Hey guys.
It's Chelsea from The Financial Diet,
and this week's video is brought to you by Trello.
So this week, I wanted to talk to you
guys about how to make yourself a more productive person
and do more of the things that you love,
while still being-- let's be honest-- kind of lazy.
So in the interest of productivity,
let's get right to it with five lazy ways
to be really productive.
Number 1 is create a customized daily schedule, both in
and out of work.
So I'm someone who considers herself very, very
lazy in the sense that I have just never
been one to find that sort of intrinsic type
A motivation to get stuff done.
And I'm also-- despite years of attempting to change myself--
definitely a night person.
And one thing that I've learned in having
to get a lot done while being A, lazy and B,
a night person is that you have to lean into the times
that you are most productive, even
if it's not the right times that you should be doing things.
For me, that means getting some of my tough work done
between the time I eat dinner and the time
I go to bed, because that's when my brain is
at its most fruitful.
But beyond just accepting the times
that you are most productive and effective,
I really recommend that you start
by creating yourself a comprehensive daily schedule
from the time you get up to the time you go to bed,
where you really block everything out.
That means you create yourself a daily schedule that
contains not just work times but the individual projects
and tasks that you're doing at work.
And you also schedule out the times that you're eating
and what you're eating based on when
you need to be at your most alert and effective.
Spoiler alert, after you eat a large meal,
you are guaranteed to be twice as bad at anything
you need to do with your brain.
You also schedule out things for social activities,
for things that you need to accomplish
around the home, and even times for break and rest.
Going from this sort of general sense of I have a lot of shit
to do today, to this is my email time, this is my break time,
this is my read an article I've been putting off time,
this is my eating lunch time and even
what I'm going to eat at lunch makes you super effective.
And it also makes you much more incentivized
to actually do things because in your brain,
it's a very contained thing that you will then move on from.
Now, you obviously don't have to live this way
for the rest of your life, but I recommend
that you start with about two to four weeks of a comprehensively
mapped out daily schedule complete with reminders
to yourself around that structure
so that you will eventually feel them become totally routine
and won't have to think about them so much.
The key to being productive is finding the best time
to do things for your brain and that starts with really setting
up a structured day.
Number 2 is getting the apps that make you superhuman.
So here at TFD and building a business from zero with very
little know how or resources, one thing
that's been extremely useful to us
is finding the right tools that help
us manage our day-to-day workflow and our bigger goals.
And one awesome tool that we've been using for over two years
now, at TFD is Trello.
Basically, Trello is an awesome tool
that allows you to effectively and collaboratively reach
your goals, manage your day to day,
and complete even your most complicated projects.
It's easy to use.
You make customizable boards that
act like real life cork boards.
You create lists on them which are made up of little
to do cards just like the note cards
that you would put on a real board.
You can share your boards with others,
ping them like you would in a chat,
and set deadlines and reminders for yourself
on all the stuff you want to accomplish.
Trello breaks down big things into bite size
super manageable mini goals, which
is a big theme here on TFD, and helps keep you
and whoever you might be working with accountable.
You can use cello for everything from work projects
to recipe planning to saving for a vacation.
Trello was actually introduced to our company
by our business lead, Annie, who's
used it to get our sales strategy entirely
off the ground and to maintain it as it grows every day.
About Trello, Annie said, "It's a super practical tool,
but on a deeper psychological level,
I find it's relieving to put your task somewhere
that is manageable instead of bogged down in your head.
It actually makes me feel a healthy sense of detachment
from them, and the fact that you can update the tasks
and move them around makes them a lot more usable than a paper
or digital to do list."
So download Trello for yourself at the link below.
Its core features are always going to be free,
but you can also upgrade to a business or enterprise plan
if you need it for a small monthly fee.
Take it from a team who's been using Trello
to great effect for over two years.
It will help you get done more of everything you love.
Number 3, practice a structured buddy system for the bigger
goals you want to achieve.
So as we were mentioning with Trello, one of its features
is that you can collaborate with other people on projects,
whether co-workers or maybe someone in your everyday life
that you share a goal with.
There's a reason a lot of people pick up a workout buddy when
they want to get fit or partner up
with someone on a complicated project at work.
It's not just about holding yourself accountable.
It's also having someone to bounce ideas off of,
to get great tips from, and to feel excited
about the project every day.
So pick one thing in your life financially or otherwise
that you've been really trying to do, and find
someone who shares that goal.
For example, when I was first saving money and really
terrible at it, I found one of my friends
who was also looking to seriously cut back
on her spending, and we made it a mutual goal
to get to $1,000 saved by the end of the summer.
Not only did we have a great time creating much more budget
friendly activities for the two of us,
but we also found that it was really
relieving to be able to talk to someone openly
who understood the struggles of having
to be on a serious budget in the middle of a summer
where all you wanted to do was go to concerts and parties.
And take your buddy system one step further
by setting regular check ins and meetings
where you can talk about your progress and what you learned,
and also make sure to be a structured about the rewards
system you're using as you are about your steps
toward the goal.
For example, if you say, OK, we reach one third of the way
to our goal, we treat ourselves to a manicure pedicure
or we go out to dinner together, or we have a movie night
and make awesome snacks.
Whatever it is, make sure that there's something
that you're holding yourselves accountable to
on the celebration side, not just on the hard work side.
Whatever your biggest goal in life
that you're most likely to be putting off is,
find a buddy that can not only hold you accountable
but can make the experience fun.
Half of productivity is tricking your brain
into thinking that you're excited about something,
and the buddy system accomplishes that.
Number 4 is be your own mom every evening.
Now, aside from tricking your brain
into thinking that you're excited about things,
a huge step to conquering productivity
is to get out of your own way by planning ahead for the things
that you know you're most likely to mess up about.
For me, as I've stated, I am not a morning person.
I am essentially a zombie in the morning completely incapable
of any kind of higher consciousness.
No matter how hard I try, I don't
think I will ever be that person who gets up at 6:00 AM,
and just like blows on her cup of tea
while looking out the window and thinking about really
important things and reading poetry and the business
section of newspapers and emailing their mom and all
the other amazing productive things
that morning people seem to do when I read about them.
And now that TFD has an office that's
about a 25-minute walk from my house,
I am basically forced to be a morning person who--
like the rest of us-- gets up, gets dressed, and goes to work.
Which don't get me wrong.
I really enjoy it.
I find it not only super exciting for the company
but also nice to have a much bigger separation
between my work life and my home life.
But it also means I've had to learn
how to adapt to mornings in a way I didn't have
to since I have been working at home for the past three years.
So what is my solution, then?
It's been effectively being my own mom circa when
I was in third grade and prepping every last detail
for myself the evening before.
This means that every evening, I lay out
my outfit for the next day on a little hanger hung up
on my mirror in my bedroom, complete with underwear
and stockings and anything else I might need.
I pack myself my lunch and my snack and
put it all in the fridge ready to go in the little bag I
take with me.
I triple check my purse of course every night
making sure I have everything I need
in the morning like keys, key card for the office, wallet, et
cetera.
I plug in all my devices to charge,
I check my email one last time to make
sure there's nothing super urgent that's going to punch me
in the face in the morning, and I lay out any important papers
or documents that I have to be bringing
with me right next to my purse so I don't forget them.
Oh, and I also shower at night too, which I have to say,
night showering may be the biggest life hack of all.
Yes, at first I felt a little bit silly literally
laying out my outfit and packing myself my lunch and snacks
like I was a kindergartener, but when I tell you
that my mornings are now the best time of my entire day,
not only is that true, but that is shocking
coming from someone who truly hates mornings.
Mornings are now a time when I can go entirely on autopilot,
not have to worry about forgetting anything,
and just listen to This American Life,
wander aimlessly around my room after waking up later than I
would have had to, and just get dressed
and do my makeup in utter peace.
And yes, it's especially effective for me
because I'm not a morning person,
but I have spoken to several other people who are relatively
morning people who do the same thing,
and it's hugely beneficial for them to because it allows
them-- from the first moment of their day--
to only have to devote brainpower
to the important things.
Productivity is not about spending more time
working on stuff.
Productivity is about spending less time
to get the same amount of things done,
and the more you can cut out all the bullshit
and focus on what you really need to be focusing on
with your day, the more likely you
are to be truly productive with the tasks that demand it.
Spending an hour every morning running around frantically
and forgetting half the stuff anyway
is a great way to guarantee that you
won't be truly focused and zen and productive
until about lunchtime.
Number 5 is to find one Sunday from bed job.
Now, one of our most popular videos ever on TFD
is our side hustles you can do from bed video, which
we'll link in the description.
People obviously love it, because hey,
who doesn't love making money from the comfort
of their own bed?
And plus, it's accessible to everyone, not just the people
who have time and the ability to go across town to another store
or whatever to put an extra hours on the weekend.
But it's not just about making extra money from bed.
It's also about making sure that a little piece of your weekend
is not a total break and shut down from your week
long productive self, which leaves you feeling totally
panicked come Sunday evening.
It can be very small, but finding at least one thing
that you can do on Sundays even in your pajamas that
adds to your financial health or to your career path
means that you are not now cramming all of your
get shit done hours into your weekdays
and can spread it out in a more healthy way.
It's not healthy to be pulling super long days every weekday
and falling asleep completely exhausted because you feel
like your weekends are the only sacred time
that you have to relax.
Your life will be overall much more balanced and much more
productive if you are breaking up the time
that you do things healthfully across the week
and make it not work, work, work, work, work, pause,
completely shut your brain off for two days, and then
work, work, work, work, work.
I guarantee that if you add this small thing to your Sunday
routine, even if it's just an hour from bed every morning,
you will end the weekend feeling A, way more accomplished,
and B, way more energized to tackle the week ahead of you.
When I first started doing an hour or so at a coffee shop
every Sunday, I thought it was going to destroy my weekends,
but it didn't.
It just made my weeks feel that much more manageable.
Becoming a more productive person
is not something that can happen overnight,
but if you are structuring your life intelligently and using
the right tools, like Trello, you
can be guaranteed to be making a dent with even
the smallest gestures.
So follow the link in the description to download Trello,
and start doing more of what you love.
So as always, guys, thank you for watching,
and don't forget to hit the Subscribe button
and to come back every Tuesday for new and awesome videos.
Bye.