Say no to everything that doesn't support your immediate goals
41% of items that people put on their to-do list are never done at all
It's like a to-do list is is the graveyard of you know?
Important but not urgent and when you truly realize what like just how valuable a single minute is
I mean money we can lose it and make it back again our health we can get sick and get healthy again
Time once it's gone, it is gone time is life
The 15 secrets successful people know about time management the productivity habits of seven billionaires
13 Olympic athletes
29 straight-a students and
239 entrepreneurs
You might not use all of them
but if you use one two
Three or four of them tell you you're gonna get a lot more out of your day. Any anyone can make a big difference. Absolutely
We all have the same amount of time every single one of us has the same amount of time
But some of us squander it some of us wasted some of us don't make best use of it
It's my goal my my hope at the end of this episode that you'll be able to see
Just how much time you have in the day and there's something something in this episode that you'll be able to use
To maybe get more out of your day and that to me is a win absolutely a win in my book
Golden Nugget number one time is your most valuable and scarcest resource. Hey
1440s the number that can change your life and that number is the number of minutes we all have in a single day and
While you know, most of the people that I interviewed
they're not all doing the same 15 secrets either the the common thread was that they always spoke about
minutes and the value of time and when you truly realize what like just how valuable a single minute is
I mean money we can lose it and make it back again our health we can get sick and get healthy again
Time once it's gone, it is gone time is life
And so, you know in one minute for your health, you know
You can bang out some push-ups or sit-ups or take a a cleansing breath for relationships
You can tell someone that you love them or that you're grateful for them in business
It takes a minute to have a breakthrough idea and once you truly
Understand that all of a sudden, you know
You're not gonna let people steal your time with all those got a minute meetings or other trivial things
There's a certain number of minutes every single day that I have at my disposal and so much of it is just wasted minutes
So if you start to capitalize on the time that you have you realize holy I can get a whole bunch done
so golden nugget number two
Identify your most important tasks and do it first the most important tasks the MIT
Your MIT is you know, what is that project that is gonna double the size of your business. What is that project?
That's gonna get you the promotion or max out your bonus at work and then break it down
It's like what Domino can I tip over today?
that's gonna lean on the next one and the next one and then we have to get in that discipline of
Scheduling time to work on our MIT
First thing in the morning behavioral psychologist, Dan Ariely talks about we are at our best
For about a two-hour window of time in the morning, you know, we're at our cognitive best
But what most of us do we stroll in with?
You know to work we open up email we start working on everybody else's that might ease by answering their emails and all that stuff
Before we respond to text before we listen to voicemails before we do email. We should work on our MIT
Goal the nugget number three work from your calendar not a to-do list
Stop using a to-do list, you know, I was asking all of these people self-made billionaire self-made millionaires
What is your number one secret of productivity they could've said anything and none of them mentioned a to-do list
I was about halfway through the interviews and finally I started doing the follow-up. I'm like, well, what about your to-do?
Let's give me some advice. They laughed at me. They're like to-do list, you know, we work from a calendar
And as I did the research it turns out
41% of items that people put on their to-do list are never done at all
It's like a to-do list is is the graveyard of you know important but not urgent
If you really want to get something done pick a day a time in a duration and then live from your calendar
Golden Nugget number four to overcome procrastination
Beat your future self. So we need to think about
alright, how's that future evil version of ourselves gonna jeopardize our best intentions and you know,
Let's say we want to start jogging this week. We want to we want to work out
Well, you know what that my evil self is gonna hit that snooze alarm. How do I how do I fight back?
I'm gonna I'm gonna put my iphone gonna set that alarm put on the other side of the room
So I got to literally get out of bed to shut it off and that evil Kevin's gonna say, oh man
I don't know where my workout stuff is. I'll work out tomorrow instead. Well, you know what?
I'm gonna beat that future version by putting my sneakers right at the end of my bed
In fact, I'm gonna go to sleep in my shorts and teacher
So I just need to put my sneakers on and I'm dressed nice, you know
so we just need to think about all the ways that we're gonna
Procrastinate all those excuses were to come up with and try to beat them in the present moment
Golden nugget number 5 there will always be more to do
Back when I was young a young and dumb entrepreneur, you know
I was the guy who was just eight hours a day wasn't enough
So I'd worked sixteen or twenty five days a week was enough
I'd work seven the
girlfriend or eventually the wife would be like
Hey at six o'clock dinner's cold when he coming home leaving the office in five minutes, then it's an hour later
I'm still in the office and you know
One of the things that I learned from interviewing all these people is they have this sense in their bones
Like there will always be more to do Andy Grove wrote
he was the founder and CEO of Intel and he said
you know my day ends when I'm tired and ready to go home not when I'm done because I am never done a
Manager's work has never done. There's always more to be done more. That should be done always more than can be done maybe
You know, maybe we've decided that we're gonna work a 10-hour day or a 12-hour day or a six-hour day
Whatever you decide be intentional about it and then realize you've allocated other minutes for your health, which is gym time
You've allocated other minutes for your relationship including date night or what time with your kids
golden link number six always carry a notebook
Everybody I spoke to talked about carrying a notebook. You know, Richard Branson is written about it over and over again
He says the single most important possession is his little notebook. That's how he built
You know the Virgin brand, you know, there's all these people that I interviewed that just swear by this power of of
Jotting down little notes, whether it's journaling or notes from meetings or words of wisdom from the books
They read but it just really changes their life
Yeah
And one of the things that David Allen always says that our minds are best used for
For processing different ideas not to hold on to information you'd be surprised when you start carrying around a notebook with you
Just how much information comes into your mind that you want to capture now when you start capturing that information you realize holy crap
I've been holding on to so many good like pieces of information and it's just been gone
like I just lose it or I hold on to it and it just ruins the ability to
Allow your mind to free itself up to process new information, which is the best state for your mind to be in
goal the nugget number seven control your Inbox to be honest many of us use our email INBOX
Jet and text messages and other social media apps as a form of procrastination
As a form of a little reward it releases dopamine. It's kind of like pulling that handle on a slot machines
It's gonna be something good and all of these companies out there and other people in our lives
They want our attention and that's fine, but it can get in the way of our productivity. So the bottom line is
Shut off the notifications on your phone on everything
it's okay to
go to email or messages and all of that but do it when you want to do it not because someone else is
Calling you kind of like Pavlov's dog, you know ringing a bell and I'm reaching for my phone. I
Process email like anything else three times a day morning noon and night now again the numbers not so important Ryan
I mean, you know, I know people who only process it once a week or once a day and others people
Tell me a I'm a stock broker. Whatever
I need to get back to people all the time funny process that every 30 minutes or 15 minutes
The idea is to be intentional about it
Shut off the notifications
So if you're out there and you haven't shut off your email notifications when you waiting for I've done that a long time ago
I shut it off because it's just
distraction
Golden nugget number eight schedule and attend meetings as a last resort
Now we can't all
You know be like Mark Cuban and just say no to our boss and other people of meetings we can say no much more often
We can say no to a lot of means we could say no to meetings before noon
Like let's keep our deep work in the morning then our collaborative work in the afternoon
And if you have to say yes to a meeting
Say no to long meetings
Richard Branson again says, there's few meetings that need to last more than five or ten minutes. And so that's just the ideas
Let's say no as often as possible. At least one day a week say no and then try to say no to long meetings
Mmm, absolutely not actually, you know what that breaks us into the next Golden Nugget Golden Nugget. I'd say no to everything
That doesn't support your immediate goals
There they're not being rude
But the most highly successful people
they know what their values are their goals are and they fill their calendar with things that'll get there and that doesn't leave time for
A lot of other other things, you know, we're raised from being really young to like hey
You know you you want to be like so you want to help people you're told it's nice to help people
You don't want to be rude
What's helpful to me is when I realized that every every time I say yes to something
I'm actually saying no to another thing or many things. I
Got myself into so much trouble man
because I like to be liked and so I
Would say yes to people all the time even though I knew by saying yes, it would screw up my schedule
I'd have to push other things back in the back of my head. I was like, you're not gonna do this anymore
You're not gonna go to the gym your whole schedules thrown off while of course
getting good at saying no and doing it in a very polite way in a delicate way is
Something that you a lot of you out there have to do
Golden Nugget number 10 follow the powerful Pareto principle
and Preta principle is more commonly known as the 80/20 rule and it's this idea that
most of the results in almost any activity
80% of the results comes from about 20% of the activity. So it's just really
Pausing slowing down and looking at with all the work that you're doing to build your business to get your work done
You know, what are the handful of tasks that are getting you most of your results just focus on those things
Gold nugget number 11 focus on your unique strengths and passion
We really need to remember the power of delegation
You know, I'm a perfectionist so nobody can do anything as good as I can
You know, I've got to do everything to do it, right and the reality Ryan is that might be true
but we have to realize again think about that 80/20 rule this feeds into this that yes if I delegate it to
Someone on my team. Maybe it's not gonna be perfect
But if it's 80% to perfect
I need to be okay with that and let it go because now that just freed up all of my time
Golden nugget number 12 batch your work with recurring themes
So this one, you know you reading the book innovative entrepreneurs
They really assign different themes to their office states that employees can really concentrate on one specific type of work
Well known sort of a consultant to consultants Dan Sullivan
You know he talks about
Entrepreneurs should have focus days buffer days in three days in the focus days. You know. Those are your game days
Those are those are the days where you are doing your most important activities
Usually it's sales or revenue related, but whatever your strengths are a buffer day
That's the day to catch up on phone calls and emails and sign paperwork and you know all the other
Administrative stuff we have to do and then free days are the days where you do not work and what you're doing is you're resting
And recharging which all the Olympic athletes really talked to me about that
golden nugget number 13
If you can do a task in less than five minutes do it immediately. So this really comes down to the touch it once principal
I'm an extreme on this one. I walked to get the mail out of the mailbox every day
well
most people you come inside and there's the two piles there's the junk pile and then the bills and then later we go through the
Junk again, and then we go through the bills again on my walk back up to the garage
I am sorting that junk and I'm dropping it right in the recycle bin before I even get into my house
Those bills they go into the bill pile which again I process on Friday afternoons
I don't even open the envelopes until I'm ready to do them
You know, I don't I don't care about what my electric bill or cable bill is
I'm just gonna leave it sit there until I'm ready to to process it
So, you know email you open an email when you're ready to process it in that moment. Just learn to touch everything once
Golden nugget number 14 routinely use early mornings to strengthen your mind your body and your spirit
Because you know I'm asking people give me your number one productivity tips
So I'm expecting to hear about task lists and rylander's and priorities
So many people said my number one productivity tip is what I do in the first hour of my day
And they're not talking about getting work done. They're talking about their mind and body
most of the people that I interviewed these high performers
They weren't waking up feeling stressed rushin to the office and diving and emails
That first hour that first thirty minutes they were investing in themselves for the long game
Last but certainly not least golden nugget number fifteen
Productivity is about energy and focus. Not time
You know, we all have the same
1440 minutes a day. We can't get more of that. It's not about managing the time
So the idea is first of all
Take care of our bodies like cardio lots of water get good deep sleep
In addition to that the most productive people they actually take more breaks
So we're designed to kind of like sprint and rest sprint and rest and so again to each of their own
you know a lot of people like this Pomodoro Technique, you know, you just
Sprint for 25 minutes, then pop up and walk around get some air get some water. The idea is to spend more time on
Single tasking all-out focused attention, you know these working jam sessions then a little break and then get back to it
Go to cut the crap podcast.com
Also, don't forget to connect with me on LinkedIn Facebook Twitter Instagram all that stuff
You see what I'm doing and see what I'm up to throughout the week
You