Get Productive: Time Management Hacks, Strategies and Tools!

1. Introduction: So what's this course about anyway? The simplest way to say it is that it's for people who want to get things done. So if you're a professional who is looking for ways to improve yourself and get that unfair competitive advantage, or just looking for practices that will get your ideas from planning to doing faster, this is the course for you. Not only that, but it will help you take advantage of all the benefits that the current global economy has to offer. Things like making your location irrelevant, getting paid like Tier one professionals on the planet for your expertise or outsourcing work to countries with highly skilled people and low wages, not to mention using online tools to easily control your project, finances. And, of course, your time. And all these come on top of a solid foundation of principles and practices from thought leaders like Steven Covey, Tony Schwartz, Charles Do Hig, Kelly McGonigal, James Newman and many more who have dedicated their lives to personal development and outgrowing your current self. Although targeted at entrepreneurs and tech professionals, the principles and tools and this course will upgrade the lifestyle and productivity of anyone who watches it. So what makes it special? Why this and not the hundreds of other productivity courses? Well, the answer is pretty simple. Like many other courses, this is not a rah rah feel good seminar with generic advice. All the principles and techniques have actual scientific experiments and years of study behind them. And the reason for this is that, just like you, I am a student of productivity. And just like you, I am tired of all that generic advice that has no value and no riel life application. My goal is to save you from lots of headaches and hopefully make you never lessen toe another course on productivity unless it's a resource I listed. If you want to read something in death at the end of the course, I tell it like it is. No marketing hype, no fluff, no. You'll make millions sitting on your ass. You get the real deal, so either you want to create 10 100 times more wealth than you currently are. With the skills you will get from this course or just want the recipe to work one day a week and settle for your current income and spend the rest on whatever gives you joy. This course will help you do just that, and it will do it in six steps. First, we'll talk about you and how to program yourself for success will cover your willpower, motivation, habits, goals, decision making process and, of course, your comfort zone. Then we'll talk about your patterns on what type activities that you spend time on principles and techniques to get more productive and also how to avoid distractions, procrastination and information overload. Then we'll talk about your dream team because you can't do it alone, covering concepts like remote working cost of living arbitrage. Managing your team with effective meetings. Great reporting and becoming a master of delegation after your team will go over the tools that will scale your efforts and make it easy to stay on top of everything from project management, recruiting, communication, time tracking And, of course, your finances towards the end will go into things outside of work that impact your personal power, things like exercise, nutrition, stress and sleep. And we'll wrap everything up with an actionable battle plan that will give you from knowing to doing because the ultimate goal is not to get your informed but to radically change your lifestyle to unworthy of yourself. That being said, get ready to get your hand. 30. See you on the inside. 2. Your Willpower: As I said in the first video, this entire section will focus on management off self because even if you're a lone wolf or part of a complex team, the way you manage yourself is at the root of everything. And I'd like to start this section with something we all wished we had more off. And that is willpower, the ability to get yourself to do more of what you think will get you closer to your objectives. So if you have trouble waking up in the morning going to the gym on a regular basis, focusing for longer periods of time, this video will make everything easier. And as I promised, I will focus a lot on practical applications. So without further ado, let's dive in The fastest way to get more willpower is to meditate. This sounds weird. I know I wasn't a believer of meditation either, but there are tens, if not hundreds, of studies that confirm meditation helps you focus, relieve stress and have more willpower. In fact, do you know what the best part is? Meditation has the biggest impact on people who never did it or find it hard to do it so if you're struggling to clear your mind, even for five minutes than the likelihood of it, having a huge impact on your willpower is highly increased. But wait, it doesn't stop at that. Neuroscientists have discovered that your brain actually has physical changes after just 11 hours of meditation, the same way your muscles get more blood flow when you exercise. The same happens to your prefrontal cortex, the one in charge of complex decision making when you meditate. And once again I want to remind you this is not some wellness guru saying meditation helps you get in touch with your inner self. Although I'm not ruling out that possibility, either. These are experiments than by scientists with brain scans and double blind experiments keeping the practical approach. I guess you might be wondering, How do you go about this? And I know you can find a lot of content online on how to do it. That suggests the Lotus position and complex procedures. Well, the simplest way to get into it is to sit on a chair or couch. Close your eyes, try to clear your mind of the Brazilian thoughts that are going through it, and if you're having trouble doing this. Focus on your breathing. Inhale counting to three and exhale slowly, counting to five or six. Do this for a two least 10 minutes each day. But this is something anyone can do, no matter how busy they are. Don't lie to yourself. You do have the time and try doing it for at least three weeks, then experience the results for yourself. The only struggle I had was to remember to actually do it. But that's easily handled by any reminder rap moving on to the second great way to have willpower, and it's the pause and plan response. This will require more practice, but once integrated in your decision making process, it gets a lot easier. So how does this work exactly? And what does it do for you? I'll go on the assumption that since you're watching the score, so you are very busy, are struggling to achieve more and are under a lot of stress. And that's the problem. Your brain on stress takes worst decisions than your brain when relaxed. In fact, maybe worse is not the ideal term here. Your brain on stress takes decisions that give short term results and doesn't think about the long term consequences. And this comes from ancient times when we had to hunt animals and survive and didn't have all the modern security and comfort. Imagine yourself facing a tiger and all you have is a spear. I think contemplating decisions with long term impact is not year, the old time in place. At that moment, parts of your brain shut off and you go into survival mode, focusing on how not to get eaten and get off that situation alive. Fast forward a couple of 1000 years, and you're in a supermarket hungry. Your brain instantly focuses on getting the most energy possible, and it makes you reach for that candy bar filled with sugar and not for the vegetables. And that's where the pause in plan technique comes into play. With enough exercise, you can interrupt the final flight survival mechanism with the parson Plan one and make long term decisions. As I said one first mentioning this technique, it might take some time to make it a habit. You'll forget about it at first, but once it becomes part of your thinking process, you'll begin making better and better decisions and the results will keep compounding in terms of how to make this easy on yourself. What you should do is focus on your breathing and slow it down. Yes, it's that simple. All you need to do is slow down your breathing. So the next time you feel overwhelmed and want to increase the likelihood of you making a best long term decision, you know what to do. For 1/3 method to boost willpower as one that personally surprised me as well, it's forgive yourself so you can take a moment to forgive yourself for all your past failures. A study at Carleton University in Canada that tracked procrastination in students who didn't prepare for their first exam found out. Does that didn't forgive themselves? We're more likely to procrastinate again in comparison to does that forgave themselves. So it's forgiveness, not guilt, that helps you get back on track. And after this very peaceful, almost Zen like technique comes the 4th 1 which not everyone will like, burn down your ships. You probably heard about the conquistador Cortes, who burned down the ships before the battle, so the only way to get home would be if they were victorious and took the ships of their opponents. Putting this into practical terms, you need to limit your options by pre committing, not give you an example, I read and Stephen Covey's Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. Let's say you want to start jogging, but never get to it because you're always too tired late somewhere else, not in the mood or any other of the 1000 and one reasons and excuses. You tell yourself the best way to actually start and keep doing it is to partner up with someone and pre commit to an existing our when you both jog and have to rule not to call each other prior to that event. This way, you always go because you know the other person will be waiting for you. And many times both of you might not feel like going, But you're still do it because you owe it to the other person. And for fifth and final tip on. How to boost your willpower and make better decisions is to think of your future self as an actual person. Whenever you make a bad decision that will affect your future self, but benefit your present self. If you think of him or her as an actual person, you'll think twice before making that decision. So long. Story short. Befriend your future self and understand his or her needs and wants, and take them into account whenever you make any decision. And that's about it. For boosting willpower, try practicing at least one of these tips for 30 days on a daily basis and track your results in the next video. We'll talk about motivation and how that factors in your journey to achieve your goals See you in the next video. 3. Your Motivation: motivation. I hear this word so often I think it's the only word. People are searching for a line. Everyone wants motivation, although that's one of the things they least need. Now. Don't get me wrong. I'm not hating on motivation and inspiration of values, but they are not as life changing as we give them credit. When creating the video, I remember this old mean that pretty much sums up my view on motivation. And if you look at all the people around you and even yourself, you'll find yourself guilty of this at some point or to coat 20. Robbins, who I bet everyone has heard of motivation is like taking a shower. You need it constantly, and not only once, but what's even more important. That motivation is knowing Why Why do you do what you do? And you'll be surprised how many people never take the time to answer themselves This simple question, Because if the wine is not clear, if the mission is not true to yourself, motivation will dry out so fast you'll forget you even had it in the first place. And it's not just that. It's also that we live in this I want it now frame of mind where we want everything right away. We want instant gratification. Unfortunately, the fundamental principles of nature don't work that way. Take losing weight, for example. Of course, I want to lose £20 today, but that is not possible. I have to watch my diet exercise over a period of a few weeks to start seeing consistent results. And that's the same with achieving gold. Motivation gets you started. It makes you get that gym membership, that sports equipment. But it's the habits that get you to lose weight. But we'll go into details on that topic in the next video. So it's not about being inspired and full of enthusiasm, although that certainly helps. It's about if this is truly something you want to do with all your heart. And to reach the answer to this question, you might need to ask yourself if I had everything I ever wanted. What would I do on a daily basis without pay? And if you can fit a profession around that, then you'll never have to work a day in your life because you'll be doing what you love and don't get me wrong here you're always love everything about what you do. But if the core mission of it is your passion, your true calling than it's a lot easier to stay committed and actually achieve your goals . I hope you're not disappointed that this video is not about getting you hyped in on fire, but it's more about you looking inside yourself and finding out the answer to why. But as I promised at the beginning of the course, my goal is not to get you hyped and on fire for three days and see you add another item on the list of things I could have. But I didn't. But to have this as one of the many things you did and are proud of doing. That's why in the next video we'll talk about the other core component of getting things done, having good habits, how to kill old ones for new ones and understand how the work see you in the next video 4. Your Habits: we first make our habits than our habits make us, said English poet John Dryden. No, that's being true. For centuries, recent scientific breakthroughs have only confirmed the importance of habits in our lives. I'll start with the most obvious. One habit creates an actual visible pattern in our brains, so it changes you at a molecular level. It's not thoughts alone. We'll get to that later in this video. First, let's analyze what a habit is to better understand how it works and how we can use that know how to our advantage. It has just four components. First, we have the Q than the routine, followed by the reward, and this loop is constantly being refreshed by the craving. No, let's look at this. From a practical standpoint, let's say you want to quit a bad habit, be it smoking, eating too many sweets or anything. You want a change in your life. The first step in doing so is to identify each part of the habit, identify what exactly is the true source of the craving, then very important the Q or what starts this loop. Then you have the routine, which is the easy part, and after that. The reward, knowing each part of your habits will help You better understand their causes. And it's the first step in changing them. And you might have noticed. I said, Change, not remove. And that's because, like I said at the start of the video, a habit changes your brain at a physical level and will forever be with you. It never goes away. It just lurks there, waiting to re emerge. That's why the easiest way to escape about habit is to replace it with a good one. And you do that by attacking one of the component. If you can remove the Q or craving, that's great. But if you can remove the routine, that's always the surefire way to do it, or you just remove the reward and habit will slowly disappear. I'll give you a personal example that worked for me. It might seem something simple and trivial, but it made my work days a lot more productive. So as you might assume, I spend a lot of time in front of my computer, and quite often I found myself going to either Facebook or sites you procrastinate on by watching a comic. A video or whatever. And at some point I kept finding myself typing the Urals of these websites and wasting anything from 10 to 30 minutes. And if you do that several times a day, it becomes a black hole of productivity. Knowing that habit components like you to know I thought of a solution. I couldn't tackle the craving because you do need to unplug from time to time. You can't focus eight hours straight. I couldn't find a way through the Q because the key was getting bored, and you can't really know ahead of time when you'll get bored. But I found the way with the reward. More precisely, I installed some chrome extensions that whenever I went to those euros, I got a message saying, Get back to work, bro. And that killed the reward because instead of a jolt of dopamine, I got get back to work, bro. At first I found myself entering this routine quite often and seeing that's different page and felt quite frustrated. But as the day passed that have it slowly but surely became inactive. Now, whenever I feel bored knowing that I have no escape on those procrastination websites, I just sit up, walk around, sometimes have a quick chat with other people in the office and then get back to work. And you can find a solution for your own bad habits by attacking any of the components. Sometimes it's easy. Sometimes it might take some time, but at least now you have the recipe. Another way to form and keep new habits is to create momentum, basically created checklist where the first items on it you are already doing on a consistent basis and have the following ones to be the things you need to do. So after completing four out of six items from your list, it will become a lot easier to finish the last two items as well. And these don't have to be huge challenges. It can be something as simple as making your bed in the morning or having that quick meeting with your team each day. Moving on to another important factor of habit creation. Timing something that's not said enough is that the best time to change habits is when a crisis appears. In fact, there are tens of studies that confirm that people change brands whenever they have a sudden change in their lives. Who would have thought that a divorce or health problem will make you change the Turgeon's and sock brands? So let's take your business. For example, if there's a procedure that you think is incomplete or useless, the time to act and change it is when a crisis is on the rise. So let's have a quick summary on how to escape bad habits. Great new ones. The first step is to understand it in order to change it. 2nd 1 create momentum and the 3rd 1 get the timing right. I hope this insight on habits will change your life for the better and get you closer to your goals. Make sure to check the final section of the course for references and for the reading in case you want to know more on habit creation or any other topic covered in the course. And in the next video, we'll talk about effective gold setting. See you there 5. Your Goals: gold setting. If you're not getting things done on a consistent basis, most probably it's not, because lack of skill, effort or motivation the most probable culprits are vague, unclear goals. But before diving into the science of goal setting, I'd like to do a very simple exercise that will clarify just how important go setting is. I first heard this exercise in a training program from one of the greatest copywriters ever , Gary Ben's vendor. So close your eyes and imagine yourself on a stadium filled with people. You look around and see the intense atmosphere and wait for the game to start. Now open your eyes and let me know how many people were wearing red. More often than not, the answer is I don't know or none. So close your eyes again and imagine yourself on the same stadium. Look around for people in red, most likely your started spot, if you some close some far. But the important thing to remember is that you can now see them and even reach out to them . If you want. Same goes for your goals unless you are aware of what you want and have a clear vision of your objectives, you will never reach them, even if they are staring you right in the face. And now that we set the stage, let's dive into gold setting and how things evolved over time. One of the first few people to formalize this was Napoleon Hill and Think and Grow Rich, a book published over 70 years ago, and in the book he laid the foundation for reaching your goals in Six Simple Steps. First is to determine exactly what you want to achieve. The more details, the better someone financial success, someone better health someone acknowledgement in a certain area of expertise. And this approach works for everything. So once again, right down in detail, your goals. That was the easy part. Perhaps quite relaxing. Now comes the hard part. What are you willing to do in exchange? Obviously, there is no such thing as something for nothing, and you have to sacrifice something in order to achieve something else. If, for example, you want to get more productive, maybe you need to spend less time on social media platforms during work hours. If you want to lose weight, maybe you'll want to cut down on those mojitos after work. There is always a cost price per action, and now that we got the core part of the contract, it's time to set the date. When is the exact date when you want to achieve your goal? Adding a clear time stamp on it will make you accountable if it someday it will never happen. And, as we all know, the road of someday leads to a town of nowhere. Look, I'm not judging or anything. I myself was planning to go into the training industry since five years ago and kept telling myself, I'll do that when I have some free time. And for two years I did absolutely nothing but dream about the idea those only when I literally set a deadline until I wanted to publish my first course that I started taking action towards achieving it. And this leads us to step number four having a plan. You know what you want. You know when you want it, you need to cover the how and that can involve anything from skills that you might need to get it. Resource is, you need to find in any other form of preparation the way you should tackle. This is by creating a roadmap for yourself. Let's say you want to become a front end developer, and your first steps are toe. Identify. What are the required skills, then the time it will take you to get them. And what are the steps you need to go through to get from where you are to where you want to be? You create several milestones and try to set a schedule for yourself. That's realistic, and you keep at it. A lot of the times. Huge changes are not made overnight, but with small steps each day towards ago. Consistency is what get you there, not leaps. Think of it as a marathon, not a sprint. Now comes step number five having a clear statement of this plan. This is your contract with yourself that you sign and plan to honor. Write it as a professional contract printed out and then do step number six. Read it out loud at least twice a day, preferably in the morning and in the evening before you go to bed. Now this might sound as the weird step of the entire process, but it's very important. The obvious and easiest way to explain it is that if it's out of sight, it's out of mind, and it's easy to do all the five steps. Forget about the sixth and ask yourself four months later. Why have I not reached my goals yet? Because you forgot about them. But reading it daily will keep you anchored and not get caught up in the day to day life and responsibilities. And then there's the other benefit, which is even more interesting. I think you'll agree with me that our subconscious mind has a big impact on the way we make decisions and do things. And reading the contract out loud will get your subconscious mind to play along and help you in achieving those goals. And you will experience this through ideas that you think you get out of nowhere. That's your subconscious mind working double time in the background. You witnessed this and simple things as writing a bicycle. At first you need to concentrate on keeping your balance battling, looking ahead. But once it becomes automated, you bike faster, better and can focus on something else while doing so. In fact, if you try to focus on something specific like your balance, you actually start losing it into a worse job at riding the bicycle. And that's more or less the complete recipe for gold setting and success, according to Napoleon, Help one of the founding fathers of personal development. Fast forward about 50 years, and you get the smart acronym specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and time bound. We already discussed the being specific and detailed side of things so we'll jump right to the measurable part is a great man once said. If it doesn't get measured, it doesn't get done. You can't keep track of progress without having a measuring unit for it. So try to identify a way to quantify your progress towards your goals. Then comes the next step. Your goals need to be attainable because while it's OK to have big bodacious objectives, there's a big difference between a dream and a plan, and this goes hand in hand with it being realistic. Look, as you might have encountered this by now, no matter how bad you want something to happen, some things require time. Let's say I want to do a series of 100 push ups by next week, currently only being able to do 10. While the goal itself is certainly attainable, that's a very unrealistic one, because that's not the way muscles work. And no matter how much I try, how many resource is I have at my disposal, that is never going to happen. So even if they're daring and difficult to reach, make sure your goals are realistic. And for the last point, time bound. We already discussed that and how important it is to maintain yourself accountable and on track. And now that we got the concepts out of the way, let's discuss how exactly you can integrate them into your schedule. I'll go on a limb and presume your goal is something that might take a few months or years . Anything less than three is okay, go farther out and things might change along the way. You might change. Also, the best portion in which to split your efforts is on a weekly basis. Basically, have a clear outline on your progress at the end of each week and have those building blocks lead to your final objective in a few months or years. What you do day by day is totally up to you as long as at the end of the week. You've reached the milestone, so encourage you to write a clear objective for yourself before proceeding to the next. Video can even be something simple that you always wanted to achieve and never got it. And that being said, it's time to move on to our next video, which covers decision making. See you there. 6. Your Decision Making: decision making and will cover the following what it is. Different styles of decision making and the pros and cons of each one, and most importantly, traps and risks either for individual or group decision making. So let's proceed. One of the most common mistakes is that it is seen as an event and not as a process. If we go by the dictionary definition, it's the process of selecting a choice from a range of possible options with the goal of achieving a very specific objective in the ideal way to analyze it is with the following mind frame you first prepare, then make the actual decision, and then you communicated to the relevant parties executed and then measure the results. I make adjustments depending on the feedback you get, and during this five step process, you need to always have in mind the following criteria. First, what is your desired outcome? What is the purpose of that decision? Second, what are all the available choices saying Yes, turn option usually means saying no to all the other. So always factor that in third, when is that decision needed, its speed important? There's taking it later. Limit your existing options. Does it save your organization from losses, or does it generate additional gains and forth? Who will that decision impact be it employees, clients, shareholders or business partners? At first, you might need to go over this sequence in a formal manner until you fully internalize it. But keeping track of these criteria will save you lots of headaches down the road. And the bigger your organization, the more important is not to overlook any of them know. Let's go over the five step process of decision making once more, but in detail. As I said, preparation is key because the more you investigate, the less you invest. Good preparation can open up more choices or can make the decision much easier and exposes your organization. The less risk, however, don't overdo it and risk paralysis by analysis where all you do is research and don't get to actually doing something about it. Or to quote General S. Patton. A good plan violently executed now is better than a perfect plan executed next week. Maybe you can leave out the violent part when making decisions for your business, but the speed at which you decide is always a defining factor in your ability to react, market changes, customer needs and competitors strategies. After finishing the preparations side of things, you just take the decision. And here we have quite a few things to discuss because there are several approaches to doing so. First, we have the autocratic decisions, which practically are dictatorial. One man has all the power, and if he or she is a gifted visionary, that's good for your business, because decisions are good and taken fast. However, if the person at the home of your ship takes the bad decision, then you should consider having ready your life jacket because that ship can sink very fast . Another downside for autocratic decision making is that people from the ranks might feel as if their input there's a matter and will become unsatisfied with their workplace. Then we have participative decision making where it's pretty much of the autocratic one. However, the person in charge takes em. But from team leaders from a council or board of directors, this usually steals the company away from any dangers that the leader has previously being blind to. Having multiple relevant viewpoints on any problem is always a good thing, and a good way to avoid risk. The downside is that it's lowered and autocratic decision making, so unless communication in your organization is streamlined, then you might have a problem. Then we have Democratic decision making, which is the best so far, but has its flaws as well. For starters, it's slower than the previous do. Also, it has the risk of people agreeing just to conform with the group. And if you look at it closely at the end of the day, it's still a dictatorship, for the majority decides for everyone and for our last form of decision making, we have consensus. This is by far the best of the four. However, it's the hardest to implement, takes a lot of negotiating, evaluating inputs and reaching common ground. Steven Covey called this the third alternative going for win win. But if you do manage to get this right and integrated in the way you run things, the beneficial impact that has on your business is tremendous. You have more synergy with in your team's happier, more efficient workers. People feel part of a whole and get this sense of community and contributing to higher purpose, as they say big rewards come to those who solve big problems. Moving on to the third step off the decision making process. We have another important part. Communication. It boils down to just three things. Number one. What? The decision was number two. Who made it in number three? Why was it made in all parties that are influenced by that decision? Need to be informed. And it's important to choose the appropriate child for each one in many cases, and email is enough. In some cases, a more personal approach might be required. So always evaluate the channel through which you communicate your decisions. For fourth step, we have execution, which I won't go into detail because it varies from company to company. In layman terms, this is about how you do things, your own procedures, and that's totally up to you. And the last step is measuring the results and impact. Your choice has an adapt if needed, and the reason why this is extremely important is because not all your decisions will be the right ones, and being able to react and get back on track can limit the damage or bad decisions can cause. And since we reached At this point, I'd like to break three popular myths about decision making. Number one, the CEO decides quite often that's who people blame when a company isn't doing well, although many of the important decisions are outside of their control, either he or she needs to take into account internal factors, policies and input that is not public board, the board decides, but long story short. The bigger the organization, the less power single man holds and the more variables that go into any decision Number two decisions are made in the meeting room at a scheduled time. This again is wrong because many come from people involved in actual work processes or after quick discussions at the water cooler. Well, it's true that they might take a formal shape during a meeting. More often than not, they come from an external need, be it work sequence market, need, a client request and so on and for our third common myth is they are highly intellectual. Although we like to believe that our decisions are logical, they are not. We make a lot of gut feeling choices, and quite often they are emotional, social and sometimes even political because At the end of the day, it's human nature to feel as much as we would like to be. A times were not robots, and we've reached the part of the video where I'd like to discuss a bit in detail the biggest problems and risks of decision making, one of which is cognitive biases. More precisely, many of our choices are not rational or even consistent with previous ones. Many studies have shown that people tend to be overconfident and might end up taking bigger risks than they initially estimated. Then comes even worse news. The sunk cost effect where after we invest significant resource is be a time or money were less willing to let it go, although it's a lost cause and we end up losing even more. Resource is you can see this problem in people who gamble. After losing a sum of money, they lose ever more trying to cover that initial loss. Don't fall into the trap of fighting to get back to zero. Then we have the recency effect where we trust more the information that is more readily available to us, and then we have one of the most common traps, which is that we are actively looking for data that supports our current views and ignore or rationalize the data that is in conflict with our beliefs. So how do you overcome all these challenges? How do you not make these mistakes? And the answer is surprisingly simple. Step number one Be aware of them. Simple is that if you know there are traps on the road ahead, you thread carefully and avoid most of them. Step number two. Don't disregard feedback and take your time with it. In fact, welcome negative feedback and opinions that contradict your own and step number three. Make candor part of your company culture, but none of the people that promoted most. This candor element is Jack Welch, who many consider one of the best CEOs of the century. He links this attributes to all successful companies that are looking for fast, sustainable growth, the ability to fully express yourself and give feedback, even if negative without people feeling hurt, oppressed or personally attacked. And before we wrap this up, I'd like to talk those that are not a one man show but part of a bigger team. Here's the good news group decisions are more often to not better than individual. And in fact, a study on the TV show Who Wants to Be a Millionaire found that 91% of the answers by the audience were correct. Staggering. However, in order for group decisions to be effective, they need to have these two important characteristics. For starters, the group needs to be diverse. Different cultures, disciplines, perspectives, expertise. Then you need to have independence. The candor I was referring to earlier people don't need to feel the need to conform, because if they do, then you go into group Think Something studied by psychologists Irving Yanis. And if I were to simplify all his life work in one sentence, people will go along to get along. And if your team is suffering from groupthink, then you get all the problems of group decision making and none of the benefits. That's why it's your responsibility to stimulate conflict and debate and not conflict, as in violence and personal attacks, but different points of view. So I'll end this decision making video with one important note. Don't overstress about always making the right decisions each and every time focus more on correcting bad ones when possible and always improve this be that which you make choices while at the same time aiming for consensus within your organization. In next video, we'll talk about your comfort zone. And how do we, you see things is not always the way things really are. See you in the next video. 8. Key Takeaways: key takeaways. So this entire section was about management of self. We started out with strategies to boost your willpower, discussing things like meditation, the pause in plan response, forgiving yourself and also burning down your ships and pre committing. Then we covered motivation and the importance of answering. Why do you want to achieve a certain goal in order to make sure it's what you really want and not just a placeholder for a totally different need? We then went over habits creation because, as the saying goes, motivation gets you started. Habits keep you going. We identify the core components of habits, discussing the cue, the routine, the reward. And let's not forget the craving and how that in order to replace or quit a bad habit, you need to attack one of the four part or that you can easily for new habits by building momentum with existing ones and also the importance of timing and why it's best to implement changes in your life or within your company and moments of crisis. Then we went directly to how to set effective goals either the Napoleon Hell way or using the more modern smart methodology. And after gold setting. We moved our focus, the decision making and how to avoid common traps in order to minimize risk and maximize results. Then we went over the final part of management of self your comfort zone, discussing also your reality map and how your perception of things can be flawed. And what are the steps, the fix, that using constructive imagination? Everything we talked about so far has the role of setting the foundation for what we will discuss in the next section. Your patterns consisting of strategies and techniques. The maximize work output without increasing time spent working. So I'm looking forward to see you in the next section. 9. The 4 Quadrants & P/PC Balance: module to your patterns. Look, there's this thing that both you and me and everyone else has in common. It's the great equalizer, the same 24 hours in a day. So ultimately, it's about doing more in less time. Well, they're just two ways of doing that. The 1st 1 is to get more efficient in how you use the time you already have, which is also the main focus of this course. And the 2nd 1 is to delegate will cover delegation in more detail later in the course. So for now, let's focus on managing your own time, and we'll start by discussing the four quadrants of time management MP PC Balance Concepts theorized by the late Stephen Covey. But before that, I want you to take part of this little experiment was the video and take a moment to think about. What would you do if you had one extra hour each day? So pause this. Think about it. No rush, but make sure that's what you would actually do if you had an extra hour all that thought for now, and we'll get back to it soon. We were talking about the four quadrants, top row. We have things that are important with the first quadrant being things that are also urgent . And these are problems and fires that you constantly have to put out two DUIs from your boss, a client calling you before to make a definition. There are things that act upon you from the environment that are urgent and pressing. Obviously, these are things you need to handle because you can just not do your job if you still want to have one tomorrow. This is something everyone has underplayed. No matter how high or low on the corporate ladder, they are moving on to the second quadrant. We have things that are still important but not urgent. Here we have things like prevention, planning, empowerment, renewal in relationship building in general, either with others or yourself. A quick clarification important is in relation to you things, people, tasks that are important to your value system. This is the quadrant where all highly effective people spend their time, and I'll get to that in just a moment. Corden three is composed of things that are urgent but not important, things that are either pressing, popular or simply proximate. In Quadrant four are things that are neither important nor urgent things like playing the latest video game that just launched watching the news or checking your Facebook feed every 15 minutes. Assuming we're all highly active professionals, most of our time is spent in Quadrant one in Quadrant three because there's always a new bug and you feature Our boss once added a new problem a client has, so we're constantly putting out fires. However, the problem with always being in Q one and Q three is that you get burned out and your driving motivation take a dive. And although you put in the hours, think just don't get done fast enough. And for every task you complete, two more appear and you just feel overwhelmed. And here comes Quadrant two. It never acts upon you. You have to be the one that takes initiative and act upon it. However, the more time you spend in quadrant to the smaller and smaller quadrant, one gets and you get even more time for quadrant to now. Obviously, problems will never go away, but it's one thing to have the situation under control and to constantly improve yourself and another to always be under stress and feel overwhelmed. But since you're here watching this course, you're already in Quadrant two. You're here not because I wrote an interesting course description, but because you took action and wanted to better yourself and get more value from your time . And I will get back to the question I asked at the beginning of the video. What would you do with an extra hour each day and most of the times? What people answer is something in quadrant to in general. The answer they give is spend more time with their family. Friends improved their current relationship with loved ones. And if we count only the ones directly related to business, it's something that involves learning, planning or preparation. Because if you don't spend time in those areas now, you will have serious headaches down the road. For me. Quadrant True was having a huge whiteboard in all my offices for close to 10 years now, and I think this is a good symbol for this type of activity because all the work done on that whiteboard is planning, preparation and seeing the big picture and having this bird's eye view before the start of a project before going into the trenches. Coding or planning a campaign has a huge impact on the outcome, and we all know how difficult it can get. If you want to make a change halfway through a project, it can sometimes be the equivalent of starting from scratch. The same goes with not allocating time for quadrant two activities. Spending more time in preparation and planning will save you 10 fold, and you won't have to mend fences and fix bugs down the road. Another way to look at this besides the four quadrants, is the PPC balance, where P stands for production and PC is production capability. Imagine having a software company that is very well established in its market, and you're now it's manager To impress your manager. You cut funding to bug fixing to support the development of new features. And guess what? Profits skyrocket and management is thrilled and you get a raise, maybe even climbed the corporate ladder. Then someone gets to replace you, and that person realizes that the product needs an update. New features to be added. Some downtime might be required. Even new hires for support from management's point of view, profits drop and costs go through the roof and the new product manager is seen as inefficient and the source of the company's downfall. All this story might be an exaggeration of re award circumstances. It shows the importance of P B C balance. If you look just at the bottom line, you can make any corporation profitable almost overnight. You just got employee training, research, development and anything that's BC related and profits quadruple. And for 1/4 or two, things are great. But before you start enjoying those profits, problems will start to rise. In Quadrant one, activities will dominate your business. To summarize these two principles, remember to allocate as much time as possible to quadrant two and never neglect the production capability of yourself of the team you're part of, or the company which can be anything from upgrading your skill set allocating time for maintenance of your infrastructure, planning, preparation and, of course, relationship building with your co workers. And now that we clarify this, I can't wait to talk to you about the Pareto principle and some interesting approaches to it. So I'm looking forward to see you in the next video 10. The Pareto Principle: the Pareto principle. It was first introduced by Joseph Juran and named after the Italian economist Wilfredo Pareto. It's also known as the 80 20 rule or the law off the vital few and the trivial many. In essence, what it says is that 80% of your results are caused by just 20% of your efforts. This can be adapted to many areas of your business. For example, 80% of your income is from 20% of your clients. 80% of complaints are from 20% of your customers, or 80% of your profits are from 20% of your investments and some more technical examples. Microsoft said that 20% of their bugs caused 80% of their errors, and in software development, 20% of the code usually has 80% of the errors. However, an important thing to remember about the Pareto principle is that the two values don't always need to add up to 100. So, for example, you can have 64% of your results to come from 4% of your work. What stays the same is the principle that most of your results come from a small percentage of your time, and what you should focus on is to expand that timeframe and make it as big as possible. And if you're in a management position, here is what Jack Welch, arguably the greatest CEO of the century, dead while he ran General Electric each year, the top 20% of the employees got raises and the words mid 70% were encouraged to become the top 20% and bottom 10% got fired. This way, the company was constantly evolving. Same should happen with your time. The most rewarding activities should be done when you are most rested and energized and should have priority over all the other activities. So a quick exercise for you will be to first identify what activities bring you the most results. This can be measured and lines of code written sales generated or customers enquiries answered. After having a clear understanding of your role in the team you're part of. You can easily identify those activities with high returns and always make them a priority above all others. If your job is more complex, here is a simple strategy to determine what tasks to do First, grab a pen of paper and write down all your to do's for the day or for the week. Then you need to assess the effort and results for each item on that list. So sign each to do an effort value from 1 to 10 and the results value from 1 to 10 10 being a huge effort to result in one being a small effort or result. Then divide results by effort, and you will get a priority value for each item on that list. To get the most out of your day or week, just start working on those tasks with the highest priority. First, even if you will not complete all of them, you will show you get the most results possible for that particular time frame. Also here is another creative twist to the Pareto principle that you can apply to your daily activities. Let's say you have three hours and plan a reading three articles. A great way to tackle this is the just's came through 12 articles in one hour and then allocate two hours reading in detail. The best two articles this way you were surely get the best value for your time. Well, Let's say you have to write a block post for your company. Instead of allocating an hour to writing, allocate 10 minutes to brainstorming ideas than 50 minutes to write the best idea you had during the brainstorming session. Same can be applied to all types of activities. So a quick to do after watching this video is the think of creative ways to tackle your existing work, to get more value from your time by using the Pareto principle. That being said, I'm looking forward to see you in the next video where we'll talk about the gray zone and how you should measure your time in energy levels, not just hours and minutes of work, so I'll see you in the next video. 11. The Grey Zone & Energy Levels: the gray zone and measuring productivity in energy, not time. Okay, so here's something that I found myself guilty off quite often any. But all of us have fallen into the strap at least once, and that productivity sin is not being committed to what you're doing right now. More precisely, thinking about friends and family while you're at work, or even worse, think about work while you're with friends and family. This way, you lose out on both because you're not enjoying each one. This is called being in the Gray Zone, not being fully focused and engaged on the task at hand. And this also happens when you commit another big productivity. Send multitasking in a study by the same Me Holly chick sent me. I I mentioned in the previous video. He says that the human brain can only process 110 bits of information per second. That's why you can't listen to two or three people talking at the same time and focus because listening and understanding to people takes about 60 bits of information per second to process. So multitasking robs you of the true focus you can allocate to a task while It has moments where it's useful for auto many tasks that don't require creativity and focus for those that bring you the most value. Multitasking is a curse, and for the remainder of this video, I'd like to go through an interesting exercise that will help you better define and understand the gray zone and how to not get stuck in it. So let's call the time you're productive and your talent time, because that's when you use your strength and generate value and achieve your professional goals. And let's call your renewal time those moments when you relax, refresh and recharge. Now what I want you to do has pause this video and take a few moments and create a list of activities for each one, listing all the activities where you utilize your strength and those when you renew. You can have things like creating that genius marketing campaign where you use your main strength. Oh, you can list meditating or working out or having a beer with friends when you renew from work. After doing so, you will have to complete the slightly more difficult task of identifying for each item on that list. What are the friction blocks that stop you from doing those activities with 100% focus and also think of the conditions and structures for you to actually do them. This way, you will be able to put in place systems that will allow you to do those activities better and on demand, and if repeated long enough, they will become automatic and transform into habits. And, as Aristotle said, we are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then, is not an act but a habit. So once again, remember to avoid the gray zone. To get the most out of your day, identify your talent activities and your renewal ones and set up systems that transform them into habit. And that's about everything regarding the Gray Zone. If you want to read more on this topic, I encourage you to check out the power of full engagement. By Tony Schwartz. In the book, Tony Shorts and Jim Lower discussed this principle of energy where time is not the fundamental currency of high performance. They got to the conclusion after working with top athletes and identifying how do you manage to get big performance at specific times in their studies? They identified that full engagement relies on four sources physical, emotional, mental and spiritual, and a great way to look at all. This is as if they were muscles and has you already know. You get reduced capacity both from overuse and from under use, so identifying your limits and outgrowing them should be. Your constant focus, however, never neglect the recovery side of things. Shorts calls it renewal. Steven Covey calls it sharpening the saw the seven habit, but in essence, it's allowing time to recover both mentally, physically, emotionally and spiritually. So to expand your limits, you must systematically go beyond your comfort zone. However, having to consciously do this requires a lot of effort and is not sustainable If done consciously, that's why you'll need to create a ritual, a habit that ensures you don't need to use conscious energy all the time, but rather automation and habit patterns. We already discussed habit creation in the previous section, so you should easily be able to manage this. And now for this video, you have the task of creating some form of ritual for yourself to easily get slightly outside your comfort zone and also create one for renewal. It can be with regards to any activity, no matter how big or small. The main purpose is for you to realize this works so you can apply it to any side of your life. In the next video, we'll cover one of the most talked about productivity techniques right now, the Pomodoro technique and also about flow, something that all great minds used to deliver impeccable work. So I'm looking forward to see you in the next video. 12. The Pomodoro Technique & The State of Flow: the Pomodoro technique vs the State of Flow. If someone told me that one of the most famous time management techniques of this decade would be based on a kitchen timer in the shape of a tomato, I wouldn't have believed it well. The Pomodoro technique proves that great ideas are not limited just to laboratories or research centers, but the kitchen as well. So what it is and how does it work? It's actually quite simple. It's based on the idea that if you structure your time in chunks of productive, uninterrupted work with small breaks in between, you will get far more done than usual. So what do you do? Is work 25 minutes, then take a five minute break. Each continuous 25 minutes is a Pomodoro. After four pool indoors, you can take 15 to 30 minute break. And believe me, you will be amazed by how much you can get done by zoning out and focusing on one single task at a time. You'll be surprised by the results after just six Pomodoro is a day. Also, studies have shown that these frequent breaks increased mental agility so you won't be lagging behind or losing productivity throughout the day. So much. Look, I'm perfectly aware that some of you can't completely shut off the world and we'll get distracted. And the solution to this would be the four step formula to Pomodoro interruptions. Number one. Inform people about what you're doing and ask them not to interrupt your Pomodoro number two. Negotiate the time where you can discuss what they wanted to ask. Number three. Remember to schedule time for that discussion, and number four called them back at the scheduled time. As faras tools go for using the Pomodoro technique, you can either go with the physical timers or with enough version. I prefer the app for multiple reasons. For starters, it looks cooler, and I have my phone with me all the time, so it's accessible. Also, an app keeps track of what project I'm working on and how many Palm adores it took for each task, and you can adjust the taking sound as well because sometimes it gets me more focused by creating that sense of urgency with the time around. But after 89 Commodores, it can get annoying, and I sometimes muted something you can't really do. It a physical timer, however, in my pursuit to make this course the only one you'll ever use. When it comes to productivity, I want to mention a principal totally different and somewhat opposed to the Pomodoro technique and referring to the state of flow that almost trancelike state were hours bass like minutes where you're fully immersed in a task and feel as if things are on autopilot and you get an enormous productivity boost. Also called hyper Focus Me, Holly Chicks and Me High, a psychology and management professor at Claremont University, is someone who studied and researched the concept of flow extensively. In fact, I recommend you listen to his Ted talk as well after watching this course, and he says that flow happened when you're doing a task that challenges you and also your skilled in that area. That's why I think this chart of challenge level versus kill level would help. You better understand things. As you can see, flow is somewhere between arousal and control, and obviously, if you have no skill in a big challenge, you will get to worry or even have anxiety. If you have high skill and a small challenge, you will get relaxed or even board now. I know some of these might seem quite self evident, however, from experience. Having a visual representation of a principle makes it far more helpful than just telling you about it. So what is better at the end of the day to focus on getting in the state of flow or to use the Plumadore technique and constantly interrupt yourself every 25 minutes? Ultimately, it's up to you. That's why showcase both ends of the productivity continue, however, keep in mind that they still have in common something, and that's focusing on a single task and not getting distracted. So I recommend you experiment with both and stick with the one that works for you. For example, I sometimes don't track my time. However, starting the day with a Pomodoro sets the tone for the entire day because it gets me in that state of I will get stuff done today. So I'm not saying in any way that one approach is superior to the other because both have countless benefits. In the case of Pomodoro, all those five minute breaks will be a good occasion to get up from your chair move a bit around the room and stretch. This will also reduce eyestrain. So if physically you're not as in shape as you want to be, maybe you should pick the first option. And as far as the state of flow goes, what I didn't tell you and saved it for last is that the study initially was focused on what makes people happy and creative in the research shows that the more you are in that state of flow, the more fulfilled you will be with your work. So whatever method you use, as long as you apply one or the other, you will always get some additional benefits. It's all down to what's more important to you right now, and what fits more your personal style coming up. Next, we have a subject that we started scratching the surface of in this video. It's multitasking and how bad it could be for your productivity levels. So I'm looking forward to see you in the next video 13. Multitasking: multitasking, and we'll start with why we do it so much. Continue with why it's bad for us and then show you methods to remove multitasking from your schedule altogether. So why do we like multitasking in the first place? Well, in many ways, it's like a drug. A study by Earl Miller, an M. I T. Neuroscientist, shows that switching between tasks and completing various many tasks, like answering an email replying to a tweet, gives us a surge of dopamine. For those of you not familiar with it, it's a neurotransmitter that, when released, gives you pleasure. And this action reward process creates the feedback loop. And the more we do it, the more we reinforce that loop and the more likely we are to do it again. So how exactly is multitasking bad for us? The first serious studies are multitasking, and its effects on the brain started in the 19 sixties in the initial findings were quite interesting. Your brain never actually does multitasking, but just which is really fast from one task to another, and the searching effect is where all the damage happens. It has been proven that it decreases learning and the ability to assimilate new information and skills. Also, the work you do, while multitasking is prone to having far more errors. If you don't believe me, try for yourself this simple experiment. Write an article in complete silence, then write another article while having a conversation with someone. You'll be amazed by the lack of quality of your 2nd 1 Some more recent studies have shown that multitasking actually lowers your I Q. While doing those tasks and is similar to skipping a night's sleep. And although not relevant to work, if you molted ask while driving, you are four times more likely to have an accident. And this just shows you once more the impact on your brain and its ability to perform multitasking has. So how do you stop it and deliver more great work? And the first step is to carefully choose your tools. Most of them do more harm than good. For example, having a knee email or Facebook notifications on is in no way a productivity tool because while working, you will constantly get interrupted and never fully focused on the task at hand. That's why I encourage you to take off in an hour or more if needed and sort out which tools actually help you and which ones do more harm by constantly interrupting you throughout today, Step number two is to replace old habits with new ones. We already discussed habit gration in the previous section, but let's quickly go over it once more. It's actually quite simple. You have a que, which is basically the set environment and circumstances to start it, the actual habit and then the reward. The reward element will eventually generate a craving. That's why it's so hard to quit a habit. This can be seen very easily in people who smoke. Whenever someone else lights a cigar, their brain notices it and starts craving for one as well. And before you know it, they have a cigar in your hand. So the ideal way to stop this never ending loop is to either remove the habit cue from your life or to somehow break the sequence. And here's a personal example of what I did a few years back. I found myself obsessively going to this website with a lot of Mihm's and comics, and it just became an automated reflex. Whenever I got bored or something I opened the new tab and Bam! 10 minutes later, I realized I didn't do anything productive. So what I did was install a browser Arden called block site. It's not really that relevant, which one it is. But what's important, what it did, it allowed me to block websites. So whenever my brain went on autopilot to that website, it was not given. The rewarded usually got, but instead it got a get back toe work, bro. Message. And what? At first I saw that page quite often, especially in the first few days. Eventually, I lost the craving to go to that website. So I broke the habit with a simple browser extension. Same can be applied to any habit you currently have that is robbing you of productivity. No, since I can't know all your bad habits or your procrastination websites, it is up to you to be honest with yourself. So your next obvious step is to eliminate bad habits and form new ones. You can start with what's in front of you right now. Your desk block notifications on your phone removal the clutter from it because the more things you have a front of you, the more things that are likely to distract you, then move to your screen. Do you have any unnecessary Adan's total bars, things that you never use or that just bam you with drivel? Information. Remove anything that is not core to your goals and work flow. I'm not saying you are no longer allowed any form of distraction or that all your time should be spent working a full 10 hours a day. But to read or create a system where you decide when you take a break and watch a cat video on YouTube instead of the cat deciding for you, you can do this by using the Pomodoro principle you've learned in the previous videos or by giving yourself a reward. Whenever you reach a specific milestone, you know best what reward is proportional to an hour or two of productivity during the day , and after achieving a goal, completing a significant task, you can take a guilt free brake, and that's about all in relation to multitasking. So remember the three step formula to cure it. Choose the right tools, create the right habits and say no to distractions by blocking or removing them all together. And in the next video, we will talk about information overload, the problems it creates and how to deal with it effectively. I'm looking forward to see you in the next video. 14. Information Overload: information overload. If we were to make a chart of the biggest problems the modern professional faces, this would be at the top of the list. I will tackle this, similar to how we tackle the previous videos as well. I'll start with some context and formalize the problem, and then I'll cover to unpleasant conditions. Information overload creates, in this case the paradox of choice and paralysis by analysis. Anna Linda Video with some exercises on how to deal with it and improve your current work process. So let's proceed. Information overload is basically the difficulty a person can have understanding an issue and make decisions due to the presence of too much information. If you want a more industrial definition, it's when input exceeds processing capacity. So how much information are we actually exposed to? Well, a study by the University of California concluded that the average household consumes about 6.90 bytes of information a year. That's a 1,000,000 million gigabytes. And to bring that figure toe on easier understanding were exposed toe 100,000 words each day. Beer information that crosses our eyes or something we hear or reading the study, something that Eric Schmidt said a few years ago came to mind every two days. We create as much information as we did from the dawn of civilization up until 2000 and three. So you could say that the numbers above will only rise in the years to come. And the two unpleasant conditions this creates are one paradox of choice. Basically, the more choices you have, the more unsatisfied you'll be with your decisions. This is covered in detail in the book with the same name by psychologist Berry Shorts. Long story short. More choices. More freedom creates higher expectations. And whenever you make a decision yet, what platform to create uni upon or what type of sandwich to eat today, we'll always make you think. What if one off the other choices would have bean better? Another bad side to having lots of choices is that whenever you are not satisfied with the results of your decision, it's your fault and buried. The author gives a great example about him buying jeans. If there is only one type of jeans, you buy them, and if you're not happy with how they fit, it's not your fault. But if there are 100 types of jeans, and you get one that is close to perfect. You're actually less satisfied with the choice because you'll keep thinking, What if there was a better choice out there? And if you don't like them, it's your fault for making the bad decision. And the second unpleasant side effect of information overload that is even more specific to technical professionals is paralysis by analysis. This is quite frequent and software development and manifest through exceedingly long phases of project planning requirements, gathering and data modelling. Those of you familiar with agile software development might have heard of this as an example for anti patterns. In fact, agile development explicitly seeks to prevent paralysis by analysis by promoting an iterative work cycle that emphasizes on working products over product specifications. And now that we went through all the hardships that information overload grades, it's time to focus on dealing with it. I'll give you five methods on this. The 1st 1 is actually more of an exercise do a brain dump, so what you have to do is write down a list of all the things that are going through your head right now, so Positives video. They make a long list of everything that's on your mind, every task, every to do, every problem, every business deal. Everything should take your few minutes done. Perfect. Now what you have to do for each item on that list is decide an exact time when you will complete it or just decide to remove it from the list altogether. So if it's a business venture that you were offer, either accept it and put things into motion. Or just let the other side know that you're not interested for the time being, because having 100 things in the someday category is just a waste of your brain power and energy and will limit your power to focus. Method number two In dealing with information overload is the two minute rule. So what you have to do is split your task in these two categories the ones that take more than two minutes and ones that take less. Then group up all those small tasks and do them in the same compact timeframe because if you keep alternating from those bigger tasks to those two minute ones, they will become 10 minutes and also constantly switching your focus from one to another won't help your productivity either. And the third method to deal with information overload is to make the important decisions first. We talked about this in the previous section, where I discussed prioritizing tasks, but I want to share another insight on this. In the book The Willpower Instinct author Kelly McGonigal discusses How will power is a limited resource? So if you use it on trivial decisions and tasks when you will be faced with the important ones, you might run out of it. That's why it's essential to start with the important tasks first. And many companies use this information on your willpower being a limited resource, and you can see it every day in supermarkets in the way they place their products to maximize profits. There's a whole science to product placement. The structure vials, what goes on eye level and what doesn't pricing and even the music. And for the fourth method of dealing with information overload, we have pushed down authority, and this is extremely useful for managers. It's basically stewardship delegation. You delegate in such a way that the people you manage understand the project goal. So you don't have to review their methods. You just analyze the results and the last and sometimes hardest to implement solution to information overload is to turn things off. You can't get overloaded with information if there's no emitter, so turn off phone notifications for interrupting gaps. Close the TV and radio and, most importantly, that email tab opened in your browser. And if you practice even one of these methods, you will see a significant increase in dealing with information overload and noticed benefits in your decision making speed as well. In the next video will discuss the topic that burdens most of us. It's procrastination, knowing what you have to do, why you have to do it but delaying it until the last minute anyway. And if you have this problem, I hope the next video will help you and the fight against procrastination and get that project you've been delaying done already. So I'm looking forward to see you in the next video 15. Procrastination: procrastination. The dictionary definition is the action of delaying or postponing something. Look, if you don't have any trouble with procrastination, you can just skip this video altogether. All you can get some value from it if you have a friend or team member who is a chronic procrastinator. The problem with this is that the solution is not that obvious. And if advice like stop procrastinating would work, then the solution to obesity would be to tell obese people to lose weight. Tell the press people to avoid apathy, and you get the idea when doing the research for this topic, I found many approaches to explaining the concept and solutions to the problem, but one that stuck with me the most and got enormous amounts of attention was a block post from wait. But why? Written back in 2013 in fact, that Block Post got so much attention that the author Tim Urban, wrote to follow a block post to further explain the concept. So all credit goes to him on this one. However, interpretation and other ideas are an added bonus by myself that will hopefully help you deal with procrastination better. So let's resume for a second that you're a normal person. That is a rational decision maker. You know what things you have to do. You plan them out and do the work gradually and more often than not deliver on time. Unfortunately, the mind of the procrastinator is different. You have someone else that occasionally takes control of the steering wheel. It's the instant gratification monkey, and this monkey has a very hedonistic view on life. Basically, all it cares about is now and being capping the present and doesn't do any long term planning. And the problem procrastinators have is that this monkey is in control more often than they would like. So you might wonder, how do they ever get things done? And the answer is because there is another crew member called the Panic Monsour. But he is asleep most of the time and only participates when the deadline gets too close and there's danger of a disaster happening. So, for example, if you have to write a business plan in three weeks, the instant Gratification monkey will just watch YouTube videos, read articles and news that have nothing to do with the project. Check your email every five minutes even do other tasks. If that involves the laying work on that important business plan, and when the deadline gets too close for comfort, that panic monster wakes up the instant gratification monkey runs away, and once again you get at the steering wheel and get to work All pistons running and usually somehow you managed to deliver it on time or with small delays. However, this is at a cost. For starters, you hate yourself for not doing the best work you could do and quite often, underachieve. And it's extremely unpleasant to pull all nighters when you know you had more than enough time to deliver the work. And you never get to doing things the way you want to do them, because you're always alternating between procrastinating and panicking and finishing things last minute. Not to mention the blows to your self esteem and self worth, for knowing that you could have done the task better with less stress and that you promised yourself that you wouldn't ever do this again. So how do you cure procrastination? And although it's not technically a disease, well, that's what they said about depression until 40 years ago. I'm pretty sure there will be medication for procrastination 10 years from now. But a filled then you need to get things done without guilt, anxiety and self hatred because of the instant gratification monkey and the solution will be something that you hate and love at the same time. It involves planning and doing, and all procrastinators love planning. However, most of the times the plants are pretty vague. For example, let's say you want to learn to code. Well, this is a no ideal set up for failure. First, you'll waste lots of time identifying the right language. Which one is best? The pros and cons. Then you might schedule time but will post phone it for whatever reason, because you see learning to code as this huge undertaking, when in fact it's like building a house. You just leave one brick at a time, and eventually you will get the house built. Even if you lay a brick a day, house will get built at some point. In fact, a quote from wait. But why stuck with me? And I hope it will have the same impact on you. A remarkable and glorious achievement is just what a long series of un remarkable on glorious tasks look from far away, and this applies to all areas of life. If you want to lose weight, you don't do it overnight. You watch your diet, exercise each day, and eventually you will get there. If you want to learn how to code, you practice each day, one hour or more, and eventually you will master it. And the more time and effort you put into it, the faster you will become skilled in that particular area, however, never neglect the renewal time, as we discussed in the previous videos. But getting back on the topic of planning, you already know how to do it. You know how to set effective goals, deal with multitasking and information overload and also have the techniques to take action like the Pomodoro technique, for example. So it's time to put them to good use and decide on one thing that you want to commit to and what is required to see it to freshen. It can be a career shift, that important side project you've been putting off for months now, or even something personal, like running your first marathon, and each day or every time you schedule for it, do it. And this is the second part of the solution to procrastination. Doing this is the make it or break it moment actually starting because this is where the instant gratification monkey is the strongest. Once you get started, its powers weakened because what it thrives on is your low self esteem. And after you started working on your goal, you immediately feel better about yourself because you're actually doing not just planning and further down the road you are with your go, the easier it will be to keep doing it because you can slowly start to see the finish line . And this is when the crazy part happens. Remember your arch nemesis, the instant gratification monkey and how he only likes to have fun and seeks only pleasure . Well, when it sees that you're at 70% with your project, it knows that when you finish it, he will get to have fun and no longer forces you to procrastinate. So you're far more likely to finish a project if you don't quit early on. So here are five things to remember in your struggle with procrastination. Number one know that everything you do is choice. Even your state of mind is Joyce. How you react to circumstances is choice. So if you plan on learning code for one hour each day and you miss one day for a very objective reason, you can either decide to stop altogether or do not give up and forgive yourself for the heck up and get back on track number to create methods to defeat the monkey. This is mostly dealing with interruptions, which we already discussed in the course. Number three. Measure your progress. Keep track each day of how far along you are with your goal. Even that 1% progress will keep you motivated. Slow progress is still progress, and if we both do the same things each day, but you learn something for just one hour, that's a 4% difference in our activities. But one year down the road, you have mastered the new skill, and I am in the same place I was last year. That's how big of a difference a 4% shift can make. Number four. Remember that future U is a real person, and he or she is not that much different from present you. So whenever you delay something future, you will have to handle it. But he has the same habits, the same fitness, the same everything. So the next time you avoid doing something, remember that you yourself are the future. You at some point, and number five proved to yourself, you can do it. Whenever an athlete has a cold streak, they don't get out of it until they actually start doing and getting results. And the fastest way to raise your confidence is by doing and showing yourself you can do it and that's about it on procrastination. And yes, I know this was not the most scientific approach to it. But the reason I chose this format is because it got incredible results and attention. And although trivial, it gets the job done and this was the last topic will cover. As faras your patterns go. We'll end this module with a quick summary and some key takeaways. And then we'll move on to the next section where we discuss your team. So I'm looking forward to see you in the next video key takeaways 17. Your Role: this entire section will cover. Your team will go over everything from recruiting the best people you can, no matter de location out of manager project have effective meetings clear and concise progress reports and much more. But before everything, we need to clearly define your role. So let's start with the basics. Since you're watching this, you might be in one of two categories. Either you are an entrepreneur and want to scale your efforts or your highly skilled that something and want to grow a business wrong. That this course will help you have a bigger impact. Either way, the principles of building your team stay the same. When it comes to yourself, you need to focus on your strengths and not your weaknesses, and the people you get on board should be strong with your week. If you want to build something better, it only makes sense to get people that can outperform you, or at least have the potential to do so with the proper context. So before building your team, make sure you have a clear outline of your strong points in your weaknesses. So you hire the right people for the right tasks. You might be good at quick starting and getting an idea off the ground, but you might be horrible at follow up. That's why you need someone to cover your blind spots. And although we'll go over recruiting and detailed in the next video, keep in mind for now that there are two aspects when choosing the right people. First you have their value system, which is more in eight and harder to change things like how they view business, how they deal with people. How do you react to stress? And then there's the skill part of things, which many companies focus on when recruiting and end up regretting down the road. You might have a highly skilled person and realize months later that he or she is not a culture fit with the way you see or do things, and the workflow becomes ineffective because they don't share the same vision. So what, you saved short term by not having to train someone you lose long term because there will be some internal conflict or that person might become unproductive or even decide to switch jobs because they don't share your why the reason you do things and anyone who ever did Recruiting knows how hard it is to get to that point where communication is flawless and without friction, because everything requires trust and trust requires time. So once more, remember these core aspect of your old. You need to have a clear vision of things and what you want to build and make sure the people you hire share that vision. Also, you need to be self aware and know what your strengths and weaknesses are and hire people to compensate for those weaknesses and number two. While job specific skills are important, make sure your future team members view of things is in alignment with yours. Because while skills can be gain pre fast, you can't change a person's view off life overnight. So prioritized the Y over the how and besides these two, you need to lead by example. There's nothing more inspiring or contagious than passion, and you should be the one that shares that with your team and make them believe in the vision and be part of it. That being said will jump to recruiting and the actual steps of building your team. So I'm looking forward to see you in the next video 18. Recruiting: recruiting. This is cord your success because you decide a team with which you will face both good and bad, and they will determine the outcome of your business. And as Bill Gates said while he was building Microsoft, take our 20 best people away and I will tell you that Microsoft would become an unimportant company. And it's not always about hiring the best individual talent, but rather hiring the ones with the most synergy. And you can see this in sports, where individual value alone is not the defining outcome for victory. If teamwork is not present. And although that synergy Beit communication goals or vision can be thought or grown, you need to make sure there is potential for growth in the first place. And that's the hardest part when recruiting, identifying potential and drive. So how do you do that? Do you look at a person's work? Do you look at how they talk? Maybe they're a good interviewer. Maybe they are just charismatic. So how do you make the best choice? And here are some guidelines that will help you do just that. For starters, take a bird's eye view of what they say their goals are and the steps they took towards achieving those goals. And if there are clear signs of inconsistency between the two, this should be an alert. And you might even ask them about this clash between golds in action and see what response they give. The second thing you should keep your eye on is more related to skill, and this is see what they do in their spare time. For example, if you're hiring a designer, ask them what they do in their spare time. If it's still design work for personal projects than chances are, this is their true passion, and they don't see it as just a job, then ask them to share with you the projects they liked because sometimes a portfolio might be worked at a client chose not what they thought was best. Then comes action because while some might be good at interviewing, what you're hiring them for is execution. So what you should do is start a small project with them could be a few hours of work for a few days, where you assess the way they do their job bid. How good they estimated their time. The responsiveness order way to communicate their discipline if they need constant monitoring or not, if they're autonomous and, of course, their skill level. Practically what you get is a glimpse of what they will be as a team member when they will join the company. Although I said you need to hire people with a similar vision. Don't confuse that with hiring people because you like them or because they like you both are dangerous and expensive mistakes. Another important factor in your decision making is to start with stars. Don't hire people with the helps of changing them. Nothing has a lower return on investment or high risk. Also, make sure all your team is made up off a players and what I mean by a players is internally motivated. People with a similar drive, each one highly skilled in the role as autonomous as possible, not agreeing and search for approval or disagreeing because of ego. People focused on delivering great work, and the reason you need your entire team to be all a players is because they amplify each other and time to get this broadband connection between their brains and just deliver impeccable work at an incredible pace. no ego's no friction, no politics, just great work. However, this benefit comes with a risk, if you could a C player between them. What happens is that they instantly all become see players because they no longer focus on the work because they just don't understand why this new person is not as driven and committed to the goal as they are. So whenever you make new hires, make sure you're making the right decision. And don't break the existing synergy and the last factor you should take into consideration when recruiting is to never limit yourself the local talent and go worldwide, hire the best people you can in the world, not the best people in your city. That being said, I'm looking forward to see you in the next video, where we start things out with analyzing remote work, the pros, the cons and everything in between. After that, we'll focus extensively on the operational side of things and how to manage your team effectively 19. Working Remotely: working remotely, and we're going to cover this and four steps. First will discuss the benefits because there are plenty of them, both from the employer and the employee point of view. Then we'll cover the drawbacks of remote work because they are present as well. Afterwards will jump to methods of maximizing the benefits of remote work and minimizing the risks. So let's talk about the benefits for the employer in this case you, and you'll see why they considerably outweigh the drawbacks. For starters, you have access to the best talent you can get worldwide. You're no longer limited to a local market, which can sometimes either have a workforce that's too expensive or lacks the high skilled professionals you're searching for. Another benefit is the fact that offsite employees usually involved lower costs and logistics. You no longer required the infrastructure necessary for a big team like an office in all the bells and additional services and responsibilities that come with it. The third grade aspect of having a remote team is that you can easily spot underperformers . Usually, people that don't perform well in the role might compensate through charisma, however, would remote teams individual results are far more easily noticeable if you put in place the right systems. And the fourth benefit is one overlooked. Many times, however, it can really show in terms of productive work delivered, its having fewer interruptions. You have far less distractions from co worker because people can't really come by your desk and ask you something and ruin your flow. And then there's the fact that due to all the benefits they have, your employees will be happier. And speaking of that, what are dare winds if they're part of a remote team? For starters, it's the fact that they no longer waste time on commuting. Suddenly, going to the office takes just 10 seconds, and getting those two extra hours each day to spend with friends and family is quite a bonus. Then we have the fact that they conduce more rewarding work than the local opportunities. Remember or chat about the state of flow where you are skilled and faced with a challenge, and how being in that state makes you happy and fulfilled no longer being restricted to the local market means they can be part of projects they actually want to be a part of Now that location is irrelevant. And you might be wondering, Well, if it's all that great, then why isn't everyone doing it? And the truth is that although great remote work has some drawbacks as well, and you need to always consider them and make sure to keep them in check, for example, you might lose on the human connection side of things. So sharing and making people be part of the vision might be a bit more difficult if you never talk to them in person or do so once or twice a year. Then there's the fact that the people you do employees need to have discipline and self control because it's easy to lose focus if you're at home and have minimal supervision and interaction with your team. And remember those distractions from co workers. We talked about the year well, they might still exist, but in this case they might be from friends and family who don't really understand that although home, their loved one is actually at work. So what can you do to make remote work work and in essence, is just about two things relationships and systems you need to build the relationships between your team members, and you can do that either with periodic calls, face to face meetings or a to least have a yearly meet up. Also, you should over communicate your vision. Your goals changes events so people feel part of this tribe, even if they're halfway around the globe. In fact, many studies concluded that happiness comes from just four things. Number one perceived growth number two, perceived control, number three connectedness and number four higher purpose. And while the first suit come from doing the work itself, the remaining ones are your responsibility to encourage and facilitate. Then comes the second thing you need to manage to get the most out of your remote team, and that is setting in place the right systems. And this involves everything from choosing the right project management tools, having effective meetings, implementing a proper progress report system. Things which will covering detail in the rest of the section, that being said will end our talk on remote work here and jump to the first operational factor of your team efficient project management, covering strategy duels and optimization. So I'm looking forward to see you in the next video 20. Project Management: project management, and what this boils down to is communicating with your team. Just three things. These are your vision, the actual steps and gold store for filling that vision and then tracking progress on those goals. And to do all this, you need a variation off the following tools, for starters, a common calendar. So everyone has a big picture of when everything needs to get done. And as we discussed in the gold setting video, if things are not time bound than the odds of getting them done are diminished, then we have a chat for all instant communication. The reason why chat is superior to calls or face to face requests is because it limits interruptions while at the same time it's fast and efficient a chat you can always ignore if you have something truly important to finish, and that usually makes the difference between a productive or an unproductive day as faras tools, you can use anything that works for. You initially created a group on Facebook but realized it distracted the team because when you're on Facebook, you can easily get distracted and caught up by non work conversations with friends and family and you'll just one click away from scrolling through your newsfeed. However, a good solution was Skype, but even that can become disruptive if you're part of multiple teams or have multiple topics in the same group chat. The option that worked best but had similar problems with Skype was slack. I know everyone is on the high trainers for a slag goes, but it does the job. The only problem is that it can get really noisy fast for bigger teams moving Garnett Communication You'll always want something, not instant. And this takes the shape of a message board where people can get updates on what's happening on everything that involves them without having to read through hundreds of line of chat. You can solve this by using a private forum for your company or by adding a message board plug into your website or by using various project management taps. The one I personally prefer is base camp and have been a user since forever. The next essential part of project management is something we all adore to Marcus complete . It's our to do's and will enjoy that little dose of dopamine we get each time in complete one and get to move on to the next. As far as to do is go. If you're still a one man show, you can go with whatever you want. I think these past few years I use, like 90% of old two DUIs and productivity APS available. However, if you plan on growing your team, make sure you use something that allows an easy transition to a team work environment with the risk of sounding a bit biased. I use base camp for this as well, but you can go with any other software like to do, which does a great job or trail. Oh, that tackles things a bit different with the whole project board interface. Other worth mentioning software. I used this asana or Reich, both having great interfaces and being a nice medium toe working. After two DUIs. You have your documents and files. And while most project management software have this feature, I personally recommend using a specialized service like Dropbox, Google Drive or one drive. I use Dropbox because it works great, never glitches easy to use on a daily basis and has an almost an existent learning curve. Also, I'm forever grateful to them for a future where it saves previous versions, off files or deleted wounds. And that can be a lifesaver if you ever happen to be in such a desperate situation. And the last core component of great project management is a progress report, and although they might not seem a core activity, you'll be amazed by how powerful they are if implemented properly. The simplest form of reports I've used consistently is the G R P format, with goals results in problems where you right at the end of each day for 5 to 10 minutes. What you plan to achieve, what you actually achieved and why you didn't. By having access to all these you'll know at all times what's the status of each person on your team. It also have the capacity to help them out and execute better by solving the problems they face. The simplest way implemented. This is by adding a form to my website where people completed it at the end of each day. Of course, you can use an email auto responders for this, or use a project management software that has this feature. But whatever you do, make sure you keep doing it because that's where the value comes from. In fact, the most difficult part of it is to transform this into a habit for everyone. We'll go into more depth on the benefits of progress reports later in this module. So for now, remember that in order to have effective project management execution, you need to have all these six needs met a calendar chat, a message, board a to do system, proper documents and files management in a streamlined report system. That being said, we move onto the next subject where will analyze what makes meetings effective and how you can avoid making them black holes of productivity. So I'm looking forward to see you in the next video. 21. Effective Meetings: effective meetings, and these are by far the black holes of business productivity, and they are as much disruptive as they are expensive. For example, something as mundane as a one hour meeting in a team of six could actually be considered a day of work. And that wouldn't necessarily be a problem if the meeting had a clear result, which in most cases they don't have one, and the only thing they do is create the need for even more meetings. So you might have guessed by now that I don't necessarily like them and the bigger your organization, the more likely that you hate them as well. But before we go on and create the perfect meeting, we must first take one apart and see what it's made of. So take a moment and think about what's the point of meetings anyway? And usually it's one of the four decision making. We need a group decision on a company change of direction and need to take action. These usually go pretty well due to the clear outcome, and if they fail, it's usually due to internal politics. The second type of meetings are the informing ones where it's mostly a form of presentation and then a Q and A, which is extremely easy to go off track and not be relevant to the context, then our planning meetings, which are very delicate because in this type of meetings you might discover countless problems and side goals that need to be achieved towards the big goal. And this usually leads to more and more meetings. And last but not least, we have problem solving meetings, which again are open ended and don't necessarily have the desired outcome, especially since there is no guarantee a problem will be solved. You know that you know the main categories. We should analyze what's at the core of an effective meeting, and it's the trio you always need to focus on purpose format people. What's the desired outcome of the meeting? Always have this in mind. What's the approach? What's it about? What needs to be ready prior to the meeting starting? If you don't take care of this, just don't have it in the first place. Then there are the people who needs to be there and why, and to make it simpler for you to execute. I've prepared this five point checklist that will make your meetings far more effective and easier to schedule. Number one. Why are you having it? Can you not have it at all and still achieve the goal? You want cannon email. Replace it. Number two. Who needs to be there? Are you sure everyone needs to? Are you sure they need to attend the entire meeting? Could they just join for 10 minutes, then get a summary and not have to spend two hours listening to things that are not relevant to them? Number three. How long will it take? If you don't have a strict timeframe and preferably with intermediate goals, then you won't get the desired outcome. So, for example, you might have a problem solving meeting where you allocate the 1st 10 minutes to a brainstorming session than another 10 minutes, identifying the best option than the last 10 minutes, discussing the actual execution and action steps that need to be taken. And number four. What does everyone need to prepare? Nothing ruins meetings as fast as someone not being ready for it, because you instantly waste everyone's time, so make sure each member is prepared, be it with that analytics data our that research or that prior discussion with the client Number five who needs to be informed of the changes generated by the meeting to your clients? Need an update. What members of staff need to be informed also is the method of communication used relevant . In most cases, une email update will do. But in some, maybe a phone call is required or even a face to face discussion. Whatever the case, make sure you always do the follow up because otherwise the actual execution, which should be the successor of a meeting, will not happen or might be unclear and vague. And now that you have the systems in place, it's time to discuss the tools. And in most cases, either Skype or Google hangouts will do the job. If we're talking about remote teams, they're free, simple to use and have practically no learning curve. However, if you think you've outgrown them, the alternatives would be software like crowd cast, go to meetings or blue jeans. So, although not necessary yet, keep them in mind in that mental drawer of tools for later use. And that's about all on having effective meetings. But before we end, it I'd like to recommend a type of meeting that I think all teams should have because it generates phenomenal results in terms of work done and also in terms of the synergy your team has. And I'm talking about the morning stand up meeting. So each morning you and your team should have a quick 10 minute meeting while standing up. This standing up rule should be applied. Even if you do it over Skype. Its purpose is to make it short. Since you're not sitting and relaxing and what you discussed in that meeting are just three things. Number one, remind everyone. Division your wife. Why are you doing this? Number two. The one thing that if everyone would complete today, would make it a successful one. And number three, any updates and changes with the company. So long. Story short. 10 minutes. Standing up vision, execution, news, and do this for a week and you will be amazed by how more streamlined and focused everyone is. That being said, are we effective meetings? Video comes to an end and in the next one will talk about progress reports and why they should be in your daily routine as well. So I'm looking forward to see you in the next video 22. Progress Reports: progress reports. Look, I think 99% of all productivity courses neglect the importance of good progress reports, but I just can't stress enough how important these are to your success. If you look at the surface layer, they help you keep track of your day to day progress and where you are in the process of achieving your goals. And, as the saying goes, What doesn't get measured doesn't get done. But there's so much more to progress. Supports here are just some of the core benefits they create. For starters, you can more easily track individual effort and results and see who is growing and doing their best and who doesn't keep up. And for those that can't keep up, you have the chance to help them improve. Another essential benefit is that you will be able to better estimate how much things steak . So if you have repetitive tasks or similar ones, you'll become much better at estimating how long they will take. What are the main problems you will face, and this will give you more confidence and accuracy for future projects, so you never over extend when setting deadlines, and it doesn't stop here knowing more about your tasks and responsibilities and how long they take will also help optimized business processes. That's making your operation more efficient, and the last benefit that is, most of the time. Overlooked is the one about your legacy or precisely You'll be creating a track record of everything you do basically a testament to your team's commitment to delivering great work , and this has vast ramifications. For example, it will help you in marketing and communications, because it will allow you to tell your story better. The benefits don't stop at marketing. They also go as faras, helping you get funding or finance because making business plans is easy. The difference between successful businesses and failures is follow through on those plans , and those progress reports are a confirmation that you have disability. But enough with the benefits. Let's talk a bit about the how and every business has its core activity, and focus and progress reports should come to support and enhance that not take time from it. That's why this entire system should take as little as possible. I personally tested out tens of systems and strategies, and the one I'm going to recommend has proven both to be efficient and also the one that stood the test of time. And it's extremely simple. At the end of each day, everyone needs to make a quick report with just three things. First, their goal for that particular day than the results, what they actually achieved, and third, the problems and obstacles that held them back from achieving everything they set out to do . I always tell people If this takes you longer than 10 minutes, then you're doing something wrong. As far as how you implement this, the answers are symbol. You can create a form summer in a private area on your website where the team submits these reports, or you can use base camp check ins feature. Or you can go with a more basic solution where everyone sends you an email with a specific format like daily report, a month and full name. I encourage you to give this a try for a two least two weeks, and you will be amazed by how much more insight and control you have over your business. However, there's one important part I left out that might not always be pleasant but is essential. You or someone in a management or leadership position on your team will have to actually read these reports and adapt your business accordingly. If you neglect this aspect, you're missing out on more than 80% of the benefits because although you have the data, you're practically not doing anything with it, and you don't really need to do this on a daily basis. So try to allocate some time each week to reading and analyzing these reports, because maybe they will just confirm that things are running smoothly. But if you need to change something and failed to do so, the cost would be much higher down the road in comparison to that extra hour each week. That being said, we arrived at the end of the your team section, we're going to end it by covering the key takeaways in the next video. Then we'll discuss about the tools you need to implement all the strategies and principles recovered in the course so far, and we'll go from project management to communications to time tracking an even financial management. But for now, I'm looking forward to see you in the next video key takeaways 23. Key Takeaways: key takeaways. This entire section was dedicated to your team. We started with your role and how important it is to lead from the front and focus on defining a clear vision and inspiring your team to believe in it as much as you do with then took a close look at recruiting and how it's essential to your success or how Bill Gates said it take our 20 best people away and we would become an unimportant company. We talked about how you should go beyond how people interview and take a closer look at their work and what they do in their free time to find out if they're looking for a job or if it's their actual calling. Then we analyze what I need to get stars. People internally motivated, autonomous and driven and how you should always try to get the best people you can worldwide and not limit yourself to the local workforce. And we dove even deeper on that analysing remote work and why you can and should build a business around this model. We talked about the benefits which are both for the employer and the employee, but you also discussed the drawbacks and how you should encourage and facilitate communication and build a strong relationship with your team, even if they are spread around the globe. Afterwards, we analyzed project management, its core components and their importance. We discussed the importance of a calendar, a chat, a message board, a to do system documents and files management and reporting with an approach meetings and how they're like black holes to productivity and went over the five point checklist of effective meetings. Why you're having them? Who needs to be there? How long will it take, what everyone needs to prepare and who needs to be informed by the decisions made in that meeting. After this, we took a close look at progress reports and how an activity that can take so little time can ring so many rewards. And the system I recommended was the daily, 10 minutes or less report where everyone writes their goals, results and problems. Although you might say there are countless other aspects of your team like management rules , logistics, I'm a strong believer in doing things your own way. And if you look at most successful companies, what made them successful was not sticking to the conventional script. That's why I gave you guidelines to what systems you could implement. Ensured what I consider solid principles, the building and leading your team. The rest is up to you, and you will be the one that adapts based on your vision and the way you want to build your own business. In the following section will cover your core productivity tools that have the role to get you faster and with less headaches to where you want to go. So I'm looking forward to see you in the next video. 24. Your Productivity Tools - Overview: your productivity tools, and we finally reached this module after going over the productivity of you and your patterns. It comes as the obvious layer to be applied on top of all the principles and strategies you know, possess. If we were to compare this course, the building house, everything we did so far was to create a solid plan and foundation, which in many cases can take just as much as building the actual house. But this is when you go and actually apply everything to existing workflow. The module has two main areas, the 1st 1 where we cover planning and communications, where we start with the platforms where you can recruit the right people to help you achieve your goals. Then we go over project management tools in a bit more detail within jump to communication , softer with both instant and non instant options and, of course, file sharing. The second main area of this module focuses on ways you can be more efficient with your time going over time, tracking gaps, solutions to reduce distractions and even tracking and having a bird's eye view of your finances. Also, an important mention. Every tool I showcase in this module I have personally used. In fact, most of them I still actively use. I'm not in any way rewarded for recommending them. And I'm just telling you what worked for me and other professionals I know and sharing some great products. Although due to time restrictions since I can't make it 40 hour course, I won't cover all the tools extensively. However, don't confuse this for a complete list of productivity tools, because that's not the point of it. So here is the criteria based on which they made this selection. Number one. Is it practical? Can I use it consistently? Because there are so many tools that look nice? Seem useful, but in actual day to day use, they feel a natural, and the likelihood of them becoming part of your workflow is slim to none. Number two. Do they do one thing? Well, I don't want them to do everything. Did he do the specific task they are made for? Exceptionally well, if they do 10 things good, they're not on the list. And number three, is it financially sustainable? Look, if I don't consider these tools to pay for themselves with the value they bring they won't be on this list. Number four. Are they fast? This is a course on productivity, and that's about getting more done in. The only way to get to a destination faster with the same route is with increased speed, and this has multiple aspects to it. First, there's the speed at which you can access the solution. Second, there's the speed at which you learn and integrated in your routines. And then there's the speed at which you can use it consistently. If it doesn't gain your time, it's not here. And number five is it user friendly, and I pleasing design is important. Look, it's mandatory for a product to do the thing it was created to do. But if it looks stunning than the better it is for the end user. And that being said enough, we're talking about them. Let's see what they can actually do for you, and we'll start with platforms that allow you to recruit the best talent that will help you to achieve your goals. 25. Recruiting Platforms: recruiting platforms. Look, if possible, hiring people that are on site is the ideal option. But in many cases, that talent you want to need might not be available in the same city as you. That's why you should think global and the best option for this is going on. Freelancing websites. We already discussed what to look for in people when recruiting, so we won't go over that again. That's why I will focus more on where to search for those people in the first platform. I encourage you to use his up work, and what you might not know is that I actually started my entrepreneurial career there at the time it was Zealand's. In my years, freelancing were some of the most rewarding and educational ones in business. But let's get back on track. The reason why freelancing works is because it's flexible and it allows you access to the best talent you can afford worldwide. You don't take any risk because based on the reviews, you know they're reliable, and you can easily test the way you work together with a small project. So let's go over to upward dot com for a second and see how it works, and the process is extremely simple. You create a detailed project description where you go over everything you need done. Afterwards, you wait for freelancers to submit their proposals. Then pick the one that you think has the ideal skills and style to match your project needs . You might consider having some short interviews with the top two or three choices. Then you get to work. And as far as the concerns you might have regarding seeing the project done, most of them get completed on time and as expected, and in the rare cases of disagreement up work handles the dispute and even offers assistance for arbitration if it gets that payment wise, things are pretty simple. The freelancer is charged 20% or less of what you pay, and depending on what model you choose already work or fixed price, you're either build automatically weekly or once a milestone is done and approved. What I encourage you to briefly do now is to go toe up work and maybe search for some projects similar to yours and see how other people looking to hire, formulate their project descriptions and also search for freelancers based on some key words of your project to get a new overall idea of hourly rates. How many people qualified for this job are there and just get an overall feel of things. And I think it's about time. I share some alternatives to up work as well, and the 1st 1 is people per hour dot com. Although a smaller network, I've had exceptionally good experience with this platform, both as a service provider and as an employer. Maybe it's due to the way they filter professionals. Maybe it's the fact that it's not yet a saturated platform. But whatever the reason, it's a great one toe work with, and you should definitely consider it in your search for skilled professionals, for your team and for my last recommendation, we have freelancer dot com, which is very similar to up work may be the biggest difference, which is a personal opinion is that it's more crowded. The downside of that from a freelancers perspective, is that it means lower rates, and from an employer perspective, it means a longer time spent on finding the right people. Although the qualified professionals are definitely there, you might spend more time finding the ones that match your needs. And besides thes three recruiting platforms, another great way to find talent is on specialized forums, depending on what industry you're in. It's also a great place to search for business partners and to summarize everything. You go on these platforms, you get a feel of what types of projects there are, and see how others formulate their project descriptions, bids and how they position in terms of pricing. You scroll through some professionals that are available for hire. Then you make your own project, which, for proposals, have 23 interviews to make sure you're picking the right people and go ahead and start working on your goals. And speaking of your goals in the next video, we'll cover project management apse that will help you execute and get closer to achieving them. So I'm looking forward to see you in the next video 26. Project Management: project management platforms. As you might expect, when it comes to project management, the platform that will always be at the top of my list is base camp. And it's not just about the software. It's about the values and principles behind it, many of which have been detailed in the book Rework, written by the same team behind base camp principles like ignoring the real world, which isn't a real place. It's an excuse. It's a justification of not trying. It has nothing to do with you. Principles like planning is guessing and writing a plan makes you feel in control of things you don't control or that the size of your team doesn't really matter. Maybe the right sizes. Five people. Maybe it's 40. Don't accelerate growth if you don't really need it. See what feels right or something that many wear like a badge of honor workaholism, which doesn't save the day. The real hero is home early because he was, she figure out a faster way to get things done, or the fact that what you do is what matters not what you think or say or plan until you actually start making something your brilliant idea is just that on idea, and everyone's got one of those. But getting back on track to the actual platform and why I personally think it's the best solution for businesses of any size is because of its components. You have your campfire that solves all your instant communication needs, except for calls and video meetings. Then you have message boards that replace all those confusing email threads. Then you have to do so. You don't have to micromanage all day long than the calendar. So you stop having headaches due to other calendar software, not sinking with the rest of your team. Then you have the automated check ins to stop wasting time on status reports and meetings. And last but not least, you have darks and files that replace other third party apps like Dropbox or Google Drive. As far as costs go, you have a month to try it out for free than a flat monthly cost of $99. No matter how big or small your team is, no matter if you use it for one or 10 projects, and if having great support is a priority for you or let you know that all my problems submitted to base camp so far have received the human reply, not automated message in less than five minutes. But in case you don't like base camp, let's look at some other project management tools, one that I've always been using Gone and Office trail. Oh, they're totally different. Approach has been a breath of fresh air on the productivity software scene, and for many business processes, this board and cards approach has been extremely useful. And considering that it's practically free for most users, I think you should give it a try, even if you use another softer already, Trillo has a way of growing on you, and if you're anything like me, you're forever use it even if it's on and off, depending on specific project needs moving on, we have Blip, which has as a main mission to reduce the time you spend in your inbox and streamline your workflow. Obviously, it has all the core productivity features needed for any project, and what makes it different is that it's more focused on communication. If I were to make a comparison, it's like slack, with project management features on top, as far as cost goes again. It's free for most users unless you need thousands of hours of video chat that you can't do over Skype or Google hangouts. Other software I've used but haven't really stuck with is Asana, which with its latest design overhaul, is one of the most appealing and easy to use platforms available. Also, unless you need the premium features and have a team upwards of 15 people, you won't really need a premium version, which by itself won't even break the bank with just $8 a month per team member. Then we have Reich, which again is a pleasure to work with and finds a way to integrate more traditional project management principles, like the use of Gantt diagrams in keeping track of multiple product versions and edits with a fresh and flexible report system. Also, it has some great case studies if you're a marketing or creative team on how to use the product best from agile toe waterfall and everything in between, and I know there are hundreds if not thousands, of alternatives. But as I said, I'll only recommend products I actually believe in and personally used, and that makes sense. Long story, short you should try out base camp if that's not financially viable for you right now, go to more affordable alternative and use what makes sense for your needs right now. And if you know of other solutions, make sure to send them over to me so it can continue to improve the course for others. That being said, we'll move on to the next video, where we go over to do abs that are focused more on you rather than your team, each one bringing some interesting features and approaches to how you see productivity. So I'm looking forward to see you in the next video. 27. To-Do Apps: to do laps, while in the previous video we analyzed project management tools that give you a global view of things. Now we're going to take a quick glance at basic to do APS that you can use not only for your business needs but also for your day to day problems like shopping for groceries or telling your mom Happy birthday. The main focus will be simplicity and function over complexity of features. So we'll cover the apse on this spectrum, from almost project management to the simplest and purest form off task management. And we'll start with Wonder List, which is by far the most complete to do app out there right now, awarded countless times, feature packed and dares to compete even would project management software. Among the features that I enjoyed and found quite useful when using it, would reminders the less sharing functionality and especially the fact that it is accessible from any device you can think of. BBC Mac phone tablet and even Smartwatch moving on. We have any do, which again has this teamwork side to it and is far more slim and features in comparison toe wonder list. But I'm not saying this is a bad thing. It all depends on what you want. You decide if you pick focus over functionality, what got me her can Any do was the seamless integration with calls, alarms, and I can honestly say it's by far the least interruptive to do up I've ever used. Then we have check Mark two, which not only looks great a minimalistic but has something that's only recently started to appear in two Tuapse. It's Jill reminders. So the next time you pass by shop, if you have a reminder to buy something there, check more to will let you know this location centered. Focus. Save me countless hours. That's why, although not my main to do app check, Mark two will forever be on my home screen. And last but not least, we have tasking, which is a vibrant app that allows you to easily create task sorting by categories. And what I can dare to say about it is that it makes work fun. And those were the two Tuapse that I use and recommend, and depending on your specific needs, I'm sure you'll be enjoying at least one on a daily basis coming up next We have software focused on communication, covering both instant and non instant types of tools. So I'm looking forward to see you in the next video. 28. Communication Software: communication tools. Look, I'm pretty sure everyone knows these tools, but I can't not talk about them and how valuable there, especially when we're talking about communication with the remote team, so I'll jump right to it. First, we have slack, which is the king of text communication with themes of all shapes and sizes. Everything is channeled based, so you can split things based on topic, deems goals and even have invite only channels for those ultra secret projects. The reason why I am a big fan of text over calls is due to the fact that you have access to them even after the conversation has ended. So if you discuss the problem with someone and forgot something, you can instantly go back, search for the answer and get back to work, something you can't really do with calls. Also, Slack has the benefit of being a non instant channel of communication, meaning it can also be used in a non disruptive way. Moving on, we have Skype, which offers both the text chat but also the audio and video functionality. You can use it for interviews, meetings and even scenarios where you need screen sharing. You can create multiple groups. However, unlike slack, skyping get noisy and disruptive pretty fast. And is Cleary inferior. If we're talking text on alternative would be Google hangouts, which in many ways does the same things a Skype and besides, design may be. The main difference is that it's a Google product, so it's much better connected with softer in that suite, just like Skype will get more and more connected with Microsoft Solutions. And that was about everything. As faras, instant communication goes, now comes apart. When you have to deliver a message, however, it's not urgent. So let's start with the basics. We've already discussed slack and how it's ideal for teams in the same category. We can, lest campfire, a feature from Base Camp or any chat of a project management software, then come into play more complex needs and a company am a huge fan off that has always being ahead of the curve is text meant their most non softer is camped Asia. That allows you to easily record your screen and added video is both professional and easy to use at the same time, and it's surprisingly powerful when you want to share something like changes to a website layout or anything that involves training new stuff. They also offer a more bare bone version of it called Snag It that allows you to provide feedback, great documentation and more clearly, express a problem. And if you want an even simpler version, you can use jink, which is free and can be easily integrated with an FTP server, to store your files remotely. Now, the way normally used Camped Asia is great. The video. I want either a quick training session for new employees or some clarifications for client , then render it and uploaded to YouTube as an unlisted video. So the only people who have access to it are those with the link. So it's fast, private and easy to come back to if needed. Now you can do that. Or you could subscribe to screen cost dot com, a service offered by Tech Smith and store all your content there. Or you could use other software like Dropbox, And if you have any specific needs, make sure to check all the other text make tools that might be relevant to your business. But with this small bundle of tools I covered so far, you can pretty much communicate everything with your team as long as everyone has an Internet connection. After running a marketing agency for over five years and doing course creation for close to three years now, I have never required anything else. That being said, we'll move on to the next video where will cover file sharing and storage solutions, So I'm looking forward to see you there. 29. File Sharing and Storage: first origin sharing solutions, and here we have four options, each specific to what you want to achieve. We first have Dropbox, which I currently use, and recommend the reason that I chose it over all. The other is that it's a standalone solution, and I want it that way. Does a single job perfect. It's easy to use, has a clean design friendly with all devices. It's pretty much everything I want from a file storage and sharing solution. The free version offers two gigabytes of storage, but you'll outgrow that pretty fast. I personally have the business version with three users, but the pro one is something that will clearly suit all your needs. At 10 euro per month on the one terabyte of storage will clearly be enough. The second option would be Google Drive. And what for me, was a negative feature for you might be an incentive, more precisely integration with other Google products. In this case, Gmail basically would G suit. With just 3.3 euros a month, you get 30 gigabytes of storage or one terabytes per user for just 6.6 euros a month. But as I said, that's shared with your Gmail address. So over time that storage might get filled with emails, for example. Right now I have the 15 gigabytes free storage plan, but my Gmail account has 11 gigabytes of email, and my reason for not wanting to stick with a single provider for all my software needs is that it makes my business far too dependent on that company, and I'd rather not have all my eggs in the same basket. Then we have one drive, which in many ways is the Microsoft equivalent of Google Drive. You have five gigabytes of free storage, 50 gigabytes with just $2 a month. Or, if you get it with the office 365 plan. You get one terabyte of storage with just $7 a month. And for the last suggested solution, we have iCloud, which offers five gigabytes free and then you can pick one of their plans. Depending on your needs, you can go for 50 gigabytes for $1 month, 200 for $3 or one terabyte for $10. As you can see, as far as pricing storage ratio goes, they're all very similar. And like I said, it's ultimately up to what environment you want to go with. Independent with Dropbox Google Drive with Google, one drive with Microsoft or iCloud with Apple. Or you can use a service that's offered by another solution you're using, like your project management software. But the reason I advised against it is due to the fact that it will clearly lack the features of a product that's sole purpose is storage and sharing. That being said, will move on to the next type of tools, more centered on productivity and improving the way you spend your time and we'll start with time tracking software, so I'm looking forward to see you in the next video. 30. Time Tracking Tools: time tracking tools. And you need to pay very close attention when you choose these tools, because the main problem is if you use them consistently or not. So more than any other category, you need to enjoy using them because that is what will make the difference if you integrate them in your routine, or if you just use them once or twice and then forever forget about them. But before going over some actual tools, I'd like to point out the reason why I should use such software in the first place. And that reason, although obvious, often escapes us. It's the fact that you can't improve what you don't know, and here's an actual example. We all think we work eight hours a day when in fact we have just five productive hours. Maybe, and that can seem an incredibly productive day because the actual time spent on doing work is not the entire time you're at the office. But when you don't track it, it's difficult, if not impossible, to determine what went wrong and what went right. Also does the problem of tactics without knowing where you waste time, you won't know what to change and a time tracking tool will allow you to do just that. Identify when you're investing and when you're wasting your energy and I'll start with what I consider the most complete software to track time and block distractions. Rescue time, the light one that allows you to track time spent and websites and applications that goes and get a weekly report will always be free. Then you have the premium version that allows you to get much deeper. You contract time away from your computer block. Distracting websites with the get focused feature have more control over filters, and it's just $9 a month. I've been using this for close to 10 years now, and nobody has Bean so brutally honest with me regarding how I spend my time as this software, not even myself. It helped me escape productivity black holes like pointless meetings. It helped identify procrastination websites where a quick scroll turned into 30 minutes of no work being done, and it helped me better understand my patterns and how to change them to get the best out of my day. But maybe you don't need a want software that tracks your entire workday and are already self aware, and all you want is something to track how much time you allocate to each project you work on or better identify how much time, specific tasks steak. For cases like these, you can use software like ours, a nap I enjoyed and still enjoy for slick design functionality. For me, it proved once more the importance of good design and how it's essential for a successful app. Or if you want something that's not IOS exclusive, you can go for toggle, which is free for teams of up to five and friendly to all devices and operating systems. Not only this, but you can integrate it with dozens off third party software like Salesforce, Fresh Books, Drell, Oh, Asana, Base camp and even Gmail. And if you want something very specific, I've recommended also in the your pattern section. I highly encourage you to use the be focused bro app, which allows you to utilize the Pomodoro technique. And those were the core time tracking gaps that you could use to better estimate how long tasks will take. Better monitor your projects and most important track and understand the way you use your time in order to optimize the way you spend it coming up. Next, we're going to cover tools that help you reduce distractions. And while time tracking gaps were more passive and observant of what you do, these are more proactive in their approach and will stop that habit loop and will replace it or remove it all together. So I'm looking forward to see you in the next video. 31. Software to Reduce Distractions: reduce distractions, and we've already discussed in the previous sections how interruptions can really disrupt your day. And although you feel as if you've been doing your best, nothing significant gets achieved. The main reason being that it's not the time you spent distracted alone, but also the time it takes to get back in the zone with your task that you lose. And many studies show that that can be as high as 15 or 20 minutes. So if you get distracted three times every hour, chances of you actually doing something productive that they are highly diminished. So the obvious goal is to reduce distractions as much as possible, and they usually are of two types. Active and passive. Active is when you get a notification on your phone and you'll instantly look at it. And these are the easiest to deal with by just stopping those notifications for that up, or that software. So quick exercise. Identify which notifications you need in which you don't and remove all the noise. Or if we're talking mobile, you can easily customize your do not disturb feature and block out everything during specific moments throughout today. But the most annoying problem with interruptions are the ones that are actually habit loops where we ourselves do the interrupting throw. Today, our brain goes into auto pilot quite a lot. And if you're used to checking your Facebook feed every 15 minutes, guess what will happen when your brain will go into autopilot. And that's the reason why we often find ourselves browsing various sites at random and don't really remember why we started doing so in the first place. And the tools that come into play here are browser extensions, and what they do is blocked the habit loop or precisely block you from getting that reward and jolt of dopamine. When you reach that social media site or that news feed, and depending on your drug, you might need a different solution. Humor mine. And here's how you can easily find one for you, for starters, are used block site to block access to procrastination websites like 9gag. So I didn't waste half my day. Strolling endlessly through Mihm's and setting things up takes just a few seconds, and then you're good to go. Every time you try to visit the websites you've blocked, you'll get a friendly reminder to get back to work instead of the page wanted. However, in some cases, the solution is not that simple. For example, I wanted to block Facebook, but at the same time, I still wanted a communication side of it. That's why I got an extension called Facebook News Feed blocker that allowed just that endless communication without that time sucking news feed. And if you want a specialized solution that works for absence will not just limited to a Web browser. You have cold turkey that will allow you to do just that. However, you have to pay $25 because the free version is limited to your browser, just as all the extensions I mentioned and what I highly encourage you right now before moving on to the next video is that actually install one of the software I mentioned above and start using it? I guarantee it will be extremely annoying at first, but you'll thank me once those time wasting cabin loops will be broken and coming up next. We have something that many say is equivalent to your time, and if you haven't guessed it already, I'm talking about money. That's why we'll look at some tools that will help you to better manage your finances. 32. Financial Management Apps: financial management taps Quick disclaimer. I am not an accountant or certified in any way to give financial advice for two more. This is not the main scope of the course, and this video has the sole purpose. To recommend some tools that will help you better manage your finances in a way that will allow you to understand faster and in a more visual way. Your spending habits and we'll start with something I've been using on a daily basis for close to two years now is the spendy app, and I can't stop saying good things about it. I'll start with something that many claim yet few deliver the intuitive side of it. Besides the obvious features of adding expenses and incomes, different categories notifications, it also has interesting ones, like shared wallets with family and friends. And I just can't speak enough about how important it is to see where your money goes, because otherwise you never truly know objectively what you're doing with your hard earned cash. For example, for me, a revelation was when I realized I was spending more on coffee than on my office rent. At some point in the next month, the new office, Burke was an espresso machine that practically bayed for itself in three months time. Another advantage of financial management APS is that it will help you better estimate expenses for future months. No, if you're in a position to start saving money or invest in something and adapt your financial decisions based on that data, which is just so clear and impactful, you won't believe it until you try it for yourself. Another app that is more mainstream is meant dot com, and it helps with so much from easy budgeting to investment tracking. And it even tells you your credit score. Then we have expense tracker to Bono. The AP won me over with its design on a 10 inch tablet. The reports were just astonishing, and I have to admit that although not actively using it right now, it raised the bar as far as what the financial management app should do when I first got it three years ago. And as with all the other categories of tools, I know there are plenty more, but most of them have some deal breaking drawbacks. Either they don't give the bird's eye view. I find essential or the category system is glitchy and ineffective, or they seem incomplete or even worse, over complicated. The main problem with financial lapse is not always with what they do, but it's with you getting to use them consistently. At first I had a daily reminder on both spendy in another app. To keep adding expenses and income so it becomes a habit. So if you use any of the apse I recommended above or anything else, you need some due diligence to form the habit of adding your expenses and incomes. And that being said we came to the end of this module in the next video will quickly go for all the tools and categories were listed so far. Then we'll jump to the next module, where we talk about productivity outside work, covering things like exercise, nutrition, stress and even sleep. So I'm looking forward to see you in the next video 33. Productivity Apps Roundup: productivity. AARP around up with split this module into be categories planning and communications and time effectiveness. And there was a very strict criteria on which the tools were recommended. Things like practicality, speed of integrating in your work process and also designed. We started off with platforms that will help you recruit your team. We listed up work people per hour and freelancer dot com, but not leaving out specialized forums and communities with then jumped directly to the operational side of things with Project Management software, where you saw Base Camp Drell, Oh, and Glemp and other contenders like Asana and Reich. We then went over to do raps with Wonder List any do and also check more to with its geo reminders. And let's not forget the eye pleasing task E. Within took a look at communication tools like slack Skype and Google hangouts and also a different breed of them. More specialized, created by text mint. We talked about Camped Asia, Snag It and Jing that allow you to effectively share feedback, offered training and better communicate an idea we wrapped up. The first part of the module would file storage and sharing solutions going over Dropbox, Google Drive, one drive and iCloud and how your choice in this case is more based on your preferred eco system rather than product differences alone. Then we looked at time tracking tools going from rescue time, my personal favorite to the stunning hours, app or toggle, and even a method specific like Be focused, bro. If you want to start using the Pomodoro technique still, in the realm of optimizing your time, we have solutions to reduce your distractions, most being browser extensions like Block site or Facebook News Feed blocker, some blocking access to software as well. We're relisted cold turkey. And since time is money, we also had a quick look at some financial apse with spendy, which is my favorite. Then we had meant dot com and also expense tracker. And then I reminded you that even if you choose a different solution, it's important that you use it consistently if you want value from this type of software, and you might be required to force yourself when first using it. So that was it for the tools module Moving on will jump to productivity outside work, where we analyse factors that, although not business, centered have a strong impact on the work you deliver. And we look at things like exercise, nutrition, stress and even sleep. So I'm looking forward to see you in the next module. 34. Exercise: productivity outside work. As I started saying in a previous module, there are many factors that influence or productivity without having anything to do with business things like your fitness level, what you eat, how you sleep, your stress level and even the people you interact with. And we're going to look at this in a very practical in Prague automatic way, not me teaching you something but merely putting out there what I consider common sense that we all forget because we get caught up with day to day living and the first thing I'd like to cover is exercise and before everything, quick disclaimer once more. I'm not a trained professional or certified one on this, but someone with a true story that shares his experience based on some solid principles before covering the benefits and impact of exercising. I'd like to point out that six months prior to making this recording, I had £210 lost about 45 in the meantime, about 20 kilos by allocating just three hours a week to exercise, sometimes even less. And it's not even about the weight loss. It's about the fitness, the energy levels, the quality of work I can deliver. The non obvious benefits are the biggest, and my view on exercise is quite basic. This is a course on productivity, right? And what we use most of the time to get things done. In fact, all the time is our brain. But guess what? Our brain is part of something called our body, so healthier body means more productive brain that can get more done. So why don't we focus all the time on keeping a healthy body? What is most medicine focused on curing rather than prevention? And the answer is simple, and we talked about it when we covered the four quadrants. Working out is a quadrant to activity. It's important, yet never urgent. You need to act on it. It doesn't act on you. And we always put it off because there are a lot of other urgent things, neglecting the fact that nothing is more important to our well being than our body. And I'm not trying to preach here. If anything, I'm guilty of not exercising more than anyone listening to this course. But let's take a closer look at some studies on the effects of exercising on productivity, and we'll start with a clinical trial ran by the Body Brain Performance Institute in association with Swinburne University and Brain Sciences Institute. There was a clear link between physical fitness and brain function and also reduced stress levels at work. More than that, your physical fitness inferences the amount of sick days you take. PricewaterhouseCoopers calculated that sick days in the UK, for example, cost businesses nearly $44 billion a year. So not being in shape impacts in a very strong way, the quality of working the liver. And it's not just about the short term results. It's a known fact that as you age, your body generates fewer and fewer brain cells. In recent studies done on mice, focusing on aging showed that exercise helps prevent this regeneration slowdown. In other words, by the time you will be in your fifties or sixties or even seventies, if you exercise, you'll have far more brain cells than your sedentary piers, which will make you far more productive and competitive in the workplace. And there's more good news. You don't need to set up a storm. In a randomized controlled trial at the University of Georgia, they split people in three groups. Low intensity exercise, moderate intensity exercise and no exercise. During the six week experiment, both exercise groups reported growing levels of energy. In fact, the low intensity want reported less fatigue, which means you can get increased productivity without having to go through intense exercise. Also, here's another benefit. If you start exercising right now, when you're scientists peeked inside the brains of new exercisers they have seen increase in both gray matter brain cells and white matter, the insulation of brain cells that helps them communicate quickly and efficiently with each other. Physical exercise makes your brain bigger and faster, and the prefrontal cortex shows the largest training effect. And like I already said, I'm not going to cover the house side of things because there are plenty of qualified certified professionals out there. But I hope I convinced you on the why part of the equation. And as far as getting yourself from being sedentary to exercising regularly, most experts agree on this. First, you have to choose an activity that you actually like, So if you like tennis, do that. If soccer is your sport of choice, go for it. In fact, recent studies suggest that how we feel when exercising can influence the degree to which it ultimately benefits our health. The second step towards communiqu toe on exercising schedule is to look at it as constantly improving yourself, and this is quite easy to do in most sports. And besides, the simple fact that you're watching this course right now goes to prove that you are already passionate about self improvement, so you are hardwired to perform, and the third step is to be part of a group. Socializing makes exercise more fun, and it improves your chances that you'll keep doing it. So go find yourself a team, and that's all you need to know in regards to exercising and why you should integrate it into your lifestyle. If you want to get productive in the next video, we'll talk about another important factor that goes hand in hand with this one. It's nutrition, so I'm looking forward to see you in the next video 35. Nutrition: nutrition and its impact on productivity. As with exercise, the logic is simple. Food is your fuel, and the quality of your fuel determines the quality of your performance. You can see the importance of that with your car every day. So let's discuss the science. Part of things about everything we eat is converted by our body into glucose, which provides energy toe our brains when were lower glucose. We have a hard time focusing, and that's why it's so difficult to concentrate when you're on an empty stomach. Pretty assemble so far. Right now, here comes the part that we forget. Foods are processed by our body at different rates. Some release glucose fast like soda past our cereal, but after that, we fall into a slump, and some, like cheeseburgers or BLTs, provide more sustained energy, however, require our digestive system to work harder, and that receives a flow of oxygen to our brain, making us sleepy or tired. And the reason we still ignore this is because when we make the decision on what to eat, we are at our lowest point in energy levels and self control. So a solution to this would be to plan your meals ahead of time so we don't make bad decisions when we're hungry. Another good practice that requires caution is to snack throw today, So instead of having spikes in your blood sugar levels, it will be more evened out. And if you think patrician is not a huge problem than here's what a report from the International Labour Organization says, poor diet on the job is costing countries around the world up to 20% and lost productivity either due to malnutrition that plagues some one billion people in developing countries or toe access, weight and obesity afflicting unequal number, mostly in industrialized economies. So if you work on nutrition alone, you can increase your productivity by up to 20%. Just think about it. Ignore everything else in this course, but improved a single aspect of your life, and you'll get close to an extra day a week. The same study claims that in the US, direct medical costs accounted for approximately 51.6 billion and 39.2 million lost work days and 239 million restricted activity days and 89.5 million bed days. I mean, the numbers are just mind boggling. Just think for a second how much improved productivity you could have by just taking care of nutrition. Exercising and using just some of the practices in this course will be like having a part time assistant that works for free and as as skilled as you are and always understand what you want. As with exercising, I won't go into detail on the how to side of things because I am not in any way qualified to do so. That's the job of your physician or nutritionist with this video. I mainly wanted to make you aware of the huge impact nutrition has on your performance and offer yet another avenue of improving your work out. But coming up next, we'll cover one more important factor that influences your productivity, stress its causes, how to deal with it and how to use it to your advantage. So I'm looking forward to see you in the next video 36. Stress: stress a state of mental or emotional strain or tension resulting from adverse or demanding circumstances. But you already knew that, more precisely felt that on several occasions throughout your career. Before I go into depth with this topic, I'd like to point out some of the results of a survey done in 2012 on its impact on work. 41% of people lose 15 to 30 minutes of productivity a day due to stress, and one in three loses one hour or more because of it. And if that wasn't enough, keep in mind that 55% miss one or two days a year due to stress, and 29% lose 3 to 6 days a year. And one in five attributed missed deadlines and mistakes in their work because of stress. Also, several other studies all concluded that about 70% of workers in the U. S. Considered her office as a significant source of stress. That's why you should always be aware of it, because it's an influencing factor to your performance and productivity. So how exactly does it work? Well, the stress response curve dates back from 1979 on one access. You have stress on the other performance. As stress levels rise, so does performance. Then, after passing the Comfort Zone area, you'll still get some increased performance until you reach fatigue. From that point on, performance drops as stress levels increase, reaching exhaustion, ill health and even a breakdown. So as long as the stress doesn't pass the fatigue threshold, it's positive. Also called use stress. After that tipping point, it's distress, and it will lower your performance. But what are the causes of stress? Because if you aren't aware of them, you can't effectively manage them. They're split into three categories. Environmental, which cover economic politic, or technological uncertainty. Organizational, which includes task demands, role demands, interpersonal demands and also organizational structure, leadership or even organization life cycle stage. And then we have individual factors, which can be family problems, financial issues and, of course, the personality than all these factors go through the unique lens of the individual and how he or she reacts to them and may cause a wide range of symptoms from physiological ones like headaches, high blood pressure or even heart disease to psychological ones like sleep disorders, depression, anxiety and a decline in job satisfaction and, of course, behavioral ones like loss of productivity, of attendance, work accidents and even quitting the job. So if you see yourself in any of the above mentioned, chances are your stress levels are too high. So how do you deal with it? And the first thing you could do is something you already did, and it's get better at self management and time management at the things are meditate, exercise, keeping on your nutrition and even listen to music. In extreme cases, medication is recommended, but, as stated in other videos, will leave that to the qualified professionals. As with most problems, once you acknowledge it and decide to do something about it, things will start to improve. And now that you know more about stress and how it works, are aware of its causes and symptoms, I hope you'll find it a lot easier to deal with it. And in the next video, we'll talk about human cycles where, among others will cover one that is very important to your productivity sleep. So I'm looking forward to see you that 37. Human Cycles: human cycles look, Everything has a bolt, arithmetic wave like movement between activity and rest. You can see this quite easy in nature. The switch between seasons, day and night. Everything has these predictable cycles, and since we're part of it, we work pretty much the same way. The most obvious human rhythm is a circadian one, this 24 hour sequence that we call a day where we need to sleep for about third of it, the function properly. But before we go into depth with sleep, which is the main focus of this video, I'd like to tell you about another cycle called the Old Trading Rhythm. Generically speaking, this is a recurrent period throughout a circadian day. In a book I already mentioned in this course the Power of Full Engagement by Tony Schwartz and Jim Lower, they mentioned a sleep researcher called Nathan Kreitman, where he described the basic rest activity cycles as 90 minutes, during which you hit big performance, followed by rest. Although this was first observed in sleep patterns, later, it was found out that we function the same way throughout our waking hours. Long story short, you need to periodically unplug to maintain performance. The ideal time frame, according to Short, would be 90 minutes of work 20 minutes of renewal. However, even he admits that not being used to this might require some time to adapt, so people could start with smaller duration. Does this sound familiar to you? I hope it does, and that the Pomodoro technique immediately came to mind. It's practically the same solution to the challenge of getting the most value out of your time. However, it was reached in a different way. And that's why I kept encouraging you in the previous videos to experiment with things and see what fits your personal needs and existing habit. Maybe you'll discover you're more productive with 30 minutes of work, five minutes of rest pattern. Or maybe you'll get more done with 90 minutes of work, 20 minutes of rest. Look at this as an experiment on yourself to get big performance when it comes to productivity, it's not a one size fits all scenario. It's what works for you and what gets you productive. So to wrap this up and move to the core of the video, I'd like to point out the essential idea, which is try to create a sustainable change in your existing schedule and not use the know how of discourse for one week, then feel overwhelmed and quit. The key word here is sustainable, so moving on to what many consider a waste of time because you aren't doing anything productive. But we all still need it. We have sleep, so how much of it do you really need? Well, the consensus on this is that adults require 7 to 9 hours. Anything below or above is unhealthy. In a six week experiment done on people where a group had to sleep eight hours a 2nd 1 just six and the 3rd 1 only four hours, researchers found out that the first group was very energetic. The 2nd 1 had slow reaction times similar to being drunk or people in the 3rd 1 actually fell asleep during the surveys. And that loss and brain function is you to sleep them, think of it like your credit card. You keep withdrawing cash from it, and at some point you'll need to pay it back, fail to do so repeatedly, and you might end up with a horrible credit score. In this case in the form of sleep disorders, which can be a pain to live with. However, don't panic just yet. Even if you abuse your sleep patterns for a few weeks, you're not at any risk of permanent problems and can rejuvenate your brain function if you get some good quality rest. But if you don't sleep properly for a longer period and that, then you put yourself at the risk off permanent cognitive impairment that's having more difficult time to focus lowered reaction times and not to mention loss of creativity and problem solving abilities. And it's not just that not having proper sleep increases your chances for obesity, heart disease and also diabetes. And before we close up the sleep video, I'd like to share some things I've been experimenting with and read Quieter Laurent. It's Cali physics, sleep and unlike model phase X, sleep is when you split your sleep patterns into multiple segments of lower duration that saving on your hours of sleep required, and it allows you to get more stuff done. The simplest Polly Physics sleep batter is the by physic one. Will you sleep five hours and 1/2 at night and take a 90 minutes nap midday. Then we have the everyman pattern with 4.5 hours of sleep and 2 20 minute naps. After that, we have the dime axiom pattern with 4 30 minute naps, one every six hours and the uber man with 6 20 minute naps every four hours. I've personally tested them all having a work schedule that allows it. And I must admit that the dime Accion and the Uber Man were just impossible for me to sustain. After three weeks, I felt so sleep deprived that I just went to bed and woke up 14 hours later. Some of you might try experimenting with this and even have success with it, but I guess I just wasn't for me. What did work great was the by physics sleep pattern with two chunks of three hours of sleep. However, that downside was that while it might be OK for you, it will be weird to all the people in your life. In my case, I never got to sink my schedule with others so we can socialize. So for the sake of not becoming a hermit, I adopted them mono physics sleep pattern once again, 1.5 hours saved. Each day was coming at the expense of calling friends and family at two AM, forgetting that it's two AM for normal people disrupting my meals because you're not really sure when it's breakfast time and when it's dinner time. And, of course, working with remote teams and not sinking very well with everyone schedule. I guess it depends from person to person and what your productivity needs are. But at least now you know how to adapt your sleep patterns to get the most out of your day . And since we slightly touched on something that abnormal sleep patterns impact, I think we should maybe take a closer look at it as well, more precisely people how the people around you impact your productivity. So I'm looking forward to see you in the next video. 38. People: people Look, I think they're by far the most important factor outside yourself that influence your outcome in life. I can last millions of quote on the importance of the people around you, but most can be resumed with you are who you hang around with. They influence your goals, what you consider good or bad. But you consider success or failure and, most importantly, how you react to success or failure. You might not always have control over how people around you inference you, but you certainly do have control over what people are around you. That's why you need to carefully analyze who you spend time with and a very pragmatic way to look at. This is by making a list of your goals not limited to work alone, your life goes, then make a list of the people you spend time with and compared the lists, and odds are, if you are making progress towards your goals is because the list makes sense to each other . And this doesn't mean Europe artistic. If you want to be a good father, mother, son or daughter, you spend time with your family, right. If you want to get rich you spend time with people that are right now where you want to be . At some point, if you want to get fit, you spend time with your gym trainer. I think you got the idea. In essence, this video is about you being consistent with what people you have around you and your goals. So you increase the likelihood of achieving those goals and not sabotage yourself. And that's about everything I had to say on factors that influence your productivity. Outside work will end the section with a quick key takeaways video. Then all that's left is your battle plan, where we have our last dark before you go and actually apply all the techniques and strategies you've learned from this course. So I'm looking forward to see you in the next video. 39. Key Takeaways: key takeaways, and this module recovered factors that are outside the normal scope of work productivity, yet influence it in a big way. We started out with exercise and how you need to be proactive towards it and never neglected because it's essential to both the quality and quantity off the work you produce . And if you have trouble doing it consistently, you need to first make something you like. Then commit to a schedule and, if possible, be part of a group. Then we jumped to nutrition and how important your fuel is your productivity and why it should be like exercise prioritized over work, not the other way around. If you want the work to be done consistently and at high energy levels within analyzed stress and how, until a certain level, it's been official but is completely detrimental if it starts to generate fatigue. We looked at different ways to deal with it, like meditation, exercise, nutrition and even using music to keep it in check. Then we went over human cycles with the all trade in rhythm where you should work for 90 minutes, then take a 20 minutes break or use a variation of that like the Pomodoro technique. We then talked extensively about sleep and how important it's quality is to your productivity. And we also looked at some different sleep patterns. If you want to reduce to a minimum the time you spend with your eyes shut and last but clearly not least, we went over a defining factor toe. Everyone success the people around them and how they should be in alignment with your goals . No matter the area off life, you want to improve and coming up next. We have your battle plan, which is the last step before you can take full advantage of everything you've learned throughout discourse. So I'm looking forward to see you in the next video. 40. Your Battle Plan: your battle plan. And here you are, the last video prior to what I consider the most important part of any form of education doing actually using the knowledge disseminated to achieve a desired go. Because otherwise all you got with some information that, besides a good topic of conversation, won't fulfill its true potential and purpose. And to get that full value from this course, I've prepared five action steps that you can follow. Look, you already purchased and watch the course, and at this point, it makes no financial difference for me if you do anything with the knowledge possessed or not. But I authentically want you to do something with what you've learned and the reasons for me to actually want you to succeed and integrate in your life. The practices, strategies and tools I laid out on the scores are still selfish. Your results will be proved that everything I said and recommend works not for 1 10 or 20 people, but for hundreds, if not thousands. And besides the promotional value your success story will have, I also feel empowered, knowing that I contributed to that success even if it was 200.5%. But enough of my reasons. Let's go to these five action steps. Number one. You need to take action. Now do something about it Today doesn't matter how insignificant it is. Taken action right now. Install that to do one Pomodoro search for one new team member. You decide what but do it today and number to start with one thing. Okay, so you've watched the course enjoyed it, and now you want to do everything, but it doesn't always work that way. If you inconsistent results and sustained performance, you need to start with just one thing and keep adding on top of that, maybe you'll meditate 10 minutes a day. From now on, maybe your track just three Pomodoro is each day, maybe units Stalin app and use it regularly. But whatever you do, start with at least one in number three. Look at it as an experiment, and the reason for this is because if you look at things as challenges, you'll have two options, success or failure. But experiments are something different. There are discovery tool. You never fail. You'll just identify strategies that either work or don't work for you. You don't have to win every time and to quote colossus from the movie Deadpool I watched recently four or five moments. That's all it takes to become a hero. Everyone thinks it's a full time job. Wake up a hero. Brush your teeth. A hero. Goto Work a hero. Not true over a lifetime. There are only four or five moments that really matter Moments when you're offered a choice to make a sacrifice conquer flaw. Save a friend sparrow in enemy. Same goes with you and boosting your productivity. You don't need every strategy toe work. Sometimes one can be more than enough, and number four make yourself accountable toe. Others. Knowing that someone relies on you will make you far more responsible and more likely to keep going when the going gets tough, then being accountable to yourself alone and number five. Have a clear finish line set a clear objective of what you want to achieve by using this course. So create an objective, a deadline. And once you reach that, analyze it, see what worked, What didn't why did, or why it didn't. What can you improve? Moving forward and that's all. Nothing more, nothing less. I'm Dora Katana and it's been a pleasure going through this course with you. And I'm looking forward to hear about all your results and the things you managed to achieve by using this course. And as you go forward. Although we haven't met personally, know that I am rooting for you from the sidelines. Good luck. 41. In Depth Learning: in Dept. Learning This video has the purpose of making your life easier to get more detailed information on many of the ideas covered in the course. On many occasions, I talk about some topics that deserve hours of attention in just a few minutes because, to be honest, if I made 100 our course not show how many people would watch it from start to finish with that in mind, I'd like to share. The resource is that will help you specialize in the areas that interest you most. So without further ado, let's proceed. First, we have the seven habits of highly effective People By Steven Covey You can look at this as the Holy Bible of productivity and effectiveness because the book doesn't focus only on the how, but also on the why or a Stephen says. At some point you might get at the top of the ladder and realize you're leaning against the wrong wall. The first time I read it, I had unauthentic paradigm shift that helped me see perspectives that I was blind to before . It truly opens up possibilities both in your personal and professional life. The second book I'd like to recommend his flow by me. Holly Chick sent me. Hi. This book is for those interested in what makes you enjoy your work and better understand the process that's becoming more fulfilled. And since most of us work 8 10 12 hours a day, actually enjoying those hours makes all the difference in the quality of the life we live. Moving on to our third book, We Have No Bs. Time Management for Entrepreneurs by Dan Kennedy. The reason why I'm a huge fan of Dan is that he tells it like it is no fluff, no cliches, no political correctness. That's why many called him the Professor off harsh reality. Also, the book is written by someone who's been there, done that not just in theory, but at a practical level. Besides being informative, his books are also quite entertaining. You certainly will never gone while reading any of them. Then we have essential is, um, the discipline pursuit of less By Greg McKown. The title says it all. It's about doing less, but doing it better and focusing your efforts on your strength. In a world that constantly pursues more off everything, this book comes to shed light on the important few. Book number five. It's the paradox of choice. Why more is less by author Berry shorts. It's very similar to the previous one. In terms of view of things, however, it has a totally different approach down to earth examples. Practical advice clearly written by a man of the people, a book that will make you rethink the way he look a choice forever. Then we have book number six, reworked by Jason Freed and David Hein. Admire Hansen. If the previous one made you rethink choice, this book will make you rethink the way you do business. The book demolishes conventional belief that you need a business plan careful monitoring of your competition to put an 80 hour work weeks or have meetings. It highlights that what you really need is the stop talking and start working and does this in a very straightforward language. The Power of Full Engagement by Jim Lower and Tony Shorts is our seventh book on the list. In many ways, it felt to me like a modern version of the seven habits of highly effective people. Now don't get me wrong. The book is not a copy in any way I think of it like a remake of a very good movie. New cast, new story, but with the same focus. Productivity. The book is extremely captivating, with great examples and studies done on athletes, and will give you new insight on performance and delivering consistent results. Then we have the willpower instinct by author Kelly McGonigal, and I must say, I absolutely loved this book. It was the most fun and captivating one I've read in a while. The book started as a university course for people that wanted more willpower, be it to lose weight, quit smoking, stop procrastinating or anything you could think off. It has tons of fun examples, quirky experiments that you could do, and it's so interactive it hardly feels like a book. So if you want to have some fun reading, this is for you. Moving on to book number nine. We have the power of habit by Charles, do you hick, and it will help you understand how your brain works and how to take control of your habits . What this book manages to do is to take cutting edge scientific discoveries and make them so easy to understand and use. In a very practical way. I never read an author that can take raw data and more fit into such captivating stories with characters that you authentically get attached to. And then we have book number 10 Focus by Daniel Goleman. And if you have serious attention issues like me and your brain just wanders off endlessly , then this is for you, filled with case studies from diverse fields. This will help you not only survive but thrive in this era of unstoppable distractions and were close to reaching the end with book number 11. Release Your Brakes by James Newman. It was recommended to me by my first employer, a guy I highly respect and whose opinion a highly value, very successful entrepreneur. And I must admit, I didn't fully grasp the value of it until re reading it recently. If anything, the book helps you understand that you see the world, how you are not how it is, and having that awareness will help you perform much better with no additional effort, because you remove inner conflict, flawed perspectives and as the title itself says, you will release your brakes, you stop driving around with your parking brake on. And for my last book recommendation, I have another one from Jason Freed and David Heino Meyer Hanson. And this book is a must read for everyone who works remotely or plans on doing so. It's failed with advice on dealing with the challenges of remote work, but also highlights older benefits. You can look at it as a guide that's going to show you precisely how remote work set up can be accomplished. And besides books, I really want to share three YouTube channels that over the years have greatly increased my productivity and also my understanding of things. And I'll start with London real, with Brian Rose being an astonishing curator of people worth watching with long form interviews that are just gems of wisdom and inspiration. Some of the shows I enjoyed the most were the ones with Peter Sage, Ido Portal and Simon cynic. Then we have Gary Vaynerchuk that there's an incredible job at documenting and analyzing business problems. His advice is both inspirational, impractical, and I highly encourage you to keep an open mind to what he says, although he might seem a bit over the top at times and last but not least we have Dan Penna , which old, though some of you might not adore, tells it like it is when it comes the business and achievement. He might come across as vulgar and rude, but for the last 20 years he's been delivering results both for himself and for his mentees . And that's about all for now. Over time, I promised to keep adding to this list and make the resource section as complete as possible. So lend this by reminding you that results come from doing not from learning alone. And that's what you should focus on the execution of your plans, not the plans themselves.