FFN 030： 10 Tips, Tricks, and Tactics for Maximum Productivity
Episode Stats
Summary
The most successful men on the planet have the same amount of time at any given day that you and I have, but the one thing they do better than other people is that they spend that time in the best possible way they can. They don t squander that time on meaningless or trivial activities or matters. They make every single second count.
Transcript
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You're a man of action. You live life to the fullest, embrace your fears, and boldly charge
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your own path. When life knocks you down, you get back up one more time, every time.
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You are not easily deterred, defeated, rugged, resilient, strong. This is your life. This is
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who you are. This is who you will become. At the end of the day, and after all is said and done,
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you can call yourself a man. Men, what is going on today? My name is Ryan Miffler,
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and I am the host and the founder of the Order of Men podcast. This is the manliest podcast
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available. Guys, we talk about all things manly, from leadership, teamwork, connecting with your
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wife and your kids, starting that business you've always wanted to start, self-defense, making money,
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how to be a better presenter, exercise, nutrition, and just about any other topic you as a man care
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about. Now, if you're new to the show today, I want to welcome you. If you're not new to the show
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today, I also want to welcome you. I also do want to let you know that this is our short show. It's
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called the Friday Field Notes because it's Friday, and each and every week, I share some thoughts,
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ideas, insights into how we can become better men. Now, if you don't already know, we also have an
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interview show where we interview Navy SEALs, New York Times bestselling authors, athletes,
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entrepreneurs, basically anyone that we can find to motivate you, inspire you to level up your life
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as a man. Now, before I get into the show today, make sure, guys, if you have not already,
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go join our closed men's Facebook group. We've got over 11,000 guys in that group right now,
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and they have become an incredible resource that you will definitely want to tap into. Now,
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speaking of resources, I do want to get right into the show today, which is tips, tricks, and tactics
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for maximum productivity. Now, if you're anything like me, you have a ton on your plate, and you want
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to make sure that every minute of every day is being used as best that it can. So I'm going to share
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10 insights that I have to make sure that you're maximizing your results. Now, unfortunately,
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I don't have a ton of time on these shows to dig into each one in depth, but I'm going to give you
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an idea. And if you're interested in any of these ideas, you can go ahead and do a little bit more
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exploring on your own. So you guys know as well as I do that the most successful men on the planet,
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in the world, have the same amount of time at any given day that you and I have. But the one thing
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that they do better than other people is that they spend that time in the best possible way they can.
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They don't squander that time on meaningless or trivial activities or matters. They make every
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single second count. So I just want to get right into this today. Now, one of the most productive
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exercises that you could ever do is to use your calendar. It always boggles my mind. It baffles
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me when people do not use their calendar. I happen to use Google Calendar, but if you use something else,
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that's great. Do whatever works for you. I have found that I am so much more productive when I
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schedule my days down to the minute. My work meetings, my family time, my time in the gym,
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my playtime. I do not leave anything to chance. I get it all on the calendar so I know it will all
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get done. Now, along the same lines of getting information written down and actually stored
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somewhere, you guys should probably check out Evernote. If you're not familiar with it,
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Evernote is basically a note-taking app. It allows you to sync your notes across your phone and your
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tablet, your computer, basically any electronics that you might be using. Now, a lot of people ask
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me where I get so much content for The Order Man between the Facebook page and Twitter and Instagram
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and the blog and everything else that we do. I get it everywhere, you guys. You know, just today I was
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driving down the road and I saw a billboard sign that inspired me. So I literally wrote down a note
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so that I can recall it later and I can expand on that for you guys. It doesn't matter where I record
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it. As long as it's an Evernote, it's going to be available on any device. And then in addition,
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and this is number three, to using my electronic note app, Evernote, I also use a good old-fashioned
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notepad. Specifically, I use Field Notes, which is the inspiration behind the Friday Field Notes
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podcast you're listening to right now. So I have Field Notes everywhere. I've got them in my car.
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I've got them in my office drawer. I've got them on my nightstand. This is helpful if you have to
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jot something down really quickly and don't have a lot of time. It also helps you clear your head so
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that you can focus again on more important things or that you can shut down for the evening.
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That's why I keep one on my nightstand. Now, the next resource that I want to share with you
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is my personal daily planner. I use this thing every single day. And from the time that I started
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implementing a daily planning strategy into my life, which was probably about three years ago
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where I did it consistently, my life has done a complete 180. You can download what I call the
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battle plan. If you go to orderofman.com slash battle plan, you can use the exact template that I
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use to plan out my day. You can use it to create your own or you can just use it as it is. But
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either way, I want you to start planning out every single day if you're not already doing that.
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Now, with that said, if you want to take your planning even a step further, and this is another
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resource I would suggest to you, there is a 12-week battle plan that I put together, but it's reserved
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exclusively for members of the Iron Council. But this tool will help you identify key objectives in each of
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the four quadrants that we always talk about. So relationships, your health, your wealth, and
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yourself. Then from there, you're able to reverse engineer this planning process so that you can
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start identifying tactics, key tactics that you need to implement each and every day to reach whatever
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that objective is. So you're going to be able to track the completion of your tactics, and then
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you're going to measure your progress and results. So if you're interested in, again, the exact life
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planning strategies that I use, this is the tool, the 12-week battle plan. And you can get access to
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that and the other 170 men inside of the Iron Council who are going to hold you accountable to
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those tactics and the objectives that you identify. So if you are interested in that resource, head to
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orderaman.com slash ironcouncil to join us. Now, the next topic I want to mention and the next
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productivity tool is reading books. You know I'm an avid reader. I've always got a book
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recommendation. I try to literally read 50 books per year. And while reading itself isn't
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necessarily a time saver, learning how to read faster and more efficiently is. So I'm not going
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to get a ton into this subject, but if you want to learn how to read faster, I just did an article
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several months ago on speed reading and the notes and the highlighting system that I use when I read
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a book. So if you go to orderaman.com slash FFN is in Friday Field Notes. So it's FFN 030. You can get
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the transcript for this podcast and you can get the link to anything, including the speed reading
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article. Now, the next thing I want to mention, and this isn't an app that you can purchase or even a
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book that you can read, although you can find plenty of information on it, but you need to be a better
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organizer. Organization is a productivity tool. It's a tactic. It's a strategy. Guys, I have seen some
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vehicles, some cars, some offices, some rooms, et cetera, that look like they were hit by a tornado.
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I know you like to think that you can find exactly what you need in your heap of trash,
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but you just cannot do it as effectively as if you were well organized. I clean my space
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at the end of every single day because it gives me the opportunity to start fresh each and every day
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when I wake up and it makes things go so much faster. Now it's going to take some time. I can
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promise you that, especially if you've let things pile up or you've let things fall through the crack.
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I get it. But if you take time and you organize and do it right and do it once and stay on top of it,
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you're going to be that much more productive. Now this tip that I'm going to share with you right
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here, and I think this is number six or seven, has helped me be more productive, but it's very
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difficult to get into, especially for me, and that is the notion of getting a good night's rest.
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I know it sounds strange because a lot of guys will say, I can sleep when I'm dead. Look, if you're
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not operating on a full tank, meaning you're not fully recovered every single day, you are not
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operating at full capacity. You need to learn how to sleep better. This one was hard for me
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for a lot of years, but I had a great interview with a friend of mine, Ted Rice. You need to check
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that one out. That is at orderofman.com slash 071. He tells you exactly how to get a good night's
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sleep each and every night. Now the next one I want to mention is exercise. This is on the opposite
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end of the spectrum, but every single one of us should be getting our exercise in every single
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day. Now I'm not the best at doing that every single day, but I can tell you that when I wake up
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early after plenty of sleep and get my butt into the gym, the rest of the day seems to go
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that much better. So make sure you're getting your workouts in every day. And the last tip
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that I want to share with you today is the concept of margin. If you want to be effective,
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you have to stop doing so much. Your multitasking is killing you and it's keeping you from focusing
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on the very few things that actually matter in your life. You need to eliminate, delegate, delete,
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remove, or avoid if you have to everything that does not energize and uplift you. Focus on what's
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important to you and you will be so much more effective and I promise you will live happier.
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So there it is guys, 10 tips, tricks, tactics, whatever you want to call them for maximum
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efficiency. I just want to go through them one more time, just as a recap. The first one is use
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a calendar. I use Google calendar. Number two, use Evernote to take your notes. Number three,
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actually a notepad. Again, field notes is what I use. The battle plan is number four. Number five is
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the 12 week battle plan. We talked about is number six, reading books. Number seven is organizing,
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making sure that your space in your life is organized. Number eight is getting a proper
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night's sleep. Number nine, exercise. And number 10, creating margin in your life. Now, not all of
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these specifically are going to work for you, but I hope that you're implementing everything I just
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shared with you in some way, shape, or form. Your productivity will skyrocket when you do. So with
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that said, guys, three ways that you can get more of the stuff that we talk about within the order.
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First, you can get the show notes for this show and the links that we talked about today at
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orderofman.com slash FFN is in Friday field notes, FFN 030. Next, make sure you join our closed Facebook
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group with over 11,000 men now at facebook.com slash groups slash order of man. And third,
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if you're really ready to make some drastic changes in your life and you're looking for a group of guys,
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a group of men who want to do the same things as you join the iron council. As soon as you do,
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I'll personally send you an email with the next steps and we will get you going.
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You can do that at orderofman.com slash iron council. Guys, I look forward to talking to you
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on Tuesday, but until then take action and become the man you were meant to be. Thank you for listening
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to the order of man podcast. You're ready to take charge of your life and be more of the man you
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were meant to be. We invite you to join the order at orderofman.com.