Love this one!

I have not read the book, but I get the idea.

Productive people create win-win relationships that leverage the productivity of others.

Productive people choose things that reward their organization's efforts or "productivity" as handsomely as possible.

I would say the freelance style hustle is more concerned with time in the day than I typically am. Some days I am slammed and some days I am simply not. I have set my businesses up to move toward goals without continous direct input, just leadership.

Also... I am a violator of the whole saying no thing. I say yes to most things and I also make myself incredibly available to people I work with. Am I willing to say no if I simply can't? Yes.

 

Oh boy.... let me start by first saying thank you for tagging me here.

I think the format in which you all are trying to force this into is a little bit odd and not incredibly useful but I'll see if I'll get on board for a second.

There are a few key things that i beleive can help you become the person you need to be to get to the next level. These things change and adapt over time as your identity changes and adapts to where you are at.

First, recognize where you are is a product of all the choices you have made. Nothing you've done in the past from this moment matters, you can't change it and if you should have done something before... you would have done it. So drop it and work on who you are and who you can become.

#1 Morning routine - Everyday you should be waking up "correctly" and going through a morning routine that sets your mind and body for the day. This should be something you need to do not just want to do. Don't dream of doing yoga in the alps if you hate yoga pants and cold weather, it wont work.

#2 Plan your day, either the night before, or first thing. Don't leave your day to chance. Be certain of it's outcome and go for that.

#3 use a system to track your work, and most importantly dump your tasks into all day long. The less your mind clings to, the less anxiety and brain fog you will have, clearing the way to make magic happen

#4 Work when you are working, and don't work or think about work when you are not. The GaryV ideal of hustle hustle hustle is not productive unless you want to head straight into burn out. Take breaks and full take a break during those times. That way when it is time to work, you aren't dreaming of taking a break.

#5 Get the F*ck off your phone.

#6 Do not neglect life itself. Make sure every week you are checking in with friends and family, and also yourself. There is no point in pushing limits if the reward never comes, or you can't fully let yourself be happy for what you have done. Don't shortcut yourself. This is a serious subconscious issue that will massively effect your day to day efficiency and also your long term outlook. If you have this issue, start working on it ASAP.

These are just a few, and now I am out of time for this. Will post more if I think of any when i get more time!

 

This is amazing. What a concept. I want to know what's on this list and post it around my house and office. This is simply brilliant. Repped++

I am only hazarding a guess here, because my own personal productivity is pretty much a train wreck - but let me try to contribute what I can come up with using common sense and observation of productive people. I'm numbering these in case a real, live productive person comes along and wants to disagree with one of these and say, "No, you're actually totally off on #2" or whatever. So feedback, pushback, and refinement to these ideas is 100% welcome!

1. Productive people build in margin or buffer time to tasks.
2. Productive people define the activities they want to do in a day or a work session, and then they adhere to what they've defined.
3. Productive people get up in the morning when the alarm goes off, even if they don't feel like it.
4. Productive people say "No" to a lot of things so that they can say "Yes" to their highest-leverage activities.
5. Productive people set and enforce boundaries. If they say they're going to dedicate two hours to a task that's going to take three hours, they set the timer and stop at the two hour mark.
6. Productive people choose long term gain over what's comfortable and pleasurable in the short term.
7. Productive people allow themselves reasonable breaks, but when they're working, they work hard with intense focus and maximum effort.

 

What was your reference for this being a bad thing? You might not get up incredibly early like the Miracle morning suggests, but having a specific routine that sets your mind and body up for the day, every day, is critical.

Awesome, glad to hear!

Yes, get off your phone/devices/tv, not just at work, but everywhere. It has conditioned you to want a constant dopamine rush every 2-5 minutes, so even when you put it away, your mind is still looking for the same thing, just from a different source. It took me 4 whole weeks to detox from doing this. In my experience it takes 1 week to stop picking your phone up, and an additional 3 weeks to start the reconditioning process.

I can tell you it is more than worth it.

 

Productive people know what they are trying to accomplish. They are focused on the result.

 

I'd say this should be written as "Successful people always see the big picture" I have seen productive people focus on tasks endlesly.

Productivity does not equal success. This is why i mentioned the method in this thread is kinda off. It's not just productivity everyone is searching for, it goes much deeper and wider than that to get to success. You can't just focus on one trait because you will lose somewhere else that is just as critical.

 

Productive people get shit done.
Productive people complete top level tasks that achieve goals.
Productive people schedule focused time for large scale tasks that achieve goals.
Productive people block time, ditch distractions, and complete top level tasks.
----------------------------------------------
Productive people schedule blocks of focused distraction free time to complete large scale top level tasks to get shit done to achieve goals sooner.

 

I really try to:

1. Be proactive...
2. Always begin with the end in mind...
3. Put first things first...
4. Think win/win...
5. Seek first to understand THEN to be understood...
6. Synergize...
7. Consistently sharpen the saw...

 

I’m going to diverge a little here...I understand the underlying premise of the thread however much of it is simply rewording the definition of productivity which is maximizing output for input.

What @LightHouse suggested is spot on. Reframing this question into “what do successful people do?” or, “what does X person do that I want to emulate?” will get you thinking on another level.

Productive people, in the sense that this thread is intended, do things that move the needle of their life. They get a ROI on their time. If their abilities can make them $500/hr, why would they be doing anything that could be hired out for $20/hr? And yes, they certainly prioritize.

To be truly productive, you need to narrow down your strengths and unique abilities and then leverage them as much as possible. Bonus points if like @Kak your strength is leveraging other people’s strengths because then it compounds and you see massive results.

 

@LightHouse, what's your list?

How about @Kung Fu Steve ?

Or @Kak ?

 

Thank you! Glad you like ... I was wondering if anyone would want to see that list

I've uploaded it for you and anyone else who is interested. Thank you for your input, I'm going to come back to that in another reply in order to keep this thread as tidy (and therefore useful) as possible.

EDIT: I wanted to update, however it appears I can't remove this tidy.doc, so I have simply placed an updated version below.

 

OK as this thread (hopefully) gets larger and we get more input, I'd like to drill down into some of the points so that they act as practical guides, rather than philosophical stand points. So I may come back and ask you; why? Or to simply clarify your points.

Then once we are agreed that this is indeed what productive people do, at the end of each week, I'll put them all together, so that we build an easy copy + paste list.

So, thank you so far to the early contributors, and I'm really pleased that you've chipped in straightaway @Kak, as you were one of the people I was hoping would contribute when I made this thread.

Right, let's get on with it, as a matter of formatting I will always comment below the quoted posts.

* * *​

Why is this? It sounds right, I'm just trying to figure what advantage this gives, is it general organisation?

Long term gain is definitely the way to go, however, exactly how do we achieve this... Answers on a postcard please!

This is good, can we perhaps have a small example, maybe we can get another bullet point out of this one.

I'd love to know how you do this one.

I think automation is key here. Could this one perhaps be changed to something along the lines of:

Productive people automate their business processes wherever possible
?

 

- Productive people use website blockers to keep themselves away from waste-of-time websites such as Facebook etc.

 

I use a notebook and pen. You can use a pen and paper, or a similar electronic note taking tool, but the goal is to simply capture things as they come to you, so that you can revisit them later. This lets you not miss any great ideas, notes to yourself, reminders, commitments, etc., yet not jump around from one thing to another as it comes to you. Simply collect it, keep working on whatever is the priority of the moment, then process what you collected at another time.

As to the original post, I am at my most productive when I focus on the tasks/actions instead of the time. I begin the task/action and continue with it until it is complete. Larger tasks, projects, goals, etc, are broken down into manageable, progressive pieces (ala "Getting Things Done" by David Allen).

When you look at an overall goal, you don't generally say "I need to spend XXX hours to achieve this goal." You instead have to *do* XYZ things (actions, steps, tasks). Each small step leads you towards success (of completion at the very least). Example: You decide to write a 50,000 word book. You can plan to write 2 hours a day, but that doesn't mean much unless there is something tangible attached to those hours. Some people write 500 words in 2 hours while others write 10 times that much. To get the book finished in a reasonable period of time, you'd assign yourself a specific number of words to write each day instead of a number of hours.

 

Productive people disable the snooze button.

 

When you start with the end in mind.... I feel like it gives you an end goal and then you can break it down.

For example:

"I'm going to create a painting company that I can turn around and sell for $5,000,000 in 5 years"

Now that you have the end in mind... $5,000,000 in 5 years - how do you get there?

$125,000 in profit per month in sales to get $5,000,000 for company.

How do you get $125,000 in profit per month?

Cost breakdown, labor breakdown, how many sales do you need, etc....

Starting with the end in mind and working backwards let's you focus and drill down further and further so you can take action and get the desired results.

If you don't start with the end in mind.... well, you're just Alice in Wonderland....

 

On a similar line,
Productive people always see the big picture

 

I was a non believer of the morning routine thing, but iv just picked up the miracle morning book and am willing to give it a shot

Im using your Trello system for a while now and i love it its awesome shit now i can keep my brain unloaded of stuff that needs to be done and focus on the task at hand or at least try.

I have the problem that my mind can wonder off and im easily distracted Lighthouse do you have any tips for that?

I keep distractions away from my working space but i still find my self distracted especially if im doing tasks i hate doing, its like my mind is activly looking for something else to do

 

I realised that my 'Tidy' doc was not complete, so have removed and replaced with the one attached to this comment.

 

Productive people are EFFICIENT

• How long is your morning routine?
• How long is your commute?
• How long until you "get into the swing of the day?"

A study in the UK showed, the average salaried person is productive for 2 hours and 53 minutes.

The rest of their day is broken up as follows:

Lingchi 凌遲 - Death by 1000 cuts...

Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.
- Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Christ this is good. Going on a sticky note on my monitor.

 

There are some comments on the subject but the gist goes something like this:

As a human in the modern world you have thousands of things vying for your attention and energy. As an entrepreneur, you have a thousand times the things vying for your attention and energy.

I can think of hundreds of things 'to do' ranging from calling the next prospect on my dial list to doing the dishes to replying to that text from my freshman college roommate from a week ago.

But there isn't enough time in the day for all of those things and in that list there are some items that need to take priority.

One of my old bosses affectionately referred to this as "taking actions that move the needle".

Doing the dishes or texting my college roommate back are things I need to do and will get to. But I shouldn't prioritize those over making a cold call for instance or fulfilling an order. The latter two 'move the needle', the former two probably do not.

Thus, productive people prioritize. They see the top items that need to get done and focus 100% of their energy on those. Then the next. Then the next. Then the next. Occasionally 'taking a break' to handle minutia.

 

I get that, however this thread came from me musing about all the “what do successful people do?” blogs and articles that are choking up the internet, and I realised there is one major flaw about them.

They all tell me what successful people do now, whereas success is a journey, so I want to know what those people did on their way to becoming successful. What did Bill Gates do on his way up, what he does now is interesting, however how much value will I get from copying that? Surely the value is doing what he did when he was just a student at Harvard Business School, or even before that.

This is why I tried the technique in the first place, for years I wanted to be tidy, I knew tidy people clean up a lot, however that wasn't enough to make me tidy. Now I have a guideline of what they do in each room of the house and for the first time in my life, I'm being tidy.

The point with all this is, all these things are obvious to people whom are naturally tidy or productive, however to people like myself they are not, so need to be broken down in this granular way.

One major trait of successful people is they're productive, which is a term without substance, ergo I'm trying to add substance to it.

It's just the way my brainbox works, there's no point in telling me to "just do it", I want to know how I "just do it".

Maybe I have a unique and special brain and only I will benefit from this approach... I think that's a statistical unlikelihood though

 

Productive people have non negotiable activities/habits.

 

In the spirit of productivity, I have just mapped out my week, inspired by Cal Newport, author of Deep Work.

Cal's productivity tip is to set yourself up so that you don't waste a single second of each day. So I've mapped out my entire week.

Red = Deep work time (At least 2 hours of uninterrupted work, whereby nobody is in the house, or they're asleep)

Purple = Semi deep work (More than one, yet less than two hours of uninterrupted work).

Yellow = Me time (gym, mealtimes, dog walking, menial yet necessary tasks, phone calls, emails, etc.).

Green = Family time

What's interesting is how little red time I can make in the week. My goal is to make at least another 8 hours on the weekend, which will almost double my deep work time.

As I posted above, I think I'd rather use a different tool than Google calendar, however this is the best I can do at the moment.


Any thoughts, suggestions, observations, are most welcome.

 

There is no such thing as a behavioral vacuum, so if your goal was to exercise, or work on your fastlane business and you didn't, that means you were doing something else in that space of time. Thus:

Productive people eliminate distractions as if it were a disease.

Productive people work first, and play guilt free later. (it's nice to indulge later in the day after you've invested in your long term plans without feeling guilty 'gosh, I didn't work on my fastlane idea today')