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Whats going on folks.
In this guide you are going to learn how to achieve a great work ethic.
Here is a quick background about me.
If there is something that I can tell with absolute certainty that I am really good at, it is my ability to work religiously.
7 years ago I gave a highly competitive exam called IIT-JEE in India (an exam which is written by a million) and got into the top 0.3%. Here is a picture for giggles.
The process involved sitting in the library for 6-8 hours a day for 2 years.
When I started entrepreneurship a year ago I was not able to sit down like that and work my a$$ off.
In fact, I was not productive at all. I wasted every day running in circles. I was not even sure why and I just felt like a loser. I mean, I was always productive all my life but it seemed that entrepreneurship is a totally different animal. For a competitive exam I had a syllabus to focus on, but for entrepreneurship I was not given a syllabus. I was lost.
A few months ago I read a book named “Managing Oneself” by Peter Drucker and that got me thinking. The book talks about performance. It says that all of us have to find the best way of performance to maximize progress in life. It talks about a bunch of other things which I don’t want to explain here but I have written an article on the entire book in my blog, which you guys can check if you are interested to learn – Managing Oneself Cliff Notes.
So over the next few months I started focusing on my “way of performance” until it reached near perfection. And I am going to reveal what I learned.
A great work ethic is like a religion. I am not sure if everyone can do it and whether everyone needs such a stellar work ethic or not. I do not think that a work ethic by itself will give you success.
In the book “Millionaire Fastlane ” MJ DeMarco talks about the story of Chuma and Azur and how they were assigned to build 2 majestic pyramids. Azur had a great work ethic and he started pushing stones everyday but he never completed his pyramid. And Chuma completed the task much faster by building a machine.
The parable of Fastlane Wealth given above is crucial for success and that is why entrepreneurship is not as simple as work = result.
A great work ethic is not “sufficient” to make you successful, but it is indeed a “necessary” attribute for success. That is what I truly believe.
So here it is …
A COMPLETE GUIDE TO KICKASS WORK ETHIC
I am going to write this guide in 10 points. I learned all these points by trial and error over the past few months, and it works for me. You might have to adjust things here and there. In the end, I will also give you a visual representation of my current schedule so that everything will add up nicely.
I also created a bunch of graphics to explain things more clearly
So without further ago, let us jump right into it.
1) CONVINCE YOURSELF WHY
The first thing that I wanted to do was convince myself. Why should I work religiously? Why should I work 12-14 hours a day? There should be a reason for me to spend so much of my valuable time doing something.
I am a visual person, so here is a picture that I drew to convince myself.
As an entrepreneur, every day you are going to make some sort of decision. You might decide to focus on meeting a number of companies to form partnerships. You might decide to focus on Tactic #17 for SEO. You might decide to focus on writing killer content or fulfilling pending orders. You might decide to refine your business plan and get some feedback.
And the decision process should not take much time. I use a notebook to write down my daily decisions just like how Richard Branson did for 50 years. I also use Trello after seeing this awesome post by @LightHouse.
A decision will be followed by action. And action should give you results.
Now here is the thing, you don’t need much work ethic to make a decision or to get results. Both decision and results are going to occupy 5% of your time. The rest 95% of your time will be spent on the action.
Work ethic is the foundation of taking massive action.
Most goals you have in life are so big that it will not manifest out of thin air. You need to take massive action, have massive focus and a great work ethic.
Read the above paragraph a few times because that is what convinced me to start working religiously.
2) START YOUR DAY STRONGLY
This is big.
If I follow a good upbeat attitude after I wake up it usually results in high work ethic during the rest of the day.
For example, when I first hear my alarm ringing at 5AM I might be feeling a vibgyor of emotions. Sometimes I am happy, sometimes I am lazy and bored and so on. Despite what my emotion is I always try to get into to a good upbeat attitude by shutting the alarm down firmly. Then I will turn on the water heater and while the water heats up (3rd world, water heats up slowly here haha) I usually makes my bed and tidy up my work table. Then I will jump into the shower to get ready for work.
By the time I am out of the shower I will be feeling super awesome.
This can easily become a habit for you.
3) PLAN EACH DAY IN A NOTEBOOK
I have a book where I write down my plans for the day. I got this idea from Richard Branson, he has a Virgin book with him for over 50 years where he scribbles all his action plans. Tony Robbins also kept a similar journal with him all his life.
These plans are usually flexible and include things that I have to do outside of work. For example, I might have to go for dinner with my buddies tonight and I will be able to plan my work schedule accordingly. I also sometimes write down one fun activity for the day in my notebook. I will list down challenges that I have to complete in order to make things interesting and challenging.
These days I do use Trello to keep the global plans in control, but I still use a 100 page notebook to scribble my daily plans.
4) STRETCH YOUR LIMITS EVERY DAY (AKA PERSISTENCE)
Persistence is the endurance training of the mind.
I cannot stress this enough. A lot of time you will find yourself demotivated and generally shitty. I feel this all the time. But are you going to do something about it?
Generally feeling shitty is an indicator to stretch myself. And this is not a romantic experience at all, it is quite painful but I am starting to enjoy it.
Here is my motto –
Obviously, you are going to burn out if you do this for a long time. But generally, by training to the limit you will stretch your normal level of persistence.
5) FROM 5 MINUTE DISCIPLINE TO THE EXTRA MILE
This is a key skill in my work ethic arsenal.
Do you ever end up binge watching YouTube for 5 hours and then feel like the day is wasted? This happens to a lot of people.
After binge watching something and wasting my time I usually feel … SUPER UNHAPPY.
And I know that “every” second counts. I cannot waste a full day because I wasted 5 hours!
And that is when I use the 5 minute discipline technique.
This technique not just works like a charm, but it takes me from SUPER UNHAPPY to SUPER HAPPY!!
Take a look at the picture below –
As you can see above, all you need is the discipline to convince yourself to work for 5 minutes. 5 minute discipline is not fun. But you should feel your comfort zone getting stretched every time you do this, and that’s awesome. Stretching your limits is good for you as we learned in the previous point.
After roughly around 5 minutes of painful self-discipline you will move from the flow of inaction to the flow of action. You will also experience your feeling on unhappiness changing to a feeling of happiness.
Soon you will start building momentum. You are going to be in the zone!
And at some point, maybe a few hours later you will feel like stopping the work to take some rest. Although I do believe that it’s important to rejuvenate your body and mind a lot of time it just means that you are being lazy. Your body is capable of doing wonders, you know
This is when I want you to stretch even further! Instead of taking rest push yourself to work even harder. Work for an hour more. Do the extra mile.
The extra mile is a pain in the a$$. But once you complete it you are going to not just feel happy, but you will feel SUPER HAPPY. And you earned that extra happiness
6) STOP THINKING ABOUT WORKING. DO IT NOW!
This is very important but it’s something that I struggle with even now.
Every time I start doing something it magically solves 10 times faster than my mental estimate.
Thinking about doing your taxes, thinking about washing your plates (I have to do this now lol), thinking about completing a pending piece of code or thinking about talking to that pretty girl will F*ck you up.
Literally, almost every time, it’s a lot better to go through the pain a single time in real life rather than going through the pain infinite times in your brain.
Its torture to think about working, it’s a lot simpler to just do it.
The key is to make a plan to complete your pending jobs in Trello or your notebook and then complete them one by one. That is the right way to execute.
7) MASTER YOUR FOCUS
I have a three step model to focus.
Step 1 – Decide what to work
Step 2 – Cut distractions
Step 3 – Use a time-box
First you have to decide what to focus on.
Then you can cut distractions by putting your smartphone on airplane mode. When I am writing this article I am not checking Facebook or Whatsapp lol.
Lastly use a timer or Pomodoro clock to ensure that you are working with a deadline. Whenever I keep a timer to work it reminds me of giving an exam, so it makes me more efficient
Basically why is focus important?
You try to put a lens over a piece of paper and if you shake it around nothing will happen. But if you focus the lens on the paper for some time you are going to burn the paper. That is the power of focus.
Focus is key, folks.
8) EARN YOUR PLAY AND SLEEP
Earning your sleep is the cornerstone of a stellar work ethic.
Playing and sleeping are the sweetest when you earn it by working hard. I always look forward to my evening (After 8PM) when I am free to do something fun. I will go for a walk, or meet some friends or go to dinner or something like that.
And if I had a productive day sleeping will feel super amazing. And you will be pumped up to work the next day as well.
9) WORKOUT
Physical exercise will rejuvenate your brain.
Ideally work out in the day to kick-off each day. When you exercise try to make each day a little more challenging than the previous day, this will help you to stretch yourself.
10) WHAT YOU MEASURE WILL IMPROVE
What you measure will improve.
Measure how many hours you are working.
Measure how much work you finished.
A really nice way to measure your work is to create a personal KPI (Key Performance Index). But I will write how to do that in a future thread.
VISUAL REPRESENTATION OF MY CURRENT SCHEDULE
All right, so I guess the above 10 points are all over the place. You might want to see how I bring them all together into my daily schedule. Check out this visual representation of my daily schedule to make the concepts more clear.
This is a Photoshop version of the same picture in my notebook
So there you go guys, a 2000+ word article on my kickass work ethic.
And remember folks: Don’t be Azur, become Chuma
If you have any doubts feel free to ask.
- Nifal Adam
In this guide you are going to learn how to achieve a great work ethic.
Here is a quick background about me.
If there is something that I can tell with absolute certainty that I am really good at, it is my ability to work religiously.
7 years ago I gave a highly competitive exam called IIT-JEE in India (an exam which is written by a million) and got into the top 0.3%. Here is a picture for giggles.
The process involved sitting in the library for 6-8 hours a day for 2 years.
When I started entrepreneurship a year ago I was not able to sit down like that and work my a$$ off.
In fact, I was not productive at all. I wasted every day running in circles. I was not even sure why and I just felt like a loser. I mean, I was always productive all my life but it seemed that entrepreneurship is a totally different animal. For a competitive exam I had a syllabus to focus on, but for entrepreneurship I was not given a syllabus. I was lost.
A few months ago I read a book named “Managing Oneself” by Peter Drucker and that got me thinking. The book talks about performance. It says that all of us have to find the best way of performance to maximize progress in life. It talks about a bunch of other things which I don’t want to explain here but I have written an article on the entire book in my blog, which you guys can check if you are interested to learn – Managing Oneself Cliff Notes.
So over the next few months I started focusing on my “way of performance” until it reached near perfection. And I am going to reveal what I learned.
A great work ethic is like a religion. I am not sure if everyone can do it and whether everyone needs such a stellar work ethic or not. I do not think that a work ethic by itself will give you success.
In the book “Millionaire Fastlane ” MJ DeMarco talks about the story of Chuma and Azur and how they were assigned to build 2 majestic pyramids. Azur had a great work ethic and he started pushing stones everyday but he never completed his pyramid. And Chuma completed the task much faster by building a machine.
The parable of Fastlane Wealth given above is crucial for success and that is why entrepreneurship is not as simple as work = result.
A great work ethic is not “sufficient” to make you successful, but it is indeed a “necessary” attribute for success. That is what I truly believe.
So here it is …
A COMPLETE GUIDE TO KICKASS WORK ETHIC
I am going to write this guide in 10 points. I learned all these points by trial and error over the past few months, and it works for me. You might have to adjust things here and there. In the end, I will also give you a visual representation of my current schedule so that everything will add up nicely.
I also created a bunch of graphics to explain things more clearly
So without further ago, let us jump right into it.
1) CONVINCE YOURSELF WHY
The first thing that I wanted to do was convince myself. Why should I work religiously? Why should I work 12-14 hours a day? There should be a reason for me to spend so much of my valuable time doing something.
I am a visual person, so here is a picture that I drew to convince myself.
As an entrepreneur, every day you are going to make some sort of decision. You might decide to focus on meeting a number of companies to form partnerships. You might decide to focus on Tactic #17 for SEO. You might decide to focus on writing killer content or fulfilling pending orders. You might decide to refine your business plan and get some feedback.
And the decision process should not take much time. I use a notebook to write down my daily decisions just like how Richard Branson did for 50 years. I also use Trello after seeing this awesome post by @LightHouse.
A decision will be followed by action. And action should give you results.
Now here is the thing, you don’t need much work ethic to make a decision or to get results. Both decision and results are going to occupy 5% of your time. The rest 95% of your time will be spent on the action.
Work ethic is the foundation of taking massive action.
Most goals you have in life are so big that it will not manifest out of thin air. You need to take massive action, have massive focus and a great work ethic.
Read the above paragraph a few times because that is what convinced me to start working religiously.
2) START YOUR DAY STRONGLY
This is big.
If I follow a good upbeat attitude after I wake up it usually results in high work ethic during the rest of the day.
For example, when I first hear my alarm ringing at 5AM I might be feeling a vibgyor of emotions. Sometimes I am happy, sometimes I am lazy and bored and so on. Despite what my emotion is I always try to get into to a good upbeat attitude by shutting the alarm down firmly. Then I will turn on the water heater and while the water heats up (3rd world, water heats up slowly here haha) I usually makes my bed and tidy up my work table. Then I will jump into the shower to get ready for work.
By the time I am out of the shower I will be feeling super awesome.
This can easily become a habit for you.
3) PLAN EACH DAY IN A NOTEBOOK
I have a book where I write down my plans for the day. I got this idea from Richard Branson, he has a Virgin book with him for over 50 years where he scribbles all his action plans. Tony Robbins also kept a similar journal with him all his life.
These plans are usually flexible and include things that I have to do outside of work. For example, I might have to go for dinner with my buddies tonight and I will be able to plan my work schedule accordingly. I also sometimes write down one fun activity for the day in my notebook. I will list down challenges that I have to complete in order to make things interesting and challenging.
These days I do use Trello to keep the global plans in control, but I still use a 100 page notebook to scribble my daily plans.
4) STRETCH YOUR LIMITS EVERY DAY (AKA PERSISTENCE)
Persistence is the endurance training of the mind.
I cannot stress this enough. A lot of time you will find yourself demotivated and generally shitty. I feel this all the time. But are you going to do something about it?
Generally feeling shitty is an indicator to stretch myself. And this is not a romantic experience at all, it is quite painful but I am starting to enjoy it.
Here is my motto –
Obviously, you are going to burn out if you do this for a long time. But generally, by training to the limit you will stretch your normal level of persistence.
5) FROM 5 MINUTE DISCIPLINE TO THE EXTRA MILE
This is a key skill in my work ethic arsenal.
Do you ever end up binge watching YouTube for 5 hours and then feel like the day is wasted? This happens to a lot of people.
After binge watching something and wasting my time I usually feel … SUPER UNHAPPY.
And I know that “every” second counts. I cannot waste a full day because I wasted 5 hours!
And that is when I use the 5 minute discipline technique.
This technique not just works like a charm, but it takes me from SUPER UNHAPPY to SUPER HAPPY!!
Take a look at the picture below –
As you can see above, all you need is the discipline to convince yourself to work for 5 minutes. 5 minute discipline is not fun. But you should feel your comfort zone getting stretched every time you do this, and that’s awesome. Stretching your limits is good for you as we learned in the previous point.
After roughly around 5 minutes of painful self-discipline you will move from the flow of inaction to the flow of action. You will also experience your feeling on unhappiness changing to a feeling of happiness.
Soon you will start building momentum. You are going to be in the zone!
And at some point, maybe a few hours later you will feel like stopping the work to take some rest. Although I do believe that it’s important to rejuvenate your body and mind a lot of time it just means that you are being lazy. Your body is capable of doing wonders, you know
This is when I want you to stretch even further! Instead of taking rest push yourself to work even harder. Work for an hour more. Do the extra mile.
The extra mile is a pain in the a$$. But once you complete it you are going to not just feel happy, but you will feel SUPER HAPPY. And you earned that extra happiness
6) STOP THINKING ABOUT WORKING. DO IT NOW!
This is very important but it’s something that I struggle with even now.
Every time I start doing something it magically solves 10 times faster than my mental estimate.
Thinking about doing your taxes, thinking about washing your plates (I have to do this now lol), thinking about completing a pending piece of code or thinking about talking to that pretty girl will F*ck you up.
Literally, almost every time, it’s a lot better to go through the pain a single time in real life rather than going through the pain infinite times in your brain.
Its torture to think about working, it’s a lot simpler to just do it.
The key is to make a plan to complete your pending jobs in Trello or your notebook and then complete them one by one. That is the right way to execute.
7) MASTER YOUR FOCUS
I have a three step model to focus.
Step 1 – Decide what to work
Step 2 – Cut distractions
Step 3 – Use a time-box
First you have to decide what to focus on.
Then you can cut distractions by putting your smartphone on airplane mode. When I am writing this article I am not checking Facebook or Whatsapp lol.
Lastly use a timer or Pomodoro clock to ensure that you are working with a deadline. Whenever I keep a timer to work it reminds me of giving an exam, so it makes me more efficient
Basically why is focus important?
You try to put a lens over a piece of paper and if you shake it around nothing will happen. But if you focus the lens on the paper for some time you are going to burn the paper. That is the power of focus.
Focus is key, folks.
8) EARN YOUR PLAY AND SLEEP
Earning your sleep is the cornerstone of a stellar work ethic.
Playing and sleeping are the sweetest when you earn it by working hard. I always look forward to my evening (After 8PM) when I am free to do something fun. I will go for a walk, or meet some friends or go to dinner or something like that.
And if I had a productive day sleeping will feel super amazing. And you will be pumped up to work the next day as well.
9) WORKOUT
Physical exercise will rejuvenate your brain.
Ideally work out in the day to kick-off each day. When you exercise try to make each day a little more challenging than the previous day, this will help you to stretch yourself.
10) WHAT YOU MEASURE WILL IMPROVE
What you measure will improve.
Measure how many hours you are working.
Measure how much work you finished.
A really nice way to measure your work is to create a personal KPI (Key Performance Index). But I will write how to do that in a future thread.
VISUAL REPRESENTATION OF MY CURRENT SCHEDULE
All right, so I guess the above 10 points are all over the place. You might want to see how I bring them all together into my daily schedule. Check out this visual representation of my daily schedule to make the concepts more clear.
This is a Photoshop version of the same picture in my notebook
So there you go guys, a 2000+ word article on my kickass work ethic.
And remember folks: Don’t be Azur, become Chuma
If you have any doubts feel free to ask.
- Nifal Adam
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