The Most Underrated Productivity Principles to Get More Done
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Summary
In this episode, I'm going to show you how you can be so productive and get so much done that it actually feels illegal. I'll do this by sharing 20 powerful principles that helped me unlock this illegal level of productivity in my time building 3 successful software companies, and today while building my AI Venture Studio. These principles haven't only worked for me, but for thousands of my clients that I've taught this to around the world. So they will work for you too.
Transcript
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I'm going to show you how you can be so productive and get so much done that it actually feels
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illegal. I'll do this by sharing 20 powerful principles that helped me unlock this illegal
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level of productivity in my time building three successful software companies and today while
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building my AI Venture Studio. These principles haven't only worked for me, but for thousands of
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my clients that I've taught this to around the world. So they will work for you too. Starting
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with principle number one, the 95-5 principle. Most people have heard of the 80-20 rule,
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the Pareto principle, but you can actually take it to another level. It's essentially that 95%
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of your results come from 5% of your work. So for yourself, you got to figure out what is the 5%
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of the work you do that generates 95% of the value or the results in your life, which leads
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us to principle number two, the definition of done. There's this quote by Albert Einstein,
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a problem well-defined is a problem half solved. Most people don't have clarity around what they
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need to get done. Understanding what your success criteria for completion looks like helps everybody
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get clarity and that creates alignment to the outcome. Which leads us to principle number three,
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the two-minute rule. In my early 20s, I read this incredible book called Getting Things Done by
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David Allen and he had this simple two-minute rule. If you get a text message, reply to it right
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away. If you get an email, reply right away. If you have a dish that needs to get clean, clean it
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right away. Don't put something off. Some people spend more time managing their to-do list than
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doing the thing on the list. Don't overthink it. Move with a sense of urgency, which leads to
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principle number four, the domino effect. The way you want to think about life, it's like dominoes
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and that first domino hits the second domino and the third domino. And if it's big enough,
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important enough, the one thing, then it makes all the other dominoes easier. A simple example
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is focusing on my breakfast and what I eat versus how hard I'm going to train at the gym. I can't
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outwork out a bad diet. That's why food is always a leading domino to getting fit. Productivity
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starts by choosing that one thing to focus on that makes everything else easier or unnecessary.
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So before you get into the work, stop and say, what's the first thing that if I do makes everything
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else work? Which leads us to principle number five, Parkinson's law. This one annoys me,
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but I see it happen all the time. Work will expand to the time you give it. To get more
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things done, be unreasonable with your timelines. Stop saying, can you get this to me by the end of
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the week and start asking, how about Wednesday? What about Tuesday? By just pulling timelines
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forward, you'll be way more productive, which leads to principle number six, the Pomodoro
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technique. I have massive ADHD and I can't work unless I make it a game. So a Pomodoro
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technique is breaking up your work into 25 minute intervals with a five minute break
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or a reset. And then I put on headphones and I play either binaural beats or songs without
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lyrics. And I focus for those 25 minutes. That makes me massively productive because
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i can hyper focus which leads us to principle number seven don't repeat yourself if there's one
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thing i hate doing is repeating myself so i have three steps that i do to make sure i never have
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to do it the first is to systematize it to create a checklist a process an sop to get it done number
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two is automate it so i can take people out of the process so then i don't have somebody i'm
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dependent on that might be sick or on vacation to get it done and the third is to enhance it with ai
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look at ways to automate it using ai and that way i never have to address it ever again which brings
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brings us the principle number eight, connect to triggers. I believe if you want to be more
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productive, then you have to connect your best practices, your habits to triggers in your life.
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If you want to take creatine as a supplement every day, then put it next to your coffee,
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because I guarantee you're not going to skip coffee. And if the creatine and the coffee are
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next to each other, grab that scoop of creatine and put it in your body. By connecting something
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I need to do to something I do every day, then I wire my brain to never forget, which leads us
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to principle number nine, the carrot effect. Have something that you want to do on the backside of
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doing something hard. And the cheat code is to actually tie it to people that'll also be affected
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so that they support you because they know that if you accomplish one thing, then they all get to
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benefit. When I was training for my Ironman, I put my family vacation on the backside of me training
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because I knew the vacation was something that everybody else wanted, which meant that they
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didn't ask me why I was skipping dessert or I was getting up early to train because they knew that
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the Ironman was tied to their family vacation. Which leads us to principle number 10, the loss
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aversion effect. You'll do more to avoid pain than to gain. That's why I'm a big fan of engineering
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stakes or downside in you not doing something. If you have a goal of doing a certain amount of
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revenue, if you don't hit it, there needs to be a downside. The downside is the stakes. It might be
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selling something you love or giving somebody you don't like some money. It has to be painful. The
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more painful it is, the harder you're going to work to get your goal, which leads us to principle
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number 11, positive peer pressure. The interesting part of human psychology is you'll do more for
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other people than you'll ever do for yourself. For example, if your dog's sick and you go to
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the vet and he gives you medication, every dog owner will make sure that dog has 100% of that
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medication all the way till the very end. You get sick, go to the hospital or your doctor because
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you get the flu, they give you medication. Most people stop at about 70%. As soon as they start
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feeling good, honestly, that's why having an accountability circle, other people that you've
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because you don't wanna lose face with those people
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than you just having those goals that you say to yourself
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Which leads us to principle number 12, big rocks first.
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it's that you allocated that time for you for your goals.
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You gotta do the big thing first in the morning
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to build momentum so you can be more productive.
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Which leads us to principle number 13, batch work.
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Most people think they can multitask, but they can't.
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Multitasking means screwing up multiple things at once.
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with all the different variables in the context
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batch them together so that you get in that energy of doing that specific work which leads us to
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principle number 14 gamify progress if you're not having fun you're doing something wrong take your
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milestones and treat them like a game one of my favorite ways to do this is take your goals and
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put it in a ladder and then give yourself a reward for each one of those goals i call it the align
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goal ladder you don't get the reward of the top level goal without getting the bottom ones first
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it's a really cool way to get separate teams connected and accountable to each other if some
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other team is accountable for that first level goal and you're at the top and if they don't get
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theirs you don't get yours and you're going to be asking them how they're doing which is a very neat
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way to be more productive in a gamified strategy which leads us to principle number 15 create a
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not to do list steve jobs used to say deciding what not to do is as important as deciding what
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to do when kids see me out in public and i'm driving one of my supercars they always ask me
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what do you do and my answer is always the same it's not what i do it's what i don't do i don't
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drink i don't smoke i don't gamble i don't play video games i don't scream at people i don't get
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into fights it's all the things that take away from your life that actually stops you from being
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productive which leads us to principle number 16 upgrade your environment i believe that your
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environment communicates your priorities if you're serious about your work that workstation should be
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a major investment if you're creating content you should invest in your creative space creating
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content if you're trying to be a top salesperson then invest in the tools to be the top salesperson
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invest in the training your environment affects your energy that affects your productivity so if
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you need to upgrade your office space get a new desk maybe invest in that killer chair so you
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don't have back pains but pretending like your environment doesn't impact your productivity is
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silly which leads us to principle number 17 involved unattached you need to put your heart
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into your work but not your worth the goal is to give it everything you've got but don't beat
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yourself up if it doesn't happen be incredibly involved in creation and pushing things forward
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and being productive, but be unattached to the outcomes
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So disconnect from the need to feel more productive
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to get more done, which leads us to principle number 18,
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So if you decide to build $100,000 a year business,
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the same work to build that versus a million dollar a year business is the same you just focus
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on different things so you can 2x sure but you could also 10x and it's going to change the series
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of activities you're going to do and that makes you way more productive which leads us to principle
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number 19 ask for help if you want to go fast go alone but if you want to go far go together
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i'd never ask for advice from anybody any help until i launched my book buy back your time once
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wrote that book and i realized the amount of effort and heart i put into it i was willing to
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ask for people that i've supported over the years to help me promoting it and going on their podcasts
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and creating content with me i can't tell you how powerful it is to get more done by having other
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people that you can co-create collaborate with get feedback ask for support to not only be more
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successful but make the whole process fun the ultimate level of productivity is having other
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people that are helping you get the things done for you which leads us to principle number 20
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define your why if you have a big enough why it will help you overcome anyhow most people are
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stuck in the what do i do next but they don't even know why they're doing it in the first place
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your why will help you skip from a to z where a lot of people want to go a then b then c then d
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then e they think there's a step to do it the thing is if you think big enough then you just
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have to skip to the end i want to inspire a bunch of youth in my community and i thought that i'm
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just going to start with a few people in my office and that's how it started there was five kids we
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We called it King's Club and it was super fun and interesting.
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Now, last event yesterday, there was 115 kids standing room only because it only fits 100
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and we're looking now to fill out a whole arena.
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I made my why big enough and it took care of all the hows.
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But productivity is only the first step in your success journey.
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So if you want to learn the seven high income skills of the top 1% people in the world,
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click the video and I'll see you on the other side.