'm making this up in my head that's fine whatever is the due date I make the date sometimes 2 weeks before why because I just want that urgency to focus my creativity that allows me to come prepared to all these big events in my life if it's prepping for a podcast I'm going on or working on my book deadlines or whatever it is is I'd rather have the date way sooner that it's needed so that I also have the breathing room to be more creative and more inspired another strategy I love to use is to block time in my calendar usually about 90 minutes per project and what I'll do is I'll set a timer I like to use a Pomodoro Timer which is 25 minutes of focused work and then 5 minutes off to refresh to use the bathroom to get some water and then it goes off and I'm back at it again whatever project I'm working on if I put that block time those 90 minutes in my calendar and I do three sessions of that Pomodoro it helps me overcome my ADHD it focuses is me and because the timer is counting down it's like every 5 minutes I'm like how much did I get done how much did I get done it's almost up it's almost up and it just focus me to get the most work and makes me more creative and more resourceful and doesn't waste my time which brings us to number four which is to commit to others this one very few people use and it's one that I use almost on a daily basis I remember when I was writing my book I tried three times the first time I sat down and said oh I'm going to commit to writing every morning and for 3 weeks I sat there and I wrote and I wrote and I had no process and no purpose and honestly I didn't even know what the book was going to be about then I tried again and I figured you know what maybe I should do this different and I had a friend help me out with the outline but the problem was I was still doing it on my own by the time I gave it my third shot I realized I need somebody else to be committed to so first thing is I hired a person that became my book CEO this person managed me as the talent to be accountable to them second is I hired another writing partner that way I had somebody that was waiting for me on my writing and then I also had somebody that was an editor where we would schedule time together to review the work as a team and on that call we would do the work of writing the book without that I probably wouldn't have created the type of work I did because having somebody else that is a co-creator a collaborator somebody to bring different creative ideas it actually made the whole process fun and I now use that strategy in all the different areas of my life from doing paperwork I don't want to do to creative ideation with some new content ideas with my team to strategic planning instead of doing it solo I always invite one or two other people to collaborate with even when I had no money I would just call a friend and ask them if they wanted to do like joint working sessions sometimes we'd meet up at a coffee shop other times we would just connect over Zoom they have accountability to me because I'm sharing my screen and then we' just set a timer we check in with each other and we just make sure that hey whatever project we said we would move forward we committed to that person cuz it turns out you will do more for other people than you'll ever do for yourself just think about your dog I mean if your dog's sick you're like the world stops and we get that dog healed up and all the medication we give 100% completion of whatever pills the doctor says whereas for you you will go long periods of time sometimes not feeling good without ever taking care yourself let alone if you get medication maybe you'll finish 60 70% of it so understand committing to other people is actually a very powerful tool to keep us focused and be really accountable which brings us to number five which is the schedule time to recharge I'm not proud of this but I used to be the person that would work a 100 hour weeks I would just get up crank ignore everything else ignore my health ignore my friends ignore my relation relationships because I was just doing whatever I could to try to be successful and it did create momentum the challenge is it also created bad momentum because I didn't take the time to recharge to reset and the energy was frantic which means there was no space for what I call step functions of growth ideas so now I have a completely different approach and here's how I think about it just like I have blocked time for work I also have blocked time for rest see the magic that I've discovered is in the reset we are one creative idea away from having our whole life change think about it could be that book idea it could be that idea to call a friend could be a conversation with somebody that you didn't even plan and what I've discovered is the world works this way there's two different systems no matter who you are think about the ying and yang there's a sympathetic system which is fight ORF flight and then there's the parasympathetic system which is to relax and to chill out there's the anabolic system which takes protein to build muscle and then there's a catabolic system that eats the protein there's UST stress and then there's distress UST stress is when you decide to do something hard and you push on the World to Change and distress is when you feel like the world is pushing on you and it makes it hard understanding that if you want to be the most productive the most creative the most expansive that you have to have some push and also some time to pull some drive and also some reset I now have cut off time for when I finish my work because I know my brain's not going to work well after that no good decisions going to be made and I also understand how my body and my energy flows so for example I'll go sit in the hot tub and just sit there on my phone and outline new video ideas or reach out to friends I haven't seen in a while or think about creative ideas of things I might want to do over the next 6 months it's understanding that you can't always be going charge charge charge because it's actually in the reset where you create the space that makes the creativity and the big needle moving decisions come to life I've learned over the years that vacations make me a better person for my team for my family so when I go away and I go mountain biking with my friends or I take my family and we go to somewhere is when I come back I just feel energized I feel that I've got more life to give other people and it turns out that if you're building businesses with other people you have Partners you have customers you have vendors those conversations are going to be a lot more fun when you've reset yourself you've new energy you're recharged to attack your work I think most people feel guilty taking time off they think anytime I'm not working or I'm not showing up for my team that I'm just one second away where something massive is going to implode on my life and it makes it really hard for them to unplug where the opposite is actually true it's kind of like a pressure cooker if you work 100 hours a week and you don't take any time off eventually that pressure cooker is going to overflow and you may think that you're good but your body will start going into adrenal fatigue you'll have anxiety attacks I've seen people break out into shingles they've got these little sore spots that start breaking out on their skin and that's literally their body telling them they have not reset they've not created any self-care in their life you can't Redline your body Non-Stop and it not be upset with you productivity is being able to stay consistent for long periods of time without having to reset because you went too far which brings us to number six which is to wake up early this one is going to be controversial but early risers make more money period full stop if you look at any person that's ever succeeded from Church Hill to you know Steve Jobs they get up earlier than most people now I'm not saying you have to join the 500 a.

m. Club but I'm not saying you shouldn't if you're getting up at 8:30 9:00 you might want to consider changing your whole day to start earlier because when you can get up before everybody else does you will be connected to an energy that very few people ever experien there's actually a spiritual concept around the 4:00 a. m.

time frame now you don't have to get up that early but you should at some point try it out and really attack the work do creative things I get 4 hours every day from 4:00 a. m. to 8:00 a.

m. where I get some very deep work some creative projects to really move my dreams and goals forward because I'm up that early does that mean I go to bed early yep I do I'd rather wake up early connected to my Creator and really plug in to the availability of the world because everybody else is sleeping it's like a different brain wave that's going on it's quiet nobody's interrupting me no distractions then not have that massive boost in productivity and it carries it on for the rest of the day getting up early is productivity 101 so just start with 15 minutes every week just a little bit earlier a little bit earlier you'll reset the clock and one day you'll realize man this isn't even hard anymore just who you are in those morning hours you will come up with ideas that will transform your whole life which brings us to number seven which is to eat that frog now there's a whole book on this by Brian Tracy so it's not a New Concept but most people tend to mess this up all the time essentially before you do anything do the most important thing I always think about the leading Domino what's the most important project typically the thing I least want to do but I know if I do that first that it's going to set me up for the rest of the day essentially it's the project that is is going to guarantee me success Marketing sales focused Revenue driven opportunities for you to get in front of new people so anything that kind of gives you angst but it's a meaningful project I want you to start with that first it might be working out cuz that's hard for you it could be reading a book it could be reaching out to people it could be learning a new language whatever you need to do to really upgrade your life you want to start with that in the morning so that you build that momentum for the rest of the day for some people they'll just make a list of all their big task for the day and as soon as they're done it they'll just call their day complete and I like that idea too so just make a list and as fast as you can get through everything eventually your day is done and then you can do whatever you want with the rest of it but eat that frog first it might be to get 1 hour of studying for that big test send out emails to people you've been meaning to connect with those cold calls obviously time zones matter but you just want to get the hardest thing the biggest rock the Frog eaten first do it first thing in the morning most people like put off the thing because they want to get ready to start it's like I'm not ready I need my coffee I need my energy I need this I need my crystals I need my Tim yeah you need some stuff but just start the work there's no better answer than just doing the thing which brings us to number eight which is to follow your energy flow I used to be the person that would take meetings all the time if somebody can only meet at 8:00 a. m.

okay let's talk then or if I had to create some content it's like when can I fit it into my schedule and it's like all right end of the day 4:30 I guess that's all I got 30 minutes the challenge is it turns out that the energy that I have throughout my day shifts and changes and the type of energy I need for certain types of work is different and if I mix them up then those tasks those projects are not going to get the best version of me I look at how my energy is going to flow from the early morning to the late morning to the lunch to the early afternoon to the late afternoon and I map the activities or the projects to that so for example for me I start my day with creative tasks things that require kind of uh unique perspectives ideation outlining stuff writing creating designing that is my morning I'm super blessed to be able to do all of that before I ever have a meeting usually not till 11:00 a. m.