A New Effective Productivity System

[mikecarlooch]

The 3 Rules System
​

I've struggled a lot in the past with trying to figure out WHAT to work on to move me forward.

The reason WHY is because I couldn't see what had to be done right in front of me. Things would just keep popping up in my head and I would scatter my focus trying to do 5 things at once, ultimately getting nothing done.

But after realizing recently that working on the MOST IMPORTANT ONE THING is the goal, I set a system in place that helped me instantly. I'll call it The 3 Rules System

Here's what I did:

On a white board, I made boxes for every area of things I'm trying to accomplish. For example I run a marketing agency for my income and I have goals for audience building on my social media.

I made a column for social media and I made a column for my agency

Then, in those columns, I wrote down EVERYTHING that needs to be done for each of those things to move forward.
For example, if I want new clients for my marketing agency, I need to do manual outbound. If I want to get a new YouTube video out, I need to script, record, then edit it.

After I could SEE everything that needed to be done right in front of me, I decided to make RULES for this system that must be followed.. These rules are based on having 2 4 hour deep work sessions per day.

Here they are:
Rule #1: You can only choose one category per deep work session
Rule #2: You can only choose one thing within each column to maximize on for each deep work session
Rule #3: The only way you are allowed to advance to a new task is if you completely finish the first task

If you do 2 deep work sessions per day, maybe try to work on one thing in one column and one task in that column, and then do the same for ANOTHER column in the next deep work session.

Utilizing this has been helping me a lot..

I hope this helps!

 

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[999michaelh]

The 3 Rules System
​

I've struggled a lot in the past with trying to figure out WHAT to work on to move me forward.

The reason WHY is because I couldn't see what had to be done right in front of me. Things would just keep popping up in my head and I would scatter my focus trying to do 5 things at once, ultimately getting nothing done.

But after realizing recently that working on the MOST IMPORTANT ONE THING is the goal, I set a system in place that helped me instantly. I'll call it The 3 Rules System

Here's what I did:

On a white board, I made boxes for every area of things I'm trying to accomplish. For example I run a marketing agency for my income and I have goals for audience building on my social media.

I made a column for social media and I made a column for my agency

Then, in those columns, I wrote down EVERYTHING that needs to be done for each of those things to move forward.
For example, if I want new clients for my marketing agency, I need to do manual outbound. If I want to get a new YouTube video out, I need to script, record, then edit it.

After I could SEE everything that needed to be done right in front of me, I decided to make RULES for this system that must be followed.. These rules are based on having 2 4 hour deep work sessions per day.

Here they are:
Rule #1: You can only choose one category per deep work session
Rule #2: You can only choose one thing within each column to maximize on for each deep work session
Rule #3: The only way you are allowed to advance to a new task is if you completely finish the first task

If you do 2 deep work sessions per day, maybe try to work on one thing in one column and one task in that column, and then do the same for ANOTHER column in the next deep work session.

Utilizing this has been helping me a lot..

I hope this helps!

Hey Mike,

I was doing some research into deep work and your post popped up in my search results. I just thought I would ask you a few questions, if you don't mind

- How has 2 x 4 hour deep work sessions worked for you?

- Is the mental strain from that much deep work hard to sustain?

- Also how do you stay productive during your non deep work hours?

I keep hearing about how the limit to deep work hours is 4h per day. Some successful people whom I respect(Hamza, Captain Sinbad) also limit themselves to 4h deep work per day.

Personally I'd love to be able to do 8h deep work per day. But I find that doing too much deep work fries my brain and really messes up my mood, so it's hard for me to do a ton of deep work everyday consistently.

At the same time, during my non deep work hours, I'm not sure how to be really productive.

I'm curious to see how you've overcome these issues.

Thanks.