Transcripts
1. Welcome: Welcome to the course. My name's Colin Stucker, the founder of Wild Frisco in the excess reminder. Com. I'm gonna go through some of the things I've learned, managing myself, trying to figure out a system that works for me and trying to be as productive as possible while juggling life, family employees, projects, business marketing content and the 1,000,000 things have to do is an entrepreneur. I've been doing this entrepreneur thing that's working for myself thing for about 13 years now, and it hasn't come easy. I'm not perfect by any means, but I've gotten to a place where I can get more done than most people. Even though I am refining my productivity system on a continual basis, there have been some things that have been able to stick, which basically served as my productivity first principles. So I'm gonna give you some of the big ideas that you can learn from my 13 years doing this . Now, a lot of these ideas have been written about extensively. You can find books and articles and podcasts about all of these, but putting them in together, having reminders and systems set in place based on them and actually utilizing these ideas . That's the difference between those that build something and those that kind of meander through life. I truly believe that if you can't manage yourself and manager productivity, you're not going to express your full potential. Nobody is going to do it for you. If you are a creative individual, whether you're an employee, a CEO and entrepreneur, nonprofit, whatever, you're still gonna have to have the responsibility to manage yourself, to get work done on time and to get good work done. So this course is gonna help you do all that. It's gonna help you ideally build a routine that is perfect for you so that you can spend more time. It may be doing more work. May be having a side hustle or Spain time, their family or on your hobby or whatever it is, depending on where you are at in life. The beautiful thing about this is your productivity habits in your routine, especially when they're based in the higher level First principles of productivity getting things done, they're gonna follow you for the rest of your life. So if you get a foundation down now, even if you don't see what you're doing now as the thing you want to do forever. You take all those skills with you to your next job or professional project in your employer s deceiver. Honest with them, they're going to support your productivity habit. They're going to want to support you whether you're doing deep work or need to block out time to not be available on slack, for example, or other things that are really outside the scope of this course. When you explain that this is about you getting your best work done, this is about getting more done in less time. This is about making sure that you're being productive employees so that, fundamentally your employers are getting their money's worth. If you can explain that, you'll get a tremendous amount of freedom and leeway to actually further curate your plan in your program. And that's something I recommend everybody do that has a job, especially as we move into mawr of this knowledge worker society where creative work, where deep work where avoiding interruptions and distractions are gonna become superpowers and the modern, typical workplace or heaven forbid, the open plan workspace. Disaster is the norm, shouldn't be, but still that provides opportunity for those of us that can manage ourselves to get more done to shine. And you know, it's not just about competition. We should also be helping her organization developed these routines. We should be helping our co workers, our friends and family with some of these ideas, because these ideas are universal. If you're doing work of any capacity that is creative or knowledge based work, you have tohave systems. And no systems have to be built on some basic first principles of how you think about it. Work, science tested, human tested principles and fundamental is that something you could do long term, which is why this is a learning process. But understanding something big ideas and understanding things that tend to work generally is a good step in the right direction to figure that out for yourself.
2. Goal of Course: so my name is calling. Mr. Entrepreneur grew Wild Foods from 0 to 7 figures in two years and best in my day job as CEO . I also have my content platform over the ancestral mine dot com, and I'm doing YouTube in the podcasts and a bunch of stuff. I'm also focus on recording these courses because I really want to help people do more work and live better lives. And when you're more fulfilling your work, it has a ripple effect in every other area of your life. So I always look at what I'm doing when I'm trying to educate people as part of my mission , even though it's not really laid to health or supplements or food or nutrition, which is my day job. Basically, I still see this is helping humanity, because if we can get more people doing work that matters and enjoying work that they're doing in making a difference and having time to spend more of their friends and their family and relationships and hobbies and or passion projects or nonprofits, it's all gonna have ripple effects to the rest of world. I look at every single person on this planet as my basically partner in crime, right crime for the for doing good, for doing better, for having a better future for my son and then on and on on for generations to come. This idea of anybody being different or separate it completely and utter Lee ludicrous, especially when you start looking in the scope of our solar system, we're going to Mars or the fact that we're just on this floating rock and we're pretty much alone for us, far as we can see how we never the same team. So what to expect in this course is gonna involve going through some of my actual what I'm doing on the iPad. What am I doing in a sauna? I'm not getting the email or spend time on that. That's probably gonna be best reserved for another course. I will recommend a couple tools that can basically make email super simple, but using something like a sauna and the getting things done method. It's the cornerstone of my productivity. I recommended be the same for yours and an app like asana, for example, which there are many other absolute news is built around that G t. D. Getting things done framework, which is made famous by David Alan. You could read a book if you want, or read a few articles here and there or released a summary, but more importantly, getting in on a daily basis building habit around it through in boxer scheduling through due dates their delegation. That's where the real grave is gonna come from. And that's going to be in those first principles of productivity that we're gonna cover. So you can expect me to show you what I do in a day, all the big categories and also how I think about these things. So this is definitely more of a mindset around productivity than it is a Do this, Do this, do this exact system. But you can take the ideas in this course and you can turn it into a system pretty easily. In fact, I'm gonna show you how I've turned into my system. And for the most part, you're gonna get in an entire glimpse into what I'm doing in my productivity in the system that supported. So you know, you copy that, as is, I wouldn't really recommend that because my work is very much based on multiple things, and your work is going to basic things you're doing and or want to dio. But maybe it is a line, and maybe you can steal. And so what I want to do is I want you to take anything and everything from this course of my routine that you can add what works for you and then just discard the rest before we get to it. Though I will say as a disclaimer, this is not something you develop overnight. Even if you were to copy exactly what I'm doing tomorrow, you're not going to get the full productivity benefit. And you're not gonna feel like you've really given your best work if you just hop in and do exactly what I do, because again it's like is based on so many different things based on what you're trying accomplish, what your goals are, what your work is. You might have to work in an office. Might the juggle family like there's all these different variables, So don't get discouraged because it is going to take your time to refine in, tweak and constantly iterating your productivity system. And that's how you have think about it as a system. You got to think of yourself as a systems engineer. That is the manage, this human, which is you to get a bunch of things done a lot of times when your biology doesn't want to do them or drive, be doing something else and for long periods of time, years on end. That is no small feat. And that's why productivity is one of those things that people just consume content and content content. And there's like a $1,000,000,000 productivity industry, just like there's a $1,000,000,000 health industry people consume, consume, consume. And it's a never ending topic because you don't really master it. You can just get better, figure out your routine, hopefully stay on point. And it could take 10 20 years before you really dialling routines like That's just the fact of the matter. So keep that in mind, think long term. And also, if you really take some of the core principles from what I'm about to teach you, you're gonna get way more done in less time. I'm gonna do a separate course unless is more actually and especially as it relates to productivity. But keep in mind that part of The ethos of all of this is to do the best work and then get out of work and enjoy life. That's a big part of my philosophy. What's the point of having all the money in the world if at the end of your life, there's nobody there at your funeral? And yet you had no meaningful relationships along the way or you burn bridges or your kids don't talk to anymore? It's very easy to get sucked in to work and using something like what? I'm gonna give you these very, very powerful tools that you're gonna learn in this course and use that for doing good or for doing bad for yourself. Even doing good in the world doesn't always match up to doing good in your life, right? If you let doing in the world takeover, well, then, in your personal life just goes, and that's what we want. Either we'll talk about that. We'll talk about Aristotle and golden mean and how that applies everything you just said and that space is my disclaimer. I'm excited because these are very powerful ideas. This is the foundation for how I was able to grow from zero multi $1,000,000 business with no investment whatsoever, completely bootstrapped. It's have been able to have multiple successful businesses. It's how I have a son now 18 months old, another on the way. I'm putting out more content than I ever have. I'm writing again. I'm doing YouTube. I'm going the podcast. I'm recording courses now what I think about it from the outside, it looks like a tough stuff, but it doesn't fuel like a lot. I actually feel like I'm leaving a few hours in the table every day now, whether I should be doing that or not, I don't know. I mean, I think I'm okay with it, right? It has been telling my son I could definitely grind harder and carve out a couple more hours each day and put out more videos and MAWR articles, and I could definitely do that. But I don't have to do that. And I'm still moving the needle for I'm still progressing. I'm still getting things done, having that kind of framework in your mind about your work, having the confidence about it and not feeling you're always rushed or you're missing out, whether it's work or life personal life. That's what I want for you. And that's what you can you can accomplish with the ideas in this course. Really, I truly believe that these air really big ideas that are not gonna change and they can actually change your life. Like I know it's about productivity, and it's like, Oh, well, it's just about working whatever. But no, like these, these ideas, they will follow you in life. They will follow you into your relationships and how you spend time with your kids and how you manage your home set up. And maybe you're cooking in your routines and a grocery shopping. And there's a lot of principles here that can be applied to everything in life so that you can get more done in less time and then have a bucket of time to spend on things that matter.
3. Mindset: All right. Welcome to lesson one. This is Mindset. I spent a little bit time in mindset in the most recent video where I kind of went off in a little bit of tangent for a while. So I'm gonna keep this short and sweet. And I really want to keep all these video short and sweet because I need to give you just, like, one or two big ideas so that you can, you know, ideally take notes if, if you aren't or weren't planning on, maybe take some notes about things that stick out to you and build a list of actionable so I'll do my best. Keep it short and simple, but do not confuse lack of length for absence of big ideas. Each one of these modules gonna be based on a big idea that I want you to take away. And so the 1st 1 is gonna be mindset around productivity. I want you to be aware of your mindset around productivity. I want you to think about it. Are you really facing resistance as David Pressure was saying the world, Bart, are you not starting you procrastinating and each one of those is something that you should probably pursue in figuring out. But I don't have time to go to the psychology of this, and every person is different. So let's just focus on the mindset. And I think about proximity the first, most important thing when it comes to mind set, I want you to make your productivity routine and how you think about it. The most important thing you do every day, at least as it relates to work. And then it would follow that having deep work as sacred that time the place except for which we'll cover later and then having your actual productivity and like your actual routine in your system. When you think about it, when you make tweaks to it, respect it and don't do any that lightly. And most importantly, don't just let it not happen. Don't just decide you're gonna skip Wednesday or you'll start next week, or any of that nonsense that humans are want to dio. Don't do that have a healthy respect for your productivity and a way to do that, actually a little bit off topic, but have a wife for what you're doing. Having a strong why in a great book to read on this assignment to neck. Start with why which I'll put up here developing that y for your business, your company, your working life, etcetera, maybe the same thing, maybe its disparate, but having a wide for what you're doing. Maybe your kids magnification whatever is going to help keep you committed and help you respect your productivity in your work. Do not treat your system or your routine or any of the variables around it lightly. That's Mindset number one, another important point as indebted to that which we will talk about later when we talk about shallow working interruptions. Distractions is part of respecting your productivity system and your routine in the various like shallow work. Deep working several part of respecting that is being ruthless about protecting. That's probably best way to put. So when I say making a sacred or holy I mean literally protected as a practice that you don't change, you don't edit. You don't alter. You don't just like push push off because something else shiny fancy came up or because somebody asked you something or whatever this means. Protecting distractions and interruptions don't let people get in touch with you when you're doing deep work. For example, don't let people pester you with their agenda. Make your routine based on your goals based on what you've decided for yourself. The most fundamental, important thing. Then when you have that as your foundation, you have control of that. Yeah, like if you've done it straight for 90 days and you want take a day off or maybe you decide starting Sunday, you're not going to anything. And so you're not You're not gonna have any routine at all, But money through Friday is 100% on point. Yeah, sure, you get that flexibility. But the problem is, what I see is people always want to try to be told that they can have that flexibility because they feel gets to restricting. They can't commit to five days in the week or they can't even go 30 days Straight. Body people can't even do one or two days of a good, solid routine. It's hard, I know. If you want accomplish anything and your a self motivated, self directed individual that has to manage yourself, this is the only way to do it. You have to treat all of it with the utmost respect, and you have to be willing to stay committed when maybe don't feel great or it's not perfect or whatever. Okay, so that's the first, most important lesson. Everything else after this doesn't matter if you can't have that respect around your productivity system and stay committed to it.
4. Morning Work Routine: So this Wilson, I'm gonna take you through a brief glimpse into my routine. But specifically how I start my day and how I have a kind of a pre morning morning routine and how I connect that to my actual morning work routine. I'm gonna talk a little bit about the tangents that might happen here and there. As I'm talking about this again, this is gonna be different for you. Edit in, tweak as you see fit. But the first thing I do is a wake up. I go downstairs, I found my son and hang out with them for 20 minutes or so. If it's nice outside, I'll take him outside. So I get some vitamin D. He needs some vitamin D. It's awesome. Way to wake up. Then I go back upstairs, shower change. Leave the house. I drive to a coffee shop that I like to work out. Now keep in mind my phone has not been turned on. Ideally is in airplane mode this entire time. If I'm driving, I'll put Bluetooth on and listen to an audiobook. And if I have to, I'll put the signal on so that I can listen to a podcast because obviously, if the stream and it's not Dallas, a really advance hack would actually be to not turn your phone on at all. Just because you might be tempted to see his notifications and download your podcasts because you can download podcasts maybe later on WiFi so that in the morning you could keep your phone in airplane mode. Just turn on the Bluetooth and listen without interruption. So I get to the coffee shop. I get my Colbert. I sit down with my iPad, which is what I love doing my morning routine on. And we'll see the exact Mormon teen in Asan on how I have it set up in a later video and also have an entire course on just that. So I'm going give you glimpse in this course. If you want to learn more about that course, obviously check out the show notes or find my other courses wherever you happen to be seen . This whether it's like skill, share something like that, you can click on problem I face and from other courses, and that's my CEO morning routine course, which I highly recommend because it gets very nitty gritty into my course and what I'm doing every single morning. I start that morning routine and I'll give you just a brief glimpse into it. I have my asana list, which has all the things have to do as part of the morning routine that coincides with the APS that I'm using, like whether it is good notes or asana or I a writer, which I freakin love, love that app. That's for my writing and no taking everything. And when I start my morning routine, those are all kind of connected, and sometimes I do like a split screen, and I use them in a different way based on what I've accomplished. But asana is definitely where my day start, your goal setting routine might be journaling. It might be reading, you know, a few goals it might be writing them out. Whatever it is for you, you got to figure that out. But every morning, without fail part of my morning routines having a goal review routine, and sometimes I'll edit them. Sometimes I'll add to them sometimes will race them by staying on top of it. I can really constantly course correct so that if I'm doing something That's a part of my goals. Maybe it's too much. Maybe I've taken on too much. Maybe need to reduce it. I could do that, and that works after do my goals. Review my good notes review. I have some time to think and kind of doodle or write things down. Five. Any ideas or anything I want, I want to cover. This is a game changer having time in the morning to just give yourself the space to think and write out things. It's why people talk about journaling being so powerful. I have a little bit different version that I don't like really typing up my thoughts. I kind of just like doodling with with the apple pencil and the good notes app where I can kind of draw things and write things like, I just like to focus like big ideas or I'll highlight a big thing on here. It's just a place for me to not spend too much attention to what I'm kind of writing and just let my subconscious takeover and flow freely. Doing this. Having space to think having space a lot things come is where I get my best ideas and I think when you're not doing it. I think you were building up a lot of mental Duncan in our brains, something like journaling or note taking or just free writing is going to help alleviate that. So this is one of those kind of first principles of giving yourself time and space to think and to just let your subconscious unleash. After that, I'm going to get into my writing. So I pick a topic usually based on health or productivity or whatever content working on. And then, all right, have a short article Mayo post that to medium. Sometimes that was turned into a longer piece of content, like a YouTube video or maybe even a course, like what we're talking about right now. In fact, the course that you're on right now was probably outlined in that early thinking routine, which is why it's so perfect because most people don't spend time to just, like come with ideas. They have, like, something understood duelist and, like I had to think about that or what's the best course of action, and they just, like, try to think on the spot. But usually when you try to think about things and you force your brain, too. You probably experienced this, but like, ironically, you, like, run into a mental block. A lot of times you actually can't think of things giving yourself that space to let things come to you. Your subconscious is extremely powerful, letting it do that game changer if you're not doing it. So that's another one of the big principles. Give yourself time to thank your subconscious flow, so that puts me about halfway through the morning routine. And then I'm gonna get to some outlines of content. And again, this is very much coincides with the thinking routine, where I'm outlining maybe a piece of content or YouTube video. And if I want to expand that type a little bit more, I'll do that as well. This could be something summer for you, or could be some other form of creative work that you have to dio. Maybe it's even like drawing or like working on a graphic design process for a little bit, so it's going to depend on what you're doing, where you're trying accomplish based on your work. The one thing to keep in mind is this routine. I still have not turned my phone on this thing even right now is an airplane mode. In fact, my happiest time is when this thing is off and I don't have to worry about whether people getting in touch with me, which will kind of cover in this court, having this morning routine with no way for people to disturb you or get in touch with you is one of those huge first principles of my entire routine. And also obviously, all the concepts that my routine had been built on, such as deep work and shallow versus deep work and having a sacred closed off deep workspace and all the other ideas that we're gonna kind of visit in this course that is really at the foundation. So in the morning, I'm kind of doing my deep work here. I guess you could say like many deep work session, because every day I plan a longer, deep work session like right now is what I'm doing with you right now. This is part of my deep work. So I'm in the studio at home and nobody can disturb me. In fact, nobody's home. So, like, this is my favorite time D work when this lurid nobody pounding around or, you know, big try knock on the door to come in and again, like having rules with your family members around these times and different things like putting a sign on the door like these are all things that you're gonna have to figure out when you're developing your routine. But it goes down to the first lesson in this course which is treating your routines and the time you set aside for them as holy as protected as possible. You have to protect them and you don't t yell scream of people. But you do need to explain why that is and basically get people to buy in to what you're doing. So they respect it and understand it. And then they will, as a result, adhere to what you request, usually with people will come on board if you just approach it in the right way. So I do my outlining. I get to the one thing where I decided what the big one thing is gonna be for the day which will cover in later lessons. I'm not going into the one thing right now. I then the next part of my list. I have the one thing completed now that usually doesn't get checked off right here. My morning routine. Because usually I set what the wrong thing is. And then I have an idea what I might do. It usually is gonna be done later. If I can do it right now, then I'll hop into that one thing work and get it done while still having my phone up. So I haven't even touched any shell work whatsoever. I'm still in deep work mode, and I would then move into one thing ideally, but sometimes for me, because of recording and my equipment being basically here and me at the co shop, I can't always do the one thing. There's a lot of what my one thing is right now. Today is recording my next video or big piece of content. I plan for it. I mark off that I planned for it, and then I keep the actual check box for Was the completed open so that I can do it later. Then, after I've done all that, I'm ready for my shallow work. This is when I will check my tax messages. If there's anything in Slack will check that, and I'll usually go into my email. But even sometimes lately have been kind of pushing him off the later in the day when I have low energy cause I just don't like wasting a lot of my early day energy on email. It's kind of a drain and it's not very productive. It's the illusion of productive nous, and I think actually everybody should drop that. I think most of us could actually kill email and be far more productive and actually not miss much. I truly believe that. But maybe that will be a course or an experiment I could try in the future. Right now I do, if the process email, being CEO and having employees and all these other things that have to deal with, I do have to get in my email. It is an important form of communication, but I have found that when I go into it less and I give myself kind of less urgency to it, almost everything gets figured out. Nothing is that important because if it was, they just call me and I don't have any pressure or anxiety around it, and I think that's probably the best approach. The email. So getting to that shallow work is going to conclude this first part of my day. Usually I've been at the coffee shop after I do my shell work. I've been in the coffee shop for like 3 to 4 hours, and I'm just ready for a break. I've just found that my body, my biology and in my mind I'm ready to basically have breakfast cause I practice intermittent fasting and my first meal usually comes after my work session when I get home . So a lot of times, that's kind of pulling me to go home to go get some food. Of course, I just find that I'm just kind of ready to mix it up. Not I'm not really being productive. My mind kind of starting to wander, and that's when I break it up. And so this brings us to follow suit. First video. Adapting your routine to who you are and what works best for you through lots of experimentation is how you're going to build the best productivity system for yourself. Some people might want a parachute for eight hours and then just basically be done. There's actually a fascinating book about the daily routines of famous thinkers, artists, musicians, geniuses, scientist, etcetera and what you'll see. A lot of trends are almost all of them had blocks of time punctuated by, let's say, walking, going outside, having you know breakfast, lunch or dinner and then going back to work. It's not very often that people would just kind of wake up, work for eight hours and then be done for the day. And I think that is probably a lot to do with our biology and energy and the way your brain works and all these different variables that make it so that we need to have some form of batch ing of our creative work on our shell work. And we need to coincide that with our energy levels throughout the day, how they can sometimes wax and wane. Keep that in mind as we go through the whole course, and as you're thinking about what you're doing in your own life with your team, how your energy levels and wear a rat, and whether or distractions around you, how those air gonna affect the work you're doing and for how long is of paramount importance
5. Deep Work: So this lesson is all about deep work. There's a book that you need to read right here by Cal Newport. It's one of the most recommended books I recommend to anybody and everybody that's even remotely interested in productivity or success. It's a book that I wish was written 13 years ago when I first got and all this stuff. So I'm not gonna spend a ton of time on rehashing or re teaching. He's gonna do better than I can. But what I will tell you is from my experience, there's a few important things you keep mine when you're thinking about your deeper 14. And as you start your deeper routine things you might run into that you should be prepared for. So the first thing is, deep work has to be done where nobody is going to interrupt you. So turn up all your notifications, turn your phone off, ideally, even go in a room where nobody can see or walk in front of you or the sun isn't shining through. That looks enticing. You need a place that is almost a cave. Even a dark student like this says, were everything. It's midday right now, but I can't see anything coming in because I have everything blocked out, obviously, to control the lining for the video. But that would also be a really good, deep workplace. No distractions Have a good set of headphones, ideally, noise canceling. Don't have anybody around you so facing a wall or whatever and don't have anything that's gonna get in your way from doing work on the big, important things. Then when you get that whole set up ready, you go into doing something and you focus on one big thing. If you're creative and you're doing like design, for example, writing it was pretty easy because, like you could just block all the all the tabs and all things and you could focus Sometimes . Figuring out what deep work you need to do is hard because of different job roles and responsibilities. I'll give you some examples. So emails, not deep work, that shallow work responding to things not deeper shall work. Deep work is writing, outlining, thinking, researching, I think researching his deep work and of course, depends how you do it, like having 20 tabs open and bouncing around, and it's not really a good idea but like reading really in depth into, you know, a book or some research whatever to get exactly what you're looking for and then taking notes and keeping track of what you're doing. Yeah, that's definitely deep work writing recording videos like this where I'm 100% engaged thinking about my every thought. I'm also keeping track of whatever court of what I've done. Nothing's interrupting me. No one's bothering me. I don't have any drawer pull to be outside doing anything anywhere else. These are all forms of deep work building a spreadsheet, building a business plan. You can find many more examples of this in your work's gonna be dependent on what you do. So I can't really give you every single possible way version deep work. But what I can give you is some of the first principles being in a quiet space, for nobody can interrupt you intense focus as much as you possibly can. The more focus the better, ideally towards one goal or end or results in doing that every single day. And that's really where you're gonna get your results. So you have to find the work that you can do in that deep work time that's going to get you as much of the result as possible and when you can connect deep work to the one thing which will talk about soon game changer and I keep saying game changer. But it's like most people don't do any of these things if you can adopt just like deep work . And I've said this before. I told a lot of people, his friends, family, anybody like that comes to me that any questions about success or anything, you know, they have a job. They want to do something on their own. They don't know where. Start figure out two hours a day, where you can build a deep work routine and have the deep work environment, and then focus on really big things that move the needle. Four. Like creating something or the plan or think or practicing or sketching wherever it is. And then every single day without fail. Never skip that two hours a day. Most people could build side businesses and potentially something that could they could quit her job for eventual. It really is insane what you can accomplish, even on the side when you have thes habits down, and they're based on fundamental first principles of productivity. Deep work where the best work is done. It's how you get more done in less time. I would say pretty much the only time we get anything done, actually, aside from all the shallow nonsense that we think is productivity. But it's really just not deep work, focus, environment and respecting it is the most important thing you're going to do every single day.
6. GTD + Asana: the basics of getting things done as it applies to a sauna. This is not a full treatment of G d. Again. You could read the book or read some articles. There's, like summaries and stuff. It's not that complicated. In fact, I'd probably watch a couple YouTube videos on it. Maybe like two or three. Just feel like I get the whole picture. But I'm gonna give you the way I use it in the really big ideas that is based on and like, I might be missing a few things that are actually applicable to the system that David Allen recommends, for example, but I've been able to plumb the most important things that I do every day without fail. The first thing is using due dates and it in box. So if we go into here and we have inbox okay, and so like, let's just use examples. So I have a personal calls inbox that I said to myself today, and so these are some people that I need to call and what I'm gonna dio. I'm going to try to complete some of these. But the reality is this is actually a lot of calls apartment get all these done today. So what I'll do is if I if I if I complete it and you could also this is a sub Tests like let's say it was like Call Joel and then Ben, let's say I call Joel. I mark that off, okay, But again, there's other people have to call, and this task isn't completed. So what I need to do is I need to make sure I'm always processing my inbox every single day , and I'm either completing things or I'm scheduling them from later. So that's called deferring it and getting things done. Method. This is my personal sauna, so I can't delegate things. But if I had employees that were involved in these processes, I would actually delegate them if I could differ them or do them. It's, I think, cause the Triple D. I'm not really sure. Don't call me. That's been like 10 years since I read the book, but I've been using these ideas in my life for a long time now, So what I'll do is I'm going to reschedule. In fact, this is exactly what I'm gonna do today, because this popped up later in the day, and I'm actually probably make enemies calls right now. So I'm gonna undo this, and I'm gonna go to due date What I like to do for things that are gonna take multiple days , I like to repeat it. So I'm gonna repeat these two daily. So now this little the little repeat thing comes up and it's due today. So as long as I go into my inbox and I mark off that I did it today, it will come up again. The thing is, here, when you have repeating tasks, I use them. And this is another way. Do you don't do this way? I use them as reminders as well. So I didn't actually call anybody today, but because they know it's gonna come back tomorrow. I'm gonna mark the whole task complete, and I know it will show up tomorrow. The most important thing and getting things done is to make sure things are scheduled, delegated or done, because otherwise you will miss them. And the reason you don't miss things and getting things done is because you always use due dates. You always process your inbox as long as you do. Those two things you'll never miss anything. As long as I'm processing my inbox, I'll see that task. Then I make the same decision. Am I gonna do it, or am I gonna differ it or give it to somebody else or, you know, there's also some things need to be killed and don't do it at all. So that's another example of something. But let's just assume is something you have to do. Inbox plus due dates means you never miss anything. But the way people miss things is they let two days go by without checking their inbox. Then they let three days ago bar without checking their inbox and then on on and on and before you know it their inboxes and manage their not rescheduling things, they're not deferring things. They're not archiving things in their in box. They're not. It's just a mess. It's not even a system anymore. So, as you see, I have to task my inbox right now. One of these is personal testimony. What? I have this little water test kit that I want to test the water cause we moved out the country we have Well, I want test it. So in that has some video about this thing or whatever. So I might watch that and then do the testing. But let's say I could do today. Something is a good day to do personal stuff. I'm gonna change your date to Sunday, notice out, moves to green sodas do. And then I'm gonna archive this task. Now if I archive that task without completing it or changing the due date, I've now lost that task for ever into the ether, and I'm not one to go back and look at my like my outstanding tasks. I literally keep my inbox and my due dates as the protected mechanism for my system. And if you do this and it's what we train for all of our employees in the company till the point where if people miss ah task, that's two days, and they don't either reschedule it with notes of why they were scheduled or completed. They get written up. They do it three times. You lose your job like there's no reason that this should not be the sacred part of their routine and manager remote teams hard enough as it is that we can get people to stay committed to some simple personal habit productivity, hygiene, things like this. Then how can we trust him? Do anything. So this right here is a superpower because most people don't do this. And I and I mean most people. I mean, most people that work in corporations or that are remote or whatever. They don't do this kind of stuff. They just, like, respond to slack or somebody says, What's the status of this thing? And so they tried to do it really quick. Most people have no system whatsoever. I would not want to live life that way. Talk about chronic stress, talk about always feeling rushed and having anxiety. This is how you control the work you do in life so that you get more done in less time so that you can actually enjoy life, enjoy work and actually make a friggin difference. All right, I notice little philosophical it. Maybe it sounds like a stretch, but it's not. It's all connected. So personal calls. I didn't complete any, but it's recurring, so I'm gonna market off, and then it's gonna kick back tomorrow because the due date things on, and then I'm gonna archive it now. my inbox is at zero right now, so let's review every day. Make sure your inbox was down to zero. You do something delegated, deleted or defer it. That might be like the four D's of what he talks about, as long as something always has a way to come back to you, usually through another scheduled date, when it would come back. You're good to go. This is a huge, huge. Like I said, something most real don't do. Huge first principle of productivity. If you could get this down, you're miles ahead of everybody else that I promise you. And Asana is awesome. Even the free version. We'll even pay for the premium version. We've had this for like two years. I've never wanted to pay for the premium. Like gives like reports of some advanced stuff. I think it's mostly unnecessary. There's a ton of applications like this to do. It is pretty good trail. Oh, kind of. But it doesn't have like, the same inbox feature, so I actually wouldn't recommend trail for anything other, like project management. Maybe a sounds awesome. There are alternatives, but figure out something that you can get on like your iPad, your computer, your phone that can sink everywhere, have a place to drop tests as well, because making sure things go in in your in box so you can handle them later is also have a very big part of getting things done. What you'll learn more about when you read his book or you, you know, look into it at all.
7. Shallow Work: All right. Well, first I want say, congrats in getting here is in the end, but I'm just giving you congrats that an at a boy at a girl on the way Because most people don't finish anything, they start things. And five minutes later they're off watching cat videos on YouTube. So good on you for that email notifications and shallow work. Let's talk about him real quick. You have to batch them. The worst thing you can do is spend eight hours a day always checking your phone. Always checking slack. Always checking email. Go read articles, books, podcasts on why this is Take my word and maybe save yourself some time. Don't do it. Find a way to get the minimum amount of time. You have to be in any of those distracted states because that's exactly what they are. They're distracted, states that keep you away and pull you from doing work that matters. Also, it's living life on other people's agenda, like Why do you want to let other people a lot of times trying to sell you something or they're being lazy and not they're not doing research on their own and their defaulting to you to solve their problems or answer their questions. That's nonsense. This again ties back to the first lesson of the course. Respect and protect your productivity system and your routine. If you work in a job, I would recommend having almost office hours you could publish. I know you're not Professor anything but, like whatever. If you got permission from your boss to do it and you explain why it and I will be more productive, that's awesome. Maybe other people will follow suit. Maybe your whole organization will fall suit. In fact, in our company, Wild Foods, we're not allowed to paying people for things that aren't emergencies. We have a 1 p.m. Daily online meeting a video call. We knock out all of the questions right then and there and any red alerts that come up, which is related to it, something that's very important, like our inventory, whatever we handle, right then there. And if we can't find a resolution, then I'll get involved and by the day's end, pretty much figure something out. Nobody thought to call somebody asked about a product or this. For that, nobody's like allowed to slack somebody say well, this customer didn't receive this. Know, literally. Everything waits for 1 p.m. That's an example of how you batch as an organization now how to batch as an individual is the have period of time. Where you Onley checking, responding email. You only checking responded text messages, and you only checking respond to slack messages. I would recommend twice a day, maybe early and late if you have to do more than that, maybe early, middle late. Or maybe you protect the whole first half of the morning and then the second half the day is like shallow work, responsive work. Whatever. There's lie different ways to do this. It's gonna depending the situation. Maybe have talked your boss or your co workers, or or whatever brainstorm some ideas but find a way to batch thes things. Shallow, distracted work on small dopamine driving tasks that, like feel good. We feel like we're being productive is, I would say, like the black pit of productivity and black pit of work today, where people get sucked into it and they think they're kind of going the right direction. But they're not. They're actually being less productive. There haven't spent more time from or in a state of induced anxiety and stress. This is not good, and it's not how you move anything forward. So keep that in mind, find some strategies for figuring it out and just make batch ing your religion.
8. Personal and Professional Protection: we're at the last primary. Big idea for this course. I'm going to add some further reading and research and other things. This course. So there's Plame or to do you can call a homework if you like. I don't like homework, so I wouldn't call it that, But I would just call it further development. You should definitely get into that stuff, but it's not really needed. Like maybe wait till you've tested this out for a bit. Maybe give yourself a month and test things, make notes about what works, what doesn't work and then figure out, like what? Areas that need improvement and then pursue those past. I'm gonna try to include resources that can help you on no matter what you're gonna struggle with. Okay, this one is Interruptions kind of is connected to all the other things we talked about, whether steep, working, routine, everything and it's definitely connected to matching. So I guess it is connected. But I just want to make a point on it and maybe some strategies on how to deal with it. Dealing with interruptions as they happen and not building a plan for the future is a losing proposition. you will lose with your family or friends or coworkers. You'll be stressed out. It will breed resentment, and you could potentially lose your job or your relationship. I'm pausing there because I'm not exaggerating now. I've been entrepreneur for 13 years now. My partner understands I'm an entrepreneur and she respects that. And she gives me the time in space and almost never makes you feel guilty about doing work . That's not the case for everybody. In fact, I had a relation when I was younger. I was just starting out his entrepreneur thing, and she wanted me to spend more time with her. And she perceived my work is, like in, like, a jealous way. I mean, when I was young, she was young whatever, but still like. It's the reason we broke up pretty much. I wasn't just not gonna work. I was gonna not pursue my dreams. Finding routines, the environment, you know, from the location signs on doors, times of day schedules, sticky notes ahead time. I'm going downstairs in studio to work for two hours. All this stuff and being preemptive with it and having a system will potentially save your life. I could go on and on and just a bunch of words about it. But it really will and we'll see. Will try to dio is they try to, like, go sit on the couch in the living room with their laptop and get work done. Don't do that. Please. Go sit on the couch with your family and then go work for a little bit or go center. Couch your family after you've done your work and you got your number. One thing done your deep work. And so the rest of day is just gravy and you're not distracted. You don't have anxiety around work, and that's where we get the philosophy of this a little bit. We want to live a good life. We want to. You have time for ourselves and our family and things. We enjoy etcetera. Almost all of us don't want to just work for work sake, and most of people that you see, they become workaholics. They're trying to either fill a void, threw something through accomplishment. Al collides money, whatever, or they love it so much that it's hard for them to stop and those air kind of several problems on their own that need definitely deep personal, inner working through. But the majority of us, even if we enjoy working I enjoy what I'm doing to you right now. I enjoy teaching this course and I enjoy talking to you and on the camera and editing and the creative process family I just love when people take information and make their lives better. I enjoyed thoroughly. This is not I mean, it's almost like work to me where I would do it more often, but it takes a physical drain. So I'm tired by the end of day, like my brain is being used way more my body. But I feel physically tired. My voice Right now I need water. I was forgetting it. Water wind these videos I have to get up and get it. A perfect example exact. What I'm saying like this is the natural checks and balance for me. My point. Waas, you need to protect your work as much as you protect your personal life. And when you protect your personal life, you you also protect your work. And I think sometimes depending on the person they try to trade each try to read personal life for work. They try to trade some work for personal life, or they try to make some altogether. And they don't have systems or routines or habits around it. And all it does is end up making all of it worse in the lower quality and not fully present . If you want to be effective, enjoy life. Pursue things like success and money and even fame or whatever you want, but also have a fricking life so that it's worth it. Then you will protect each. You will protect your work and you will protect your personal life, and you will not the mortal sin. You will not connect the two when you're with the other. When you're at work, you're at work. When you're with your family, your friends or hobbies, that's all you're doing. Do not intertwine them. It just doesn't work. So as far distractions go, I recommend just finding a place to do it. Run a small office somewhere there, actually surprisingly cheap, Or do you like Coworking thing? Or go to coffee shops? I find that I have to be outside the house. We moved out of the country, so it's not as it's not as much of an option for me anymore. That's why do drive every morning, 30 minutes of coffee shop just to make sure I could get, like, my morning routine, done and not be distracted. But then when I come home, it's still a dance, figuring out like how I carve out studio time, how I do some heading upstairs with the families around. I really have undoubted in, to be honest, and things are a little bit too close for my comfort. I will be around my family is not. The point is the idea that I'm getting too close to mixing the two and like I just talked about, that's a moral sin. You don't want to do that. And so, like, I'm really trying to find ways to separate them. Whether that means putting a desk down here so I can get it down here. What it means getting every computer and different screen down here, because my computer upstairs is in the room where we also relax and hang out with the family sometimes, so it brings things too close together. If I'm trying to edit and my son's in there, it just doesn't work, so I'm working through that And that's example of the prince I'm talking about like these things will come up in your routine and you'll have distractions or you'll have resistance or you'll have things you need to figure out. In fact, every time I move, I got a fair or my new routine ISS, and that's exactly how you have to think about it, and your routines will change. New work, new job, different work. You know, different things you want to do. Maybe started YouTube channel. They gotta have a studio. And if the editing you deal with these things, like taking on some like that is going to create a whole set of downstream problems that you have to work through to find the optimal solution, find some strategies, really think intently about it, planned it out, test things, it a rate. And don't let your personal life ruin your work. And don't let your work from your personal life
9. Congrats. What's next?: so that's gonna be it for the course. I could go on and on, of course, but I don't think that it's going to serve you well. I think all of this is quite a bit. I think a lot of this is going to require some experience and learning and actions and testing and iterating on your part. And that's how you're really going to internalize a lot of these ideas. I want to be able to help you. So if there's anything I could do against, I mean email to Colin at Wild Foods Dot Co and and really the overarching theme is to make your work protected the best way you can and then use those same skills off, building out your routine, your system and thinking like an engineer and apply it to your personal life. You hear about couples that, like have a date night every week and how that's almost, say, their marriage and some misses. That's a system. It's simple, but it's not insignificant. It's actually very significant, and a lot of times the most elegant solution is the simplest solution. And sometimes the best solution is a simple solution. Keep that in mind. Go back to these these course modules, you know, Take notes. Figure out how you can apply in your life. Test things right out your list. Tweak it, get something like a sauna or getting things done. Read the getting things done Book. I recommend it and definitely read deep work by Cal Newport. And I wish the best for you. I think you can do some amazing work and you can take back control of your time in your mental space and you get more done in less time while being more fulfilled and having a better personal life. That's that's winning if you ask me, states taking its course and I will hopefully see in the next one.
Colin Stuckert, Entrepreneur, Podcaster, Writer
