Transcripts
1. Introduction: Do you feel like time slips away faster than
you can catch it? Do you find yourself
spending days on tasks that could be done in
a fraction of that time? Are you lacking
purpose, motivation, and direction to
reach your goals? Well, buckle up because
we are about to uncover the smartest strategies to reclaim your time and
transform your life. Imagine achieving
in just 5 hours what would typically eat
up few days of your time? Yes, it's possible. This
isn't some far off dream. It's about grabbing back those precious hours and reshaping your life
for the better. This course isn't just
about productivity. It's about reclaiming
control over your time, your energy, and your life. It's about carving out space for the things
that truly matter. It's about diving into your life that's not just
productive but also fulfilling a life where you can pursue your dreams without
constantly battling the clock. This course is short, direct, and packed with
actionable strategies. No fluff, no wasted time. Just practical guidance that will fast track you
toward your goals. I'm here to equip you with practical strategies for
effective time management and setting boundaries
to help you achieve your aspirations
faster and smarter. It's not just about
working harder, it's about working smarter
and living better. We will explore
actionable techniques for combating digital
distractions, negotiating flexible
work structures, and integrating self care
and mindfulness practices. But we won't stop there. We'll delve deep
into time boxing, a powerful method for task
management and prioritization. Witness its application in personal and
professional contexts. Experiencing the transfer
made to benefits, it brings productivity
and work life balance. This course is your road map
to reclaiming your time. Locking your potential,
and embracing a life that's both successful
and deeply satisfying. Are you ready to redefine
your productivity? Find harmony, and unlock
your full potential? Get set to take
charge of your time, your goals, and your future. Welcome to a journey
where efficiency meets fulfilment.
Let's get started.
2. 1 Mastering Thoughts: Your Key to Productivity: We spend one third of
our lives sleeping, which is something that you
don't have control over. You only have control over
the remaining two thirds of the time to achieve something
meaningful in your life. That actually translates to 8
hours a day going to sleep, and you only have 16 hours each day to do
something meaningful. Even in those 16 hours, you'll have to take care of
your family responsibilities, maintain personal
hygiene, manage finances, eat, take care of your
health, et cetera. Within those 16
hours, on average, a person would get around
60,000 thoughts in a day, of which 90% of them are
simply repetitive thoughts. Those thoughts can be
completely random, and a mixture of positive, negative, fearful,
guilty, happy, angry, or any random thought. Those thoughts that
are repetitive in nature are typically associated with some negative
emotions like guilt, fear, anger, et cetera. The negative thoughts
are sometimes simply the absence of the positive
and constructive thoughts. You might have
heard someone say, Idle mind, Devil's Workshop. It's applicable to every
one of us to some degree. If you think about
our ancestors, they barely had anything
to worry about. All they would think
about was food, shelter, and the safety
of their family. However, today we're living
in a world of distractions. We have so many things
around us to think about, that it really becomes difficult to align our thoughts around a few important things that actually contribute
to our success. Added to that, there are too many ways to reach
the same destination. There is too much
information out there that often leads to
analysis paralysis, which means the
inability to make a decision and
take action due to overthinking a problem and
spending too much time just thinking and trying to make a perfect decision in every
step of your journey. Unless we make a
conscious effort to align our thoughts and eliminate
the ones that we don't need, we cannot see a significant
increase in our productivity. Goal setting, setting
up priorities, making a plan to
accomplish them, and putting conscious
effort into eliminating irrelevant
thoughts by following certain techniques
and practices would significantly improve
your clarity of thoughts and increase
your productivity. We're going to
briefly talk about the goal setting and planning, but next we're going to do
a quick exercise to help you understand your
current thought process. I'll see you next.
3. 2 Understanding Your Current Thought Process: In order to understand your
current thought process, let us start with
a quick exercise. Now, for whatever reason, if you're not able to do
this exercise right now, just continue watching and do this exercise whenever
you get time. I should also mention that our brains are so
complex that it's really hard to say
that the results of this exercise are
super accurate. Take this as a fun little test, and don't make judgments
about yourself, good or bad. Don't take the results of this exercise for granted
or disregard them either. Just stay neutral. Here
is what you need to do. Open up a note pair on your computer or on
your mobile phone. Basically, anything where you can write down your thoughts. When I tell you start, you will pause this video
and you will start joting down all the thoughts that are going on in your
mind right now. In other words, you're
essentially taking a screenshot of the current
thoughts in your mind. Those thoughts can be
completely random and unrelated and they can be accompaned with varied emotions. You need to jot down
at least 25 thoughts More is obviously better. It shouldn't take you more
than 5 minutes to do this, but if it takes more time to get at least 25 to 30 thoughts,
you can take that time. Be honest with yourself, Go ahead and start. Okay? I hope you've done that. Now, write down your
most significant goal that you want to accomplish
in the near future. Don't say things
like, I want to earn X amount of money or I
want to buy a luxury car. Those are technically goals, but I would call them the
fruits of your efforts. Instead, you want to say, I want to reach X position in my organization by so in date. Or you'd want to say,
I want to close deals with X number of
clients by so in day. Or I want to lose X amount
of weight by this day. Some of you might not even have a particular goal in mind. In which case just try to give your best shot to set one goal. We're going to talk about goal setting in upcoming
topics anyway. Also set no more than two goals. If you have 56 goals, then choose the top two
goals of highest priority. Okay, pause this video. Go ahead and do that right now. Once you're done,
continue watching. Okay, I hope you've done that. Now, there's one last step
involved in this exercise. I want to evaluate each of your thoughts based
on your goal. I'll tell you how you need to put each thought in one of
these three categories. The first category is
a relevant thought. A relevant thought is one that will have a progressive
impact on your goals. In other words, any thought
that will help you advance towards reaching your goal should be marked
with the letter. R stands for Relevant Thought. The second category
is positive thought. Any thought that is positive
in nature but doesn't directly contribute to your specific goal is a
positive though. For example, if your goal is to close X number of
deals with clients, then a thought like
I want to stay loyal to my clients may
be a positive thought, but it's not really relevant or actionable thought for
your specific goal. However, if you have
a thought that says, I want to call ten
clients today, that would be a
relevant thought. You want to mark
these thoughts with letter P for positive thoughts. Now, the third category, any thought that is neither
positive nor relevant is an irrelevant thought and you want to mark it
with the letter. I just to reiterate, you need to mark
your thoughts with either the letter for
relevant thought, for positive thought, or
for irrelevant thought. Take some time to do that. And once you're done, unpause this video and
continue watching. Okay, I hope you've done that. This exercise must
have given you some idea about your
current thought process. But again, the brain
is so complex that the results of this exercise may not be completely accurate. And some of you might have
even messed it up completely, which is totally understandable. But basically, most of us have a fuzzy mind with an
unorganized thought process. It is due to the
lack of clarity in your thoughts that results in unorganized thought process. Lack of clarity in
thoughts is due to lack of planning and the lack of planning is due to
lack of goal setting. If you don't know
your destination, what's the point in planning something that will
take you nowhere? The majority of people
just don't plan. Planning will put you
above all of them. Taking action will
put you above many. Clarity of thoughts
will further it. Soon success will
become inevitable. Just by making a good plan, you'll fill your mind with
constructive thoughts, leaving no room for
irrelevant thoughts. Adding to that, if you follow certain techniques
and incorporate certain habits into your life, you'll significantly
optimize your time and increase your productivity. And soon you will start
to feel confident about yourself and
achieve your goals. We're going to talk about all of that with a lot of
actionable items. But next we'll start our journey with goal
setting. I'll see you next.
4. 3 Mastering Clarity: Unveiling the Secrets to Effective Goal Setting: You're not productive because you lack clarity in thoughts, you lack clarity in thoughts because you don't have
a proper plan in place. And you don't have a plan because you didn't
set your goals. You have to know
your destination to have a plan to get there. The first step of being productive is to have
a sense of purpose. By setting goals, we have to set long term goals
and short term goals. The short term goals are like milestones to reach
your long term goals. Your goals can be
related to your career, your ambition, or your health, your relationship
or anything else. This Ara is about
setting long term goals. There are certain
rules to be followed while setting these
long term goals. Rule number one, you should
only have so many goals that are practically possible to achieve within the limited
time that you have. For most of us, it shouldn't
be more than 23 goals. Of course, once you
reach those goals, you can set new ones, but adding too many goals will complicate the
entire process. Now if your goals are related to each other and
complement each other, then that's perfectly fine
to have slightly more goals, but do not have too many goals that are distinctly different. For example, I want to lose
X amount of weight by. So in date I want to become a certified health
coach by so ino day. These two goals are
related and complement each other. That might work. If you have too many
distinct goals, choose a couple of them that
are of utmost priority. Rule number two, A goal
should be realistic, something that requires
measurable action and something that
is specific to you. Goals cannot be, I
want to become rich, or I want to buy a luxury car. Those are essentially the
fruits of your efforts. Who doesn't want to be
wealthy and who doesn't want a better lifestyle? I'll
give you an example. Instead of saying I want
to earn X salary by so and date you want to say I want to reach position
by soo time when you reach that position you'll be earning
X salary anyway. Another example. Instead
of saying I want to reach X amount in
business revenue, you want to say, I want
to close deals with 100 clients or 100 high
end clients by so day. Which might actually result in X amount of revenue that
you've been dreaming. By the way, if you're
working for an organization, then these goals are not your organizations or
project specific goals. You might have already set
your organization or project specific goals after discussing
them with your boss. The goals that I'm referring
to are your personal goals. Of course, meeting the
organization goals might actually complement your
personal goals as well. Rule number three, your
goals must be time bound. Not setting time bound goals is a perfect recipe
for procrastination. That's why most
organizations follow a process to set
time bound goals for their employees so that they know when they're expected
to reach those goals. Also, while deciding when
you want to reach that goal, you need to add some
buffer time as well. Basically, if you think you can accomplish your goal
in six months time, maybe you'd want to add
one more month to it. You need that buffer
time because reaching your goals is not purely dependent on your
own capabilities. You might be dependent on
other people and there might be factors that are
not entirely your control. Always have a buffer. Now, as an exercise, this is what you need to do. Take a moment or actually take some decent amount of
time to set your goals. It's not an easy task, especially when you
have too many things that you want it to accomplish. However, you have to prioritize
and make up your mind. And once you make up your
mind, there's no going back. You better stay committed to
accomplishing those goals. Go ahead and write down
your long term goals. And whatever your goals are, you will accomplish them
provided you follow the rest of the process we're going to talk about in the
upcoming videos. Next, we're going
to quickly touch on setting up your
short term goals. And then we'll get into
the crucial phase which is taking action
coming right next.
5. 4 Strategic Short-Term Goals: Your Roadmap to Achievement: Short term goals or like the milestones to reach
your long term goals. The best way to understand
it is with an example. For example, if your
goal is to reach the top of the Mount
Everest in next six months, your short term goals might
be something like this. By the end of the first month, you might want to grab all the information
required and learn all the tracking skills required for climbing
the Mount Everest. By the end of the second month, you might want to finish the Everest base camp and learn all the
survival techniques. Likewise, you might be having multiple short term goals to eventually accomplish
your long term goals. In this case, it's reaching
the top of the Mount Everest. Let's take one more example. Let's say that
you'd want to reach position in your organization
by so and so time. Then your first short term
goal might be to gain all the new skills
required that are relevant to what you
want to accomplish. This may also involve
learning from somebody who has already done
what you want to do. Your second short term goal might be to accomplish half of your organization's goals
that you've discussed with your boss much earlier
than what you've planned. Your third short term
goal might be to take on challenging projects
or responsibilities. Or come up with new ideas that
will improve the project. I hope you've got the point. Let's take one last example. If your goal is to
sign a contract with 100 high end clients
by sensor date, then your short term goals might look something like this. In the first two weeks, you
might want to take feedback from your customers and improve
the customer experience. In the next two
weeks, you might want to learn new
marketing techniques. Identify your ideal client and sign a contract with your
first high end client. I hope you've got the point. Similarly, no matter what
your long term goals are, you can break them down into several short term goals that eventually lead to reaching
your long term goals. Your long term goals
don't have to be in six months and your
short term goals don't have to be in one month. You are the best person to
decide when you want to accomplish your long term
goals and short term goals. Now as an exercise, go ahead and write down your
short term goals which will eventually lead you to accomplishing your
long term goals. But I do have to mention
that the real game is not in setting up your goals
or planning things out. The real game is
in taking action. That's where most
people fail and that's where most people
get things wrong. The difference between
successful people and unsuccessful people is that the successful
people take action. Our upcoming lectures are
focused on just that. I'll see you next.
6. 5 Monk-Soldier Approach: Supercharging Your Daily Action for Goal Achievement: Okay, now that you have long term goals and short term goals, it's time to take action
with daily tasks ought to use that are aimed at taking you one step
towards your goals. When it comes to
your daily tasks, you must remember
this one thing. Think like a monk and take
action like a soldier. Let me elaborate it for you. Every day, you'd go
through two phases, the planning phase and
the execution phase. The planning phase
is where you'd basically plan things
for the day and the execution phase is
where you basically take action to finish the tasks that you've planned for the day. Let's talk about the planning
phase in more detail. Or the planning phase, you need to find the
most peaceful time of the day to write down all the tasks you want to finish for
that particular day. For most of us, the
most peaceful time with fewer distractions is either early morning or late evening. If it's early morning for you, you'd want to plan
for the same day. If it's late evening or night, then you'd want to
plan for the next day. Highly recommend
that you make it a habit to plan early
in the morning, as you'll need a very fresh mind to do all the critical thinking needed for planning your tasks. Now, during the planning phase, you basically think like a monk. You will do all the
critical thinking you need to list down the tasks
for that particular day. What kind of tasks you
want to list and how to prioritize them is something we'll talk about
in next lecture. But listing on the
tasks is actually easy. Taking action is hard. That's why whenever you list on a particular
to do or a task, you visualize yourself taking that particular action by considering all the
possible outcomes. Y visualizing, you'll have
a realistic estimate of the tasks and the kind of
effort that needs to be put in. It's better to have fewer tasks that will have a higher impact on your goals than to have too many tasks that add
little value to your goals. It's important that
you first get into the habit of finishing
the tasks by adding fewer tasks than by adding too many tasks
and not finishing them. Anyway, we'll talk about
that in the next lecture. Next comes the execution phase. Once you list down the tasks, you need to find the
most productive hours of your day and switch
to soldier mode, and that is when you're going to execute the tasks that you
have planned for the day. Now, why is it called
a soldier mode? If you think about a war, before attacking their enemies, the entire crew sits together does all the
critical thinking required and come up with a plan of action on how to
attack their enemies. Once they finalize their plan,
there's no looking back. Enter the war zone and execute the plan with 100% commitment. There is no critical thinking involved while
executing the plan. If a soldier did critical
thinking in the war zone, he'd be shot dead by their
enemies with no time. There is no time to rethink
if the plan is right or wrong when a soldier
is in the war zone. There's no room for emotions. There's no room for mercy. The soldier will just
execute the plan, whatever it takes to execute it. Similarly, once you're
out of the monk mode, and once you decide to enter the soldier mode, there
is no looking back. There's no time for
critical thinking. There's no time to evaluate if your plan is right or wrong. It's just pure execution. Treat each of your
tasks as your enemies, and you need to
finish them as soon as possible before
they take on you. That's soldier mode for you. We'll continue with
next lecture, wherein, I'll tell you exactly
how you want to plan or list your tasks
and prioritize them.
7. 6 Task Mastery: Unlocking the Priority Code for Efficient Action: There are three
different categories of tasks you want to create. The first of which
are the urgent tasks. If a tiger is chasing you, you don't want to tell yourself, I'll run another day. You need to run immediately
to save your life, Argenta, or something like that. They often involve
pressure and deadlines, and demand your immediate
attention and action. Argenta may not
contribute to your goals, but these are the
tasks that you need to act on as soon as possible, otherwise they will
have an impact on you. Examples include clearing
your credit card bills, personal emergencies,
family emergencies, tax filing, Attending
an important meeting, an urgent issue in your office, an urgent E mail you need
to respond to, et cetera. Urgent tasks will
take priority over any other tasks we're
going to talk about next. You have important tasks. Important tasks are those
that are relevant to your nearest short term
goal and are aimed at taking one step towards
your long term goal. Any other tasks that are neither urgent nor important can be put into the category of other tasks and they are of least priority. Before you list down your tasks, you need to get
into the monk mode that we've talked earlier. Find the most peaceful
time of the day where you have the best chance
of making a good decision. And you'll start writing
all the tasks for the day. You will start off
with Argentas. Since argentas typically
trigger emotions, you will easily remember them. They don't require a
lot of brainstorming, just write them down
at the top of the page Once you're done
listing the argentas acknowledge the important tasks. Like I said,
important tasks will take you one step
towards your goal. This is where you need
to brainstorm a lot. That is where you need to do all the critical
thinking required. The worst thing is to do a
task with 100% efficiency. That does not need to be done at all for each and
every important task. You need to ask yourself
a few basic questions, like how much of an
impact would this task have on my goal?
Can I improve it? Can I come up with a better plan or a better idea, et cetera? Whatever the questions or critical thinking required,
it needs to be done. During the planning
phase itself, you cannot afford to do
critical thinking once you get into the execution
phase or soldier mode. Next, you're going to
list the important tasks. Important tasks may be boring and you may not have the
motivation to do them, but those are the
ones that will have a higher impact on
reaching your goals. Also, important tasks are
very prone to postponement, as they typically do
not trigger emotions, a sense of pressure or urgency, like in case of argentas. But important tasks are the ones that will
change your life for better and bring you the success you've
always desired. That's why you need to list down the important tasks as per how boring they are to execute with the most boring
one on the top. So that once you get into the soldier mode and start
executing all your tasks, you'll execute the most
boring ones first. And it will only get
more exciting and interesting as you approach
to finishing the task. Next comes the other tasks. Other tasks neither
contribute to your goals, nor are they argent, but you want to finish
them on the same day. Examples may include
buying clothes, cleaning the furniture, wishing your friends a happy
birthday, et cetera. If you're unable
to decide in which category you want
to put the task, always put the task in a
higher priority category. Once you list on all
the tasks for the day, you need to find the
most productive time of your day and get
into soldier mode. In soldier mode, that is, in task execution mode, you do not entertain
any emotions. Your job is simply to blindly execute all the tasks
you've listed for the day. Your entire focus would be on one particular task at
any given point in time. Multitasking is a myth, more on that in coming lectures. One mistake that everyone makes in execution phase is that they postpone the task execution
until late in the day. Never ever do that. If you do that, you're going
to overburden yourself, and you may not be able
to execute the tasks. It may also result in your task spilling over to the next day. Treat this like a game where all the tasks are
your enemies and you need to kill them as soon as possible in the most
efficient way possible. Okay, now it's
time for exercise. Go ahead and write down
your tasks for the day. But don't take action yet. You need to know a
few important things while taking action. And that's what we're
going to talk about in our upcoming lectures.
I'll see you right next.
8. 7 Action as Addiction: Transforming Regrets into Habit of Success: Oftentimes we regret
our past and are not happy or satisfied with
our current lives has a remedy to escape from all
that we often indulge in doing things that interests
us or entertain us. The reality is that
it's not a remedy, it's only a temporary
distraction. Once you return
back to your life, you're simply more broke
than you were before. If you don't do something about
it over a period of time, rather than progressing
in your life, you just simply get used to your current life and try to
find a comfort zone in it. The real cure is, you know it. Take action and
most importantly, make it a habit. You think that we regret our past because we
were not successful. But the truth is we regret our past simply because we haven't given
it our best shot. We haven't taken action. We haven't done what we had
initially planned to do. If you had taken action and
tried everything you could, even if you had failed, you would still feel
happy about yourself because failure will also take you one step
towards your goal. You will know what not to do, which is very
precious learning and every bit of that journey
is fully worth it. The good news is that our
mind is like a muzzle. It gets stronger and become
more capable as we use it. We can train our
mind to take action and most importantly,
make it a habit. As they say it. Do
something continuously for 21 days and it
becomes a habit. We all know that brushing our teeth is not the most
exciting thing to do, but we do it anyway because
we have made it a habit. As you make taking
action a habit, you will gain confidence
in yourself and experience your life much
better than most people. You'll start to feel
abundance of time, meaning you don't feel like
your time is running fast. Start to feel like you
have ample amount of time to do all the
things you want to do. Have you ever done
a plank in the gym? You'll be one of the
fittest people if you could manage to do the
plank for 2 minutes. When you do it, the time
runs extremely slow. You feel like there is just
too much of time out there. That's the kind of
thing this is actually, once you make it a habit, you'll become addicted to it. Because every time
you take action and finish off the
task for the day, your body releases the same
feel good hormones that it releases with any addictive
substances out there. That's why you shouldn't be overly ambitious
in the beginning, start very small and only have enough tasks for the day that
you know you can finish. It's better to get into
the habit of finishing the tasks than to list too many tasks and
not finish them. Of course, once you make it
a habit to finish the tasks, you can obviously increase the number of tasks
you want to add. Next we're going to talk about some very important tips and
hacks that you should know. If there is one important
lecture you should not miss, it's going to be the upcoming
lecture. I'll see you next.
9. 8 Life-Changing Task Mastery: 11 Secrets to Supercharge Your Productivity: Remember these golden tips, especially the last one, which is my personal
favorite number one? Never aim for perfection. A perfect plan never
exists, Don't thrive on it. Instead, focus on how you
handle the imperfect plan. An average plan
executed is far better than a brilliant plan on
which nothing is done at all. Number two, if you have a dependency on someone
to finish a task, then just do your bit. Inform the individual and move the task to another day and forget about it unless it's an urgent task or urgent issue. Number three, if you feel like not taking action
for whatever reason, but you have to
take that action or the important action
anyway, just start doing. Once you start, it's not going to be as
stressful and you'll end up finishing the task just like you don't feel
like going to the gym. But once you're in the
gym you'll work out well. You need to push yourself
every day in the beginning, but once you are there, the rest will follow and therefore it is well
worth the time. Number four, every morning, reiterate and
imagine the kind of life you can have once
you achieve your goals. That might remind
you of the purpose for which you want
to finish the task. Also read the quotes
from your role model, whoever it is. Number five. Once you finish all
the tasks for the day, rate your work on the
scale of one to ten, indicating how efficiently
you've finished your tasks and giving
yourself feedback. You want to do that
once a week as well. Number six, every time you
wear the hat of a soldier, that is, when you're in action
mode, turn on the timer. That will make you familiar with how many hours you're
actually productive. You must aim for 5 hours
of pure action every day. If it's taking more
than 5 hours off you, then your execution is
not efficient enough. Also, we humans can only
stay focused for so long that it's really hard
to go beyond 5 hours. Beyond that, you're
surely not in the right state of
mind to stay focused. You can also follow the
Pomadorotechnique here, which states that you
work for 25 minutes and take 5 minutes off break to do something
recreational. Don't watch short videos here, as it is less likely that you will stop
watching in 5 minutes. Instead, do things
like stretching, walking, solve a chest puzzle, maybe, et cetera, and take a half hour break after
2 hours of action mode. If you finish your
task before 5 hours, don't waste the
rest of the time. Do something productive
during that time. But you need to clock
5 hours every day. The way I personally
practice is to turn on the low volume No Lyric Fitness Music
and run the timer on. When I'm in action mode, I turn off the timer every
time I take a break. That way, when the
timer takes 5 hours, I know I've met the
productors for the day. Getting a watch like this will definitely help you
in this regard. By the way, 5 hours is purely for argent and important tasks. It must not include other tasks. 5 hours should not include breaks that
you take in between. You don't have as many
Argent tasks every day and you wouldn't
spend much time there. The majority of the time
goes to important tasks. Number seven,
multitasking is a myth. Brain is like a single
core processor. We can only focus on
one thing at a time. We think that we're
actually multitasking, but the reality is we're switching between
the context between two or more tasks so quickly that we feel
like we're multitasking. But actually it's
not multitasking that context switching takes
a lot of mental resources, which will not only
exhaust your mind, but you won't be able to do
justice to any of the tasks. Take one task at a time. But if you think there's
going to be a long pause, then maybe you can switch to another task in the meantime. Number eight, avoid distractions while you're in action mode. Imagine you're
working on a task, and then suddenly you hear
a phone notification, or you see a Youtube thumbnail
with a little kitten. You know what's going
to happen next. You click that cat
video and you're now in the weird world of
Youtube binge watching. Even if you resist yourself and stop yourself
from clicking it, your mind is still curious
about what's in that video. Avoid all sorts of
distractions around you. Clear your computer,
clean your room, and only have things that will
help you finish the task. Number nine, stop worrying
about the results. Just enjoy the journey itself. You cannot be a soldier and worry about the outcome
at the same time. Enjoy your journey.
Spend every minute of your time joyfully, enjoy and embrace what you do. Number ten, this is
very important tip. Never depend on motivation
to finish your task. We have motivation
to do things that interests us and we
stay focused on them. For example, playing a sport, playing a video game,
cooking, et cetera. But they may not contribute
to your success. Even if you're pursuing a career that is actually
interesting to you, you still have to get out of your comfort zone to
achieve in your career. Even the most successful people that you know of or someone who had to come out
of their comfort zone to achieve something
in their lives. The way the world works is
that those who come out of the comfort zone are the
ones who will be rewarded. For example,
personally I'm super passionate about teaching
and I love breaking very complex concepts down into a manner that even a
child can understand. But I have to do things
that I don't like in order to advance in my career
or to reach my goals. For example, I hate
video editing. It's the most boring
thing in my life. It's not the exciting thing
to me, but I had to do it. One option is to basically
delegate the task to someone. But in my case, I
cannot hire someone because they not only have to have the
video editing skills, but they also need
to know the subject I'm teaching for editing. A very rare talent that I couldn't manage to
find until now. By the way, we're
going to talk about delegation in upcoming lectures, but I hope you've got the
point I'm trying to make. Just finish the task
like it was commanded by the Army General Number 11. This is often underestimated. But eat good food. The food we eat will have an impact on the mood
swings hormones, sleep, brain
function, et cetera. You cannot stay focused when
you have an upset stomach. Speak with a good dietitian
and fix your diet. After all, health is wealth. What's the point of
earning a lot of money when your health is
not in its best shape? Number 12, sort out all your clothes that you're
going to wear the next day. This will save you
a ton of time. Brainstorming
required every time you want to change your clothes. You will know it by yourself. Once you do it, you can
actually add it as part of your other tasks in your
day to day list of tasks. Number 13, finish all
your morning formalities in one go rather
than taking breaks. That will save you
a ton of time, because we often
tend to take breaks between them and then seek some entertainment
during that time that time flies like anything. Number 14, and this is
my personal favorite. As much as you work hard, it's equally important
to enjoy your life. 6 hours might go in action
mode, including breaks, 1 hour for other tasks, 8 hours for sleeping, you're left with 10
hours every single day. Within these 10 hours,
you might use some of the time for things
like commuting, daily routines, et cetera. In the end, you must be left
with five to 8 hours of free time during which you can do things that you
enjoy the most. Spend quality time
with your family, meet friends, play
sports, et cetera. Utilize that time to
exhaust yourself with joy. The fact that you finish
your task for the day means that enjoy these
movements even more. You can also optimize
certain daily routines to get even more time out of it. For example, you may listen to a podcast that you
love while commuting. See if you can manage something without commuting, et cetera. Personally, I gave
up binge watching Youtube and Instagram shots or any other virtual
entertainment. Instead, spend the time on sports activities that I
really enjoy with my friends. I also enjoy cooking and sharing the joy with
my friends and family. Virtual entertainment
is something you can do even after we get old. It doesn't involve
real connections with people around you.
I gave upon that. Similarly, you can
find ways to optimize your fun time to
get maximum fun. So you'll be ready
for the soldier mode the next day. I'll
see you right next.
10. Quick Message!: Hi, this is your instructor
for this course and I'm hoping that you're really
enjoying the journey so far. The reason for this video
is basically to ask you to just take a couple of minutes to rate and review this course. This is really important because depending on a number of rating and reviews that the
course receives, skillshare team will
decide whether to keep the course on this
platform or remove it. Unfortunately, few of my
courses were removed. A lot of students were
impacted because of that, because they lacked enough
reviews and ratings. If it's not a big favor, just take a couple of minutes and give the rating
for this course. And also describe in a couple of lines what you've
learned so far. And if it has benefited
you in some way or the other that's going to help this course stay
alive on this platform, probably you're not going to lose access to this
course as well. I hope you do that. Thank you very much and I'll see you next. Have a great day ahead.
11. 9 Exterminating Parasites of your Success: Liberating Yourself from Worries and Fears: If a tiger is chasing you, you instinctively run
without thinking a lot. If somebody is
about to punch you, your body instinctively defends itself without you making
any conscious decision. But with the current
circumstances in which we are
living right now, we are constantly
creating a false alarm in our bodies by constantly
worrying about things that are not in our hands or fearing things that will
probably never happen. What that means is that
things like fear, worry, and regrets would constantly
bug you at the back of your head and wouldn't let you
stay focused on your work. Severely impacting
your productivity. Such thoughts and
emotions release such hormones that the body spends its energy
on its survival. Rather than letting your
brain do its job efficiently, we need to do
something about it. I have an amazing
fix for the same. The moment I reveal that you
will have an Aha moment, let's do a quick exercise.
This is very important. I want you to take a
couple of minutes and write down all the current
ongoing problems in your life. Also list down your fears and things that you worry about. Be as open and honest about it. You want to list
down a minimum of five more is obviously better. Go ahead and do that right now. Okay? I hope you've done that. First of all, you must
be feeling relieved a little bit by
expressing them down. You're now at least
familiar with your fears, unlike most other people. Now, you need to hear me up for the next 5 minutes and I'll make your problems and fears
look not so problematic. After all, most of
your fears must be related to either health
relationship or money. Go ahead and put a check mark on anything that is
related to these. Once you do that,
continue watching. Okay? I hope you've done that now listen to
me very carefully. If you are able
to eat good food, you are a lot better than 30% of the world population.
There are billions. I repeat, there are literally billions of people who are
dreaming of the next meal. There are more than
1 billion people in this world who have some form of disability and are dreaming of the health that
you're having right now. And an estimated 153 million
children orphaned and, or abandoned or dreaming of
someone who cares about them. There are billions of
people who are dreaming of the life you're
having right now. Now, go back and take a look at your problems and
fears once again. And cancel out any problems that you no longer feel
like a problem. It's okay if you
do not cancel any. It's okay if you're
not convinced yet. If you're not convinced now, you will be convinced
in just a bit. Do it real quick and get back. Okay, I hope you've done that. Now, what I'm going to reveal is the root cause of all
your fears and problems. Yes, you've heard me right. There's just one cause of
all your worry and fears. Once I reveal that,
you're going to have an Aha moment. Are you ready? The root cause of
all your worries and fears is just one word. If you could manage
to get rid of this one thing from your life, all your worries and fears
would vanish and never exist. The root cause of all your
worry and fears is attachment, if it didn't give you
a light bulb moment. Let me give you a few
examples as to why an attachment is the root
cause of all your problems. You may have a fear of upsetting someone because you're attached to them or because
you're attached to something that you're
going to get from them. If you're attached
to getting into a higher position,
you'd fear a fall. If you have an attachment to
a luxury item like a car, you worry not getting it. You fear taking action because you fear not
getting the results. You're attached to,
you fear saying no because you're attached to things that you
get from someone. In all the examples I've given, there's one word that is common. That is, attachment is the root cause of all the
problems in your life, including the ones
that you've just listed. What's the solution? The solution is detachment. All your problems, fears, and worries exist because
you're attached to something. The moment you detach
yourself from that something, your problems will
not have a reason to exist anymore. I'll
tell you one story. Once there was a
husband and a wife and their child got sick and
was taken to the hospital, the mother was shedding in tears and was very worried
about her child. The husband, on the other hand, seems not so worried at all. He's living as if
everything is all right. His wife ferociously screamed at her husband and asked him why doesn't he seem
worried while his child is seriously ill and was
bedridden in the hospital. To which husband replied, I have brought him
to the hospital and handed him to the Dr. I have done my duty. What else can I do now? Obviously, this is
just a made up story. I don't mean to say that
you need to be heartless. Heartless would mean
that you actually don't carry your son
to the hospital. There's a fine line
between the two. But the point here is that your duty is to do
the job efficiently, giving you 100% the result
is not in your hands. Leave it to the destiny. Stop
worrying about the results, but just enjoy the journey itself. You have
nothing to fear. Worrying about the results will only make things worse and won't let you stay focused
on the current task in hand. I hope it makes sense now
to finish this exercise. Go ahead and identify what
is that you're attached to that has caused you that
particular fear or worry. Every time you cancel each item, you will tell yourself this. I'm now detached from it. We are now reaching to the end
of this course and we have a few last things to discuss.
I'll see you right next.
12. 10 Five Secrets of Smart Learning And Smart Working: If hard work is the only thing that makes someone successful, then all the people who
are working in mines, construction workers, marathoners and body builders
would be the richest. Unfortunately, the world
doesn't work that way. It's also about smart work, and most importantly,
smart learning. Smart work starts
with smart learning. And you don't want to learn
anything that you don't need as much as you
want to learn things. It's equally important to unlearn the things
that you don't need. Nobody talks about unlearning. Here are a few golden tips on smart learning and
smart working. The third tip I'm going to
share is like a gold mine. You cannot afford to miss that. Number one, the
art of delegation. Don't try to do
everything by yourself. Delegate the task
to others who are better equipped to do that job. It will free up your
time to let you focus on more critical responsibilities
that are absolutely crucial and important to
achieving your goals. If you're running a
business, for instance, do not hesitate to invest in someone who can do
the job for you. Number two, learn from
someone who has achieved what you want to achieve.
Answer me this question. Let's say that you
wanted to represent your country on the
national football team. Now you have two options. Get training from a local
academy for one month, or get 30 minutes
of mentorship from Ronaldo and get
guidance from him. Get all the questions answered.
Which one would you take? If you're like most people, you would obviously
go with Ronaldo because what he's going to say is backed by his
immense experience. Whatever he says or like golden nudgets that make a significant impact
on your progress, Get in touch with someone who has been there and done that. Linked in is a great
place for that. Most people who are successful would be generous enough to give you their advice if you are serious enough to get
in touch with them. That interaction
with them will save you a ton of time and
failures that you might have to go through
because you're learning from someone who has learned from their lessons and
from their failures. Number three, learn to say no If there's one thing that you need to master, it is to say no. Saying no is not just about
someone giving you a task, and then you will decide
whether to do it or not. Every decision you make is basically a yes or no decision. You see a Youtube thumbnail, and whether you
want to watch it or not is a yes or no decision. If you want to follow
someone on social media, it's a yes or no diction. You want to meet someone,
it's a yes or no decision. You want to binge what, Youtube and Instagram
shots right after you wake up in the
morning? Guess what? It's a yes or notion. I hope you've got the point. These decisions about
what we decide to do, whom we decide to
spend time with, what we decide to
learn, et cetera, will define the
person we are today and the person we will
be in the future. Always say no to things that do not align with your
goals are outside your capacity in your office if your boss gives you a task
that you cannot do justice to, instead of blindly
taking the task just to satisfy your boss and
disappointing them later on, it's better to be open and
honest about it with your boss and see if it can be given to someone else who is
capable of doing it. I'm very sure that if you could convince your
boss about how we can finish the task more efficiently without
your involvement in it, your boss would surely
agree with that. Number four, do not hesitate to invest money in a good
course or to hire a coach You can learn for free on online articles,
Youtube, et cetera. But they come with a huge cost, which is not at all worth it. Youtube, for example, has
a lot of distractions. The content in it is
very unorganized, often taught by no experts, a lot of ads,
commercials, et cetera. However, if you learn from a good coach or even
from a good course, you will avoid all that and save it on off
your precious time. Number five, use technology
for your benefit. Try to find ways to automate your task or to fast
track your work. I'll just give you an example. Let's say you need
to call 500 clients and give them a reminder. It might take you a week
or so to call all of them, but you can use technology
that automatically calls your clients on your behalf and even read out
a message for you. This can be done in less
than 30 minutes or so. If you know the particular tool, always find ways
to use technology to ramp up your productivity.
One more example. Instead of meeting someone in
person to get the job done, look for the possibility of getting things done
over the phone. It will save you a ton of
time having to commute. One last example. You can use apps
to remind you of recurring activities
like rent EMI, credit card bills, loans,
subscriptions, et cetera. Using these apps will
free your mind from these things bugging you
at the back of your head. Next we're going to talk
about analysis paralysis, which is a very well known
killer for your productivity. If you don't do
something about it, everything what you've
learned so far, we'll just go in vain. I'll see you next where
we talk about just that.
13. 11 Breaking Free from Analysis Paralysis: Embracing Decisiveness and Action: Analysis paralysis
is when you have an overwhelming amount
of information and choices in order to
make a decision. You may become immobilized by the fear of making
the wrong decision. This may actually lead to missed opportunities
as individuals may actually procrastinate or avoid making a
decision altogether. Or sometimes it's even worse, they make a decision
and start acting on it, but then all of a
sudden they switch to a different idea
without finishing the previous one or the planned one. Eventually, it leads to
reduced productivity. The person would
waste a lot of time, lose motivation to take action, increased stress and anxiety. Things wouldn't look nice. Fortunately, with a little bit of dedication, we can fix this. But first, let's talk about what causes Analysis paralysis. There are three main causes
of analysis paralysis. Number one,
information overload. When making a decision, the vast amount of information you have can be paralyzing. That's actually the same
thought process I've put in to create
this course as well. I want to keep
this course short, actionable, and to the point so that it will have
an impact on you. I've eliminated
everything that I felt. You don't need to know. There's no information
overload here. Number two, perfectionism. There's never something called a perfect decision or a
perfect action. It's a myth. Number three,
overthinking a problem due to fear of making a mistake. The fact is, there's never a decision that is 100% correct. There's always some
degree of failure associated with every
single decision. Even when you're
crossing the road, there's a risk of accident. That doesn't mean we
need to either avoid crossing the road or overthink
before crossing the road. How do we fix analysis? Paralysis. Number one, set a fixed time and
make a decision. Once you make the decision, there's no looking back or deviating from it
until you finish it. Number two, limit
information intake. And this is something
we've already covered, gain only the
essential knowledge that is absolutely required. It's better to learn less
and put that learning into action than to learn too many things and
not doing anything. Number three, never
aim for perfection. Never fear making
a wrong decision or fear an unfavorable outcome. Remember all of this, every time you're stuck
with decision making. Next we will understand the
three stages of great people. How would anybody
become great like messy Warren Buffet or Mahatma Gandhi or any such one in 1 billion
of personalities. What does it take for
an average person to become someone like them? We'll find out right next. You can bet it can give you
a different perspective on how you approach your life and accept
what it has to offer. I'll see you right next.
14. 12 Unveiling The Three Phases of Achieving Greatness: There are three stages
of great personalities. While I talk about these stages, I'll take the example of messy. Just in case if you're
wondering who Messi is. He's a very famous and
extremely talented footballer. Here are the three stages
that someone has to go through to be
great at something. Number one, natural talent. Every one of us is ingrained
with some natural talent. It may be due to the
genetic factors, circumstances in
which we grew up. Cultural practices, we
might have followed conditions in which we grew up and the people with
whom we grew up, all of which will define
our natural talent. Why do people from Kenya
always win the marathons? That's because the genetics,
family history, conditions, and circumstances in
which they grew up contributed to making them
naturally good at long runs. Let's take the example of Messy. His family has a
history of footballers, and his father worked
in a steel factory where he also coached a
local youth football team. The circumstances in
which Messy grew up made him develop the ability to
stay calm under the pressure. And he has built a strong competitive spirit
in the process. But having natural
talent is worth nothing until you do
something about it. That brings me to second stage, identifying a profession that matches with your
natural talent. If you're fortunate enough
to find a profession that perfectly aligns with
your natural talent, you should be one of
those luckiest people. When you're young, it's
the job of your parents or your mentor to help you identify the activities that
you're naturally good at. The sooner you find the
profession that matches with your natural talent,
the better it is. This is often very challenging, because while we have natural
talent for something, society around us has
different plans for us. In the case of messy, his parents recognized
his talent and made sacrifice to support
his football career, starting at an early age. Allow him to develop all the fundamental skills and a deep passion for the game. But finding a profession
that aligns well with your natural abilities is
not enough to be great. You also need to go
through the third stage, which is dedication
and hard work. When I say hard work, it
also involves smart work, because smart work
is indeed hard. This is the phase
where one needs to exhibit a good work
ethic and dedication. This is where one
needs to stay out of the comfort zone
and take action. This is where one
is to push them beyond their limits or
psychological boundaries. This is where one needs to be mentored by an
experienced professional. Here, we may need to do things that you do
not really like. For example, I love teaching, but I hate doting, but I have to do it in order
to excel in my passion. Messy, for instance, had the
opportunity to work with several experienced
and knowledgeable coaches throughout his career. Messy is well known for
his strong work ethic and dedication to
improve himself. He spent countless
hours practicing, honoring his skills even outside the structured
training sessions. His commitment to
improving his weakness, such as his heading ability
and free kicking techniques, et cetera, played a crucial
role in his success. He probably didn't settle for what he was
naturally good at. He worked hard to
fix what he lacked, and hence, he is great. Now, I just took
messy as an example, but this is applicable to every great personality out
there. Now here's the thing. To what degree you go through these three stages will
define your success. If you're naturally super
good at something and you find a profession that perfectly aligns with
your natural talent, you also managed to put in enough dedication and hard work. You will be someone like messy, Steve Jobs, Mahana,
Gandhi, et cetera. Some people may have
natural talent, but the profession they get into may not completely align
with their natural talent. But they're passionate about
the profession so much that they put a lot of effort and hard work beyond anybody else. That's when you see
someone like Ronaldo, he's not as naturally
talented as messy, but he went beyond messy in terms of hard
work and dedication, and he's equally
popular as messy. Some people have
supernatural talent, but they might end up in
completely wrong profession, and they do not make any efforts to excel in that
particular profession. It's hard to say
that these people will see any
significant success. Some people have natural
talent and they even end up in a profession that perfectly aligns with their
natural talent, but they're not
committed to their job. These people will
see decent success, but if they fix the hard
work and commitment part, they will excel like anything. These are some examples. In reality, the
degree to which we go through these phases is very
unique for each individual. Based on that, your
success is defined. If you lack a little
bit of natural ability, you need to compensate it with extra hard work and smart work. You can also put
conscious effort into identifying
your strengths and speaking with your
boss about the areas where you are more
likely to contribute. Well, I'm sure that conversation with your boss will
benefit both the parties. We're going to conclude our
journey with this course. There's one last message I'd like to give
coming right next.
15. 13 A Heartfelt Goodbye: Embrace, Reflect, and Farewell: You may be feeling a
sense of accomplishment. Knowing how far you have come, it's entirely natural
to feel a tinge of sadness as well as
this course concludes. Yet I encourage you to embrace these emotions as
part of your growth. You see saying goodbye
to this course is not really the end.
It's a new beginning. The knowledge and skills
you have acquired or your tools for the more
productive and fulfilling life. Take a moment to celebrate
this achievement, no matter how big or small. Remember that you have made progress and that every
step forward counts. Recognize your hard
work dedication and commitment you've shown so far to enhancing
your productivity. As you move forward,
keep in mind that the journey of productivity
is actually ongoing. It's not about perfection, but about continuous
improvement. The skills you've
developed here will serve you well as you
face new challenges, set new goals, and strive for excellence in your personal
and professional lives. What you've experienced here is more than just a set
of lessons and skills. It's a transformation process. And you can pass this torture of knowledge by documenting
this course to others who may be seeking a similar journey
for your siblings. The ones who've loft with you argued with you and shared so
many moments of your life. Giving them this
gift, of course, is like offering them a key to unlock their
full potential. They say that siblings are the first friends we
have in our lives. And what's better
way to strengthen that bond than helping them achieve their
goals? To your friends? Those who celebrated
your victories and stood by you during
your challenges, offering them this
gift of knowledge or discourse is an act
of love and support. It's a way of
saying, I believe in your potential and I want
you to succeed in your life. For your employees who strive every day to
contribute to your business, you can provide them more than just a job by
sharing this course, you're investing in the personal
and professional growth. You are giving them tools that not only make them more
valuable to your company, but also help them
thrive in their careers. To your colleagues with whom you share your ups and
downs in the workspace, you can provide them a
way to excel together. Recommending this course to
them means strengthening your team and fostering a culture of growth
and excellence. Finally, as we say goodbye to this course
on productivity, once again, remember that the end of one journey is merely the
beginning of another. Continue to apply
what you've learned. Stay open to growth
and never stop striving for your personal
and professional goals. Farewell for now, and
may your future be filled with productivity,
success, and fulfilment. But wait a second. There's one last
exercise you need to do. You set your long term
goals and short term goals. You've listed down the tasks. And there's one last
exercise you need to do. That exercise never ends. That is, to take the
damn action. Do it.
Karthikeya T, For Your Learning Needs
