Give me 25 minutes, and you’ll get more done than 97% of people
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Summary
If you re the kind of person who wants to get more done in less time, then you ve clicked on the right video. Because if you give me just a few minutes, I ll give you decades of productivity advice in return. Because the most successful people don t rely on discipline or willpower to be productive. They rewire their brain to make it impossible to fail.
Transcript
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If you're the kind of person who wants to get more done in less time, then you've clicked on
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the right video. Because if you give me just a few minutes, I'll give you decades of productivity
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advice in return. Because the most successful people, they don't rely on discipline or willpower
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to be productive. They rewire their brain to make it impossible to fail. I've got intense ADHD,
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but the systems I've built turn that from a weakness into a weapon. And those systems is
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what helped me build several multi-million dollar businesses. And through it all, I've learned there
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are only five things that make productivity simple and life a whole lot easier. Starting with the
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two-minute rule. I first learned this from a guy named David Allen. He wrote an incredible book
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called Getting Things Done. And a long time ago, I went to an event in New York City where he's
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speaking and he shared this wisdom that was so simple yet so profound. A rule that applies to
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everything that I'll talk about today. If something takes less than two minutes, just do it. Don't
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think it. Don't plan it. Just act. Most people spend more time writing down, tracking, put it
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in their project management software than the actual work to just do it. The longer you hesitate,
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the heavier the task actually gets and the longer the list of the task get. I like to say JFDI,
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Just do it. Send the email, book the meeting, shoot the video, respond to the text. Just do
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it now. Less than two minutes. Don't even write it down. Those tiny actions actually build massive
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momentum. Reminds me of this quote by Jeff Bezos, which I love. He says, stress doesn't come from
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hard work. It comes from ignoring things that you shouldn't be ignoring. It's true. Some people
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create more pain in their life from the decision they got to make than the downside that might
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happen if they just make the decision. Now, not every task takes two minutes. So what do you do
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when you've got real work that demands focus, energy, and time? You need to fix your focus.
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Here's a wild idea. You can't be productive if you have no idea what to focus on. Clarity
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creates acceleration. If I have a clear direction of where I'm going, I can sprint. Most people wake
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up wanting to be productive, but they can't be productive because they don't know what they're
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trying to produce. In many ways, I think about it like a target. How can I hit a target if I can't
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see it? But once I see it, then it's about focus. Follow one course until successful. That's what
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the best of the best do. As a nerd, I think of it like a vector. And if you don't know what that is,
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it's an easy thing to understand. A vector is essentially an arrow. The arrow has a direction
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and it has a force. If it's got a lot of power behind it, then that vector is strong in a
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direction. It means that it's not about just how hard you work. It's about working in the right
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direction. This first got introduced to me through a guy named Sean Ellis, who's like the original
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growth hacker, if you've ever heard that term. And he shared me this concept called North Star
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Metrics. Essentially, he said, if you can distill everything you're trying to accomplish in your
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business into one number, then it gets everybody focused on the right thing. So I was building this
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company Clarity. And when we sat down as a team and looked at it, we realized there's this thing
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called expert driven signups to the degree we could convince people that were using our platform
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to share it with other people and they would drive signups to use our product, that that was our
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North Star metric. That became our focus. That became our guiding light for all things, our
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sprints, our developments, our marketing, everything. That one decision to get everybody
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focused on our North Star metric is the reason why we sold the company two years later. Real
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productivity isn't managing time. It's managing focus. So here's two steps you can follow to fix
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your focus. The first, you have to define your 12 power goals. At the beginning of the year,
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I always sit down and I go for a walk and I get quiet and I sit down with my heart in the trees.
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I literally like to go to nature. And I ask myself, what do I want to accomplish this year
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in all aspects of my life, from the business side to the family side, to the adventure side,
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Now, what I do is I take that list and I look at them
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and I always take the one thing that goes to the top
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But then I backfill it with the other 11 that are aligned,
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as almost like an economic experiment in our city.
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That process of having those 12 goals is the first step
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Most people write a business plan or a life plan
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they put it in a drawer and they never revisit it.
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Because I sit down and I have triggers set up in my life
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where I pull out my phone and it's in a note file
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and it's literally pinned at the top of my phone
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and I just review and that allows me to ask myself,
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look at them and make sure your calendar reflects your goal.
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Then we have to choose our top three daily wins.
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that if we win around, we'll get these things done.
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If all I do is get those three things done for the day,
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All the got a second meetings, the conversation,
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the TikTok feed, the tweets, the requests, the text messages, the all that, all that will fill
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in. These are the big rocks, three things, three projects, I get them done, usually first thing in
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the morning, and everything else feels like gravy. And look, if you're a high level entrepreneur
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juggling employees, meetings, travel clients, a family that really wants you to be present at
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dinner, you know, focus isn't a luxury. It's a necessity. That's why I created the perfect week
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template it's the system i use to protect my deep work and ensure that my team has the rhythms that
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i have the health and the relationships are maintained so i can be successful i created this
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specifically for founders and operators with real responsibility so if that's you and you want me to
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send it over to you for free dm me the word youtube week on instagram at dare martell or click the link
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below in the description i'll send you over a copy now you know exactly what matters but if you really
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want to be productive with your time the next step is cutting everything that doesn't cut the crap
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you don't need more to win you need to do less most people fail in life from indigestion not
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starvation meaning they say yes to too many things at once they get overwhelmed and through that
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overwhelm they don't feel productive they get anxiety they get stressed out they got to take
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medication it's wild what people will do to themselves so instead of saying yes to everything
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because we think it's a game of addition it's actually a game of subtraction it's removing
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things out of your life so you can focus on the things that are actually going to move it forward
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the skill i would invite you to consider is a very deep scientific and powerful skill called
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the art of saying no no is a complete sentence and it ends with a period you don't have to give
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a reason you can just check in with your heart and say if it doesn't resonate it's a no my wife
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and i have this very simple rule if it isn't a heck yeah it's a hell no if somebody's asking
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you to do something and that thing would be today or tonight and the answer would be no
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then i don't care if it's in six months make it a hard no it's better to close the loops by making
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a decision not leaving them open see that two minute rule coming into play then to leave it as
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a maybe you will stress yourself out around maybes if you would jump out of bed to go do the thing
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that you're being asked to do then yeah do it if it's a no just say no put yourself first so here
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are three ways to cut the crap out of your life and become more productive immediately the first
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one say no by default it's a wild concept to consider that no matter what you're asked to do
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by other people just say no now i know you have if you have a boss or you have clients you might
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not want to do this because you'll probably get fired but protect your calendar treat it like a
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bank account that every time somebody asks you to do something they're essentially asking for you to
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give them money because they are it's your time you just don't realize it every day has 86 400
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seconds think about that is in dollar bills every time somebody asks hey you got a second they're
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And if you wouldn't give them that, protect it,
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which then allows you to choose how you use your time,
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If it aligns with your goals, then it's an easy yes.
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But be careful, because there's this middle ground
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of things that will stretch you, that will scare you,
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that will put you outside of your comfort zone.
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it. I don't want you to get too quick to say no. If it aligns with your goal and it pushes you
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outside of your comfort zone, those are the ones that are yes. So next we have to audit your time
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weekly. Every Sunday, I want you to take some time to look at the previous week and ask yourself
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what worked and what didn't. The stuff that worked, run the play. The stuff that didn't,
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cancel, cut, clear it, fix it. And then on a monthly basis, look at your previous month
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and then create a thing called the kill list.
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any reoccurring stuff that don't support your dreams.
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to do the work that's gonna push your life forward.
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And you do that by either deleting, delegating,
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And last, one of my favorite, simplest, easiest,
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But by default, you should literally get rid of all your distractions.
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For those that are willing to follow along, and I want you to leave a comment below and
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let me know if you did it, go into your notifications and turn them all off.
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we allow these tools to take away from our life our distractions our focus and all I would say is
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schedule time to plug in either for me 11 30 or 4 30 but I also even use the time when I'm doing
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my fasted cardio in the morning to do all my slack messages I've blocked these times to plug in I
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don't let the apps distract me I'm so easily distracted with my ADHD that like I said I had
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to create these systems so that I could just be productive. It turned in to be a massive level up.
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Turn it off. I dare you. Turn it off. And then you decide when you want to plug into an app.
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Notifications add so much crap into our life that we need to learn how to cut it.
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If you do this, you'll be way more focused on what matters most.
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All right. So once you've cleared all that noise all over the place, it's time to optimize your
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productivity for your most important resource. Protect your peaks. Believe it or not, time is
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technically not your most valuable resource. It's your energy. I don't care how productive you want
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to be. If your body is like shutting down, your brain is fried, you will not create your best
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work. That is energy. Every person has natural energy peaks. So you got to protect it like it's
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sacred ground. When you line up your toughest work, your most creative work, your most challenging
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work with your peak hours of productivity, you get way more done with way less effort. For me,
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it's mornings. It's my deep work. Do not allow just anybody to come in during your peak time,
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your peak energy to create and distract you. The way I think about it is the energy that I put
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into something is felt out of it by the people consuming it. So my energy flows where my attention
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goes, I can't be distracted if I'm trying to do big things. Here's a wild thought that I had one
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day is that early in the morning or late at night, if you think about it, everybody else in the world,
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they're actually horizontal. They're sleeping, they're dreaming. And I think the reason why
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most people do the most creative work then is because the connection to their creator is thin,
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right? Everybody else is sleeping and they're dreaming so that you can tap into that energy.
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but I will tell you when I create in the morning,
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to maximize your energy and protect your peaks.
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We have to look throughout our week and our day,
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Like maybe in the morning it's really productive
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Once I invest in me, then the rest of the world can get me.
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doing things that are gonna move my dreams forward,
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And then when I show up, I'm present with them.
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I'm not thinking about stuff that I should be doing later on I'm not giving
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myself an out in the morning because I know I'm gonna get back on my laptop
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after I put the kids to bed and if you do that and you honor those energy flows
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then it creates a rhythm I know you've had these moments they're usually the
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day before you have to go on vacation where you wake up because you have all
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this stuff you got to do and you honor that task list you honor that calendar
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and you're just like oh my god I got so much done today why can't every day be
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like this it can be look at what happened look at your energy levels and try to replicate it
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the other one is exhaust the body tame the mind i believe most people have to take medication
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or self-medicate or do whatever they can to try to be focused because they don't get their body
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moving i got this concept from an old stoic quote that said that we treat the body rigorously so
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that it won't be disobedient to the mind as somebody who suffers with adhd i have to move my
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body every day like i work out first thing in the morning and when i work out i push to the point
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past pain because there's something that happens in that pump it actually clears my brain it's the
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weirdest thing it's almost like a chiropractic alignment of my mind at the gym so if you've
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never try it do it most people go like oh i'm gonna be so tired after the gym opposite it's
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funny saying it's like i've never left the gym feeling tired more so than how i felt going in
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i like to put my most difficult tasks right after the gym my most creative tasks like this right
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after the gym why because that's when it's gonna get my best work my mind is primed after i work
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out because i exhaust the body tame the mind and your gym could be as simple as putting a weighted
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vest and going for a walk. It could be as simple as doing 100 air squats. It doesn't have to be
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complicated. You'll be surprised how much more productive you'll be. So now we got our body
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and our energy and our mind right, but none of that will actually make you more productive if
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you don't follow this next step, which is setting up simple systems. This is a universal truth.
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Systems beat motivations every single day of the week. A lot of people ask me, like,
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i don't know how you stay so motivated i'm not i just follow the system i make it easy for me to
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win i just have checklists that i have a little bit of discipline to start with and review it
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and the best part the more you build your life the more people you'll have in your life the
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more you'll coordinate with other people to do life and they will keep you accountable to the
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system like my whole team works out when we travel we work out i literally think they would probably
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be like oh something's wrong with dan if they texted me or i texted them and said i'm not going
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into the gym tomorrow. So that's the whole point is that everybody has goals, you know, as James
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Clear says, but it's the systems that create the winners, not the size of the goal you wrote down
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on a paper. It's almost gotten to the point where I just make it hard on myself to fail. For example,
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when I was writing my book, buy back your time, I said to myself, I will sit down and I will write
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every day. And I sat there and I wrote every day. I think I made it to like 22 days. And then I
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realize I hated it and I didn't want to do it. And then I missed one day and one day turned into
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three days and then I wrote a little bit and then I didn't touch it for weeks. That was not a winning
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system. What I then changed was that I hired somebody, his name is Ron, and I said, you be
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the book CEO. You hold me accountable. You're the expert. I will work for you. So I created a system
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with Ron where we actually co-created this project called Buy Back Your Time, this beautiful blue
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book that's helped millions of people i had to create a system that i couldn't fail at by making
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it other people's dreams and goals for me to support because i learned a long time ago and
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i don't know if this is true for you i will do way more for somebody else than i will ever do for
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myself i mean it's a challenge as you have more success in life to keep the hunger going when you
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don't need anything and the way i do it is i make commitments to other people and that cheat code
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has gotten me incredibly productive. Systems, it's a fun acronym. It stands for save yourself,
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time, energy, money, and stress. So here are a few strategies that you can use today to build
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systems that literally buy back your time. The first one is we have to batch our work. There's
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no world where the same work sprinkled out throughout your week makes sense when the ramp
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up time in your brain has to be focused. I call this batch work. So for example, if I'm doing
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sales calls put all your sales calls together if you're doing content put all your content together
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if you're doing operational meetings put all your operational meetings together think of it this way
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because everybody thinks you can multitask you can't it's an illusion i don't care who you are
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i will prove it to you if i asked you to count to one two three four five six all the way to 26
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how fast could you do it a lot of people pretty quick what about a b c d f g really quick most
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people if you do those back to back it'd be like 23 26 seconds if i then ask you to go 1a 2b 3c
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and onward not only will it take you a minute and a half to two minutes most people can't do it
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because the brain can't switch if you can just focus on one task and get them all done and stack
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those as batch meetings it will make you lethally productive and it's because of the neuroscience
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behind it. It's actually called cognitive switching. And when you're doing tasks that
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cause you to go from different sides of the brain, analytical versus creative, it's just
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not a winning strategy. The second is DRI. And it's an acronym. It stands for don't repeat
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yourself. As a programmer, I learned this when I was 17, that if I'm going to write some
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code, put it in a place where I don't have to repeat myself, and then I can reference
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it every other time I need it. Simple concept changed my life. Every time you make a decision
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about a preference. Is that saved in a preference file? Now, I know you may not need somebody to
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help you today, but what about in the future when you want somebody else to do something for you?
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If you have all your preferences in a file, you can give them the preference file. On the other
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end of the spectrum, I have a document called Working with Dan. What is that? Exactly what
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it sounds like. I have a document that introduces what it's like to work with me. Why? I work
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differently. Think about everything I just shared with you. So when new people get put on my team,
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I give them the document. And then that way, I don't have to repeat myself. I don't have to tell
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them how I like to talk or meetings or structure or anything. It's all in the document. That to me
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is the concept of don't repeat yourself. So create checklists, create systems, follow them,
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because the more you do it, then you'll have the playbook to have somebody else do it for you.
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That's called proper delegation. Imagine how much time you would save if you never had to repeat
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yourself. The third is the 108010 rule. And this one will change your life because a lot of people
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have a hard time letting go because they're very creative and they feel that their unique vision
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and approach to stuff is their fingerprint, which I get. But I know that at scale, across all these
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different creative industries, from book writing to software development to branding, there are
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people that have built massive companies by not being involved in every project, but influence
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every project. Did you know Tom Clancy? Have you ever seen his books or video games? He's been dead
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for like 15 years and he's a best-selling author last week and the month before and the month
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before and the month before why he used the 1080 10 rule to have other people write like him this
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is available to every mom to every leader to every ceo the way it works is very simple you want to
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be involved when you're delegating any project in the first 10 i call that the ideation phase that's
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where you sit down and you say, directionally speaking, consider this, consider this, here's
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the outcome we want to achieve and give all of your inputs, resources, relationship, connections,
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and encourage the team or the people to use those to move forward on the project. The other 80%
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is the execution. This is where the team does 80% of the work. They actually go all the way to the
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end. Think about like Steve Jobs with Johnny Eyes. He used to come into the design studio,
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talk to Johnny about the vision he had for a product.
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and get it to a place where there's a real product.
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and you go, okay, let's make these little tweaks here.
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And then I'm going to be involved in making sure
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that it reaches the market the way I feel like it.
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If you're an author, that could be doing the podcast tour.
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And finally, number four, standardize your meetings.
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from work to personal that allows you to stay on track
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I don't go to a meeting unless it has an agenda.
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My reoccurring meetings are few but very powerful.
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where we sit down and we have a structure to that meeting
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and we go over every aspect of our life every week.
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Because I wanna make sure we're always aligned.
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is where you have these beautiful conversations
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from doing my time and energy audit from before
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what I call a DRI, direct responsible individual,
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And then when are the deadlines for those decisions?
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and if you don't, it's just noise. If you build these into your daily, monthly, and yearly systems,
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you'll see yourself get way more productive way faster. Now I know when I share these strategies
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with people, they usually push back, especially if they're creative, especially if they're people
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that they just want to like be a little bit more free in life because it can sound like a lot of
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systems. It can sound like a lot of structure and a lot of people don't like structure. What you may
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not realize is that if you want to be creative, then you have to have constraints. It's always
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been that way. The more you have constraints, the more creative you can be because it allows you to
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be present. If you actually want to be freer and have more time to feel creative, then having
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structure is the way. And remember, if you want to download my exact structure for Design My Perfect
00:24:59.920
Week that has helped me buy back like 30 hours a week, just DM me the word YouTube week on
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Instagram or just click the link below in the description and I'll send that over to you.
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Next up, if you want to learn how to get rich without luck, talent, or a freaking trust fund,