- Hello, Believe Nation, I'm Evan Carmichael.
My one word is believe and I believe that entrepreneurs
will solve all the major problems of the world.
So to help you on your journey,
today I'm going to talk about the seven ways
smart people work less and get more done.
- [Narrator] Nine, eight.
(exciting music)
- Number one is create a schedule.
Successful people for the most part have a schedule.
When you have a schedule
and you know what you're going to get done that day,
it's easier to stick with it and plan your big things out.
So what's really important, what I find really helpful
is once a quarter I do a big audit of my life
of my business, where am I spending my time,
where am I getting the most value from?
Do my actions map to the big things
that I'm trying to create for myself?
And so if my big goal is I want to get
a million subscribers on YouTube as an example,
that's one of my goals, how do I do that
and are my actions mapping to that consistently?
So once a week, I have a YouTube day.
I'm researching.
I'm trying to better understand the algorithm.
I'm trying to update my thumbnails and titles,
trying to research new story ideas,
new potential videos that we can put out
and so I'm constantly adjusting my schedule
to map to achieving those big goals.
So if you know what you're going to do,
you wake up every day with a schedule that is on point
and helping guide you towards your big picture,
you're much more likely to get it done.
Number two is batch similar tasks together.
This one really saved my life.
It saved so much time out of my schedule
where anything that you're doing multiple times per day,
do once per day.
Multiple times per week, do once per week.
Multiple times per month, do once per month.
The more you can do that,
the more success you'll have at getting more stuff done.
So as an example for making these YouTube videos,
I will make most of the videos once a month.
So I come in here, it's a Wednesday afternoon
when I'm filming and we'll spend the whole day
making YouTube videos and I'll batch them out
for the entire month.
We'll film between 16, 18 different videos in one sitting
all day long because one, I'm in the mindset,
I'm in the mode.
We don't have to worry about setup, take down.
Also, me being able to be comfortable
in front of the camera, share my story, have energy.
All of that stuff really works
where if you're switching between tasks constantly,
it's easy to fall off.
If you're in writing mode,
I remember being in writing mode for my book
and I'm writing and researching, I'm in introvert mode,
don't want to talk to anybody.
To then prepare for a call that's coming up,
that half hour to an hour before the call,
I'm not being as productive.
I'm researching who that person is.
I'm getting nervous about the call and what's happening
and so I find it really hard to switch between tasks.
If I'm going to do an introvert, creative writing day,
I spend the whole day doing that.
Wednesdays I make my YouTube videos.
Thursday's my public facing day
so I'll do interviews and podcast and radio shows
and guest appearances on other people's YouTube channels
and phone calls and meetings.
I'm in my extrovert mode and I'll put my hoodie on
and I go from one meeting to the next
to the next to the next to the next
back to back to back to back to back
and it really helps me stay in that same energy
and get more stuff done and so batch similar tasks together
to help you be more productive.
Number three is bring on a team.
You cannot do everything on your own as an entrepreneur.
At the start, I get it, maybe yes.
You're trying to do everything
'cause you don't have the resources yet to build
but as soon as you can afford it
or as soon as you can think
of how you can bring other people on board, it's so worth it
because you have genius level talent at something
and yet usually that thing that you're so great at,
you're only spending 10% of your time on
and 90% is spent on all the other stuff
that's involved in running the business.
The more you can get rid of those things
and give them to other people who love doing it
even if it's hiring somebody for one hour a day
which is what I did with my first hire in my business,
it alleviates some of the pressure
to allow you to focus on what you are great it.
If you want to go far, you have to go with a team
so start looking at who is around you
that you can bring on board
to take some of those tasks off your plate
so you could focus on what you are genius level talent at.
- Hey, I'm John Sonmez from Simple Programmer channel
and tip number four is know exactly what you're going to do
before you sit down
or you let your fingers touch the keyboard.
This is one of those things
that I have found has really helped me to be more productive
because if I just put my fingers on the keyboard,
if I just sit down and type at my computer,
I'll instantly type in there facebook.com or gmail.com
so always before I start anything,
before I go to the computer,
before I open up my laptop, I think to myself and I say,
what am I trying to accomplish, what am I trying to do?
And by doing that, it stops me from wasting a lot of time
and just the little bit of five minutes here,
five minutes there that you spend browsing the internet
or doing something or distracting yourself
can lead to a lot of procrastination
and can prevent you from getting things done.
So quick tip to remember.
Just remember, before you sit down to do any work,
before you do anything, know exactly what it is
that you're supposed to do
and then when you unlock your computer
or put your fingers on the keyboard
or you sit down in your chair, that's what you start doing
and you don't just go to some social media site.
Alright.
- Number five is eliminate.
So I mentioned at the top
how I love doing a quarterly audit of my schedule.
It's so so so so important 'cause you'll often find things
that you should not be doing anymore.
So as an example, I have a mastermind group
and I used to keep minutes of every meeting.
I thought that was the professional thing to do.
I thought I was adding a lot of value.
I keep track of what everybody was doing,
what they said they were going to do
and report back and send them the email
every month after the meeting and say, hey,
here's what we talked about, here are the minute notes.
One month, I got too busy and I wasn't able to get it out
and what happened was nothing.
Nobody cared.
And so the next month, as a test,
I didn't send the minutes out again either
and nobody cared, nobody emailed me, nobody called me,
nobody wrote to me, nobody asked where they were.
So here I was doing this service
that I thought was really valuable.
It was a quality value add for my customers
and nobody actually cared about it
and so ever since then, I stopped doing minute notes.
There are things that you are doing
in your day to day calendar, in your day to day schedule
that you may think is adding value but really isn't
and if you can eliminate those,
take that chunk of time out of your schedule
then you can focus on higher priority tasks.
Number six is automate.
So after I've eliminated all the stuff
that I don't need to do,
the next thing I look at before bringing on a team
is actually automating.
If there's anything that I do on a consistent basis
using the computer,
if it's over and over and over repetitive tasks,
I immediately start to think, how could I automate this?
How can I find a software tool to help me do this
or how can I hire somebody to build a program for me
to solve this problem?
So as an example, using YouTube,
there's a great tool called TubeBuddy
that I'm the highest paying member of.
I've upgraded my account twice to pay them extra money.
I'm not affiliated with them in any way
but I love them because they allow you to automate
a lot of your YouTube processes.
So as an example,
YouTube added a new feature called end screens
where you can in the last 20 seconds of your video
add some new features in to link to other videos,
subscribe to your newsletter, subscribe to your channel,
all that fun stuff but I already had 3000 videos
that didn't have these end screens
and going in one by one by one by one
would cause a real problem.
So TubeBuddy had that program
and for whatever I'm paying them,
$80 a month or $100 a month or $50 a month, whatever it is,
makes so much sense
because I can update 3000 videos at a time
and so always look to eliminate first, automate next
before you move on to bringing somebody on board.
And number seven is do work that you love.
You are way more productive.
You are way more creative.
You create much better output
when you're doing work that you love,
if you are doing the work that you look down
and it's eight in the morning,
you look up and it's suddenly one o'clock in the afternoon,
you look back down, you look back up,
it's six o'clock at night.
When you're doing work that you love,
you're going to have a much better output
than when you're doing work that you hate.
You know that work that you hate.
You struggle through it.
You try to find ways to avoid it.
You force yourself to do it but it's not going to be very good
and it takes way, way, way longer than somebody who loves it
and it's not just about skill.
Somebody who loves it might be better skill,
they can get it done faster
but if you had equal skill level,
they'll still get it done faster
because they love the process.
When you love it, you want to spend time doing it
and it goes much quicker than if you don't love it
and it feels like a chore.
So those are the seven ways
that smart people work less and get more done.
I'd love to know which one did you guys like the most.
What are you going to immediately apply maybe to your life
or your business after watching this video?
Did I miss an eight, nine, 10
that you want to add in as well?
Leave it down in the comments below.
I'm really curious to find out.
I also want to give a quick shout out to Jelena Ostrovska.
Thank you so much for picking up a copy of my book,
Your One Word and the fun interview we did
on your YouTube channel as well.
I really, really appreciate the support
and I'm glad you liked the book.
So thank you guys again for watching.
I believe in you.
I hope you continue to believe in yourself
and whatever your one word is.
Much love.
I'll see you soon.