Productivity Hacks: Build Systems That Work for You

1. Intro to Productivity Hacks: With all the productivity advice out there, it's easy to feel overwhelmed. Should you time block, multitask, or follow someone else's perfect routine. The truth is productivity isn't a one size fits all solution. This class is about creating systems that work for you, not against you. You'll learn how to simplify your approach to productivity that focus on productivity strategies that fit your life and workflow. No one size fits all solutions. This class, you'll discover how to create smart goals that are realistic and keep you moving forward. You'll learn how to use MVP minimum viable product thinking to stop overcomplicating your tasks. You're also going to learn the power of MITs, which are most important tasks, to focus your energy on the tasks that truly matter and drive performance. Then you also learn how to use techniques like the 5 minutes priority list, which allows you to quickly generate a list of tasks that keep momentum going. And you're also going to get introduced to a mix of tools and strategies that adapt to your need and help you stay consistent. Whether you're looking to balance a busy work schedule or looking to make more time for your personal goals or just manage your task with less stress. This class will give you the flexibility and tools to make productivity work for you. By the end of this class, you'll have a personalized tool kit of productivity hacks that you can start using immediately. If you're ready to stop trying to fit into someone else's system and develop your own productivity system, then this class is for you. So let's get started. 2. SMART Goals: Setting Clear Targets for Big Wins: Hey, guys, and welcome back to another exciting lesson. We're going to be talking about goal setting today, specifically smart goal setting. So what makes up a smart goal? Well, it needs to be specific. It needs to be measurable. It needs to be achievable, and it needs to be relevant and it needs to be time based. Having all of these elements will ensure that your goal is efficiently laid out and defined, as well as ensuring that it has the best chance of success. So let's jump into the first element of a smart goal, which is being specific. So the goal needs to be specific and clearly defined. A poor example would be something like, I need to get more clients. A good example would be, I need to increase the number of repeat clients by 20%. The next element is making sure the goal is measurable. So it needs to be quantified and we need to have a clear point of reference to be able to track progress and know when the goal has been achieved. So for example, a poor goal would be to check reports to see if revenue has increased. A great element will be monitor the revenue generated from repeat clients each month using accounting software, aiming for a 20% increase within the set time frame. Next element is making sure it is achievable. So this is where you would ask yourself, can I realistically achieve the goal with my current resources and skill set and available time or any other parameters that might hamper your effectiveness and prevent you from reaching this goal. Then also to look at, has this been done before by somebody else, that's not to say that if it hasn't been done before, that you shouldn't attempt it. It just means that you know that you're on the right track and you would not be wasting any resources and time by going for this goal. So to look at an example, that would be implementing a client loyalty program to encourage repeat business and offering discounts and bonuses for repeat projects. So this is something that is very achievable and can easily be executed. Next element is making it relevant. So it has to play into the bigger picture of your business or your work in general. So an example there would be focusing on repeat clients because it improves customer attention and stability of income. So that is a crucial aspect for the business's long term success. The next goal setting element is to make it time base. Your smart goal must have a timeline for completion. This makes it real and not just an idea or a dream to do someday. An example of that would be to have different stages mapped out. Stage one, you want to launch the client loyalty program, and you would set a due date for that stage two, collect the client feedback. And make necessary adjustments and setting a due date for that. Then to begin starting to promoting the loyalty program, you would set a due date for that. Then once you have all of this in place and the program is running, you would evaluate its success. So you would look at data points coming in just to evaluate and ensure that it is doing what you expected. And if it's not, then maybe adjusting it or tweaking it or pivoting to somewhere else. Bringing it all together, how would that look? How would we have a smart goal using this example? So that would look something like, I want to increase the number of repeat clients by 20% within the next six months by implementing a client loyalty program and tracking progress through the revenue generated from repeat clients each month using accounting software. So this is how we're able to make it smart, and it also ensures that we are aligning this goal with our business objectives, which is improving customer attention and ultimately boosting revenues and income stability. So I'd like to leave you with a quote from Peter Drucker, which is, you can't manage what you don't measure. So that essentially means that you have to have goals in place. You have to measure and evaluate those goals once you start executing them and carrying them out, to be able to know what is working and what is not. So that is a good one to think of, as well. And so to sum it up, smart goals help you clarify. They give you focus, and they help you to achieve your goals efficiently. And remember, a goal without a plan is just a wish. And with that, we've come to the end of this lesson. I hope there was some insightful information for you to be able to go out and just start making your goals a bit more smart. That's it for this lesson. I will catch you in the next one. Goodbye. 3. The MITs: How to Identify Your Most Important Tasks: Hey, and welcome back to another key lesson. We're going to be talking about MITs in this lesson, which stands for most important tasks. Now, you might remember from a previous lesson when we talked about the Perito principle, also called the 80 20 rule. This is where that applies to your task. So your MITs are going to be the 20% of tasks that are going to yield the biggest results. So these are the ones you need to focus on. So given a list of ten tasks, your MITs are going to be those two tasks that will yield the best results. Those then become your priority and are the task that you should carry out first before anything else. Here's a little pro tip. From your MITs, pick the tasks that are the quickest and easiest to carry out. It might seem a bit counterintuitive and not going for the most difficult one first, but by picking the quickest and the easiest task, what you're then doing is creating psychological momentum. So you're able to start completing tasks quicker. And once you begin, it's going to be easier to continue. So that's it for this lesson, and it was quite a key one. MITs are a very important concept to work with, and they should be part of your daily routine, identifying the 20% of tasks from the full list that are the most important and really just tucking into those and making sure that you get those done first. That's it for this lesson. I'll see you in the next one. Goodbye. 4. Plan Ahead Like a Pro: Weekly and Daily MIT Strategies: Welcome back to another lesson. We're looking at MIT still, and these are your MITs for planning ahead. There are two parts to it. There is the weekly MIT list, as well as the daily MIT list. And what this is is you're able to have an overview of all the important tasks you need for the week. That would be in the weekly MIT list. And then you'd go into a little bit more detail with the daily MIT list. So let's take a look at that. The weekly list, it should only take 10 minutes to complete, and ideally you want to do it at the end of the week so that you're able to take stock of everything that's gone on during the weeks because there might be some carryover task that you want to complete in the next week. But it's generally a good idea to do it at the end of the week because you're still in that working mode, and you're able to plan ahead that way. So that would look like a list, you could call it something like MITs week 40. And in there, you would five of your main business tasks, you would have three side projects or side hustles if you've got some things going on the side, and, of course, three to five personal tasks. That is a good amount to be able to accomplish because a lot of these main business tasks or project based tasks, there's going to be a lot of sub task to each of them. So you want to keep it manageable. You want to have it big enough and large enough so that you ensure that you're getting everything in there, but not too large that it becomes unmanageable and daunting to tackle. So where would you store these tis? Well, you could use your favorite task tracker like Trello or click up. You could even use a Google Doc, or if you wanted to go traditional, you could use a diary and just put it down on paper. Even a notepad would do the trick. And ideally you want to do it each Friday. That means you're setting up the week ahead to be a success. Then looking at the daily MIT task list, this should also only take 10 minutes, and this will have a bit more of a granular approach to it. There's a little bit more information to the task there. You would include things like deadlines and priority, resources, people involved, documents, and just give a bit more information to some of the task there. Again, good place to keep them is Trell or click up. Notepad, as well as a diary is equally good as well. And the best time to do that would be each working day, first thing. The benefit of it being first thing is it can become a ritual before you sit down to do all of your work. Or even last thing for the day ahead. That is also good because it allows your brain to just disengage from the workday. You've written everything down. You kind of have a good picture of what's coming tomorrow, so it does have that benefit as well. But whichever way suits you, whatever feels more natural and more productive to you, that is going to be the best way. So that wraps up this lesson. I also just wanted to mention that, of course, there's going to be other tasks that are going to come in throughout the week. Those you would just add to the list. However, you've already put all of your MITs on the list. So any new tasks that come in, they're going to fall into a lower place on the task list, and they're not going to be able to sneak up and steal the coveted spot at the top, which is where your MITs are going to be sitting. So of course, there's going to be more tasks coming along, but this way, the most important tasks are there at the top, and they'll be tackled first. So that's it for this lesson. I hope there was some valuable information that you could use. And why not give it a go? Why not start by creating a weekly MIT list and progress from there. You could even then do a weekly, as well as a daily list and see how that helps you and how you really are able to get your most important tasks that are going to be bringing the biggest results, getting them done first. With that, I hope you're able to get some value from this lesson, and I will see you in the next one. Goodbye. 5. The 5-Minute Priority List: Simplify Your Day in Seconds: Welcome back to another lesson. We're looking at the 5 minutes priority list here. This is just a really quick and easy way to prioritize your task. And it's great when you're a little bit unsure of what needs to be done first, and this just helps you get your priorities in order. They could be your priorities or even just to help get your MITs in order. So let's take a look at how this works. It's a very simple setup. We have three columns, and then a fourth column calculates the amounts from the previous two columns. So what we're doing here is having all of the tasks for a B to B website. So just as an example, we have all of the tasks listed out here, so we write them all down. This can also be done on a piece of paper, if you didn't want to do it in a document or a sheet, so once you have all of your task laid out, you would then create two columns, the results and time columns. You would rank each of them by importance. So in the results column, the results that are going to yield the highest value for you in your business or for the project in general, those are going to have the lowest number. So low numbers equal the highest value they will yield. And then in the time column, they are ranked based on the lowest number means that the task will take the shortest amount of time. So low number, quickest task. Then we are going to calculate the priority score, and that's just as simple as adding the result value to the time value. So in the spreadsheet, it is one cell plus the other cell. And then what you're able to do is you're able to sort those tasks by a priority score. So once you have the value, they are then ranked according to lowest to highest. So the lowest value in the priority score are the ones that you want to tackle first, so those become your priority items. And it's as simple as that, and you're able to do this in 5 minutes. You don't need to have fancy formulas because the scores are going to be relatively low numbers, so you're able to just quickly calculate them yourself. But if you did want to look at the sheet, I've included it in the resources section, so you're able to download it and just have a look and see how it would work. But it's as simple as that. A very quick, easy and simple way to prioritize your task in 5 minutes. That's it for this lesson. I will see you in the next one. Goodbye. 6. The MVP Approach: Get More Done with Minimum Effort: Hi there, and welcome back to another lesson. We're going to be talking about the MVP, which is a minimum viable product. And we're gonna be looking at this specifically as it relates to projects and TA. So traditionally, an MVP is a software term. It's where you release a version of the software that has the minimum requirements. And thereafter you gather feedback and you continually improve the software. This same principle is incredibly effective when it's applied to projects and tasks. Anything that you want to carry out using this technique and method is a surefire way to get you to that final product a lot quicker. Let's have a look at what are the steps of an MVP? There are five of them. The main steps are to identify the minimum requirements and create the first basic version. So this is the basic version of the project. It won't have all of the bells and whistles. It will be a working version of the project. So it's quite common in software these days to have a single feature software, develop that, gather feedback, and then improve on that. So we're going to be applying that here to your projects and task. The next step is to release that basic version to your inner circle. And by inner circle, that means your friends, family, co workers, mentors, anybody whose opinion you value highly and who can give you constructive feedback. Once you release it to your inner circle, you then use their feedback to make minor improvements and adjustments and just get it into a more improved state than what it was as the basic version. Then step four, this is the most important part. This is where you release the MVP version of the project or task. This is where it is released out into the wild, so to speak, and you're able to then gather feedback from people that would either be using the product or the software or the project or the content that you create, and they would then start to give you feedback. And this is an important stage. The next stage is the important one, I mean, and that is to gather feedback and continually improve. So once you've released that MVP, you can then make minor adjustments. You iterate as you go, continually improving it. And after a period of time, you're able to come to the final polished product, so the final result, and that then becomes the basically the final version of your project. So the MVP, although it doesn't have all of the bells and whistles, it allows you to release it sooner, to get it out there, to get the feedback, to improve upon it a lot sooner. And as a result, you're able to have a project or a product or content that is more aligned with your audience when it is released as the final polished product. So that is the basic principle for the minimum viable product. I would love for you to try this with your next project, maybe have a look at what is the minimum requirement needed for your next up and coming project and apply this MVP principle and get people involved. I mean, you'd be surprised at how how much engagement you can get from clients, customers, team members when you include them in the process. They would love to give the feedback and help you on your journey. And at the same time, you're then able to refine the project and get it more closely aligned with the people that are going to be using it in the end. I encourage you to use this for your next project or task to get that MVP version of it out there and released so that you can gather feedback and then make a much better final polished product. And here we have a very relevant quote from Voltaire, and that is that perfect is the enemy of goods. So striving for perfection is going to mean that your tasks and projects are going to take much longer than they have to, and much of the time, good is good enough. So that's something to think about. That's it for the lesson. I hope you enjoyed it, and I will see you in the next one. Goodbye. 7. One Metric That Matters: Stay Focused on What Counts: Welcome back to another lesson. We're going to be talking about the one metric that matters most in this lesson. And this is closely related to a previous lessons concept, which is the SMART goal setting, which you might remember, SMRT being goals that are specific, goals that are measurable, goals that are achievable, goals that are relevant, and goals that are time based. So this has roots in that concept, but it's a lot more simple in its application. So let's look at how to pick the metric that matters most. So the first step is to identify the key goal or outcome that you want to achieve. This could be related to your business or personal projects, anywhere where you want to see an improvement. The next step is to determine the metric that directly impacts that goal. So this should be something quantifiable and easy to track. And an example of that would be if you wanted to increase the sales or the number of clients you have each month. Step three is going to be to set a clear target for this metric. The more clear you are and the more finite and tangible the target, the more likely you are to achieve it. So for instance, you would say looking to increase sales by 30%, and I want to do that within the next 90 days. There you would have a clear path set for the metric that you want to achieve and the time frame that you want to achieve it in. And of course, this wouldn't be the only metric that you would be working towards. I would recommend that you have one for each of the areas of your business or projects. For example, you could have a metric like this for your finance department. You could have one for marketing. You could have one for customer service, and that's where each of those departments has a key metric that aligns with the objectives of the business or your project, and that would ensure success. And, of course, this is where you would consider outsourcing or delegating or even automating some of the processes and the requirements and the tasks needed to achieve these metrics and goals. And so that is where all of that comes into play because as somebody that is a business owner or you're running your own show, so to speak, you might not have the time and the physical capacity to carry out all of the tasks that are required for this on any given day. So outsourcing, delegation, automation is where you would pull your resources together to achieve what the business needs. That is something to consider. It's a laser focused way to pick a single metric and work like crazy to achieve that and get the results that you want. That's it for this lesson. I hope you could get some value, and I'd love you to try and identify some of the metrics that matter most to you and your business projects or even some of your personal projects and see how you can apply this formula to make a difference there. That's it for this lesson. I will see you in the next mo. Goodbye. 8. 01: Welcome back to another lesson. Starting is one of the more challenging tasks. The trick is to do it early and do it quickly. The more momentum you build early on, the more chance of success later down the line. And just getting started it becomes much easier to keep going. When is the best time to start? You probably guessed it. It's now. Set your intention to start. This could be for a project or anything that you've been planning to do. Set the intention to start and stick to it at all costs. Don't wait for the perfect moment because it rarely comes. The plan does not need to be perfect. I just needs to be started and put into action. The start is more about taking that first step than having everything perfectly laid out. The more you just start, the better you will become at it, and also the quality of work will improve and additionally, it's going to get easier each and every time. So that's it for this lesson to summarize everything, you are wanting to start. That is the most important part of this process. You set the intention to start and you stick to it. Once you begin the process, it becomes easier to manage, and you develop a skill for starting and actually completing tasks. So I hope that was useful, and that's it for this lesson, I'll catch you in the next one. Goodbye. 9. Activation Energy: Breaking Through the Starting Barrier: Hey, guys. Welcome back to another lesson. We're going to be talking about activation energy. In chemistry, this is the minimum amount of energy that's needed for a reaction to occur. When we look at it in terms of productivity, you aim to make it easier to start something. So you remove the hurdles or any difficult situations or aspects of the task to be able to make it easier to start. So an example of activation energy would be a cyclist on a bike at the foot of a hill. He needs to be able to start the process of pedaling, to be able to get up the hill. And once he gets going, it's easier to keep going because he has that momentum. And ultimately, then when he reaches the top, he's able to free wheel down with almost zero effort. Another example of this, and you can see in the diagram that's provided on the slide here is that of wanting to accomplish 100 push ups. This comes from James Clear's book of Atomic Habits. It's a great read, by the way. And what the principle is is that to get to the end result of 100 push ups, start by just completing a single push up or even two or three because once you get into the push up, the actual task of doing a single push up, the start is the hardest part, but once you've started you'll feel it's going to be easier to squeeze out a second push up, a third, a fourth, a fifth. So just by getting started, you're already removing a lot of the energy and effort that's needed to be able to continue. So that is the key part and the key concept here. So applying this to tasks and projects means breaking them down into more manageable tasks and also removing some of the friction from just simply starting. Another example of this could be miniature preparation. So let's say you wanted to commit to going to the gym, first thing in the morning, what you would do the night before is pack up your gym bag, make sure that you had everything ready, and place the gym bag by the door so that it's ready to be picked up and taken with you, first thing in the morning. Seeing it there, you know that you've used a little bit of effort to get it ready, and in not wanting to waste that effort, you're going to make sure that you pick it up and take it with you and actually start that process and go to the gym. And once you're there, you'll be able to continue because the momentum will have already been started. So the key aspect here and principle to look at is just remove the hurdles for starting something. I'd like to use another example, which is, if you were to start playing a musical instrument like a guitar, having the guitar placed where you normally are, whether that's in the kitchen or the lounge would make much more sense than having it tucked away in a cupboard where if you wanted to start playing and practicing, you'd need to go to another room. You'd need to get the guitar out. You'd need to get all of your music sheets. All of that would be needed before you can actually start. And the effort that's required to get that going is a lot more than if you would just placed the guitar in the corner of your lounge, you would see it there. It's right there at your fingertips, you'd be able to start and begin the practice. The concept here is to remove the hurdles and the limitations and the effort required to start. That is activation energy in the context of productivity. It's a powerful concept, and I hope it can improve your productivity. And that's it for this lesson on activation energy. I'll catch you in the next one. Goodbye. 10. Themed Days: Structuring Your Week for Maximum Impact: Hi there, H. Welcome back to this exciting lesson about themed days. Now, themed days are a great way to tackle all of your task for a given week. So instead of focusing your productivity and getting results coming from a single day, we're zooming out to look at it over a longer timeline. So a week becomes the timeline to getting things done and doing your best work, and that is where the themed days concept comes into play. So how it works is that you define a list of the most important categories of tasks in your business. This could be things like finance, marketing, business development, things like that. So for each of those categories, you would then have the most important tasks that are needed for each of those categories. Once you have all of that, you then pick the days that you'd like to carry out all of those different categories tasks. So for example, on Tuesday, it might be finances and Thursday, it might be marketing. That's kind of the general idea. So what this helps to do is it ensures that you're not just doing random tasks that come in or random things like emails or unnecessary meetings or anything like that to take time away from being productive. On any given day, you have a strict set of tasks you need to carry out, and they're also all related to each other. So your mind is in that specific mindset, and you're able to reduce the cognitive penalty by switching between different tasks all day long. Tuned in, you're dialed in to that single category. So how would that look in the real world? Well, let's have a look at an example here. So this is an actual example of my them days routine that was part of my week when I was running an e commerce company. So on Monday, I chose that for new business development. I would do research and development, developing the business, bringing in new business, that sort of thing. It would also be for setting up new projects and tasks for the week all the month ahead. And then as well as business development and outreach. So just getting new leads to come in, looking at new suppliers, new products or stock, things like that. That would also be a day where I would remove all notification. So it meant that I was a lot more tricky to get hold of and a lot less available on a Monday than any other day. And that's where that notification bill is appearing. Tuesday, that would be for finances. I would usually have meetings with accountants. On these days, I would look at the financial reports, just to gauge the health of the business and make sure that things are on track, having a look at revenue figures, all of that, taxes as well. So this was an important day for making sure that everything was in order, and I was compliant with tax regulations, VAT submissions, all of that. Inventory reports. This would be just checking up on inventory. And then Wednesday, this would be Marketing one. So it would be marketing tasks like email marketing, social media, content creation for the blog, things like that. Thursday would then be a second kind of marketing day, and that would be more paid media and paid advertising. So Google ads, Facebook ads, paper click and affiliate marketing. As well as search engine optimization. Then Friday, that would be reserved for team meetings and getting updates on projects from team members. I would also use that to have external meetings. So as you're probably aware, all of these meeting requests come in throughout the week. I would then schedule them for a Friday and just batch all of them together. And, of course, they're making sure that these are only meetings that I feel would drive value that would be important. And also calls and chats. So this would be any kind of HR related chats that are needed, meetings, that sort of thing, where I needed to speak to team members, all of that. Then moving on to the weekend, this is where I would shut down and at least for work. That then becomes family time, personal projects, side hustles, hobbies, that sort of thing. So this is just an example of how theme days are laid out. It could be different for you. You could have different categories, but this is just an effective way that I found to just categorize and make sure that each day I'm doing the most important task and the most effective task for that category of my business or for my projects, things like that. So it's something that you could use as well. There is just one caveat to this. You need to be aware of any upcoming holiday. So public holidays, anything that would mean that an entire day could be wiped out. So because you're only doing some tasks on a given day, you just need to watch out if you have a public holiday. For example, on a Tuesday, if there's a public holiday coming up and you've got an important tax return or a VAT return or something, and it's a public holiday, you need to factor for that and recover the time maybe on other days leading up to that date, just to make sure that you cover that. But aside from that, I found this to be a very effective technique, and I encourage you to give it a go, even if it's just maybe one day, see how it goes, see if it works for you. If it does, fantastic. If not, it's just something to think about and implement as you feel and wish. So that's me signing off. I will see you in the next lesson. Goodbye. 11. Maker vs Manager Schedule: Hi there, and welcome back to another lesson. We're looking at the maker verse manager schedule in this lesson, and this concept helps you balance deep work sessions with necessary but often disruptive meetings and managerial tasks. The maker verse manager schedule addresses this issue by dividing your time between maker and manager. Makers need long, uninterrupted sessions of deep work and focus to do tasks like creativity, strategizing, writing, developing, coding, designing, those sorts of things. Was managers, on the other hand, often have schedules around meetings, coordination tasks and just generally keeping things going. Both are equally important and need to be carried out to be effective. However, a good idea is to identify the tasks that make up a maker's schedule and also a manager's schedule. Step one would be to identify the maker tasks that require deep focus, and you would block out time in your calendar to carry out those tasks. Then the next step would be to do the same thing for manager task and ensure that you have time blocked out for all of the things like emails and meetings and administrative work and all of those managerial tasks. Now, let's look at how that might look. So here on the left hand side, we have the maker's schedule, and on the right hand side, we have the manager's schedule. So as you can see, the makers schedule, large chunks of time blocked out for deep work, getting into flow state, for creativity and strategizing and all of those maker tasks that need to be carried out. Then on the right hand side, there's shorter chunks that are blocked out, a lot more meetings, a lot more emails, team building, sales and marketing, follow ups, that sort of thing. Now, it's not to say that you should have one day as a maker and one day as a manager. You can split a day in two to be able to have maybe a maker's morning and a manager's afternoon. It just depends on how your business operates and how your projects operate. How accountable you need to be to other team members. But in general, this concept should be applied to your task because there's going to be tasks that require deep thought and creativity and strategizing, and you need to remain uninterrupted and not be disturbed during those periods so that you can get the benefit of those sessions and produce your best work. So that wraps it up for this lesson. I hope you're able to see how each of these, although equally important, it's also a good idea to make sure that you allocate time for each of these schedules so that you can get everything done and produce your best work. That's it for this lesson on the make a verse manager schedule. I hope you're able to see how important each of them are, and I encourage you to try and use them in your own workday. But with that, I will see you in the next lesson. Goodbye.