FFN 030: 10 Tips, Tricks, and Tactics for Maximum Productivity
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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.