- Hey, I'm Dan.
In this video, I'm gonna share with you three tips
that I'm gonna use to motivate myself
and start more productive into 2021.
Welcome back to my channel.
If you're new here,
I call myself The Lazy Creator because too often
my full-time job or life gets in the way of creating.
So I started this channel to motivate myself
and you by talking about all things
that simplify the creative process.
So if you're interested in that
I would love for you to subscribe,
but either way I encourage you to keep going, keep creating
even if you're doing it at a slower pace.
Now, I know that some people don't like
making new year's resolutions and I'm usually one of them
but after this year, I feel like
we can all use some positive outlook
and some goals that excite us for what's to come.
My main struggle as a creator always is motivation
and breaking my project up into bite-size pieces
that make it more manageable on a day-to-day basis.
Now, I work a full-time job
and the time it takes me to create videos for this channel
or plan a photography project often overwhelms me so much
that I procrastinate, not even being able to start
now going into 2021, I wanna try these three things
that I'm gonna talk to you about in a minute
to see how that affects my productivity and overall output.
What I want us to do first is look back
at this past year 2020.
Now it's been a tough one for a lot of people
with additional hardship
and above all a lot of time that we spend at home
but I bet most of us still didn't use that extra time
to get to work and get closer to achieving our life goals
but let's not focus on that right now.
I want you to think of one or two things
that you are proud of this year.
What is something that you achieved in 2020
maybe something you learned or a skill you developed
or maybe a person you reconnected with.
Let me know in the comments below what that is for you.
We too often forget to give ourselves a pat on the back
for what we achieved.
We always just look to the next thing, to the next goal,
to the To Do that we haven't crossed off our list yet
but I think that can cause
quite a bit of anxiety and stress.
I have a couple of things that I'm proud of.
One, is that I started this channel.
Now, usually I'm thinking about all the things
that I should be doing,
I should post more content,
I should work harder, be more consistent,
upload more frequently
and repeat it all several times a week.
But putting that aside for a second,
I've realized that including this video,
I will have posted 10 videos on my channel
and I started in May.
That means I posted one video every month
and in two months I posted twice
and while that's not much by any YouTube standards
I didn't think I would post that much this year
so, I'm happy with that.
The second thing I'm very proud of is that
I used this year to become more financially literate
or if you will, money smart.
Earlier this year, I introduced a very detailed budget
and the savings regime that I'm following each month
and I also started my investing journey
which I feel very good about
because I think so many of us realized in 2020
that we need to get our personal finance in order
because everything seems so fragile
and nothing is guaranteed.
Now that we've given ourselves some credit
for what we achieved in 2020,
let's look ahead and see how we can make
next year even better.
Imagine yourself 12 months from now, at the end of 2021
and if we were to do the same exercise
as we just did for 2020
what would be something that you would look back on
and be proud of?
That should be the guide for you to form your goals
for 2021.
Now be realistic, don't reach too high
but what do you think would make yourself
look back at 2021 as the successful year
or in short, what do you wanna work on
and how can we make sure that you achieve those goals?
Here are the three things
that I'm planning on doing next year
and hopefully will help you as well
to achieve what you set out to do for 2021.
Number one, don't do everything yourself.
I always find myself having the weird expectation
that I should be doing everything myself and from scratch
like graphic design, editing, title animations
all the things
but these days there are so many tools out there
that help you get things done
and actually make that creative process so much simpler
and we should be using them
and we shouldn't feel bad using them
and by them, I mean the likes of Canva, Adobe Spark
or any type of LUTs or presets, stock footage services
for example, for this video I used Storyblocks
which is a site for stock footage
and title animations that you can use for your projects.
I'm not sponsored, but I'll leave a link
in the description below in case you wanna check them out.
Number two, identify your most productive times.
Now this is a big one for me.
I had so many moments with the CEO
where I would sit at my computer all day procrastinating
not being able to motivate myself
and not get anything done for the majority of the day
and then at night time
I'd all of a sudden get into flow
and finish everything within a couple of hours,
but I wasted all day and so many hours.
If you can identify the times of day
where you are most productive
then I think you should be sticking to those times
and not force yourself to work outside of those times.
Especially if you're doing this kind of work
after your day job in your free time or on weekends.
It's much better to actually take time off
when you know, you can't be productive
because it creates a necessary balance
and time in which you can catch up with friends
or watch a movie or go outside
now, I'm not saying the times will always be the same
and they might change over time
or they might be slightly different from day to day
but generally I think we should look out for those patterns
and just follow them.
Okay, before I jump into the last tip
I would really appreciate
if you could give this video a thumbs up
because if you like it, YouTube might show it to more people
and really help me out.
Number three, get better at planning.
Most success is based on meticulous planning
and having systems in place for each and every project
and creative projects are no different.
I for example, recently started using an app called Milanote
that is specifically designed for creators
and a lot of YouTubers are currently talking about this.
I made a video about it and my process
so I'll link it up here in case you wanna check that out.
I definitely noticed that when I started planning out
my videos more and writing a script
and planning the shots that I need
that it becomes much more manageable
and ultimately it also helps me
finishing the video much faster.
So in general, I think what's most important
is that you listen to yourself
and observe what's working best for you
and then try to implement that more and more
into your routine
because new habits create change
and that will help us to get closer to
what we wanna achieve next year, bit by bit.
You've got this.
Thanks so much for watching.
I hope you enjoyed this video
and it inspired you a teeny tiny bit
and got you excited for the next year
and all its opportunities.
Let me know in the comments below
if you are gonna use any of these tips
or if you have anything else
that you think I should be trying to be more productive.
I wish you a happy new year and I'll see you in 2021
when I start working on my next goal
which is reaching 1,000 subscribers with this channel.
So if you wanna help me with that,
remember to hit the subscribe button below
and I'll see you soon.
Take care.