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What is your number 1 productivity tip?

Kyle Tully

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Lots of good advice here, especially the early morning stuff.

(It's 4am here in Sydney and I've been up for about an hour!)

My #1 productivity tip is to find the passion in what you're doing.

Whether it's tapping into your big WHY (money, providing for your family, freedom, pleasure/pain etc), loving serving your customers, the sheer enjoyment of the process or whatever... when you have passion driving you forward I've found you don't need any other productivity hacks.
 
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RBefort

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If you feel even the slightest bit tired, stand up and do your work. Never, EVER, get even remotely close to anything comfortable or halfway-lying-down position. I get home from work and still try to do some work on my bed/couch...needless to say, I'm wanting to nap in five min lol.
 

arcola

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Having done the Miracle Morning for several months now, and not doing it, my productivity "secret" is by far getting up early and hitting the gym.



For me, I need to hit the gym super-early. This gets the endorphins moving and throws me into productive action once I get home. Ill get more done before 10AM than all day on a day I sleep-in. When I sleep in and go to the gym later in the day, my mornings drag. Sometimes I find myself aimlessly surfing. The morning workout eliminates a lot of that.

If I got up at 5AM and did NOT hit the gym, not sure I could say the same thing. Your results my vary.


What works best for you? Cardio? Strength training?

I am very curious
 
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Ninjakid

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For me, it's all about staying in the moment.
A lot of times our minds tend to wander, so I've made it a duty to be aware of what I'm doing and being in the moment at all times.
Sometimes it's nothing to do with productivity on business, it could even be hanging out with family or friends. I'm in the moment, and I'm present and I'm being the best me I can be at that moment. When I'm working, and in the moment, I produce the best results as well.
Meditation is by far the most golden method for staying in control of myself. I encourage everyone to try it, even for 5 minutes a day, and see how you feel.
 

RazorCut

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Hey Guys,

Been offline for a few weeks sorting out my shit. One business sold and gone. Another I have resigned my directorship from so that's gone (just need the money that is owed me). Just started working for a friend on his business for the next 6-12 months to bring in a regular income while I build a new business from scratch. Been missing the forums. As always so great gems, thanks for sharing. Wunderlist could work well as a collaboration tool for a team of 4 in the office I find myself in. At the moment it seems its pen and paper. Anyone have any other recommendations for similar suitable tools?
 
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joncrx

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Email tool for inbox zero:
Followupthen.com very robust and has a task feature that emails it to you every day till it's done, or emails it to your team member every day till the finish it.

Always ask "What is the one thing I can do that will make all others irrelevant or unnecessary?"

Get comfortable letting small bad things happen, fall through the cracks, or get delayed, if it means focusing on the one thing.

Batch tasks.
Only do email for a certain time period, social media, phone calls, etc. you get in the zone and bang right through them...
 

Kingmaker

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Your mind is your enemy because of excuses it comes up with not to do something. Turn it off momentarily by saying F*ck IT and just getting started on your task. When it comes back online it will already be your ally because you re-focused it on task at hand and put it in its natural state of problem solving.
 

MJ DeMarco

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What works best for you? Cardio? Strength training?

Weight training. Once in awhile I'll do cardio if I'm in a recovery mode. The cardio is usually do in the afternoons.
 
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FastlaneTiger

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In all seriousness? Quit watching porn/jerking off.
Just.. quit.
 

Gale4rc

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To do list + a progress thread on here has kept me highly productive.
 

umagobushi

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A recurring theme here is getting up early. I myself get up at 5am every day.

I used to eat breakfast then head to the gym. I made a recent tweak to this routine, and instead of working out, I get straight to business. Then work out at the end of the day. What a difference it makes! So this is my #1 hack, get straight to work.

#2 is using a to-do list. I just keep a notebook where every day gets a new page, and I write anything important on it. This doubles up as a journal that I can reflect back on. Business ideas get highlighted so I can pick 'em off later, to be added to my "idea" notebook.

#3 is to walk for 30 minutes whenever my brain starts to shut down.

#4 is cook all my food for the week in one day. I take 3 hours every Sunday to cook 14 healthy, calorie dense meals. That way during the week, aside from smoothies, a hot meal is never more than a 10-minute microwave session away. I eat about 4000 calories per day, so this is essential for me.

In hindsight the numbering is useless, these are four #1 productivity hacks :)

If you would, could you explain a little more in detail #4, how exactly you cook 14 healthy meals in one day. I assume a lot of tupperware and a certain amount of planning/labelling is involved. But I'd love to know, thanks!
 
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Last edited:

Jakeeck

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If you would, could you explain a little more in detail #4, how exactly you cook 14 healthy meals in one day. I assume a lot of tupperware and a certain amount of planning/labelling is involved. But I'd love to know, thanks!

His meals are probably better than mine, but I do the same thing. I cook 5 lbs of chicken in a crock pot, put in a 20oz of franks red hot buffalo sauce, slice up a couple green peppers and throw those in there, then let it sit for 6-8 hours, usually overnight. Then when its ready I shred it all apart with 2 forks, and cook a box of brown rice while I'm doing it.

After its all done I've got 14 tupperwares waiting to go, portion it out evenly (close enough I just eyeball it) and stick 8 in the fridge and 6 in the freezer. Every time I eat 1 I pull 1 out of the freezer to let it thaw in the fridge.

Voila! 14 meals of buffalo chicken and brown rice.

Takes 1 hour of time total, and then microwaving the meals is about 1:30 a piece. Such a time saver, and it saves you from grabbing something unhealthy when you don't feel like cooking.
 

hotshot

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If you would, could you explain a little more in detail #4, how exactly you cook 14 healthy meals in one day. I assume a lot of tupperware and a certain amount of planning/labelling is involved. But I'd love to know, thanks!

Sure!

I've actually gotten this down to about 2.5 hours now. You're right about the tupperware. I make 14 meals, 2 for each day with a separate meat ingredient (pan fried turkey meatballs & chicken). If you fry the meat in quality olive oil or coconut oil it's actually quite healthy.

For filler I make 7 cups organic brown rice in a huge pot (add a broth of your choice for flavour. You can buy it in cubes). This cooks while I prep all the other stuff.

Turkey meatballs are a pain to make but delicious. I mix about 800g ground turkey with 1 egg, couple tbsps olive oil, and about 1-2 cups italian breadcrumbs. Make the balls no more than 1 inch diameter so they cook through.

For veggies I currently use steamed carrots & broccoli. You can steam any veggies using a metal strainer over boiling water, covered.

Let me know if you have any questions! These aren't my only meals FYI. I also have smoothies, nuts, and fruit throughout the day.
 

Malika

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1) 15 min of meditation when i wake up.
2) 30 min of reviewing and envisioning my goals.
3) Knocking out my todo list starting with the most important.

I can agree here, I do not meditate but it's good to have a wake up routine.
Also important is to have realistic goals which you can achieve step by step and start with you to-do-list
 
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andyhaus44

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I know this is an old post, but just wanted to share..

I really like Zen Screen because it not only tracks the time on your computer, but you can also set a limit as to how long you're on your computer -- ZenScreen

TimeYourWeb is also great because it puts the time you spend on each tab into perspective -- TimeYourWeb Time Tracker
 

RazorCut

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Wow a blast from the past. The alarm still goes off at 5am and I still manage to go to bed around 10pm.

Thanks for the post, I'll give TimeYourWeb a try. I am using Focus 10 as a pomodoro app which works well.
 

Andy Black

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Wow a blast from the past. The alarm still goes off at 5am and I still manage to go to bed around 10pm.

Thanks for the post, I'll give TimeYourWeb a try. I am using Focus 10 as a pomodoro app which works well.
Funny... I read the first few posts and found that 4 years ago my number one tip is the same as what I’d say now, and what I still struggle with.

My number 1 productivity tip is to stop doing things you shouldn’t be doing.
 
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RazorCut

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Funny... I read the first few posts and found that 4 years ago my number one tip is the same as what I’d say now, and what I still struggle with.

My number 1 productivity tip is to stop doing things you shouldn’t be doing.

Well the good news is you haven’t gone blind yet. ;):happy:
 

whiz

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Honestly?

Probably to stop opening your phone/computer without a damn plan.

I put a yellow pad on top of my laptop so before I open it, I write what I'm going to do.

I find that it's better to hack it out on paper before you actually get to it.

If you can't really plan it out with a pen and pad, you probably don't know what you're doing. And you're probably about to waste time.

I like to just sit with the pen and pad and think about my angles, what I'm trying to achieve, etc... maybe I'll write a list or bullet points, or some web diagram thingy... whatever.

All the important/hard work starts with you. Just you and a pen and pad, in a quiet room.

There's a quote, something like:

"Give me 3 months to build a house and I'll spend 2 planning it."

Something like that. That's how I am. I'm not really the "hack away" type. I love to examine angles beforehand, it helps me save time. I'm very analytical.

Other things - a quiet place is great. Especially a place where other people are doing work. Like the library. It's kinda hard to slack off at the library. You feel like an idiot.

Also, eat right, exercise your mind, exercise your body, go for a walk/take a break when needed. Know when it's time to stop.

Coffee.

Lyric-less music - instrumental music is great to keep me going. Think jazz, classical guitar, lo-fi hip-hop beats... that type of stuff. Cyclical kinda music - think how video game music is. It entrances you and pulls you in. That's how the music affects me when I'm working on the computer.

And the most important part: CONSISTENCY.

Working your productivity muscle is like working any other.

You must work it consistently so the "productive you" just becomes "you".

That's everything - I think...
 
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ShamanKing

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I have a note pad and write down things i need to do that benefits the customers.
 

Andy Black

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Hmm.... seems legit; I think I'll go try it lol.
Yep. It's a common theme amongst threads in here and people I've PM'd.

Here's what I wrote in this thread in 2014:
I think my number one productivity tip would be to do nothing sometimes.... to actually decide NOT to do something.

When I was a database administrator I used to have on my CV that I tuned a bit of code that previously ran in 2 hours down to 9 seconds. Interviewers were impressed with the technical skills to do that. I would get hired though by saying that I had wasted my time because I hadn't found out first what the code was doing, because if I had, then I would had recommended not running it in the first place, and thus reducing time taken to 0 seconds.

So that's my tip. Do you really need to add all those features or create that product to launch and find out if someone wants to buy? I struggle with this all the time though.


And I've spent a lot of my time writing about it elsewhere:

TL;DR? It all stems from this:
 
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