hey friends welcome back to productivity system where I can capture all my notes
even though I love these guys and I truly admired their detailed and complex productivity systems
but my brain just isn't wired for that I just like to keep things as simple as possible
while staying productive and motivated enough to achieve almost any of my goals and I've created
a simple three-step system for that that I will be sharing with you today my name is Stefan and
I'm a full-time YouTuber traveling the world and I often find myself juggling between writing editing
and creating videos running a coaching program working with cool brands hitting the gym four
times a week sleeping eight hours a day giving my girlfriend enough attention hang out with friends
or family read books listen to podcasts all while being constantly on the move so as you can imagine
I need a good system to stay as productive and motivated as possible but also simple enough
to spend almost zero time maintaining that system and I like to call that system [Music]
now I know even Monk Mode may sound intimidating to some people but I've simplified the whole Monk
Mode system into three simple steps and then I've combined all three steps into an easy to use Monk
Mode template for Notion that I will be sharing with you later in this video and also I'm really
excited to announce that this video is sponsored by Notion but more on that later first the three
steps and with every step I'm just gonna share that 20% of things you can do that will get you
80% of the results step one fix the basics Monk Mode is nothing else but a period of discipline
isolation and focus so you can effectively work on a single goal but in order to effectively work you
need to first fix the basics here's how you do it first of all Do no harm quit drugs quit weed
quit alcohol and yes even just one to two glasses a week can negatively impact your health and your
productivity you shout out to Huberman to set up this new trend of people quitting alcohol complete
I'd love to be able to tell you otherwise but that's just a fact and also quit cheap dopamine
and with cheap dopamine I mean video games pornography sugar TikTok social media because
here's the thing with cheap dopamine the more you indulge into cheap dopamine the harder it will
become to do just productive work sitting behind a laptop and working on your goals however get
rid of cheap dopamine the boring work itself will become rewarding working on your own dreams will
become enjoyable that's what we want and then the next one sleep and this one is so key basically if
you sleep less than seven hours a night there's no way you can be as productive as you could be plus
it's really bad for your health sleeping less than seven hours a night raises your chance of
getting cancer cardiovascular diseases increases the chance of getting dementia and many more I
highly urge you to read the book why we sleep by Matthew Walker brilliant guy brilliant book and it
really opened my eyes to the importance of getting eight hours of quality to sleep every single night
and getting a good night's sleep actually starts in the morning as soon as you wake up try to get
some sunlight in your eyes because this will set your circadian rhythm which will keep you focused
throughout the day but but also help you fall asleep easier that following night also try to
follow the three two one rule which is basically no food three hours before bed no drinks two hours
before bed and no screens one hour before bed next up is nutrition and it's very simple try to eat as
clean as possible meaning Whole Foods no processed foods I also like to practice intermittent fasting
which basically means no food until noon and this helps me stay focused in the morning and
when you do have the first meal of the day try to keep it as low carb as possible because the
more sugar and the more simple carbs there are in your breakfast or your first meal the higher the
energy crash will be afterwards which will make it harder to be productive that day because when
I had a big breakfast in the morning there's no way I can be as focused as if I just drink
black coffee and water and nothing else talking about coffee I know some people view it as drugs
and quit caffeine completely but to be honest I really love black coffee I drink two to three cups
every single day and I've read scientific papers that drinking two to three cups a day is actually
really good for your health as long as you don't drink any coffee afternoon because it might mess
up the quality of your sleep that night I like coffee what can I say and another no-brainer
obviously is exercise I don't have to spend a lot of time explaining why it's good for your health
or your body but it's also good for your brain try to keep a balance between strength training
and cardiovascular exercise which is good for your heart and your brain it'll make it easier to keep
focused it's good for your dopamine levels for your hormone levels and the last one is having
a good morning routine now I'll be honest the best morning routine is wake up and do actual work but
sometimes it's really difficult to roll out of bed and go into work mode straight away so what I like
to do is when I wake up I either go for a morning walk or a morning run to get some sunlight in my
eyes and to get some exercise to wake up my body obviously after that I take a cold shower this
is a great way to really wake up and stay focused and it does amazing things to your dopamine level
dopamine levels throughout the day even better if you have an ice pet would love to have one
not yet and after that I sit behind my desk I do a quick Journal so how do I feel a couple of things
I'm grateful for and what is the one thing I need to accomplish today to call it a good productive
day that's it that's my simple morning routine I know some people like to wake up at 4am and
go to the gym and [ __ ] solve quantum theory before they start working I'm not like that so
I just do morning walk or run cold shower journal for a couple of minutes do the work doesn't take
me more than 30 minutes the whole morning routine and those are basically the most important things
you can fix because trust me if you don't fix your Basics first it's like going through life in Ultra
hard mode fix the basics and life and work becomes way easier and the next way and arguably the most
important way to make life and work way more easier is to know your why because if you don't
know your why then why are you actually working what are you really working on and if you don't
have an answer to those questions then you might find yourself hustling hard in Monk Mode but in
reality you're just doing random non-important busy work like answering some emails hopping
on calls with people but that's not Monk Mode my friend that's monkey mode you need to channel your
precious energy and focus into One Singular goal and here's how to do that I'm going to open up
my Monk Mode notion template so I show you how to determine the single goal you should be working on
and how to get into Monk Mode oh and if you don't know what notion is by the way it's a productivity
tool that I've been using for years already so when notion reached out recently to ask if they
can sponsor this video I was thrilled to say yes because I've been using them for years already
and I was planning on making this video anyway with this sponsor this video or not so for the
ones that don't know notion is easy to use all in one platform to actually commit to your goals this
year and I truly view it as a blank canvas you can make anything you want out of notion you need a
to-do list easy you want to connect the to-do list to your calendar you can do that you want to use
notion as a collaboration platform where you can invite team members and then Define tasks together
and track the progress yeah you can do that but what I like the most is that you can completely
customize it any way you want you can add photos you can design the whole page exactly how you want
it and you can automate absolutely anything in notion because it connects to so many other tools
out there it's absolutely crazy so let's dive into my Monk Mode notion template so I can show
you how I stay productive and motivated almost every single day as you can see this is the Monk
Mode home page and at the bottom you will see the four steps that the monk load system is comprised
of the first three are used to define your why exercises and templates to actually figure out
what you're going to workout and the last one the mug mode cycle is actually planning out your week
and your day to work on the one thing but before we go through the steps in the template we need to
enter Monk Mode by listening to the official Monk Mode music playlist on Spotify foreign obviously
I can't play Spotify music without getting a copyright strike on YouTube I've added this
cool song instead anyways let's go to Step One the dream life now if you've watched my videos
then you'll know how I hammer on defining your dream life and with dream life I mean this vision
of your life about five years from now where everything is perfect and it's good to do this
exercise to write down what a day in the dream life of yours would look like because it helps you
in three ways first of all it gives you Direction then it will also give you attainability sometimes
your dream life is not that far out there it might be something that's actually achievable within one
or two years but again if you never take the time to sit down and write down what a day in
your dream life looks like you'll never realize that and the last one is motivation trust me there
will be periods where you lack motivation when you don't feel like working but when you remember why
you're doing the things you're doing at least for me it helps me to get motivated again and
do actual work so in this page I've created a short blog where you can write down what a day
in the life of your dream life would look like there's some tips in here and there's a small
vision board at the end to visualize their dream life so once you've defined your dream life it's
time to go to the next page which is the one thing and one thing is basically a distillation of your
dream life into one big goal you need to achieve by the end of this year to bring you closer to
your dream life and there's a cool exercise I've put into the template if you could rate your life
in four areas being health wealth relationships and happiness or spirituality how would you rate
yourself and then do the same in this dream live version of yours how would you rate yourself in
the dream life and then ask yourself where's the biggest Gap and that will probably give you some
sort of guidance on what the one thing should be for you to focus on this year because trust
me if you're really fat and unhealthy and don't exercise don't focus on starting a business and
building side hustles and whatever focus on your health first that's the biggest Gap that will be
the one thing for you this year so once you've defiled the one thing it's now time to translate
that further into your master plan and with Mass discipline I mean divide the one thing into three
measurable goals you need to achieve in order to achieve the one thing and keep it at three
big goals once you've done that Define the actions you need to take to actually achieve that goal you
want to see something cool by the way notion recently added the AI functionality which is
crazy is an example of how you can use it so let's say you're struggling with translating
the one thing into three measurable goals for the year you could ask the AI to translate that
for you into three goals let me show you first we Define the one thing again that one thing
Big Goal number one increase video output to three times per week for each of the three big goals you
will need to break them down into actionable plans okay three goals down into actionable plans create
a Content buff this is crazy this is doing the work for you action will plan one create a Content
calendar for the next six months with video topics and upload dates this is making the whole plan for
you notion AI is crazy Chad GP who now it's probably connected to Chad GPD through an API
but any case so now the next thing to do is break down those big goals into monthly goals and since
we have nine actionable plans here we could say those are monthly goals we need to achieve once
you've done that for every month of the year for the current month I want you to break down the
current month's goal into weekly goals you can do so if the current month's goal is create a Content
calendar for the next six months with video topics and upload dates for this week we could research
50 potential video ideas and so for the next week based on that little research we can come up
with titles plus thumbnail Concepts and then for the next week plan out every single video
with upload dates that's it you have four weekly goals and they all lead up to the monthly goal
of creating a Content calendar for the next six months with video topics and upload dates now
that you have set those weekly goals it's time to actually do the work we are now entering the Monk
Mode cycle when we go to page number four of our Monk Mode notion template this is what you will
see on the left you will see your monthly goals we can repeat the same goal that we've just talked
about and on the right you can find a reminder for your Basics so sleep eight hours a day work
out four times per week four hours of deep work in the morning are really key to me once you've done
that it's time to actually start your week this is what it looks like your weekly calendar you
might have seen this before in some of my videos but basically I want to remind myself of what the
goal for the week is brainstorm 50 video ideas and I like to give my week a title or theme so when
I can look back I know exactly what was going on in that week so let's call it brainstorming week
I don't know in Cape Town I'm in Cape Town right now brainstorming week in Cape Town
so it's now Thursday I always start my day with a fast check-in uh three things I'm grateful for
practicing gratitude is really key to enjoying the journey as I said it's not about reaching all
those ambitious goals and like hustling hard it's about enjoying the journey enjoying the
process when you do that by practicing gratitude now it's time for the one thing and now I mean the
one thing that we need I mean the one thing I need to complete today to call it a good productive day
they have a little bit of free flow sometimes I feel like writing down like a journal entry or
maybe brainstorming some ideas for videos whatever I feel like writing down it's called free flow for
a reason and then at the end of the day I like to do a little reflection it's actually really
key if you answer those questions at the end of the day you should have this feedback loop
of where you're improving every single day and now the cool thing is once you're finished with
this week and you'll go back this week will be added to the archive next week when you start
a new Monk Mode cycle with a new weekly goal we click a new week and it will open up a new week
for you to start the whole process success all over again Monk Mode hilly and now the week is
edited and that's basically it my whole monk load system in notion so starting from your dream life
into the one thing into three big goals into the actual Monk Mode cycle so you know exactly
what you're working on as effectively and as efficiently as possible again a huge shout out
to notion for sponsoring this video and just being an awesome platform I can honestly say
they changed my life for the better for the last couple of years by making me more productive more
motivated and just making my life a lot easier and I'm 100 convinced that they can change the
lives of many others which is why I said yes to working together with notion if you want to get
started with notion for free there's a link in the description and if you want to get my Monk Mode
template there's a link in the description as well and I'll see you in the next video cheers [Music]