Creative Productivity: 9 Big Ideas For Getting Things Done

1. Why Take This Class?: Hi, my name is Derek and I know you have a lot to do. So let's cut right to the chase. In this class you're going to discover productivity strategies for getting things done on a daily basis. And here are nine big ideas you're going to learn to help you to do this. Idea number one, timeboxing. In this lesson, you're going to learn a simple but very effective way of accomplishing all your everyday tasks by turning them into mini goals. Idea number 2, small tasks. In this video, I'm going to introduce to you what I call breakaway sessions, which is a strategy for taking care of all those small tasks that take 123 minutes to complete so that they don't interfere with you doing real work. Idea number three, plan tomorrow. Today. Jim Rhone once said, Don't start your day until you've finished it on paper. You're going to learn what he meant and how to put this awesome idea into action. Idea number four, morning e-mail. It's a common belief that checking email in the morning can destroy your productivity for the rest of the day. In this video, I'm going to show you how to do it the right way so that it doesn't. Idea number 5. Next, a big part of getting things done as being able to choose the right action at the right time. In this video, I'm going to show you how to do that. Idea number 6. Wake up early. Now waking up early isn't a requirement for getting things done, but it sure does help. So if you struggle with this, I'm going to show you for unique ways for waking up early that really work. Idea number 7, daily review. As you travel through your life, wouldn't it be great to have a map to guide your actions and your decisions when you can, when you start to learn how to use a daily review as I'm going to teach you in this lesson. Idea number 8, weekly review. This is a strategy that I referred to as the mother, all productivity strategies. It's that awesome. In this video, I'll show you what it is, how it works, and how you can start using it right away. An idea number 9, boost, Getting Things Done requires energy. So in this lesson, you're going to discover nine simple ways to boost your energy anytime you need it. If you want to learn how to get things done, you're going to love this class. I'll see you on the other side. 2. How This Class Works - Your Project: So to get the most from this course, let me explain the basics of how to navigate and use it. First of all, as you review the course content, you're going to see that each video lesson focuses on a single idea. Next, that idea is broken down into smaller chunks, and each chunk represents a unique aspect of the bigger idea of the lesson. This is to help make that bigger idea easier to understand and to put into action. Now speaking of action, at the end of each video lesson, I share with you some next actions. And this is where I provide you with some specific suggestions and directions for putting the essence of the idea into action in your own life. Again, you're not simply going through the course to fill your head with knowledge. That's not the goal here. You want to do something with it. And this is where you're going to get help in order to do that. So consider these suggestions, these next actions carefully and focus on doing them. That's where you're going to get the most benefit. Now, while each lesson can stand on its own as far as giving you something of value to use. The overall purpose of all these video lessons is to teach you how to master the art of daily productivity and to help you to achieve this bigger result. Here's a simple project to work on as you go through the course. I want you to grab a piece of paper or start a digital document, whichever one you prefer. This could be Word document or a Google Doc and Apple note or something very similar to that. And then as you go through the course, you want to identify three key ideas that mean the most to you. It could be a new habit or behavior that you want to adopt. It could be an exercise you want to complete. It could be a tool that you want to use, whatever it may be, right, these three key ideas down in that document as simple bullet points. You want to capture the basics of the idea, why it's valuable to you, and the basic steps for putting it into action. And this is where those next actions I mentioned just a second ago that are going to help you and they're going to come in handy. Now at the end of the course, you want to select one of these top three actions that you've captured and focus on putting it into action over the next week. You want a daily spend one minute reviewing the idea itself, thinking about why it matters and get clear on how to use it. And then go to work and use it, get benefit from this course and that's material. At the end of a week. Select another one of your top three ideas and simply repeat the process. It's very simple. Now this simple project is going to help you to change how you think, what you say and what you do, which should be the goal of any learning experience. Now of course, I'd love to see what you come up with and what you find valuable. So please share your project results. 3. Timeboxing - Turn Tasks Into Mini Goals: So now I want to share with you one of the most powerful strategies for getting things done that I've ever found. It's called timeboxing. And you might be thinking time what, you know, it sounds. So it's got a weird name, strange name, but it's very powerful. And what it's based on is this idea of turning your list of tasks into mini goals. And those mini goals having deadlines that you accomplish using a timer, just like you would do with a regular goal, having a deadline and giving yourself an amount of time in order to accomplish it. Now one of the best ways to explain what timeboxing is to, is to simply show you how it works. So here are the seven steps that it takes in order to implement a timeboxing process. Step number one is that you want to decide on the size of your time boxes. Now timebox is simply a chunk of time that you focus on work before taking a break. For example, let's say that you have an eight hour workday and you want to split it into chunks of 15 minutes of work time, followed by ten minutes for break. That's 8, 15 minute time boxes. Or you could split it into chunks of 25 minutes of work time, followed by a five-minute break. That would give you 16 25-minute time boxes. Now, the size of the timebox is that you set up, are you that you choose in order to implement this process is totally up to you. It's a personal preference. Step number two, you want to list your tasks. So think about what you want to accomplish for the day, and you're going to write these down either on a physical document or a digital document. It doesn't matter again, whatever is your preference. Next, you want to do your assignments, meaning that you want to assign time boxes for each task. Here's a simple example. Let's say that your preferred time box that you chose was 30 minutes. And let's say that you have a sales presentation that's going to require three hours of work. So you're going to have six 30-minute time boxes in order to complete that presentation. So right, six next to the task. Now you want to repeat this process for each task on your list. So the total of all your time boxes should fit within the total hours of your workday. Next step number four is that you want to grab a timer. Now this is the easiest part of the whole process, I think, but you just want to grab either an egg timer or a countdown timer that you can find on your phone or your tablet. Use either one that you prefer. Step number five is you want to select a task for the list, set your timer for the length of your time box. So let's say that that's 30 minutes. Start the timer and then get to work. And as you're working, you wanna do nothing but work on that selected task. Nothing hidden. Want to be distracted by anything, text messages, email notifications, social media notifications, nothing, do nothing but work on the selected task. Next is step six, which means that when the timer expires after that, 30 minutes or 25 minutes or 15 minutes, however long your timebox is, you want to take a five or 10 minute break, again based on your personal preference. Step number seven, you want to move on. So if the current tasks that you're working on requires another timebox in order to complete, then just simply repeat the steps 5 and 6. And if not, if you're ready to move on to the next task, then select it from the list and work on that task. And that's it. That's timeboxing in a nutshell. Now there are three elements of power here and why timeboxing is so amazing and so effective. First of all, there's clarity. Now when you create a list of tasks, this gives your brain direction and clarity. And when you have that direction and clarity, it's going to minimize your brain's resistance to taking action. So making that list is the first element of power when it comes to using timeboxing. Number two is motivation. So each task on your list, as I mentioned earlier, is a mini goal with a deadline. And this creates positive pressure to put your mind in a higher state of focus, which creates a positive pressure in order for you to act. And it gives you positive pressure so that you focus to avoid distractions, you're in the zone, your focus, you want to get things done. So motivation is another element of power. And number three is momentum. So when you complete a timebox, when you work for 25, 30 minutes, 15 minutes, whichever you prefer. And you complete a timebox by going through it and doing nothing but work during that time box, you experience the sense of accomplishment. And when you experience that sense of accomplishment, it drives you to want to do more. So here's some next actions, how to put this into practice? First of all, you want to choose a timer. Again, this could be a physical time or it could be a digital timer. And then next, you want to decide on the size of your time boxes. 25 minutes, 30 minutes, 15 minutes, 90 minutes, whichever you prefer. And then each morning, you want to spend a few minutes creating a list of tasks. If you haven't done that already, if that's not part of what you're doing in your morning routine anyway, this is a great place to start. And then once you have your list of tasks, you want to assign each task a number for the timebox is that it's going to require an order to complete that task, start your timer and get to work on your first task. Put this into practice. And I think you're going to find that it's one of the most powerful things that you can do to have a productive day. 4. Small Tasks - A Big Idea For Handling Small Tasks: So life is full of small tasks, isn't in things such as maybe doing research on Google or ordering apart for your stove or making a doctor's appointment, or watering your plants, or even checking social media. And you could probably if you tried list a dozen or so more right now, without even trying. Now these are tasks that typically only require about one to three minutes to complete. And many of them are very important and they need to be taken care of. Now while they may not take a lot of time to complete, they can be major and I mean major disruptors for getting real work done. How? Well, because if you consistently have to stop doing real work in order to take care of these small tasks. When the urge hits you are when you remember that you'd need to do them or when the task shows up, then they can disrupt your ability to get into and maintain a flow and a momentum that you need in order to be productive. Think of it like travelling in your car and how much farther you can travel if you simply keep your foot on the gas versus having to regularly come to a stop to take the slight detour. Small tasks, no matter how long they can take, are like those detours. And if you are regularly disrupting your flow and momentum to take care of them, you're going to experience a huge loss of productivity. So I want to introduce to you a simple system that's designed to take care of the small tasks in-between the breaks of doing big tasks so that they don't interfere with getting more significant work done. And essentially, this system helps you to batch all those small tasks together so that they can be handled as a single big task. And here's how it works. Step number one is you want to, of course, as always, disable notifications. This means text notifications, e-mail notifications, news notifications, anything that blinks or pops up on your screen, on your phone, on your computer, you want to disable those. Now I know what you're saying, you're saying, but I need them, you know, I need them. I can't do without those note. You can't do without them. And there are several reasons why. But if nothing else, this system helps you to manage those small incoming tasks so that they don't interfere with real work. Step number two is that you want to maintain a list of your small tasks. Now, you can do this on paper or you can do it digitally. And you want to get these small tasks out of your head and onto paper or into your digital document, whichever one you prefer. This list includes two types of tasks. One is recurring. So these would be tasks that you do regularly such as maybe checking and maintaining your email, checking social media, reading the news, reviewing, sales stats, responding to text messages, things like those. Those are things that you do on a regular basis. Now the second type of tasks that you want to add to this list are what I call dynamic tasks. These show up whenever it could be ordering apart for your stove, maybe your stove broke down. Now you need to take care of that small task. Maybe need to make a doctor's appointment. Maybe you need to Google anniversary ideas. And since these show up whenever, then this portion of the list is gonna get edited more than the other one, which are recurring task which you always regularly do on a regular basis. Now recurring items are never really done and they act more like reminders throughout your day. But dynamic tasks, dynamic items get completed. So once you've completed those on your list, remove them, cross them out so they don't take up space on that list. And then step number three, you want to schedule two of what I call breakaway sessions a day, maybe one in the morning, maybe one in the afternoon. And what this means is that for 510 or 20 minutes each, do nothing but work on your small tasks on that list. That means batch doing several at once so that you're turning them into one single task that you complete in that five, 10, 20 minutes that you set aside. One session in the morning, one session in the afternoon. So here's some next actions. First thing you wanna do is create your breakaway list. This is your list that includes your recurring items, things that you do on a regular basis in your life, and then dynamic items, things that just have shown up that you need to take care of but are very small. Include those on your list. Then next you want to schedule two sessions a day. After two hours of work. Maybe you can do a session or maybe after lunch you can do a session. Or optionally, what you can do is after a 30 or 60 minute work period, you can do a breakaway session. And remember, remember this is a very important that when you're tempted to work on these small tasks or get distracted by notifications, realize that you have a strategy for handling net and then let it go. 5. Plan Tomorrow Today - Get Clear And Get It Done!: Do you find yourself wasting hours of your life every single day aimlessly and constantly jumping from one thing to another. And then looking back at the end of your day wondering what happened to all of your valuable time. Would you like to know a simple secret of how you can change that behavior? Of course you would. Well, one of the best personal development teachers and speakers of all time summed up this important strategy. This was Jim Rhone in he wants said, don't start your day until it's finished on paper. This means that you want to get into the habit of planning tomorrow. Today, spending a little time at the end of each day to create a simple but clear action plan that clarifies how you'll use your time, your energy, your resources tomorrow. And I want to share with you a unique approach to doing this effectively. Then I want to share with you three reasons why it's such a powerful strategy for getting things done. First of all, step 1, you want to pick a time. So to be consistent when doing this strategy, you need to know when you're going to do it. And this is one way that you're going to commit to practicing the habit. Now since you're planning for tomorrow, selecting a time at the end of your workday works best. Usually, this is when you have a clear idea of what you've completed today, what you need to finish, and what new items that you need to do tomorrow. So you want to select a specific time such as 5PM, 530 PM, six PM, whichever works best for you. Or you can use an event as a trigger, such as when I call my last client at the end of the day, that could be the trigger to start this process. Step number two, you want to plan your work. So at the end of each workday, spend three to five minutes creating an action plan tomorrow, following what I call the 13 5 rule. So you want to write down one big task that you want to complete. And this is going to be something that'll take you an hour or two. And then you want to write down three medium tasks. These would be tasks that take 60 minutes or less. And then you want to add five small tasks. And these could be tasks that take less than five minutes or so to complete. Then step 3, you want to work your plan. So at the beginning of tomorrow, do a quick review of your plan and get to work. And it's really important that you take care of your biggest task first, followed by your three medium tasks. And then you can take care of your five small tasks in-between breaks of doing other things. And I talk about this in another video about breakaway sessions. Now it's true this is a very simple strategy. But don't let that simplicity fool you. Because doing this simple exercise can dramatically boost your ability to work efficiently. And here are three reasons why. Number 1, it gives you clarity. Without a clear path to follow, your brain tends to gravitate to doing whatever it has the strongest emotional appeal at that moment. Now the source of that emotional appeal tends to change a lot throughout the day. It could be something on social media, could be playing the game or doing online shopping or calling or texting a friend. And as a result, you end up being all over the place. And a lack of clarity is one of the biggest reasons why you find yourself jumping from one thing to another to another all day throughout the day. And a clear plan of action is like procrastination kryptonite, if you will, it gives you a clear focus as to where to direct your time, your energy, and your resources, which helps you to minimize and eliminate the powerful pool that these emotional impulses have on you. Now the second reason why this is so powerful is something I call activation. So your brain is an answer machine. It loves finding answers to problems, but it's a good idea to give it time to discover those answers. So when you tell your brain what you want to do tomorrow, it'll go to work to find ways to get it done today. And the answers that it provides over that span of time are going to be solutions to problems, creative ideas, and even strategies for working more efficiently. So give it time to do that by planning tomorrow, today. And finally, number three, because it gives you more rational control when you start your day without a plan and you've probably experienced this, you quickly find yourself reacting to events as they happen. And what does this do? It causes anxiety and it heightens your emotions. And this all comes together to affect how you feel and your ability to control what's happening. But planning your tasks a day in advance, that tends to remove a lot of the stress and a lot of the emotion from the productivity equation. And this enables you to plan your day with a more rational mind, which gives you a greater sense of control and peaks. So here's some next actions for planning tomorrow. Today. First of all, you want to decide on the tool that you're going to use in the planning process. This could be a physical notebook, could be a digital document, it could be a note-taking app, whichever you prefer. Now whichever tool you use, you want to put it somewhere convenient. And this is going to remove the resistance to you doing this process on a daily basis because you can access it quickly. Next, after you've chosen your tool of choice, then you want to create your first one, 35 action plan for tomorrow. And then tomorrow, when tomorrow rolls around, review that action plan quickly and get to work. Now here's a tip, and it's very important one. And that is that you want to remember to plan tomorrow. Today, not tomorrow morning, not tomorrow late morning, not tomorrow at noon. Tomorrow in the afternoon, of course. But you want to do it today. Because if you do choose to do it another time other than today, if you wanna do it tomorrow morning, What's going to happen is you're going to lose a lot of the benefits that come from doing it a day in advance, as we talked about a little bit earlier. So get into this practice of planning tomorrow, today. And I think you're going to be amazed at the results that you see. 6. Morning Email - Check Your Email... This Way: So when it comes to morning e-mail or checking your email in the morning, there are two main schools of thought. First school of thought is that no email in the morning is a good idea. And the basis for this thinking is that answering and managing email requires and uses up a lot of time and mental energy. And it takes you away from creating, developing, and shipping new stuff. So it's kind of best to put off taking care of it until you've completed doing something significant first. Now that's the bad. Here's the good. The second school of thought is that email in the morning, necessity. And the basis for this thinking is the belief that we live in a world where delays in responding to e-mail can cause time, money, and resources, sometimes in a big, big way. But let's consider a third option. And that is that a bit of balance works best. Because I tend to feel that reality sits somewhere in the middle. Checking in answering your email in the morning is a necessity for many of us. But you can't do it without a clear and specific process. Otherwise, it's going to get in the way of your ability to be creative and get important things done. So here's how to achieve this balance using a simple six-step process that can take less than five minutes to complete. Step number one is to do a quick scan. So open your inbox and do a quick scan of all your recent e-mails. First thing in the morning. Step number two is that you want to respond to urgent e-mails only. And those are the ones that require response as soon as possible. And if they're not urgent, if they're not urgent, leave them for later. Step number three is to get rid of the junk and just go through and delete all the junk emails that you find. Step number 4 is you wanna do some archiving. Means you want to archive any emails that aren't urgent, but you want to read later at some point. Step number five is you wanna do something significant. That means create something, organize your office, exercise. Something of meaning and value that might take you an hour to complete. But you want to do that immediately after closing out your email. And then step number six is obvious, you want to revisit your inbox. So come back to your inbox after you've completed doing something significant and spent a chunk of time working through your inbox, answering and reviewing any emails that you archive for later. And in a nutshell, what you want to do is answer urgent e-mails only initially, do something significant and then come back later and take care of everything else. So here's some next actions. Open up your inbox right now and do a simple practice run of this system and continue using it for the next seven days or so. And then at the end of seven days, analyze how things are going. And if it works for you, if this system is working and helping you to be more efficient, then stick with it and keep this in mind. That if he just can't help but stay in your inbox once you get there, then it may be a better option not to check your email at all in the morning. 7. Next! - Choose The Right Work At The Right Time: So what's the next action? In other words, when looking at your tasks in your projects, what's the one specific action that you can do right now that you should do and that you have the ability to do. Why is it so powerful and why is that so important to know? It's because that asking this question forces your brain to focus on identifying small, specific, doable actions. And this is going to increase your clarity and your momentum for getting things done. When you look at the big picture of everything that's on your plate, you can look at and go, oh my goodness, you know, it could just be overwhelming. And it can blind you to the small stuff that you need to do in the small stuff is typically where things happen. Now the big picture has its place when you're planning or you're developing. But when it comes time for doing, then you need to shift your perspective from the big picture to small next actions. So how do you identify what actions to take next? Well, let's look at how to do this in relation to projects. And then we're going to talk about how to do it in relation to all tasks in general. So before you start a new project or task, what you wanna do is spend five or 10 minutes just simply brainstorming as many individual actions or tasks related to that project as you possibly can. This means you want to do a brain dump of everything. Keep listing items in a digital document or a notebook, or a notepad until your brain can't think of anything else that you need to do in relation to that project or task. And you want to break items down into small, doable actions that you're going to feel motivated to start when you need to get them done. And if you look at an individual action item and you feel that it's a little bit overwhelming in its scope, then break it down into a number of smaller items. Just keep breaking it down in that brain dump. Now in the end, your list could include a variety of actions such as doing research, creating something, organizing something, finding a resource, brainstorming ideas, downloading a tool or an app, writing something, refining or polishing existing work, making a phone call, delegating something or tasks real similar to this. Next, what you wanna do is organize the items on your list so that they can be completed in the most practical order possible. And you can think of this as like a chain where one action on your list should naturally lead to the next action on your list as much as possible. Now putting the tasks in order as best you possibly can, that doesn't mean that you'll be expected to do them in that specific order as you're gonna see here in just a moment. It's just a way to make it easier to review them when you need to. Once you have this list ready to go and it's organized, you want to keep it handy. Then when you're ready to work on a project, what you wanna do is review your list and ask yourself a couple of questions. And that is, what is the next physical action that is important for me to start as number 1 and 2, I have the ability to start, meaning I have the time or the resources or tools or energy to do it. And if you can answer those two questions related to a specific task, then do that task, That's your next action. Now building on this idea, there's an optional way to approach selecting the next action on a project to work on. So when you complete. An item on your list before you do anything else, what you wanna do is identify or circle the next item that you want to start when you resume working on the project. And what's the benefit of doing this and taking this approach? Well, when you complete an action, you typically in that moment have a much clearer idea of what needs to be done next than any other time that you're working on this task or this project. In other words, if in that moment you were to continue working, what do you think would be the best action to take the E could begin while maintaining the flow and the momentum from the task that you just finished. And if you can work on that task right now, just go ahead and work on it. But if not, then simply identify that task as the next one that you want to work on when you began working on that project again. Now there are a couple of important factors that play a role in the next action that you select to work on. Where the work on tasks or actions related to a project, or whether it's a one-off tasks that needs done but has no relationship to anything else that you need to do. So let's look at those ideas and those principles and those factors next. The first one is something I call the roller coaster effect. And when you look at the way that most roller coasters work, you have a big hill at the beginning usually, and then several smaller hills after that. Now to ride a roller coaster successfully, what do you need to do? Well, you need to tackle getting to the top of that big hill first, right? And it's usually the most time and energy intensive part of the entire ride. But once you've reached the top of that hill, then you start your journey downward to the next hill and then the next one, and then the next one. And what carries you over those remaining smaller hills? It's the momentum, the momentum from getting over the first big hill. Now if you went the opposite way on that coaster by tackling the smaller hills first, what do you think would happen when you reach the big hill, which is now at the end? Well, you probably wouldn't have the energy or the momentum for going over it. So one direction works, the other doesn't. And getting things done in life works the same way. When you start your day by doing a significant task. First, you will have a productivity momentum that will allow you to complete smaller tasks after that, much, much easier. But if you do something easier first or worse, you do several easy things first, then more than likely you're not going to have the energy or momentum to take care of that big hill, that big task when you get to it. So what happens when that occurs? Well, usually end up putting it off until tomorrow and then the cycle continues and continues and continues. So the main idea here is that the first task that you work on each day should be a task of significance. It's likely going to be something that's difficult, is going to be something unfun that you really don't wanna do. It can be time-consuming. And you typically intuitively know that you must do this task when you look at it, even though you emotionally and mentally just don't wanna do it, but that's the one you want to get done. So get it done first. And you want to also at the same time, to make this happen, you want to avoid starting your day doing momentum, draining nonsignificant tasks first. And you probably know what these are, but I'll share with you a few. Checking social media, shopping for something online, watering your plants, et cetera. All these things can be fun, but they're not an ideal way to get your day going and create that productivity momentum that you need to carry you throughout the rest of your day. Let's talk about another idea in relation to how to pick your next action. So our physical energy fluctuates throughout the day, sometimes on a significant scale. In the morning, we might have tons of energy after lunch, after a heavy meal, you know, it's just gone or tired or exhausted. Or it could be just simply the opposite. We're all built a little differently. But when it comes to tasks, different ones required different energy levels. So when selecting what action to take next, you want to line up your current energy level with the right task. Do high-energy tasks when your energy is high, and then do low-energy tasks when you can barely keep your eyes open. Seems simple enough, right? But surprisingly not many people think about this. So let's consider some high-energy tasks. What are those? Well, they usually require or involve focus, enthusiasm, detailed work, creativity, decision-making, writing. So when you have high energy, intentionally select and work on tasks like these. What are some low-energy tasks? Well, obviously they're going to be a little bit more passive in nature. And these usually require involve watching something, listening to something, responding to something, reading, organizing, and even taking a nap. That's an okay thing occasionally. So when you have low energy, intentionally select and work on tasks like these. Now the worst thing to do is to burn through moments of high-energy focus and creativity on minor, insignificant tasks. Or to give low energy and effort to significant tasks that really matter. Either approach creates less than stellar results and we want stellar results. So let's look at some next actions. How can you use this? Well, to begin with, you want to select a project that you're currently working on. And then brainstorm and organize a list of actions or tasks related to that project. And then for the next seven days when working on that project, you want to stop for 10 to 15 seconds and ask yourself, based on my time, ability, significance, and energy, what's the next action I need to take? And once you've identified it, stated out loud, I will work on this. I will organize that. I will research this. And that's going to help you to clarify taking action on that task and then do it. Don't mess around. Just get to work and do that task. And finally, you want to stick with this, this process is going to seem tedious right now because it's not the way that you normally work. It's not part of your process, but it becomes more natural with time. And you're going to reap the awesome benefits that come with doing it. 8. Wake Up Early - 4 Unique Ways To Do It: There are a lot of successful people who would tell you that one of the biggest components to their success is waking up early. Now what you want to hear, right? But why did they say it's such a big deal? Well, let's look at five reasons are a lot of different ones, but here are five specific reasons. First of all, is that you tend to be more alert in the morning and it's one of the best times to be creative to make decisions and to find solutions to problems. Number 2, and this is very helpful if you work at home. You're able to get work done with fewer distractions because others may still be asleep. You've ever experienced that, you know how valuable that is. Number three is that you tend to feel less rushed and stressed about everything involved in starting your day. And the less stress that you have when starting your day. The better. Number four is that you can spend quality time thinking about and planning your day ahead. And then number 5, one of my favorites is that you have time to practice important routines, including maybe a morning success routine or an exercise routine of some sort. So you know that you need it. And maybe you want to do this, right? But let's face it, it's not easy. So how do you go about adopting this important habit? Well, there are a couple of common approaches that are suggested for waking up early. And I got to say that they're both pretty awful. And if you've ever done either one, you know what I'm talking about? The first one is to use multiple alarms. So you might place a couple of different devices on your nightstand and they both go off or two or three up and go off at the same time. And they force you to wake up because they're all going off at the same time, very irritating. The second way is to place alarms and multiple rooms. So you might have one in, of course, in your bedroom, might have an alarm in your kitchen. You might have one in another bedroom and the bathroom. And when it's time to get up, they're all going off at the same time. Again, driving you insane. Now it's true that these may wake you up. But as I mentioned just a second ago, It's incredibly irritating, right? And it's not the best way to start your day. You don't want to start your day feeling irritated. Because what happens is that when you do this on a regular basis, it creates an anchor and it makes waking up early and awful experience and you just dread getting up because of the awful experience. So let's talk about a better approach though that involves slowly acclimating yourself are getting used to going from a state of rest. State of aliveness are being awake so that waking up doesn't feel like a total shock to your system, but you gradually wake up both your mind and your body. And so here are four ways to do this, and these are very unique and very effective, and you'll find that they're very effective when you start using them on a regular basis. The first one is to move your body in small ways. So when you start waking up to the point and you realize, you know what, I've gotta get up out of bed, one of the best things you can do is start making small body movements. Move your fingers, move your toes, and then move your hands and your feet and then your arms in your legs. And after several seconds of doing this, increase the intensity of those movements and ramp. That intensity up over thirty-seconds, 2030 seconds or so. And what this does is it acclimate your body to moving or it gets adjusted to this process of moving. Number two is you want to say action words repeatedly. So words like power, energy, excitement. And you want to do this with increased intensity. So you might start whispering or under your breath and in slightly ramp it up over time. So it might be something like power energy excitement, power energy, excitement, power energy excitement, power energy, excitement. And what happens here is that your brain associates these words with aliveness. And so that when you start saying these particular words, power words, energy, words with greater intensity, it wakes your brain up when it's spoken in this way. Number three, do a countdown. This is one of my favorites. So you can start this off by saying, I will wake up with energy and 30 seconds and then slowly start counting down in your mind from 30 down to 0. So Bill, 30, 29, 28, 27. And I'm not going to do the entire account, but you'll get to a point where eventually you're going to hit 0. And in that moment, open your eyes and wake up immediately. It's very, very powerful way of acclimating and going from a state of rest to a state of aliveness. And number four is you want to start breathing more deeply. So start with a few simple breaths when you realize that you want to wake up. And then with each breath, slowly increase its depth. And what this does is that it increases oxygen to your body and gives you energy with each breath, especially when you start getting to the point where you're breathing more deeply and you're breathing more rapidly, it's going to wake up your mind and your body. So here's some next actions, how you can use this. Do a practice run right now. Take each of these ideas and practice them, put them to use, and see what it feels like and get a sense of how to do them. Then for the next seven days, what you wanna do is pick one of these ideas and try it. Get really good at practicing it. And then try the next idea. And then try the next one, and then try the next one. Eventually you're going to find one that is a favorite of yours. Like I said earlier, the countdown is one of my favorites. Now what you could also do is combine multiple strategies at the same time. So you could do a countdown while breathing and try that combination. See if that works for you, or try movement with breathing. See if that works for you. Whatever the case may be. The goal is to enjoy waking up with little irritation. So you start your day with the best mindset possible. 9. Daily Review - The Daily Map To Your Future: What happened in your life today? What did you accomplish? What did you learn? What did you experience? How did you take care of your physical, mental, and emotional health? Might be saying, Well, who cares? It's behind me. I'm going to look ahead and it really doesn't matter. Well, here's why it matters. And it matters because this day and everything that was part of it represents a single step towards where you want to eventually be at some point in the future. And today is a single step in your journey to your eventuality, whatever that may be. And you want to make sure that the single-step of today represents a step that moves you forward and toward who you want to be and what you want to accomplish so that you don't head down a path of mediocrity, emptiness, or even misery. Now I have a favorite quote by a gentleman by the name of Marc Forster. And he once said that anything that does not get regular attention will start to change for the worse. This includes your relationships, your house, your car, your health, your life. And if you don't give these things proper attention, they begin to break down. And a daily review, as I'm going to show you, will help you to bring regular awareness to the direction of your life. And with this awareness, what you're going to see is you're going to notice what's working, what's not working, what needs to change. And you're not only going to notice these things, but you're going to be motivated to continue to do what works and fixing what doesn't. Now of course, your daily review can be anything that you want it to be. But I want to share with you the elements of my daily review, which is nothing more than a series of questions. And by answering these questions each day, it gives me clarity about what I've done, helps me to focus on what I need to do and it gives me motivation to do what I need to do. So let's look at the first question. The first question is, what did I accomplish? What did I accomplish? And to answer this question, you simply state all the actions within reason that you've took throughout the day. And generally speaking, if you spent more than two minutes on a task, you mentioned it. For example, you might say something like, I recorded a new video on doing a daily review. I edited that same video. I drew some graphics for my next video, I took care of my weekly finances. I cooked a spicy garlic pasta with grilled chicken. I went for a drive with Kathy out in the country. And doing this helps you to tune into your daily productivity. And after answering this question, if you feel like you've accomplished enough throughout the day, then move on to the next element. And if you didn't, if you didn't feel like you accomplished enough, you can ask yourself, why not? What was the specific cause behind my not being as active as I want to be. And this will enable you to identify and eliminate any barriers that stand in the way of you getting things done. The next question I ask is, what did I learn? And if you're not learning, you're not growing. So when you answer this question, your intention is to identify anything new that you've learned in your life, in any area of your life. It could be anything or it could be anything that you knew already. I was reminded of how awesome it is to know. And once you've identified what you've learned, then spend a little time expressing why it's so useful and why that thing is so important. And talk about specific ways that you can use that knowledge and the future. For example, today, I learned about the importance of a daily review. Why is it so useful? Well, expressed that. How are you going to do it? Express that and I'm going to give you some ideas on how to do that, but that's how you answer that question. The next question is, what do I need to improve? Now despite what your mother may tell you? None of us are perfect. We know good habits that we don't practice, and we have bad habits that we do practice. So to answer this question, identify one specific thing that needs improved and a specific way that you can improve it. For example, I need to minimize my phone distractions. And one of the ways that I'm going to do that is that I'm going to start putting my phone in another room. I'm going to turn up the ring or psych and hear it, but I'm going to keep it in another room so that it doesn't interfere with my work. Now, of course, there may be some challenges that keep popping up in your life repeatedly when you ask this question and when that's the case, use this part of your daily routine to address it until you have it under control because some issues, some things that need improved need more time than others. The next question is, what did I experience? And the answer to this question centers around identifying something either big or small that made you positive or happy throughout your day or during your day. It could be seeing your dog for the first time in a week or going for a drive with your husband or your wife, or eating an amazing meal or thousands of other happy experiences that you might have. And when you identify an experience and spend a moment or two describing or reliving the event as best as you possibly can with the intention of igniting an emotional feeling, if at all possible. That's the power of this question. Next up is, what did I eat? And the answer to this question helps bring awareness to the food you consume. And that awareness helps you to see patterns in your diet, perhaps things that you're eating too much of, or that are affecting your health. And it gives your brain greater clarity about what you eat, which tends to naturally just move you to make better and healthier choices. Now to answer this question, do a simple list of everything that you ate and drank and include enough detail to make it seem as if you're describing items on a menu. And just so you know, I don't count calories, that's not part of this process. So it might go something like this. Today I a2 strips of bacon, a bowl of oatmeal with a teaspoon of peanut butter, coffee with some half and half a bowl of tortilla soup and a simple salad with oil and vinegar dressing. And you could go on and on if you had more than that. And after listing what you ate, make a simple three to five word assessment about your diet for the day, such as. I need to drink less coffee in the afternoon or that salad made me feel great and it gave me some really good focus and energy. The next question is, how much did I move? Now we all know that physical movement is essential for good health. So with that in mind, if possible, you want to wear a fitness tracker, maybe an Apple Watch or a Fitbit. And to answer this question, take a look at your daily stats and state out loud what those are including, maybe your step count, the distance that you've walked, and things like that. And it's a very simple assessment, but it gives your brain awareness of your physical activity and it can do amazing things with that. The next question is, what did I receive? So you want to bring attention to the good things that are flowing in your life. So to answer this question, you simply want to identify something good that you receive for no reason or out of the blue, could be a gift. It could be unexpected money could be a discount from somewhere, a freebie of some kind, or another act of generosity that someone displayed towards you, bring awareness to these good things flowing in your life. The next question is, what are tomorrow's to-dos? And to answer this question, just do a brief rundown of the top three to five tasks that you want to complete tomorrow. That's it. That's all you have to do with that. And this gives you some clarity and helps you to prepare your brain for the day ahead. And finally, you want to practice, practice, practice. This is the fun part of doing your daily review, at least for me. And I usually do it about an hour before I go to bed. And this is when I have a full data reflect back on. Now there are a couple of ways of doing this based on your own personal preference. One involves just writing down your answers in a journal. I know a lot of people like doing that. But two is to express your answers out loud or if others around you under your breath. And this is my preferred method is just to speak it out. Now there are two reasons why I prefer expressing my answers with my own voice. And one is that I can speak faster than I write. So my review can be done in about two or three minutes. Another, one of the most important is that my emotions tend to be stronger when I speak the answers as opposed to writing them down. And those emotions make this a much more positive and impactful experience. And that's why I love expressing my answers out loud. Now expressing your answers out loud, if you do this and you've never done this, it's going to feel a natural at first are difficult. But doing it consistently over time, it's going to eventually feel more natural and satisfying. And again, the approach you take is simply a personal preference. Use whichever one works best for you. So here's some next actions, how to use this. You want to spend a little time right now, or the soonest opportunity you get designing your particular and your personal daily routine. And you want to capture the steps either digitally in a digital document or on paper, which again, ever whichever way you prefer, and then practice it daily and consistently. It's that daily consistent behavior that is the key to making this all work. And if you need help remembering to do it, then set a reminder on your phone. That's a great way to use your phone to help you to get things done and to help you to practice successful habits and routines, such as an awesome daily routine. 10. Weekly Review - The Mother Of All Productivity Strategies: So life is like a machine and it's made up of all these different parts. You have your physical environment, your digital environment, your mind, your time commitments, projects and Aaron's. And for this machine to work efficiently, all the different parts need to work together and you need to maintain them. Because what happens if you don't? Well, what happens to a physical machine when you don't maintain it? Slowly starts to break down. Energy is wasted and the results of that machine creates begin to suffer. And the same thing can happen in life. Without a maintenance program for your life, you're going to feel more stress. You can experience more chaos. You're going to feel the pinch of overwhelm and a general lack of great results, which is not what you want. Now the challenge for many people is that they're not proactive. They are not a head of their problems. And that's where there's power. Instead, many people are reactive. They wait for something in their machine, their life to break down. And that's where they go into action. But that's really a position of weakness. A weekly review, what that's going to do is it's going to put you ahead of your problems. You're going to be proactive. That again, is a position of power and that's why I call this the mother of all productivity strategies. Now what a weekly review does and why it's so amazing is that it forces you to stop and examine all the different parts of your machine to look at them so that you can set the focus of your time, your energy, your resources. You can improve what's working, fix what's broken. You can clear your mind for creative ideas and you can optimize your environment for getting things done. And it's a very simple process. Here's three steps for doing it. Step number one is you want to organize, empty and clear your environment, your inbox, in your mind. So let's break each of these down a little bit more detail. First of all, your environment. This means you want to physically clean and organized your environment, your physical environment, including and especially your desk area that needs to be really clean and organized. So you want to file and organize papers. You want to empty trash, you want to get trash off your desk and tasks like these. Next up, you want to do the same thing essentially for your inbox. So you want to open up your inbox, your email inbox. Look at all the items in your inbox. Hopefully there aren't 14000. Have them. Look at each one of those. And if it's trash than trash, it, throw it away. If it's something you want to look at later or you want to save, then file it or archive it. If it needs to go to someone else, go ahead and forward it, get it out of your mental space and get it overall clean and organized in a digital sense. Finally, you want to do the same thing with your mind. This means you want to write down, write down, write down, and capture any ideas that you have floating around in your head. Any to-dos that you have floating around in your head, or any tasks for errands and things like that that are floating around in your head. You gotta get them out of your head and onto paper, either a physical document or digital document. Get it all out of your head. And that's how you organize empty and clear your environment in Box in mind, that's step number one. Step number two is you want to review and update your calendar, your follow-ups, and your tasks and projects. So let's break these down individually as well. First of all, your calendar, what do you wanna do with your calendar? You want to open it up and hopefully you are using a calendar, highly, highly recommended, but you want to open up your calendar and review the previous week, the past seven days, make sure that you didn't miss anything. And you want to look at the next seven days a week ahead of you so that you know what's ahead. And this is going to give your brain kind of like a heads up to know what's coming so that it can plan accordingly and give you answers and solutions and solve problems ahead of time. So you can tackle those things when they come up. Next part of this process is you want to really review and update your follow-ups. What are follow-ups? Well, these are things that you need to follow up with. So if there are decisions that you need to make, time to make the decision, do you have enough information to do that now where you didn't before, then make that decision. If there's somebody that is working on a task that you delegated to them. Well, then follow up with them, see how it's going, see if it can be completed. If you need an update of some kind from someone asked for that update just so that these things are followed up with and you've been able to review and update them. Next, you want to do the same thing with your tasks and projects. So using whatever productivity system that you'd like to use, make sure that your tasks, your individual tasks and your projects, which are typically projects of made up of individual tasks. Make sure those are all moving forward and identify any tasks or projects that might be in your mental awareness that may need add it to your productivity system. They may need to be changed or updated or even deleted if there's something in there that you had planned to do, but you're holding off on doing it or you just don't have the time, get it out there and get it out of your mental space. And then look at different projects that you might have and see if they need to be broken down into smaller steps. You might look at a project that you have in your productivity system. And it's a project of creating a business website. So what are the individual steps that you need to complete in order to create that business website. Creating a business website isn't an action step, that's a project. But what are the individual steps? Take some time to break those down in this portion of the review. And the third step of your weekly review is you want to plan and prepare. So look at everything that's going on, Highlight and get clear about tasks and projects that you want to focus on in the week ahead so you know exactly what needs to be done. And you can highlight those. You can move them in a position at the top of the list, whatever it takes, whatever works for you, just make sure that you have a clear idea of everything that needs to be taken care of and knocked off that list in the week ahead and identify any areas that you may need to take care of and add those to an error list if you need to. Now, it's important to understand that this what I'm sharing with you right now is my personal routine. It's mine. I've developed it over a number of years and I found it to be very effective. But you want to adapt it and you want to tweak it to your needs. Now that may not be evident and apparent initially when you start using it, but it should become apparent and evidence of how you might need to adapt it and tweak it after you use it for several weeks. And remember, you want to continue to refine your process, your weekly review as your life changes and it will change. And maybe a weekly review won't change that greatly. But be prepared for it because it will happen at some point where you need to do something a little bit differently and be open to that. The main goal here is to have a clear plan of action for organizing, planning, maintaining these different parts of your machine called Life. And something that you can do in 30 minutes or less, hopefully around 20 minutes each week. Now, you might be looking at that thing in 2030 minutes. Are you kidding me? That's an awful lot of time to devote toward this. You know, I'm barely getting things done then I need to get done. Well, what you need to understand is that even though it's weekly review takes 20 to 30 minutes, you still have 5000 Other minutes to do what you want. And if you do this weekly review and you spend time on it on a weekly basis consistently. It's going to make those other 5 thousand minutes more efficient, more effective, and more awesome. So it's a small, tiny price to pay for all the benefits that you get for those 20 to 30 minutes. So here's some next actions. First of all, you want to look at this three-step process and create a simple checklist of a weekly review for you. Include the basic details for each step. You can put this in a digital document and you can put it in physical document, but get that game plan in place right away, and then schedule your first weekly review right away, put it in your calendar, make it Friday at five PM, Saturday at 12:00 PM, whatever works for you. And if he needed to create a phone reminder to remind you each week to do this process at the same time so you can be consistent about it. And then when it's time for that weekly review and you get a phone reminder perhaps or you get a calendar reminder, make it a priority, and then do it. And if you do this, you're going to see for yourself how this really is the mother of all productivity strategies. 11. Boost - 9 Simple Ways To Boost Your Energy: One of the worst feelings ever without being too tragic for dramatic is this idea of getting sleepy, finding yourself in a mental fog. Maybe you're bored to tears in a meeting or a presentation. And you need a burst of energy to help you to get through it, to survive it. Or maybe you just to help you to get through your day. How do you wake up and how do you do it without caffeine? Well, here are nine simple ways, unique ways to help you to do this. And I'm gonna show you how to implement them. Number 1 is you want to do some intense wiggling. I know it sounds strange, but it works amazingly well. This means for 15 to 30 seconds and with increased intensity, you want to move your body in small ways. Begin by just taking a deep breath and slowly increasing the depth of that breathing. And as you're doing that, start moving your tongue, your mouth, your lips, move and wiggle your fingers and then twist your risks and then move your arms. And then start same thing with your toes, your feet, your legs, move him up and down and get your whole body in this position where it's moving. And you're doing this slowly and with greater intensity. And those small movements that you do with greater intensity will wake you up eventually, especially after that 15 to 30 second process. Number two is you want to get into the flow. And what this means is good physical and mental energy requires a good flow of blood. And dehydration slows down, slows down that good flow of blood. So an easy fix is very easy and simple. It's to drink a glass of water, not t, not coffee, not milk, and definitely not soda, which is sugar, or artificial sweetener. That's not what you want. It's best to stay hydrated throughout your day. You don't want to get in this position where it's like five o'clock in the afternoon and you haven't taken a drink water yet. You wanna do it in little tiny spurts throughout the day, best if possible. But if you're not in that position or you haven't done that, and you need a boost of energy than drink a glass of water right away. And you'll feel a lot more energy at that point in time after a short period of time where that water can kick in. Number 3, you want to tug at your ear lobes. I know it sounds strange, you know, where our body is wired in some unique ways. But when our body is manipulated in different parts with intention, it can allow us to trigger an internal reaction and you can use that to your advantage. And again, one of the ways you can do this is tugging on your ear lobe or both earlobes. And what this does is it stimulates nerve endings with a direct contact with your brain. And if you do this a few times, it can have a very stimulating effect. So try it. You can try it now or try it later, but it does work. Number four, step into the light. So it's really no shock that light kicks your mind awake and keeps it awake. So how can you use this to your advantage? Well, one of the things that you can do, especially if you're in a darker environment, is turn another light on. Or you can stand closer to an existing light. Or perhaps even better is if you have blinds that are closed or you have curtains that are closed, open them up, get that sunshine flowing in so that you're exposed to it. Or even better is go outside, get exposed to the sunlight directly by going outside, breathing some fresh air. And all it takes is a very short dose to do this. But light can be a powerful way to wake you up when you're feeling tired. Number five is you want to take some deep breaths. So for your body, oxygen means energy, it means life. And deep breathing increases oxygen levels, which increases energy, which increases alertness and aliveness. So it's very important to do this and it's a very effective way to boost your energy without caffeine. So how do you do it? Well, stop. Then breathe in slowly through your nose for four seconds. Hold for seven. And that the end of that seven, release through your mouth for eight. You can do this multiple times in order to wake up if you need to. Now for best results, what you wanna do is practice this while standing up and you want to breathe in fresh air. So go to an open window. If you have one, breathe in that fresh air. Try to avoid any chemical air fresheners, because the quality of air that you take in makes a big difference. And of course, all natural essential oils are a great enhancement to the strategy. It's not the same as these chemical air fresheners, but especially citrus based essential oils such as orange, lemon, lime, and grape fruit that can really, as you're breathing those in with that fresh air, can really wake up your brain and your body. Number six is coach yourself. So words have power. And here's some proof. Take a moment and say with energy and with emotion, your favorite affirmation or your favorite quote. Say it with some onthe. And when you do this, you're going to experience instant energy. That's because words have power, even the words that you say out of your own mouth. So to use the strategy, what you wanna do is simply say action phrases out loud with increased speed and intensity for about 10 to 15 seconds. And these would include action phrases such as act now, Get it done, take action, do it now, get excited, Let's go. You can do all of those or you can just take one and repeat it. Say get it done, get it done, get it done, get it done, get it done. And if that doesn't wake you up, I don't know what. But it's a great way of using your words to increase the energy that you feel. Number seven is switched things up. So sometimes mental fatigue and just being tired is boredom. You know, you're doing the same task, there's no challenge. So one of the best things that you can do to overcome that is do what I call throwing your brain a mental surprise party. So there are two ways of doing this. One is you can switch your environment or your room. So if you're in your home office doing something, then go to your kitchen and do something, or go to your garage and do something. Or if you're by yourself, go to a room that you're with others. And again, that's one way to switch your environment or room to break up that boredom. Another thing you can do is to switch your workflow. So go from something passive such as reading or analyzing data. And it's putting you to sleep. Then do something creative or expressive. Instead, brainstorm ideas or write a customer appreciation e-mail, or do something creative draw if you want to. But those are ways to really wake up your brain by getting out of that flow of boredom that keeps you stuck in a rut and makes you feel tired and worn out. Number 8 is that you want to crank it up. So it goes without saying that music can instantly change how you feel. You can feel tired, you can feel stressed out and you can feel depressed. Then all of a sudden you hear one of your favorite songs that start plane. And almost instantly, if you energize, you feel motivated and happy. Or if you've ever attended a live sports event, you've experienced how music is used to elevate the energy level that's there. And it's really remarkable the effect that music can have on us in a very short period of time. So why not use this with some intention? So using your favorite music services could be Apple Music, YouTube, Music, Spotify, something like that. Create a simple music playlist of your top 10 motivating songs. And then when you need a boost of energy, load up that playlist, crank up the volume, and get into the experience if you can sing along with it, saying it out loud, move dance, feel yourself coming to life by using that music. Number nine is one of my favorite is to blast off. And I'm sure that there are a number of times in your life where you've probably done a count down to 0, playing a game, doing something, erase. It may be variety of ways that you've used the countdown in your life. What do you feel in those moments leading up to 0? You ever stopped to think about that? Well, because of the sense of anticipation about what will happen when you reach 0, your heart tends to be a little bit faster. You breathe a little bit deeper, right? And it slowly makes you feel more alive and alert as you get closer to 0 as you're doing that countdown. Again, the anticipation that builds in you as a result of that countdown can have a powerful effect and making you feel alive and alert. So here's how you can use that phenomenon to give you a boost of energy anytime that you need it. And you can use this in combination with several of the other strategies that we've discussed in this video. First of all, state out loud what you will do, okay, so make it positive and motivating. Here's some examples. I will create an amazing productivity video, or I will pay my bills for the month, or I'm going to complete my best sales presentation ever. So that's what you do first stated out loud. And then to ramp up your power by doing a count down from 10 to 0. So do this out loud, preferred if you can or if there are other people around you don't want to seem crazy then do it in your head. And imagine as you're counting down, that you're about to release a beast, 10, 9, 8, 7. And you just get excited knowing that something amazing is about to happen. And then blastoff once you hit 0, say, let's go get to work and do whatever you said you were gonna do in step 1 of this process, do it immediately. So let's go through this process as a whole. Start out by saying, I will create an amazing productivity video, 10987654321. Let's go and then get to work on creating that amazing productivity video, if that's what you're wanting to do. So here's some next actions. Pick one of these nine ideas and do a practice run right now, instead of just listening to me, Do it, Do it yourself, get a feel for it. Figure out a favorite one or two. You probably won't like all nine, but figure out which ones you do like, I will say that water and air are essential. So include those, whatever your favorites may be, and then implement those ideas the next time you need a boost of energy to get things done. 12. Conclusion - Thank You! What To Do Next: So this is the last video of the course. And the fact that you're watching it tells me that there's a pretty good chance that you've watched the entire course. And I think it's awesome that you stuck with it long enough to get here. And for that, I'd like to say thank you. Now, a lot of time and effort went into creating this course. And I hope that the end result is that it was valuable to you. It was enjoyable. It was memorable, it was unique, and was more than you expected. And if it was any or all of these things, I'd appreciate it if you did two things. Leave an honest review for others who are considering taking this course or shared link to the course with anyone that you think would benefit from it. Like you have. Now if you have any questions or suggestions about the course itself for how to improve it, please leave a comment in the discussion area for this course or email me or visit my website at derek franklin.com. I love hearing from my students. Thanks again, and I hope you have an amazing day.