Transcripts
1. Welcome to the Challenge!: How many times
have you gotten to the end of the day and thought, I really wish I had started that one thing I was
meant to finish today. If there's one thing
I've learned over the last few years,
working from home, it is how hard it can
be to be productive and feel like we're using our time to the best
of our ability. But what I've learned is
that being productive isn't about reaching maximum
amount per 100% of the time. It is about knowing
how to get yourself back into productivity when
you've hit a bit of a dip. So I wanted to create a class that helped you do
exactly that because I've been in that place where you fall into
a rock and you can't get out of it and you just want to start
being productive again. These are all techniques
that I've used to get their split into five
different key areas. We can do this one day
at a time and build up brick by brick as we become
more productive together. Some of the things I want to share with you in this class is how to identify and
block out distractions. How to create a unique
bespoke morning routine that works for you. How to make sure he's saying accountable to the past year. Who said that you're
going to do this thing tomorrow and making sure
that you actually do it. And how to pick yourself
up on those days that you do find yourself at two in the afternoon
having not started. If something isn't
in this class is because it's not worked
and that something is in this class is
because I found it absolutely fundamental
to getting back into some sort of rhythm. So if you want to reignite your productivity and do
it in five easy steps, then join me in class and
we'll do that together.
2. Day 1 - Distraction Analysis: Alright, welcome to the class. We're going to get straight in that because we don't
want to waste time. That's what we've been
doing far too much of. One of the reasons I think
that we all struggled to be productive is that
we lie to ourselves. We are easily distracted
by a number of things. So the very first
thing that we have to do to become productive is quite simply just become aware of what is actually
distracting us. We're going to spend the day assessing what is
holding us back. The more honest you
are at this stage, the more productive you
will be down the line. You need to pay
attention all day and really note down anything
that is distracting you. Now the first part
of that is digital, so that could be
Instagram or YouTube, or searching for
jobs on indeed.com. For me, I am fully
aware that I get distracted way to
easily with YouTube. I'll go on there to look
at something specific. It will be a piece of equipment just to walk
through of how it works. And before I know it, I'm
not even watched that video, but I spent 2 h just looking
up really random stuff. If you go into your
phone, you can actually look at the
amount of time you're spending on these and
also the physical side. So anything that is there in your line of
sight that distracts you, it doesn't matter what
I'm doing on my phone. If I have my phone in my hand, I will be distracted by
it for hours at a time. It might be books, in your
case, it could be the TV, whatever that
physical object is, that it's distracting you. So becoming aware is
really important, but it's by no means the
final answer. It's not. Okay. With that done, we
need to now keep going and actually block access
to these distractions. It's really easy to
get distracted when the environment is
already set up for that. When the TV remote is right next to where you're
sad, we need to make it. So anytime that you engage
with this distraction, you are actively making that choice to basically
let yourself down. We are choosing to
not be productive. We are no longer the victim. We are actually the
villain in this case. I'm going to show you how I remove the distractions
in my life, both digital and physical. One of my biggest
distractions is sleeping. I really struggled
in the morning getting myself out of bed. And the problem
is that by having the phone as the alarm right
next to you by the bed. Distraction is there to be had by hitting the snooze button
is so easy to rollover, hits news and VOI Noah and
now has gone by equally. It's easy just to
stay in bed and scrolling Instagram or some
other form of social media. So I needed a way of
adding an obstacle that stops me being able to hit the snooze button
or stay in bed, that basically gets
me out of the room. And the way I found to do that was to install an
app called am droid. So what this app does is it creates a set of
challenges that you can pick. And that is the only way
you can turn the alarm off. So you can't just hit snooze
or slides across to hit off. There are certain obstacles
that you have to overcome. And there are two that
I found really helpful. So the first one is a
challenge about luminance, where basically you have
to put your phone in an environment bright enough that it will turn off the alarm. And that genuinely
means you either need to open your curtains
or turn on the light. Now if you love your
snooze function and that is a great one to have because it's gonna get you creeping into that
start to the day. But for me the best one when it comes to actually
having an alarm that forces me not only
out of bed but out of the room is the
barcode scanner. So essentially what
I do is you can either have it work
on any barcode or choose a specific one. And that barcode is the only
way I can turn my alarm off. I can't even turn the
alarm down in volume. The only option is
to delete the app. And I think there's even
a feature to disable that or scan the barcode. So I'll place this
book anywhere else. And normally I place it on a cabinet just
outside the bedroom. Because once I'm
outside of the bedroom, it then becomes a big obstacle mentally to actually
get back into bed. At that point, I
have to actively choose not only hit the
snooze or turn off the alarm, I'm going to walk back
into the bedroom, get back into bed, and go back to sleep. What before would be
the easiest option. Now it's actually
the harder option and there's no more excuses. There'll be a whole
bunch of apps on Android and Apple
that will do this. A android is the one that I use, but there's a whole
variety out there. But the other problem
I have personally is that the physical phone
itself is a distraction. If I see this phone anywhere, I'm going to end up on it. And even if I have
the app's hidden within a whole bunch of
different places on the phone. I'm going to find my way there. The only way I don't get
distracted by my phone. Is to physically place
my phone somewhere else. And the two ways I do this is if I'm feeling good and I'm
not worried about it, I'll just place a phone in my bedroom cabinet and then I'm not going to really see it. I'm not going to notice it. And again, it's an active
choice if I want to look at it, but more often than not, I'll have a quick look
and then put it back in like once an hour. The other thing I do,
which I also have to do with chocolate
sometimes is asking my partner to
hide it from me to just take it out
of the equation. I'll just be like,
here's my phone, put it somewhere and I just
need to not think about it. That's my phone. That's how my phone distracts me and
how I deal with that. But it's not just the
phone that distracts me. The other thing that gets me is my laptop's
specifically my laptop. So if I'm on my desktop, no problem, I will just work. I will be in that headspace. But when I'm on my laptop, especially if I'm not in
my office environment, if I'm just sat on the sofa. So easy for me to
just get lost on YouTube or Instagram or
something of that nature. And in those moments, I need something extra to block me from gaining access
to those instagram, social channels and
YouTube channels that I really enjoy watching. The main tool I found for this is something called Cold Turkey. So what cold turkey does
is it allows you to enter as many websites as
you want into a category. And you can then choose to block those websites on every
internet browser that you use. So even if you're addicted to websites like eBay where you just want to find the new
tool or the new outfit. You can block that
and you can either block it just on and off. So you choose to block it. Then for the rest of the
day until you turn it off, it's going to be blocked
or you can lock it. So if you lock a block, what that means is that as
soon as you turn it on, you then can't turn it off
until that Locke has ended. So you could choose to create a lot between 09:00
A.M. and 05:00 P.M. and then as soon as
you turn that block on, you can't untick that until 05:00 P.M. so no matter
how tempted you are, you can't access those
websites in that time-frame. You can do that on
the free version. There is a paid version which allows you to schedule
so you don't even have to turn the
block on or off just between certain times a
day is through the week, that block will come
on automatically. And then there's other features
to explore like timers. So that is how I physically and digitally lock access
from my laptop, or at least help train me
to the place I need to be, which is on my desktop, not looking at social media. So by the end of day one, you
should have become aware of all your distractions
made or less made a note of everything that
is taking your attention. And then also going
beyond that to actually block access
to those things. That's what we need
to do for day one. We don't need to
stretch ourselves. Start there, make sure
you get that done. And then tomorrow we'll pick up with creating the
perfect routine and actually making sure that we stick to this
on a daily basis.
3. Day 2 - Breadcrumb Morning Routine: Hey, welcome to day two. And today we're going to build
on what we did yesterday. And we are going to breadcrumb
our best morning routine. So we're going to build the easy steps to get you
working in a productive manner. Now I'm sure I'm
not the only one who has got to one o'clock in the afternoon and realized I haven't actually
started the thing. I was hoping to get it
done by the morning. That more often than not is the distractions of
what's around us. But that distraction tends to start right at the
top of the day. The first thing in the morning
when we wake up and we take our phone of
the bedside cabinet and we just scroll through, we forget what it is that we actually want to
do that day and we kinda go into autopilot of our just do this,
I'll just do that. And then eventually we check our schedule at one and realize, oh yeah, that was a
really important thing as meant to do 4 h ago. So the whole purpose
of laying down breadcrumbs for a
better morning routine. It's making it easy
for you to not forget and easy for you to start
getting winds straightaway. The way I like to
think of this is we're going to pre-load success. The more successes that I have, the more confident and
the more I want to keep succeeding is compound
growth essentially. So we're not trying to add
to what we need to do. We are trying to make it
easier to just get there. So we're basically going
to build a timeline of a to-do list with very small
steps we're going to do. When we wake up. This is
what we do, then this, then this, then this, and
then we'll have to lead on. But they all have
to be really easy. They have to be the start, not necessarily the finished. So let's say you're
self-employed, fashion industry person. And on your to-do list
is you have to do a big order and you don't
really want to do it. The key is to break down those
steps into the smallest, easiest ones with actually that big main
objective right at the bottom. In a way that doesn't actually feel like it's even on there. So we're not going
to do the big order. We're going to just do
turn on the computer, open up the platform, whatever it is, you use the
credit card on the table. So it's nice and easy to
just fill in those details. The smaller the easier the step, the more likely you
are to get going. So like any breadcrumb, the key is to make sure that
the breadcrumbs are small. They're going in
the right direction and not to spread apart. So here's an example of mine. Right next to my
phone or my alarm. I'll have my breakfast
pot already laid down. So all I have to do is take that into the kitchen where my to-do list is ready
and waiting to go. I've already ticked
off two things. Great. I'm wanting to win. Now I hate editing, editing so much because I've
had to do it for so long. And I much prefer being behind the camera or in
front of the camera, just not sat at the desk. So when I pull my to-do list, I must do this edit. I don't wanna do it
becomes this thing. I put off. And I put off. But when I put on my to-do
list, tunnel and computer, open up edit and I don't make myself sit down and
actually start the edit. All I have to do is open up the project while I can do that because there's no
commitment and my end, I can turn on the computer
and I can open up the edit. And then I can carry
on making breakfast, which let's be honest,
that's the fun bit. But when I come back
to the computer, that edit is sat there waiting. It's easier for me
to sit down and do it than it is to
justify not doing it. Now at the time
we're making this, I'm actually training
for a very long run. And as part of that, I have to make sure
I'm going to the gym, I'm working out, I am hitting the road and
doing those miles. Writing down, go and run 18 mi is not something
I want to see. What I will do though is get changed britain,
you're running gear. I have to get dressed anyway. So might as well make life
easy and just get dressed into the sports stuff that's
already there, ready to go. I'm not necessarily going to
go to the gym right then. But I've removed an
obstacle later on. And because I'm
wearing that stuff, I'm not going to
forget to do it. It's there in my head, is there visually for me to see. So it's not just about designing your environment as
much as it is about Laying the path through the environment to
where you want to get you to create your own
breadcrumb morning routine. Here's what you need to do. You need to think about whatever your objective is
for the next day and really break down all those components until
you get to the easy parts. And that's what's
gonna go on that list. We're not laying
down the big goal. We're simply putting
down the breadcrumbs that will lead us
then naturally. Now, so very well and
good saying these things, but you actually
have to go do them. So before you go to bed tonight, you need to lay down
all those breadcrumbs, physically put the things
where they need to be. So tomorrow morning you can just follow those breadcrumbs. The one thing to add to
this is that it's actually really good to put in
a reward for yourself. Not everything has
to be an objective or a breadcrumb of
something you have to do. Pepper that list with things
that you are going to enjoy doing and make sure you're taking them off
because of that, again, that's going to make us feel positive and we only write down things that we don't want to do that is going to
grind to a halt. So if it is making coffee, if you love your
coffee in the morning, then yet put that on there, make sure that you are
having that coffee. Sandwiching in a task that maybe is the start or something you don't
really wanna do. But making sure
that you are doing it and rewarding yourself
once you've done that. So day one, we've blocked
those instructions and we have blocked the
access date to today. We have figured out
the breadcrumbs to win tomorrow morning and to
get to where we want to get. And D3 tomorrow, I'm
going to show you how to make sure you're
staying on task, how you are holding yourself accountable
to be productive. Alright? See you tomorrow.
4. Day 3 - Accountability Tricks: Alright, here we are, day three. So this is a good one. For this lesson, I'm going to employ two things that I've learned from two
books that I've read. And the last one
is one of my own, I think hopefully anyway. So we're gonna start with one of the most helpful things I have ever found for
staying accountable. Now if you read David
Goggins book, can't hurt me, then you probably
know what's coming, but I am putting its
like tweak to it. And if you haven't,
an amazing book, definitely worth a read. So when David Goggins
wanted to change his life, he was overweight
in a job he hated, wasn't managing very
well in his academics. He lifts himself in the mirror and hold themselves accountable. He just laid out the truth
using post-it notes. And that way every day he would see that truth and
have to confront it. Now for some risks that
might be a bit much. You might not want your notes on a mirror when you have
people around and they're saying what the
**** is wrong with you. What I like to do isn't
accountability letter. So let me walk you
through how I do this. Now I find the
best time to write this letter is at
the end of the day. So you're lying in bed and make sure we're
leaving breadcrumbs. We have that notebook
that we're writing in, sat ready-to-go by our bed. And the obvious note
on what we need to do, we don't just want
some notebook that we forget about has to be obvious. It always has to
be really clear. Basically be completely
honest and open about who we are and
what we're doing, and where those
choices have goddess. And tomorrow we're gonna
be able to look at those things and say, well, if that's what that led to them, what do I need to do different today to lead to
somewhere different? So write it at the
end of the day and look at it first thing
in the morning and it will help you remind
yourself of what you are, where you are, and what
you're trying to become. Now, I did read someone
who had done this and actually found it a little
bit too difficult to say, I am failing here. I am letting myself down here. Because by saying I am, it feels like that is
not transformable. So what they said instead
is I am being this, I am doing this. And you can change that. You can change
what you're doing. You can change
what you're being. It's up to you. I don't feel the
need to do that by thought it worth including. Now the next technique
from James Clear is actually something
he says not to do, but I find it really helpful. So I'm going to show you
how to do that right now. Now, I'm sure many of you
may have read Atomic Habits, which is a great
book by James Clear. And in it he talks about this idea of voting
for your identity. What he's getting at is if
you want to form a new habit, is rather than focusing on
what you want to be doing, is focusing on the person
you want to become, who you want to be. An example he gives
him the book is rather than wanting
to read more, is to become a reader. Now I'm pretty sure in the book he goes on to say you don't need to physically vote
for who you want to be. I personally have
actually found it really helpful and some of you
may think this is stupid. But what I've done is I
have this little box. I actually made this out
of paper that you can just have any box
that you may have. And then on small bits of paper, I write down who wants to
be and what that entails. So two examples I have here. One is, I'm an athlete, which are then underneath put, exercise, food, discipline. Well, it means is sometimes you don't really want
to go to the gym. But as soon as I cast this
into this box, That's it. I now have to go because I'm saying that's who I am
and to be that person, I have to follow
through on my actions. I also have one that says
I'm an entrepreneur. Courses, YouTube consistency. Want that there is doing is, again, if I cast that, it's going to make sure that
I am recording these videos. I am writing that article or
whatever it is I need to do the whole reason I do this as a physical exercise where
I have an actual box. I am physically
voting is because I know that for me in myself. If I cast that vote, but then don't go on to do whatever it is I'm saying
that I need to go do. I'm going to feel
terrible in myself. This box keeps me accountable
to who I wanna be. Because again, if I'm not really wanting
to go to the gym, I'll hover over that
and I'll think, Do I really want to cast this, this whole idea of identity
leading the changes you're making to become more productive on James
Claire's case, just to have better habits. It's there to help you become
the person you want to be, which is really
the crux of this. Why do you want to
be more productive? What are you hoping to
achieve at the end? I'd really recommend not just reading the book if
you get the chance, but also doing this as
a physical exercise, writing down the sort of
person that you want to say that you are and what some
of those actions look like. Do you want to be a CEO? And what does that mean? Does that mean
writing an article? Does that mean turning up at 09:00 A.M. at
your desk every day. As a simple thing,
It's a silly thing, but it really works. So up until this point,
we've basically laid down everything we need to do to
get to where we want to be, to be doing that thing to
starting that objective, whether that is
writing a blog post or shipping off
some eBay supplies. We are at the point now we
actually need to do the work. I mean, that's the whole
point of a productivity class is to actually be productive. And everything to this point
is changing our methodology. So we can get to
that point without feeling burnt out or
frustrated or annoyed. But we need to actually start. And when we start, there's
something that I do that I find infinitely helpful
to keep me on task. And I also do this when
I stop and change task. And that is keeping a visual timer right
in front of my eyes. I have an old phone and I
just use that and I set it up on the timer and leave it running right in front
of the computer. As soon as I start, whether that is a blog post or editing, I have that there. Because by visually seeing
how long something is taking, it makes me work faster. Because I want it
to be done quicker. You see those numbers ticking
over and you're thinking, How is this taking so long? And you work harder and
you don't get distracted because suddenly a
day has value to it, rather than just saying, I
spent the day doing this, you're saying, Okay, I
spent 4 h doing that. One thing that doesn't
need to take 4 h. I know that there are
time trackers online. There are Pomodoro apps, which is something similar. But for me, I think of physical counting clock right in front of your eyes is the
only way that this works. If you set a timer on a website and then you forget about it. Well, what good is it? You'll come back
and you realize you spent 48 h on the website. What we wanna do is have a very clear visual indication
that doesn't go dark, it doesn't fade out, it doesn't get minimized into the background
of different apps. We want to see it
nice and clear. Now, if you want to do
the Pomodoro technique, you can, it's great. But personally, once
I'm into something, I can build a rhythm
and I'll get it done. For me. The problem isn't midway through the project is at
the start of the project. It's getting that
first grind through. I assume you all the
same and this is what I do to help that. But there's also
needs to be done when you stop to take a break. You need to know how long you are wasting on
YouTube or whatever. I guarantee you, you'll be
amazed at how helpful that is. Go and find an old timer from your kitchen or order on Amazon, or have a phone that
isn't your phone. If you can manage that, maybe borrow your
partners if they have let you have something
in front of you, that does not let you stop remembering how long
something is taking. So that's it. That is the end of day three. So right now, we have
actually managed to get to the most
important part. We've set ourselves
up for success every day through the breadcrumbs
that we've laid down. We're making sure in
the evening we are accountable for what
we're gonna do tomorrow. When we get to that
point tomorrow, we are voting for
who we want to be. And we know the
only way to get to that identity is
to start the task. And once we start, we're
putting on that time and we are keeping tabs on
how long it's taking. So really they are
the three biggest, most important lessons that I think you can possibly have when it comes
to being productive. But what happens in a
week's time or two weeks time where you forget or you fall off the positive vibes or you feel like
you've not actually made that much progress. Tomorrow, I'm going
to walk you through how to get over that
depression dip. Because no one, absolutely no one can be
productive like that. Just a constant
level of production. There's always a
crest in the fall. It's always about a wave. And to expect it to be flat is only going to
disappoint yourself. There'll be times
when you are riding that high and times where
you are dipping low. So tomorrow I want to
show you how to get back out of those dips
whenever they come. See you tomorrow.
5. Day 4 - Defeating Disappointment Dips: So day four and
today we're gonna be discussing what happens when you reach a disappointment dip. When you are just reaching those moments where things
aren't really working out, maybe it's two o'clock
in the afternoon, you realize that
you've not actually started the task that you
hope to finish by now. And you're just feeling
a bit frustrated, I think is really crucial
to bear in mind with any productivity video or
YouTube or that you watch. No-one one is productive
all the time, even though it may look it, there will be times where
they fall down that dip. But what separates those
people as they get back up and start riding that wave
back up towards the top again. So how do we do that? How do we make sure that we
don't just stay down there? There is a technique that I
have no idea where I saw it, how I came across it. I'm sure that someone else
out there came up with this. But for whatever reason, this has stuck with me. And whenever I'm in a
disappointment dip, this is what gets me through with a positive
frame of mind. So tomorrow I can
get back on track. I can lay down those
breadcrumbs and I can start being
productive again. When I am in a disappointment. Did and I don't do this. Every day is only when I'm
feeling frustrated or annoyed. I will remind myself
to think about my day as a full period day. I do my days like this. 6am to 9AM, 09:00 A.M. to 12:00 P.M. 12:00
P.M. to 03:00 P.M. at 3PM to 06:00 P.M. if
I can be productive in some way in two out of those
four segments of time. I will consider
that day success. If I only managed
one out for them, perhaps I need to reassess
and re-evaluate we motivate. But if I can hit
two out of four, then I remember to just be
happy and content with that. The great thing is that when you reach that
disappointment dip is often within that
third chunk of time. It normally is sometime around the early afternoon period where you still have a CT
of the day left. And that's great because
that means you can at least hit one out of four
and possibly two. And when I get to that point and I can
re-frame my mind and go, okay, I may have lost two
out of four segments here. I may have got one in the
afternoon and not started, but I'm still within that
third period of time. I can still win this round. And then I've got another
one to claw back. So much of productivity
is about being able to re-frame your mind
when you are feeling down, about yourself, when you
are beating yourself up. But if you can hit two
out of four chunks, then you can forgive yourself. You can go to bed,
happy and content. And that is so important because productivity is a word that just sits right
next to frustration. We are frustrated because
we're not productive. But because we are frustrated, we often don't
become productive. Even today. For me, for instance, I
woke up at halfway. That first chunk of
time is basically gone. I can't remember
what I did 9-12. So that second one
was gone as well. But from the afternoon on, I set up all of this
and I've been filming. And that way I know
that I have hit two out of four and I feel
happy now I feel like I have been productive. So this method has
helped hugely for that. Whoever did come up with this, I pay my utmost respect to u
because this helps me a lot. The second part to it is what many people would
just call journaling. But I find that word
a bit intimidating. When I hear the
words journaling, I think about writing pages
and pages of my thoughts and feelings and really
analyzing my day. I don't really want to do that. When I get to the end
of the day though, it does help sometimes
to just make a note of something I've achieved that day to
make me feel good. It's all too easy to
get to the end of the day and look back and think, What have I actually done? But if you can think about something that you have
done and write that down, then you're not gonna beat
yourself up quite as much. Yesterday, I actually
wrote down in this notebook which
I've just been using for my notes today. Today has been productive. Four mile run on an incline
and BBC application. So I applied for a
writers scheme and BBC, it's things like that
which are really key to write down because
when you look back, it doesn't feel like
you've been productive. You think you haven't
hit all the milestones. But actually, that
application took several hours and that was
a good use of my time. And therefore, why
should I feel like I've been unproductive when
I have been productive. It's about knowing when to forgive yourself and how
to forgive yourself. Once you've been doing
this long enough, these things will come back
to you when you need them. They would just appear from
the back of your brain, but that won't happen to me. So for now, write
it down somewhere, leave it on your desk, makes sure that it is obvious, even if you have it
on little stickers on your laptop frame. Tomorrow, on our final day, we're going to streamline
what we've done. And we're also going to look at a little technique I
like to use to remind myself why I'm trying to be productive is that
big picture concepts. So I'll see you tomorrow.
6. Day 5 - Big Picture Motivation: Okay, So hopefully by now you feel like you have
a lot of tools and techniques at your
disposal to help you get back to that
place of productivity. Remember this whole class isn't about being productive
all the time. It's about finding
your way back to productivity when you
feel a little bit lost. First off, let's just recap
what we've done so far. So the first thing we have to do is look at our distractions, do a deep dive analysis, and just understand why we're not being
productive waters, taking our attention and then find ways to
block that off. Find ways to put obstacles in between you
and those distractions, both digital and physical. On day two, we looked
at how to create breadcrumbs for your
ideal morning routine, which is all about just leading you to the
starting block, just going through
those easy wins to get you to the task at hand. Or as I like to say
it, we're gonna preload success for the day. On day three, we take a
look at accountability, looking at how we can write
an accountability letter to ourselves to make sure we
stay on track the next day. But also looking at how our
identity shapes our choices. So actually voting for
the person we want to become a nice, easy win. And that lesson was just putting
a timer, physical timer, that isn't some website, something right in
front of your eyes. So you're always aware
of how much time you're spending
both on your work. So we're trying to speed up our efficiency and
also keeping an eye on how much time we are
wasting on other distractions. So it's fine to
have those things. It's fine to treat ourselves
to break some rewards. If you want to use the
Pomodoro Technique and have a five-minute break, very 25 min of work, you do. Absolutely fine. Just make sure it is
only five-minutes. Make sure that our breaks, our gaps on outweighing our
productivity, our work. And then yesterday,
we looked at how to get over a disappointment dip, looking at how to get ourselves back up, back on our feet. And we did that
through segmentation. So making sure
that we're hitting at least two out of our
four chunks from the day. You can make those time
periods whatever you want. The timeframes I gave you, they're just bought suits me. You may want to work on
a different schedule. And on top of that, looking
at journalling, which again, I use that word with
some reluctance but making a note of things that have gone
well in the day. Things that have either
made you happy or feel like an achievement
and actually not feeling like you've had an unproductive day
just because you're forgetting some of the
things that you've done and how long
those tasks took. That's what we've
been doing so far. Now, with all these techniques, you should be able
to get to a really good place of making some progress and actually getting to that starting point, getting into the work. But no matter what
there are times when we are head comes out
of the small picture, we start looking
at the big picture of why am I actually doing this. And that can be the times where we find
ourselves stuck in a rut for a long time because it's not just
I've had a bad day, but is that true mental block
of why am I spending weeks, months, years working
on this thing. To stay productive long-term, and to keep us going. I like to have a vision board. Now no doubt you know what? Vision board is really helpful. And my vision board, It's not like some
of the things we talked about where it's the
identity of who I want to be. It's actually some of
the things I want to do with the people I
want to do it with. So for me, my vision
isn't just for me to become successful in some
fail to become a director, to become a writer. Those things. Sure that the end goal, but what I want to achieve
is a great career, but can get me the
rewards that I want, which in my case is this. So normally these
pictures would be filled with my actual
family or friends. For the sake of this class
that a bit more stock photos, but you understand the idea. So what I have is a list on the top left of the
things that I want to do. The things that are
going to make me happy. They're going to make me really feel like I'm living life. And on the right, just a
little mantra to keep me going to help me understand
why I'm doing it. And I have images that reflect
those things on my list. I have take my mom to see
the mountains in Iceland, enjoy the twilight of
Spain with my dad. Learn to cook pasta in
Italy with a friend. Ride a motorbike through
Vietnam, led scuba dive. Hello, face my fear of horses. Don't ask me why, but horses terrify me and they
always come after me. I swear to God, horses
really haven't infamy. So they're the things
that I want to do. And this is the vision of
how I want it to look. And then on the
bottom right, I have, this is why you are doing it. This is what weights at the end. These are the memories
that will make you happy. That's really important to
me because when you start something or when you are
trying something new, there will always be people out there telling you not to do it. Or even in yourself, you have that imposter
syndrome of not feeling like this is going to look very good from the outside, or what will people think? End of the day? If you
know why you're doing it, if you have this vision
of traveling the world with your family or getting over fear of
something that you have. There's a good
reason to doing it. Create a vision board and print it off and
keep it somewhere that you can see it
on a regular basis. If you keep it somewhere
you see on a daily basis, you probably going to start
to look past it because, you know what it's like when something's there
the whole time, you kind of forget
it's there at all. But having it accessible, something that's going to catch your eye once a
week, once a month. That's the ideal
situation for this. Now if you want to create
your vision board, then if you've seen any
of my other classes, you know that I love Canva. So that's how I've done mine. It's really easy
bit of software. You can use it for free. There is a premium account, but you can use it for free. So have a look on Canva, create your vision
board, print it off, and really just keep inside you that core reason
why you want to do this. It's not just about who
you want to become, is about what you want to do and the people you wanna do
with when you finish. So create your vision board
and you are good to go. They are your five core
lessons that I wanted to teach and hopefully help
you become productive. So once you've done
that, go watch the outro video and that'll
be it for the class.
7. Outro: Hopefully, if you are here, it is not because you
are being unproductive, but it is because you
have been putting these steps in
place and you feel good about where you're at. If you have just
watched this all in one chunk, that's
absolutely fine. Just make sure you go
back and do them one at a time and really make sure they stick in because you can't be
productive if you just try and hear it once and then let it filter way out
the back of your mind. The more you do something, the more it will become
ingrained within you. Now, I just wanted to
wrap up this class by really trying to
make sure it lands within you that being
productive is not about the flatline
productivity of all the time. It is about knowing how
to get up to that top of the wave and how to get out of that dip when
you're in there. This class is evidence in
itself because I've been meaning to do this class for a long time and I've
been putting it off. I actually went
through and followed all the steps to
get to the point of making that first lesson and
here we are at the end of it and I'm hopeful and confident
that it will work for you, at least the majority. Maybe you have to tweak
certain things or add your own elements but
hey, that is brilliant. If you can make
this more unique, more bespoke if you can
make it more productive, I'm more game for that. Now if you haven't
already seen it, then you might enjoy my very
first class from Skillshare, which was all about
brand storytelling. I imagine if you're
watching this, you might be self-employed
entrepreneurial spirit. Hopefully, that class will
help you in another way, helped define your business, but save it for
another day because right now the key is
about being productive. Going and doing whatever that task is that you've been
meaning to do for so long. Obviously, there was no
class project for this, so I don't expect any projects, but by all means, leave me a
comment in the discussion. Always happy to have a chat. I always like to leave
comments if I can. Any questions or any of your own tips would
be more than welcome. Thank you so much for watching, and until next
time, see you soon.
Aram Atkinson, Storyteller. Filmmaker.
