The Productive Entrepreneur : Personal Development & Productivity Hacks

1. Introduction: Hi. I'm welcome to the productive entrepreneur teaching. You have to get organized, get productive on make more profit. My name's Tony and I'm an entrepreneur based in Dublin, Ireland. I started my company from the spare bedroom in my house. Since then, both my company and I have gone on to win numerous startup business Entrepreneur Awards. I created this course for people just like me. Entrepreneurs, small business owners, team leaders on people who just want to get more done. David Kerch said. Anxiety is the car is caused by a lack of control, organization, preparation and action. If, like me, you know exactly what he's talking about. Then discourse is for you. I'll teach you how to master each one for greater profit together. Over the next few weeks, we're going to learn how to get organized, get productive. I'm make more profit. Each one of these concepts will help you to become too productive. Entrepreneur, you're Paris on productivity is the foundation of all your future profit. The two are inseparable. You cannot be unproductive and yet magically turn a profit. At the end of each month I will walk you through techniques I have acquired unlearned the hard way on our productivity journey. This course is fast paced, results orientated and guaranteed to get you organized. Increase your productivity. I make you more profit. So if you're ready to do more than you have ever done your life and start to become one of productivity's elite, then here's what you get. I completely results orientated course, using my own experience as an entrepreneur to guide you, you'll start off by learning. Had to get everything that you consider open are undone in your life. Offer desk out of your head or off of your to do list. Then I'll show you how to put the processes in place to keep you productive, along with the habit, tools and tricks of the super productive. When trouble strikes, I am always on hand to offer support and answer any questions that you might have. You work your way right up from productivity newbie, the productivity master, but a time you complete the productive entrepreneur. You'll be doing more than you ever thought possible on achieving your life's goals and ambitions to help you make the most of it. This amazing opportunity. Any checks and I've included cheat sheets on other resource is to keep you on track and give your productivity a shot in the arm when you need it most. So what are you waiting for? If you want to get more organized, become more productive, I make more profit than you've ever done in role now and join me on this life changing journey on. Remember, if you have any questions, just ask. 2. Whats on your mind: Hi, my name's Tony. I'm welcome to the productive entrepreneur getting you organized, productive on helping to make you more profit. This lecture is entitled, What's on your mind? And it starts off with a great little quote there from Horace, who was a philosopher on He said, Control your mind or it will control you. And that is so true. That's what we're gonna be talking about during this lecture. How to get things off your mind and into a process where you know where everything is. Everything is safe and you can recall it at a moment's notice. So before we get into electorate, let me ask you a question. When you sit down to your desk or your coffee shop or wherever you work from, how long is it before you actually get down? To work on your truly productive what's on your mind? Or your to do list that keeps you from getting started. So just think about that for a moment before you add. Proceed into the lecture for me. Why used to stop me was everything that was on my mind. Wants to give you an example. An extreme example. I had an unopened letter from my bank. I knew it was from my bank because it had their stamp on it and I didn't open for about three or four weeks because I was worried that it wasa demand letter or something of that nature. When I finally did open it, it was a letter saying that they had updated the privacy policy. I had let this letter get me down for three or four weeks on. By doing so, I had lost all hopes of productivity. This pattern continued in other areas of my life, and I have to put a stop to it if I were to have any hope of becoming productive and controlling my mind. So that is no way for anybody to go through a day, a week or even the rest of her life. You have to take control, and you have to do it now. It doesn't matter if it's a letter from your bank or with simple email you need to send to confirm a dinner reservation. You have to take control, beginning to empty. Everything that is on your mind is a forest small step in your productivity journey on taking back control of your life. I have found that by getting every off of my mind, it house me to be present in whatever it is that I'm doing. If your mind is worrying about investor relations, a solicitor's letter, money that you owe bills that you haven't paid the present, that you kind of I kind of forward by if your partner. Then you are not focusing on what you need to be doing on your enough focusing. You are not being present on when you were not present. You're not moving forward. And when you don't move forward, you are not making money on for an entrepreneur. It is simple. Is that when you're not moving forward, moving your business forward, moving your projects forward. You are not making money. So what? He ended his course. One of the things that I want for you is to be present, to be in the moment of whatever it is you're supposed to be doing on. The best way to do that is to start like I did, which was to gather everything that was on my mind both physically and mentally and catalogued. So I started by getting all of my own open post together. My emails, my voicemails, my taught my bits of paper, magazines, old newspapers, appointments, everything that was either physically or mentally undone on I put them on the floor beside my desk. If it was a talk that I had, I wrote it down on its own sheet of paper, and I added it to the pile on the floor. Sitting at my desk, I have my computer, a scanner on an empty in tray. I took the first item from the pile on. I decided what I had to do it. I didn't do exactly what I decided there, and then I simply put the item where it needed to be. I organized on a catalogue. If it was an old letter, I scanned it on bended. It was an article that I promised myself I would read. I place it in my physical injury if it was a tart that I had, I added to a notebook and every note this entire process took me about three days to complete. When I was finished, the most amazing things start to happen. I didn't notice it for a few days, or maybe a took a few days from from my mind's fog to lift. But all of a sudden I started to have ideas again. Instead of firefighting, my mind was free to think of new ideas, a new solution for my business projects that have been sitting hidden under the stairs. In my mind, we're starting to come back to me with fresh new ways to move them forward. All of this after only a few days of getting everything cut, logged and organize somewhere. Not long afterwards, I began, I began to feel something else, a sense of control, what everything on my mind, recorded somewhere I knew what was on the horizon, what was coming. A quick look of my physical injury, or Evernote gave me two DUIs and priorities. I could process them one at a time and is actually enjoying it. By taking these small steps to productivity, I was able to start applying myself to other areas of my life. My mind was free to actually talk and listen when I was having a conversation with my partner when I was out on it, when I was out at night with friends, I was not thinking about what was waiting for the next morning in my emails. Don't get me wrong in the beginning. This takes a lot of effort. It takes both physical and mental strength to go through everything that you have, either physically or mentally. But once it's done, it gives you clarity and focus. As you start to put out the fires, you can begin to focus on what you need to be doing. For me, the effect was profound. There was a time when I have forgotten why I want to be an entrepreneur. In the mornings, I didn't know why I was getting out of bed. Each new day brought a new fire to fight. I'd build a business true, sheer force of will from the ground up dragged it, kicking and screaming into life on the hate of going into it every morning. Then, as I cut, logged and recorded everything, I started to find my focus again. Slowly, I began to remember why I was getting up in the morning on why I wanted to be an entrepreneur. So you can experience these effects as well you to start to clear your mind on begin to focus on what matters here. The simple steps I used to help get you going. I got everything together in one place. Letters, receipts, articles on paper, documents into a pile on the floor by my desk. I have my computer open with my emails ready to be processed in the same way as my physical documents. I took the first item from my physical pile and decided what to do with it. Save it in case I needed in the future. Bennett, scan it to my computer or delegated to someone else. When I have gotten through the physical pile I started on my email box, I did pretty much the same thing. I saved it. I passed it on, deleted. It added to a folder. I called actions, which was for me to do later. Now, I should point out that all I did at this stage was catalog record and decide what to do with everything that was that I had in my mind or physically on my desk. I saved you doing until I sorted through everything physically, mentally. Thank you and have any questions. Don't hesitate to ask 3. Evernote: Hi, everybody. Tony here from the productive entrepreneur. I'm welcome back. This lecture is on activity Lecture on. If you've been following along with the previous two lectures, you'll know that I use Evernote to record store and then retrieve all my information. So what we have here is the Evernote website, so you can see it here. And I used a premium version of Evernote, which is 29 99 just under $40 per year on the reason I use that is because it gives you unlimited uploads. But if you're only starting out on this productivity journey, you haven't got that much to upload. You haven't got many documents that scan and store and save and then retrieve later on, the free version will do. Just find the basic version that I'm highlighting here and now. So, like I said, I used a premium version because it gives me unlimited uploads. It also allows me to save emails directly to ever note on allows me to scan and search, pdf study, upload. But the choice of every note is up to you. Whatever your budget allows you to do on whatever your circumstances allow you to do so for any option. Here, you just click to sign up button. Enter in all your details on That's it you have ever note on the Web. Now every note comes in two versions. It comes in a desktop version that you download on open. Open your desktop. And here's my desktop version here with a nice picture of myself giving a lecture just coincidentally now. So you have ever note on your desktop, and you also have ever note for the Web on what that is. That's where you sign in via the website on the same information that you would have on your desktop is on your browser. Now I prefer Evernote desktop. It just gives me more flexibility. I find it quicker because it doesn't depend on Internet speeds and things like that. But again, the circumstances off of using every note are completely up to you. Another great thing about every note is that it sinks across all my devices so it sinks across my Mac. It sinks across my iPhone and it sings across my iPod. And but again, if you would open up your Evernote Web or download every note desktop on a Windows machine or something else. Once you sign in with your account details, all your information, all the files, all the work that you've been doing to keep everything in the one place is there for you. So the activity for this at lecture is to go onto Evernote on, download the free version and get yourself open running by following the instructions in the previous lecture Again. Don't forget. If you have any questions, start the discussion in the right hand panel on. I will get back to you as soon as possible. Thanks. 4. What is time: Hi. Welcome to the productive entrepreneur helping you get organized, get productive and make more profit. This lecture is entitled What is time? If you are anything like me, then you're obsessed with time. I could be frequently heard saying much to the confusion of my friends that 30 minutes is a beautiful unit of time. What does that even mean? It makes no sense. I am just obsessed with time. Unlike me, you're probably obsessed with time because you want more of it. Over the years, I have tried all types of gadgets, planners, diaries and self where help give me more time, but they never work. The only do One thing I've done is to make me feel guilty for buying yet another time saving tool that never worked before. You can have more time and begin to manage it effectively. You need to understand what exactly it is in the dictionary. Time is defined as measured in hours and minutes past midnight or noon, not exactly helpful when you're trying to manage it and gain more. You know it may not be aware, but there are two types of time clock time on real time and clock time. There are 60 seconds in a minute, 60 minutes in an hour, and so one in real time. All time is relative. It might be. You might be more familiar with the Albert Einstein quote. Put your hand on a hot stove for a minute on. It seems like an error. Sit with a pretty girl for an hour on. It seems like a minute. That's really time. You and I both live in a world of real time. The great thing about riel time is that we created throw this section of time management. We're going to be discussing how best to spend your time. We're also going to take a look at some best practices to help you become the master of your own time. So jump right into the next lecture on. I'll see you there. And remember, if you have any questions, just ask 5. Time Management: Hi. I'm welcome back to the productive entrepreneur, helping you get organized, get productive and make more profit. In this lecture, we're gonna be talking about time management. So I'm going to discuss some of my top time management tips on skills that I've acquired over the years from my experience as it entrepreneur running a business, running a team off software developers on business sales people and also from what I've picked up from different time management books on productivity books. So we kick off this lecture with a quote from William Penn. That's as time is what we want most, but what we use worst and that is very true. You can never get more time. You can always have more money, but you can never get more time. You can make more money, but you can never make more time. So most people think that time management is about arriving for work on time or leaving on time. But for those of us who want to be truly productive and successful, time management is a skill which is to be learned and then improved upon. These skills are about managing time that you have, so that is not wasted on that For everyone off the 1440 minutes that you get in a day, you can look back and say, I didn't waste a single one in this lecture. I'm going to outline some of my top time management skills. I won't expect everybody to agree with these skills on, If not, please, you're more than welcome to leave a discussion. Leave a comment in the discussion section on I can get back to you, and we can discuss what you think should should go into this lecture. We start with the big one time management. So for me, time management is like financial management, and the first thing you do when getting a handle on your finances is that you start to track every penny. So you know where it's being spent, and it's the exact same time. Management. You need to know where your time is being spent on if it's being spent wastefully or productively, and to help me know where I've been spending my time, I use a tool called a rescue time so you can go to their website and downloaded it. There's a free version and a premium version. I use the free version, so rescue time dot com I'll include a linked with in the resource is second. So when I first installed a rescue time, I set myself to gold, spend more than four hours per day on work projects and spend less than 11 hour per day on distractions. By distractions, I mean reading the news Facebook for personal use and checking Twitter, for example, things like that, things that everybody has different distraction. Some people might use Twitter on Facebook for work, but for me I don't. So they are distractions. So when you first set of breast your time, it asked you to categorise some items. For example, my CRM system is categorized as productive on Facebook is categorized as distracting so you can go true. The list of rescue time give you all the websites that you've been visiting and spending time on on and label them as productive or distracting. And then at the end of the week, you know exactly where your time is going and also what I love about rescue time. It's that I can see exactly where I've been spending my time, and I can tell immediately by looking at their charity and graphs. If I have been spending too much time on distracting activities and I know what the cut out . So, for example, again, if I'm spending too much time on Facebook, I know that I need to download a little tour that will block Facebook when I'm trying to be focused and get something done. So, like I said, there's a free version and a premium version on It's up to you, which one to choose. I used a free version and a premium version offers to of such as blocking websites such as Facebook, which you might find too distracting. If you can't install rescue time, then good old fashioned pen and paper would work just as well. I used to use this matter, and every morning I would open my diary, make a note of the task I had just completed on how long it took to complete. I would do this, others on Facebook or writing a business proposal. Then at the end of each day or week, I would go through my diary and see where my time is being spent on where I could spend it better My next tip has to do with planning and gold. No. You know where your time is being spent. You need to plan out your day so that you can make the most off the time that you do have. This is one of my absolute most do tasks. Every evening. There's no point in sitting down to your desk on spending an error to trying to figure out what you should be doing that day. I sat on Sunday evening when I write down everything that I would like to get done for the next day. Not everything that I will get done, but everything that I would like to get done. So this is not a to do list. It were. It is a like to do list. And also, now is a good time for me to say something that you will hear me repeatedly say. Throughout this course, you must accept that you cannot do everything, so there will be times when you can't get everything on your list. Don't. So last Sunday, my to do list from Monday morning was 44 45 items long after written them all down. I picked my top trade for the next day and highlighted them. I know, and I know that if I get those trade on, everything else after that is a bonus. And how do I put that list together? Well, it's actually very simple. If you're following along with previous lectures, you know that I said about my physical and digital inbox, the great my to do list. I go through what I have filed on their actions on I added to my list. Too simple is that as I create my to do list, I find that some task we rely on getting others don't forced. And that's okay. Simply, Mac does as your first priority after have complete the task and make sure to put a green a big green tick mark beside it, because that makes me feel good. Unlike I'm moving through my list, planning your day is essential to being productive. There is no point in getting up in the morning and, as I said, spending two errors trying to figure out what needs to be done instead. If you plan the night before you can hit the ground running, the next day also clears up your mind. Help you sleep a little better. No advantage to doing this. It's for those days when you just can't get motivated. When you find yourself sitting at your computer with zero motivation and believe you, me, it happens to us all. So don't worry about don't be too hard on yourself when you have those days. But what you can do is turn to your to do list and start knocking them off one at a time. Just take the 1st 1 get true it, then the next one on the next one and you'll find out your motivation without you even really trying. Just working on your to do list starts to build a to do list is one of your most fundamental weapons in your battle to become more productive in a later lecture, I'll tell you how have evolved my to do list into my calendar system so that I keep everything in the one place. My next tip is agendas. When I say agendas, what do I mean? I'm talking about list for my colds and my meetings. So, for example, if I have a call with my lawyer or somebody that I'm doing business with 15 minutes before the call. I Ebola point all the questions that I want to ask everything that I want to know. I never knew I want to get done on the call. So this way, when I'm finished a call, I'm confident that I have asked everything I need to. So, for example, last we got to call my solicitor are with my lawyer on my hard five or six items, just tick box on a piece of paper. And as we were discussing, I just went through each item on the list and take them off. As I ask the question, it saves both my time and the other person's time. As I don't have to repeat, we go back with follow up questions, follow phone calls or emails. Another advantage to doing this is that your agenda list would save the enormous amount of time and most likely, money at some professions. Charity per call, our per hour. My next tip is to accept what you don't know. No matter how well you plan your day, things will happen. The server will crash. Colleague will call in sick. Your new client will want revise the deadline. Whatever it is, you need to realize that even the perfect plan cannot survive contact with the unknown. And that's okay. There will be days when you won't get everything from your list on. You may not even get a single team from it done, and that's okay. You need to make a commitment to yourself right now that when things get in the way, you can let them go on one necessary. Forgive yourself. Spending 20 minutes in the toilet Chastising yourself will not make you more productive. Instead, take a deep breath and know that it's OK when something unexpected happens. Time management is not just a set of tools, which you can use instantly make you more productive. Instead, it is a set of acquired skills, which you can develop forgiveness, and patients are part of your skill set. My next time management tip is to take some time for yourself. Have you ever wished that you could take the doing at the store abs sine home from a hotel room and use it when things get tough? I have more than once. As I said previously, Time management is not just about two hours to employ. It's also about developing the right mental skills. Another one of those scaled is being able to take some time for yourself. One great tip for this is Anderson Pair. Sometime in your counter, I have a shared office counter with my team so that they always know where I am or who I am meeting with, occasionally odd in a general out of the office meeting, unused after time for myself, it could be a simple is sitting in the copy shop relaxing or reading a book? It doesn't matter. What matters is that every now and again, you take some time for yourself and did a great way to take some time for yourself is to meditate, and I meditate every morning. I use an app called Headspace, which I get more into a to a later lecture, so I won't go into it now. But you might want to start looking into it now. Delegation is another great time management on productivity skill. When you're working for yourself as part of a team, you might be thinking, What's the point in delegating as it's just me or just me and the other guy over there? I used to think like this until one day a pass to task over to a colleague and something completely unexpected happened. The ties got done. I updated, declined on. Everybody was happy. Delegating is not about telling people what to do, nor is it about losing control. It's about trust. Passing a task to someone else does not mean that you cannot do it. Rather, it means that you have chosen not to do it. And that's the That's the distinction that you have to make to yourself. As the owner of a small business or leader of a team, you have more important things to be doing. Do you really need to be the one that's creating it? Spreadsheet off names to cold call to try and get the next sale? No, rather, you should be the one making the calls and getting the sales. Let someone else do the things that someone else can dio and free up your time. The start concentrating on the things that will increase your revenue. Your turnover on help your business grow that many people are nervous about handing tasks over to someone else and understandably so, being on the road for so long that they don't trust anyone to get things done order than themselves. Some people just feel like they have to do it themselves, for it to be done right. But you cannot grow with this attitude and believe you, me things will start to fall through the cracks, and before you know it rotted and growing your business, you are fighting to save it. So start small, picking non critical task on delegated. I think you'll be pleasantly surprised with the results. My next time management skill is record keeping an organization Now. For me, this is a big because I am terrible at record keeping. I lose everything. If I have a meeting with declined in a coffee shop. I lose a receipt for my expenses every year. I dread doing my end of year accounts. Where's the receipt for the client dinner last June? I have no idea. Where is the receipt for the piece of software You Portis last week? I have no idea it's a record. Keeping an organization is key. A clean desk means you can be more productive. The clean mind means have more time to focus on what really matters. So keeping everything in a place where you know where it will be were free your mind up for more important tasks? I mean, when you think about it, do you really need to be wondering where you put this month's rent invoice when he should be focused on the client presentation that you have tomorrow? No, absolutely not. To help with this time. To help with this skill, I would recommend you start by reading. Getting things Done by David Allen I've included linked with in Our Resource is Now. It's a long read, so you'll have to stick with it. But if you don't have time to read it than one of the most important things that you can do is this create an outside brain? And I have several ways of doing this on my desk. I have a very simple interest Intuit iPod receipts, invoices posted on anything else, noncritical, but that will need to be filed away, or I'll need to remember at some stage at the India at the end of every week. I got through it process what needs to be done and then file it away. Sometimes things have become obsolete, So I told him out another way I keep a record of everything is my notebook. I carry a notebook everywhere, no matter what, and he taught idea called retorno or to do goes into it this way. I conflict through it, and then process. One needs to be done. And finally, I use Evernote for all things digital. Don't need to be recorded. I have ever note set up as if it were a real filing Cabinet notebooks from a dizzy. And then I simply drop the digital files into them. Whenever I need to find something, all I have to do is type in the name and offered pops. They also tagged every everything for easier reference. When you have your offline and online filing system set up, you can start to implement a philosophy off one touch Only everything that you receive either physically or digitally, should only ever need to be torched by you. Once just got emailed. An invoice in from a supplier, file it under the cracked letter in every note and set a reminder when it's due to be paid and that's it. Setting up these processes correctly would free up your mind on time to focus on more important tasks. Next, I'd like to talk about time golds. So although the title of this lecture is time management, managing time is not completely possible. You can only manage how you use your time. There are 1440 minutes in every day on in his book 15 Secrets. Successful people know that time management cabin crews tells us that is how you spend those 1440 minutes that count. So the skills of time management are the skills that you need to use your time effectively . How do you to see? How do you decide to use your time? The answer lies in your goals When setting gold's start and work backwards, this course is not just about telling. You have to become more productive. It's also about giving you the benefit of my experience. In the past, one of the biggest mistakes I have made when setting gold is not telling people about them , and by people I mean your partner, your parents or your friends. If you don't tell people what you were doing and why, then how can you expect them to understand toe help on to give you the time when you need it most as either, Mosca said. People work better when they know the goal under, why. So start telling people in your life what Europe to trust me. It will make things a lot easier. Next, we're going to talk about one of the biggest profit productivity tips, and I can start to save you time right now. If you read any time management or productivity book, eventually you will come across the line. That says, say no more often on The reason this tip is mentioned so many times is because it is one of the most powerful tools to becoming more productive. Not only that, it is also one of the quickest and easiest things that you can do right now to instantly increase your productivity. Think about it. For every yes you give, it's no to something else. So before you say yes, take a breath, consider what you are saying yes to, and then consider whether or not you should say no. Saying no frees you up for what tasks matter and believe you. Me. It is far better to say no than giving a yes when he don't mean or when you have debts. Saying no frees you up from other people's expectations because when you say yes, it is never something that is important to you. For a long time, I've been unable to say no. Instead saying yes to almost everything. My friends and colleagues would call me the Yes Man. To me, this seems like a good thing. I kept people happy and got stuff done, but it's a house of cards that you cannot keep building on. Eventually you will have a pack counter. Impossible deadlines on Born it, although by saying yes, I might have temporarily kept people happy. In the end, it all came crashing down, and I have to say no and let people down. So again, before you say yes, take a breath and consider what you were saying Yes, to give Noah try. You'll be pleasantly surprised and finally we'll talk about your priorities. Me, My priorities are linked. My goals. My goals are broken down by day bye week by month, by quarter, six months on, nearly so every day I ask myself, What do I need to do today that will help me complete my daily goal on whatever the answer to that question is, that's my priority for today. My priorities are what move my gold forward. I usually try and keep my number of priorities below one to treat per day today on my top time engine tips. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to ask me which you can do so in the discussion section. I'd also love to hear what do you consider your top time management tips? 6. Your Schedule: Hi. I'm welcome back to the productive entrepreneur, helping you get organized, get productive and make more profit. This lecture is entitled your schedule and in it we're going to talk about a new way to organize your to do list. So we start off this lecture with a great quote from Mark Twain, which is probably one off my most favorite quotes of all time on it says either life frog, first thing in the morning on nothing worse will happen to you for the rest of the day. And that is so true. And we're gonna talk about that more in this lecture, so you may not know it, but according to the website, I don't this 41% of to do items are never completed, and that is a massive almost 50% off items that go when your to do list are never completed . So, no doubt most of us can relate to this statistic. And it's probably one of the reasons why you are taking this course. So for me, I have a love hate relationship with my to do list. Some days I'm writing down all my to do's on order days. I just have them on post its and different notebooks and different pieces of paper. Do you? Today when a friend of mine and when a friend of mine asked me if I was busy, I replied with I have 60 18 to do on my to do list. And when he asked me to show them and he had electrode, he said, Half these are rubbish and he was right. There are items there that were out of date that had been superseded by odor. Items that have been done by somebody else would have me even asking them. I think there were no longer relevant and it was just a mess. So there has to be an easier way to manager to do so. For those of us who are used to keeping to do lists, we spend more time sorting, prioritizing and scratching off the ones that have become irrelevant than we do. Actually getting the task on the list don't. But there is a fundamental problem with to do lists that I'm sure many of you have experienced. Which one is the priority. When you write out your list, you just go from one passed to the next, never distinguishing between items that minor might only take a few minutes on items that might take an hour to. Then you go through the list to decide which one to do next. You're undoubtedly pick the quick and easy winds, not what might be the most important. So my to do list was getting very, very packed, and I was adding to my stress on not really helping to remove my stress. So what use is your list when you're afraid to even look at us? Eventually, you will just fall back into old habits of not using one and keeping your to do's eider on piece of paper or, worse still, in your head on This is called the Zika Narc Effect, which is a psychological term based on studies that show unfinished gold's cars and truce of uncontrolled thoughts on. I think that's exactly what was happening to me. So if, like me, you go through your list every evening before the next morning on you put a 12 tree a B or C beside them. Teoh, help prioritize them than this lecture is gonna help you. So recently in Kevin Cruises book 15 Secrets off the most successful people in the world? He asked a question. Do you think that some of the world's most productive people sit down with her to do is every day and number them by priority? He doesn't seem to think so on the book would seem to prove him right. Some stage in life, everything must evolve if it, if it is to survive on the age old to do list, is no different. I would like to introduce you to the next stage in to do list evolution. Your schedule. Your schedule should bring everything that takes time up in your life, your work, your hobbies. Your to do's into one place. All of these things that take up your time are pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. By putting them all together in your schedule, you are assembling the pieces for a complete picture off your day, your week, your month on your year. So here's an example of how I've moved from the traditional to do list to my calendar Draft a day. I'll be keeping track of everything in my notebook, so if you're following along with previous lectures, you know that I carry in my notebook everywhere with me, so I'll be making notes of someone to call back and meeting something to pay. When I found a few spare minutes, I go true my notebook and add what is appropriate to my counter. Monday 10 AM Call the client back Tuesday, two PM Paid a supplier today at seven PM Get the milk on the way home Friday, 11 a.m. or the new company stationery and so on. And so one. Once you start to move everything in your life that takes up your time into your counter or your scheduling system, you can then start to plan your day, your week, your month in 15 to 30 minute blocks. Give it a few days and you'll be amazed at how much more you get done on how much more organized you actually are. Once you start putting your tasks into your schedule, you're getting much more control over them. You will start to slot them into appropriate days and times. A quick glance at any day or week will let you know what you have going on. So here, to some of the benefits off, moving from the traditional to do list Where your number things. 12345 Moving your to do list tasks into your schedule. Time blocking started time block everything that is important to you while you're spending the first hour of every day reading emails. If you have a task that is important to your goal, then put it on your counter and give it the time that it deserves. For me on everyone's bit different, I scheduled my most important tasks for first thing in the morning. As I said at the beginning of the lecture, Mark Twain has a great quote. Eat a live frog forest thing in the morning on. Nothing worse will happen to you for the rest of the day. And he's absolutely right. Think about how much more headspace you will have if you did your most important task or your hardest task first thing in the morning. Try it on a really does. Open up your day for right, for your creativity on getting more done and Notre grating about. Having your to do's on your counter is that instead of counseling, them are leaving them behind on the previous page. You can reschedule them for another time. If you didn't have time to call your client today, that's no problem. Move it to tomorrow or the next day when you know you will have time. As you look at your schedule, let me ask you this. When was the last time you cancel a doctor's appointment? It was probably a very long time ago. If you ever did it, you need to start treating what goes into your counter or your schedule like a doctor's appointment. Nothing gets canceled when you start to work from your conduct rather than a to do list. Saying no becomes a lot easier. People who call you up randomly who drop into your office who call you up out of the blue on your mobile phone. You now have a system where you can look straight away at your day, your week, your month on. You have the ability to say no straight away, rotted on hemming unholy and tried to think of an excuse to say no. They're my benefits off moving the traditional to do list in your counter. Give it a go. I know that for some people, moving away from the to do list might be might seem a bit scary, but trust me. After a week or two off moving her to do items onto your counter, you will be amazed at the increase in your productivity. In the resource is section I've included a link to some of my favorite no books on diaries . Check it out on Let me know in the discussion section What do you think? And as always, if you have any questions, just ask in the discussion section on. I'll be happy to help. Thank you. 7. Your Morning Routine: Hi. I'm welcome back to the productive entrepreneur, helping you get organized, get productive and make more profit. This lecture is entitled your morning routine, and we kick off this lecture with a great quote from Andre De Wagner, who was a New York photographer on. He says, When I'm waking up, I like to keep a space for my own thoughts and ideas. Checking my phone is not a priority for me, and that's a great quote. Open up this lecture because that kind of sentiment on that heart flows through this entire lecture. I used to never believe in the morning routine. My morning were usually very simple. Wake up shower dress and go to work. But if you wake up without a morning routine or without a plan, you might wake up unmotivated, lethargic, with a lack of sleep from the night before from a bad night's sleep from the night before. And you carry those things which you to have today. So a lack of motivation in the morning will still be rich. You midday on late into the afternoon, So since reading the morning routine by hello, how l rod, I have come to realize that mornings are one of the most important part of my day on that we're having a morning routine. I have started to slowly but surely changed my life and carry the positives from the morning that I get from my routine with me throughout the rest of the day. So in Hiles, booked the morning at the morning Miracle, he recommends the following routine silence. By this, it means meditation, prayer, reflection or taking time for gratitude. So the choice is up to you. For me, I meditate. His next tip is affirmations. Write down some affirmations that you can say aloud to yourself every morning. I use a mix of my own on those used by Leonardo da Vinci, which I've included in the Resource section house. Next hip. It's visualization. Successful people all over the world have used visualizations to help them, not only in business but in sports, too. I have a visualization filed, saved and Evernote on. Then it. I put things that I would someday like to do or have. It could be a visit to a foreign country. It might be a car and might be a book I'd like to read Whatever I would like to do some day I put into my visualization folder on I review it every morning. Next comes exercise now. I used to think that exercise in the morning meant a 45 minute Jim boasting session. But that's not what this what your morning routine is about. Exercise in the morning is a 10 15 minute routine off stretches. Some push up some sit ups, something small just enough to get the blood pumping, so the choice is up to you. Next comes reading. Every morning I read something that is relevant to my day ahead or to my most important task for the day ahead. So, for example, at the moment I'm reading the one thing which is related to productivity. So my books and so my reading choices in the morning are usually relevant to what I have going on in my life at that time, Finally, highly recommends describing or simply writing your tarts down. I have found that this is an excellent way to deal with the stress is in my life on helping to get the talks out of my head. All of these tips combined together how called savers Some people call their morning hours . The golden are the golden hours, and this is very true. It's a time just for you. The world is still asleep. There are no emails or phone calls, leaving you free to get stuff that's important to you, don't they? Don't get me wrong in the beginning. Having a setting up, establishing and continuing a morning routine is very difficult to do. I'm still not yet waking up like the morning guy from friends singing on bursting with life . But I am getting there on what a simple morning routine you can to. In fact, having a morning routine is one of the key factors of success for the world's wealthiest and most productive people. In Ireland, there's an entrepreneur named Bill Clinton. He is best knowing for being for being the face of the Apprentice, the TV show. He tells a story that goes a little something like this. Once he paid a lot of money to go to a success summit in Las Vegas, room by an incredibly successful entrepreneur who promised to share with his audience his secret to becoming successful and wealthy as build certainly audience. The lights dimmed on a hush fell over the room. Smoke began to rise on the stage, allowed inspiring music blares from the speakers. After a minute or two from the roof of the stage, a large neon sign came down, displaying one simple message. Wake up. Earlier, when the entrepreneur came on stage and ask her questions, Bill put up his hand and asked, Is that it? My mother has been telling me to wake up every for years if I want to be successful and rich, the entrepreneur replied. Are you rich? To which Bill had no choice but to say, Well, yes, I am. Well, then, said the entrepreneur, this simple story should tell you one thing, which is very true. Some of the most successful and productive people in the world. Gateau barely. You often hear product of the experts asking, What would you do with an extra hour or two every day? We're waking up early on having routine. It's how you get those extra hours every day for me getting a barely. It's time to work on what is most important to me. I take a tremendous amount of confidence into the rest of the day, knowing that by the time most people wake up. I have already done my morning routine. I worked on my most important task. Here is my simple morning routine, which you can adapt and use for yourself. I wake up early. I use an app called sleep cycle alarm clock to wake me up. I brush my teeth for me in the morning. Nothing feels right until I brush my teeth. Now I know that this may sound trivial on it is to most people. But whatever you find as a benefit to your morning added into your routine, it might be something as trivial, trivial as brushing your teeth. Whatever it is. If you think it's of benefit added in, it doesn't matter. I drink some water. This is so important. After a long night sleep, your body is dehydrated. A nice cold drink of order. First thing in the morning. We're really got you going. I don't eat a healthy breakfast. Usually it's courage or some kind of yogurt and granola mix. I meditate to help me with this. I use an up called headspace would indie up. There are various settings that you can select that are related to what's going on in your life right now. So if you want, if you wanted to meditate and improve your focus, there's a setting for that. If you want to meditate and improve your relationships, there's a setting for that. Whatever is going on in your life, there's a session in what, in headspace to help you out. The first few sessions wouldn't headspace of free. After that, you have to pay a monthly fee. I read something relevant to my business or related to my most empower important task of the day. So, as I said at the moment, I'm reading a productivity book. Sometimes it might be a biography. Whatever it is, it's a piece of nonfiction related to what's going on in my life, and it's always something uplifting and inspiring and designed to help me track. Today, I write down some thoughts on previous days events in a journal. This a great way to clear your head of any distracting thoughts from yesterday or a few days beforehand and clear your head for what's coming up. And if I haven't done so already, I identify and write down my most important task of today, so I know where my focus has to be, and that's it. Nothing more than going to bed and waking up early with a bit of a routine. Many productive tips and tricks recommended time limit for your morning routine. Seven minutes, 24 minutes, 60 minutes For the beginning, I wouldn't bother with this established routine. Follow it on. Improved as you go. You will find that over time things get a little quicker as you get more into your routine more into the habits things you start to naturally flow. So don't worry about stressing yourself out with time limit in the very beginning. On one last tip, if you usually wake up at eight o'clock every morning, don't try and wake up at 5 a.m. Tomorrow morning. Instead, ease into it. Go to bed 30 minutes. Area tonight on wake up turkey minutes early tomorrow morning and all on as always, if you have any questions, please do not hesitate to ask me in the discussion section off this lecture. Thank you 8. Your Evenings: hi and welcome back to the productive entrepreneur, helping you get organized, get productive and make more profit. In the last lecture, we spoke about how important it is to start your day in the right way. But don't forget that for every beginning there must be an end. And how you end your workday is just as important as how you started it. This lecture is entitled how you end your day For many votes, we worked a 9 to 5 routine on, but a time for clock comes around. We're counting the seconds and then the minute until we can leave the office. Now that's not a great way to end your workday. Leaving the office or your home desk in this manner brings your stresses and your anxieties with you, which condensed rto leak into other areas of your Paris on life. So nobody wants to be walking away from their from their desk or home, office or everyday work stressed and anxious about tomorrow. What you want to be doing is closing off your day in the best way possible. On that might be making a couple of phone calls, sending a couple of emails, but whatever it is, we're going to discuss that now on what I'm going to share with you, our some of my tips to help you and your day in the right way. So, as you can see seems that we're talking about the end of the day and the evening time. I've got some nice starry night time slides for you in this lecture, and there's a good phrase now, too, and help us, I suppose. Frame this lecture. Think of your morning on your evening as the book ends of your day. And that's really true how you start on, how you end your day are what make the in between possible. So getting a good stack your date helps you move forward with positive momentum on and how you end your day. How's your evening on your Paris and life? Be that a little bit more relaxed, but it also set you up in the right way for the next day, and there's a spaceship. So my first hip on ending your day in the right way is to evaluate on review the schedule that you have just completed. But what you have done in the day just gone as we already discussed to do list are just that. They're just lists. Your schedule is what actually gets done. So before you leave your debt, your desk each evening, review what you did get done and take some happiness and some joy from that for the things you didn't get doing. Don't be too hard on yourself on Don't worry. Schedule them for tomorrow or for new today during the week, if appropriate. Next, Try and get some closure. They're reviewing what you did for today. There may be things that you didn't get done on that. You feel bad about going home. Perhaps you forgot to follow up a decline even though you said you would. Don't worry. These things happen. Everybody gets sidetracked. If there are things you feel guilty about, then send a quick email to apologize on. Say, you will be in touch forcing in the morning. Then place it in your schedule as the first thing that you will do. I have found for my experience that even bad communication is better. No communication at all. So always remember to get in contact with whoever it is when you are leaving for the day, you should try and leave on a positive note. The help carry that sentiment through the rest of the evening. So sometimes I save a bit of positive news for the end of the day. This could be either work or person related. Friday might be coming around, and you want to bring your team out for lunch or for your work in your own. Perhaps you've got a new client, and you want to take your partner out to celebrate whatever it is. Try and keep a little bit of news. Good news for the end of the day, which will help you leave on a positive note. It doesn't even have to be taking your team or your partner. It could be something simple, like you're going home to watch a film you're going. Conversely, family and friends, whatever is positive news to you. Keep it for the end of the day, and it a great tip for the end of day is to reflect. How did your day go? Was there anything that you could have done better? Did something go really well for you that made you happy and gave you boost throughout the day? try and end each working day with a quick review. It helps to clear your mind on review stress. So, for example, I'm doing this lecture towards the end of my day and I had a good meeting with my accountant this morning and I'm going to carry that positivity true true to tomorrow because I didn't think actually, the meeting will go as well as it did. The unknown is always scarier. So now that the meetings done, I'm happy. I'm positive. I feel like getting more doing this evening and I feel I can actually relax this evening. So now I'm going to carry that positively true to tomorrow. Next before you leave your desk, you should always tidy up. I love being at my desk a really. But what I can't stand is being at my desk first thing in the morning on then wasted wasting precious time, filing away documents from yesterday or the day before, or bringing Mike empty coffee cups to the kitchen. It's just not an effective use of my time. So before you leave your desk each evening, tidy it up. De cluttering has been proven to help clear your mind and reduce stress. It's a great feeling to sit down at a clean desk first thing in the morning, ready to start today. Now I know a lot of people will that agree with this. This one on that is the work off peak. So when I say off Peak what I mean Well, for most people, five PM 5 30 is home time as soon as the clock strikes. Five, they get up from the desks and they walk out the door. That is not always possible for the entrepreneur, but this is a great time for you to catch up on some of the things that you wanted to do but just didn't get around to. Clearing your schedule of some quick emails really helps to get you started first thing in the morning. Think about it. Would you be rather coming into work tomorrow on? The first thing you have to do is order new print owner, Get these type off non critical things done before you leave and save your morning time for what really matters. A lot of people will work off peak as well, because it's when the phone stops. That's when email stops and I feel like it's get when they can get their most important work done because they have a bit of breeding space, but a quiet time on a bit of time to focus. I would say that by following this course, you get that time back during the day, your evening times you'll be when you start the wind down. Now I'm not saying that sometimes you don't have to pull an all nighter to get a project done or to meet a deadline, but they should be rare. Your evening time is when you start to wind down, go home, spend time with friends and family, or have time for your own hobbies and little great weight. And today is to say goodbye to your colleagues. There was a time when I was so stressed at work that as soon as five turkey came, I would jump up my desk and ruin at the door, not saying goodbye to anybody on. That was just an anxious feeling. I would run at the door saying, Did anybody notice? I left that anybody notice I didn't say goodbye, and then I was bringing that anxiousness home with me, and this is completely the wrong way to end your day. You should be happy walking out the office, but happy because of the work that you've got done. Happy because you've sent out a few emails. Happy because you've cleared up your desk. Saying goodbye before you leave is a great confidence booster and set you up nicely with your colleagues for the next day. Using these tips will help you get home for less stress and anxiety on Ready to kick Off your next day with motivation and positivity. But these are not a silver bullet. So what happens to us all? And nobody wants me sitting around a dinner table worrying about the email they never sent or the anger email. They were going to get first thing in the morning because they never made that phone call. And you ending your day with suggestions above will help you leave. Your stress is at the door and clear your head so that you can be present with friends and family. When you do go working both in your evening routine on After a couple of days, you'll feel less stressed, more positive and you will be getting more done and as always. If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to ask me. Thank you. And I look forward to seeing you in the next lecture. 9. Its Friday: Hi. I'm welcome back to the productive entrepreneur. Helping you get organized, get productive. A make more profit. This lecture is entitled. It's Friday. So have you ever wondered what successful productive people do at the weekend? Do they just go into hibernation on a Friday evening, waking up on Monday morning, ready to take on the weekend, or how they spend their Saturdays and Sundays? Do they engage with their hobbies? Do they take time off? Do they meditate? Reflect what exactly do they do to help them prepare on be at their best for the week ahead ? In this lecture, we're going to find out. So the first weekend habit off the successful and productive is that they keep their routine. So if you wake up at 6 30 every morning, then try and do the same at the weekends Now I know that this might might sound insane. Wake up at 6 30 on a Saturday morning is not exactly what the weekends or about, but it can be worth it. Your mind and body go true. A complicated set of cycles while asleep to ensure that you wake up at just the right time . That's why Sometimes you wake up before your alarm clock goes off. If you sleep in than you were most likely, feel groggy and tired throughout the day. If you need more sleep than just go to bed earlier, I use an app called Sleep Cycle and and it has really helped me understand my sleep patterns. I suggest you give it a try, and I have linked with in the resource of section the next weekend, habit off the successful and productive. Is that the planet schedule? Now I know to most of you that this sounds like the opposite of what weekends are about. A schedule for a weekend. What am I talking about? But just as a schedule helps you get the most out of your day during the week, so to kind of help you get the most out of your weekends. And I know from bitter experience that the worst feeling off the weekend is sitting on the couch in front of TV on a Sunday evening, thinking, Where did the week Where did the weekend go on? What a waste that I didn't get more done also, by scheduling in activities or things to do, they will help you forget about work on de stress. So don't waste the precious time of your weekend planning and procrastinating about what to do. Take some time on Friday and prepare a schedule. Their next habit is that they take a break. Now I know this might sound like an oxymoron the weekends of four breaks, but they actually engage in taking a break. They consciously take a break to me the weekends about recharging. After all, how can you expect to be at your best on Monday if you spent the weekend working? I'm worrying about the week to come. You need to take a break. Your mind cannot be active 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Plan something into your schedule that helps you forget. If you enjoy football, then make time for that. It's going to be very hard to think about the sales report when you're getting screamed at by your teammates for not having your head in the game. Taking a break is a great way to clear taht. You will find that you will be able to approach whatever you have to do with much more zeal . If you have a clear head. The next habit is that they prepare for Monday. The last thing you want on a Monday morning is to be wishing for Friday, so give yourself a headset by preparing on Sunday. Review your schedule at what? If you forgot something, preparing for the week ahead and reviewing your schedule would help you kick start your brain on Monday morning on reduced firefighting on stress. The next habit off the successful and productive. Is that a switch off? Do you really want to be sitting down for dinner with your family on Saturday afternoon, only to receive an email that put you in a bad mood every Friday at 7 p.m. I disable my work emails. Unless lives depend on you answering your emails, I suggest you do the same if it is extremely urgent than people can call or text you. If you're going to check emails at the weekend, then I still suggest that you disable your emails on the side on the time when you will allow yourself to check in. If, like me, you use an iPhone. I have included in the resource of section how to temporarily disable your emails just for the weekend, so check it out. The weekend is also a great time to reflect, and this is put to use by the successful and productive people off the world. They switch off and clear their heads. You'll find that as the noise of the week start to dissipate, you'll have more headspace to think about the bigger picture of things. What your goals, what needs. We don't next week to increase sales and so on. All of these will happen as you start to relax. Taking time to reflect on the big issues would help you to have a better week ahead. Productive, unsuccessful people also keep the morning for themselves that this one might not be so easy if you have a family, but it's still important to give it a try. Even at weekends, you were still at your best 2 to 4 hours after you wake up. So again, use this time wisely. Get some exercise in, read, meditate or go for a coffee by yourself. Friend of mine keeps on our office Saturday and Sunday morning, free just for himself. He leaves his house on walks, his local coffee shop, his wife minds their one year old baby on. When he returns, she does the same. Think about putting a similar arrangement in place with your other half. Successful and productive people take time for the passions. What do you love to do? Is it reading is a building model? Trains go hill walking Whatever your passion is. Try and make time for it and finally they exercise. This is not have to be a muscle threading gym session. Instead, it can be an opportunity to get some fresh air, Go for a walk or ruin. Take your partner to your local beauty spot and spend some time out of the house and getting fresh air. Believe you, me. This is one simple tip to clear your head on de stress. So best of luck with your weekends on. I'll see you in the next lecture. And as always, if you have any questions, just ask 10. How To Find Your Focus: Hi, My name's Tony Staunton. Welcome back to the productive entrepreneur. Helping to get you organized, Get your productive and make more profit. This lecture is entitled How to find your focus on As always, we start off this electorate with a quote from our committees who said, Give me a lever long enough and I could move the world. And that is really the point of this lecture and indeed, dissection. And we're gonna build on that. What is it in your world that you can focus on to move forward? What? Your goals. One of your priorities. What is your purpose? We're gonna be building on all of these things. Drove this lecture on throughout this entire section. So each lecture here really builds upon the next. I'm actually very excited. I'm very happy to be getting this lecture out all the students. So if you're like me, you're probably your gold. Your day to day tasks on your priorities Probably look something like this. I over analyze I over plan I over think my life, my career, my business, everything and all this time spent over analyzing all my decisions. Rethinking everything is very unhealthy and obviously completely counterproductive on the fact that I on us as a people usually usually succeed in spite of what we do. Not because of it is a clear sign that we can't really manage your time, but we can only control it and use it better. And this is one of the keys to success, which is understanding that success isn't that none of the things we do, but in the handful of things that we do well. So in this lecture, we're going to talk about how to find your focus so we can help you clarify. Are so together we can clarify your gold, your priorities on your purpose. So, as Mark Twain said, the secret of getting ahead is getting started on the secret to getting started is breaking your complex, overwhelming task into small, manageable tasks and then get extended on your 1st 1 So that's what we're gonna be talking about now. How to find the first task in your big gold on. How do we find that forest task? How do we identify? How do we hone in on what your first house should be? Well, it always starts with one question, and this is from the book. The wanting by Gary Keller on that one question is, What's the one thing that I could do such that by doing it? Everything else will be easier or unnecessary. And just take a moment to think about that question. It doesn't ask you what your big goal is. It doesn't ask you what your life plans are. It's simply asked you, what's the one thing that you can do right now? So everything else is much easier. So to give you an example, this course is obviously a massive undertaking. There's over seven hours of video content in it, but what's the When I was beginning this course, what's the one thing that I could do to make everything out easier with? The very first thing I did was the right out, of course plan. I moved on from there to the next step on the next step, the next step. So really, finding your focus begins with this one question. I suppose you could break your focus into two other parts, your big picture. So your big focus, what's my one thing there? And then you're small thing. What's my one thing right now? so go to go back to the example of this course. My big focus was creating this course on my small focus. Waas. What's the one thing right that I can do right now, which was my course? Plan to make everything else easier now, powered by the focusing question, your actions become a natural progression off building one writing on top of the previous writing so you will step step by step by step. You're moved toward your goal on every time you complete a step, you ask yourself this question again. What's the one thing that I can do such that by doing it everything the outs will become either easier or unnecessary. So, as we said, the folks in question will help you find that 1st 1st up for any area in which you want to achieve extraordinary results. But you always must remember to ask yourself, What's my wanting? The focus in question will help you find the first domino in any area in which you want to achieve extraordinary results. So if your big picture what's my one thing? Use it to develop a vision for your life for your small picture. What's my wanting right now, which keeps you focused on your most important work. The smaller focus question prepares you for the most productive work week possible. So as I said, when I have a big vision in my life, I ask myself, What's the one thing? What is my big vision in my life? So, for example, another vision might be writing a book. Okay, so what's the one thing I can do right now that would make that easier or unnecessary? Well, the one thing that I could do right now is to start planning the book. The baby put it together a chapter list or to start research, or to pick a topic to find my niche. So there are many ways that you can ask this question. But the first and most important thing is to ask yourself not focusing question. What's the one thing in the next lecture we're gonna build on this? And I'm gonna give you some focusing tips. So now that you know the question to ask and you have your areas of focus, you need to know how to stay focused, and that's what we're gonna do in the next lecture. So jump on over and I look forward to seeing you there, and as always, if you have any questions, just ask 11. Staying Focused: Hi, My name's Tony Staunton. I'm welcome back to the productive entrepreneur helping to get you organized, get productive and make more profit. So in the last lecture we spoke about finding are focused on If you haven't looked at that lack lecture, then I suggest you go back because it's a really important for a step in achieving your gold on achieving your life visions. So we spoke about how to find your focus in a big air of your life on a small area of your life. On in this lecture, we're gonna talk about how to stay focused, and that's exactly detect the title of this lecture staying focused. So we have a great quote now from L L Cool J. Who says Stay focused, go after your dreams and keep moving towards your goals. And that kind of echoes back into her last lecture. Keep moving toward your goals. Just think about that for a moment. In the last lecture, we spoke about how finding your focus on asking the wanting question or move you step by step towards your goals and toward your vision and as l. L Cool J keeps saying here, keep moving towards your goals, and that's what the one question does. It keeps you moving toward your goals. So whether you're an entrepreneur, a team leader, project manager or anything else, working Annesley can sometimes mean that maintain your focus is very difficult. Staying productive amidst the chaos can offer me the difference between success and failure . So how do you keep your focus? But here are some of my top tips to help you stay focused, unproductive tip Number one. Plan all of your meetings for one day off the week. Now I put this for us because it's one of my favorite on the reason it's one of my favorites because as a company founder, people are always asking me to meet with them so it could be staff. It could be clients. It could be investors who could be people who want to start up their own business. They always want to meet up for a coffee to kind of pick my brain and get my feet back on their ideas. So if I said yes to each and every meeting, not only would have a very serious coffee addiction, but I would actually get very little done so I'm not too sure who gave me but who gave me this tip? But it is absolutely one of my favorites. Keep all of your meetings for one day a week. I put all of my meetings on a Wednesday and that way I know that when Wednesday is full for meetings, I say no, and we spoke about the power of saying no previously. So if I know that my Wednesday is full, I say no to all meetings on the move into the next Wednesday. So plan all of your meetings for one day a week. This would really help the Revolution revolutionize your working week on get you much more productive by planning all of your meetings for one day. You keep the rest of your week free for getting things done. My second tip is to schedule everything now. If we discussed this already in a previous lecture about your to do list on the evolution of your to do list. Now I'm going to mention it again, scheduling everything because what's in your counter gets done. So let me just say that again. Everything in your counter it gets done, and that's the way your brain is being wired since day one that a counter. When you write something in the counter, it gets done. So I know people who put their meals, their e mails under sleep in the counters because there to busy. It's easy to forget about things. Think about it, viewer. The last time you were working, you were in the zone and he completely forgot to eat. You completely forgot to send an email. We completely forgot. Toe finish up at five oclock on. Go to dentist. It's happened to me. I've even missed a flight once because I was in the zone, I was working away, and I completely forgot about a flight that I had to take Blocking out time for specific tasks guarantees that these things will get done. You have the advantages. Well, if you're using a digital counter, you get the pop up alerts scheduling everything India counter as what is what has become known as time blocking on. We'll get to that later on. So that's tip number to schedule everything. Tip number. Tree is para naps. Now. I am a big, big fan of para naps, mainly because I'm probably lazy and I like sleeping during the day on Paranal are basically you shooting down for 15 20 minutes in the middle of your day so you can have a rest and get back to work focused on productive. So the way I used to work Waas visiting that power and through my day with no brakes, rest of food was a true sign of being productive. I'm busy on getting things done, but actually, when I look back now, that's complete rubbish because your body can't work like that. You need to understand how important sleep is your productivity. You need to be getting a full night's sleep and when you don't para nap, it can help. Since I've realized how important para naps air have also realised, the importance of getting a barely and getting oh, barely is something that you can only really do with the help of a parent up. So if you're like many people who want to get productive and get control their lives, you're gonna want to start waking up at five am Now that sounds absolutely horrible. How, and they're going to get up at 5 a.m. And keep working true today. Well, people may not say it, but for those of us who get up at 5 a.m. they might taken up at 10 and then another nap began a tree. Now, another thing to remember is, if you start waking up at five AM, don't be going to bed at 11 or 12 o'clock at night. If you're getting up area, start going to bed area. And if you work for yourself, this could be one of the biggest barracks. If you don't, you can still do it. Just because you don't work for yourself doesn't mean that you can parent up in the previous job, I was on the road a lot, so I used to take a quick nap in the car when I was on lunch. Usually now I take a nap a 2 p.m. For 25 minutes. I do it at two PM because I know that I'm best in the mornings on known just how I reward myself for a productive morning. So to avoid a slump in the afternoon, I take a nap and wake up so much more productive than I would have been otherwise. So give it a go on reward yourself with a parent up. Tip Number four is weekly goals. We'll talk more about goals and not a lecture. But for now, this tip will help you get started. Set realistic weekly gold for everything you want to accomplish this week. You can also use this as a weekly productivity checklist at the end of each week. Culture your list of goals and ask, Was it accomplished? And if it wasn't accomplished, why not then set your goals for the coming week? But having gold written down, you are more likely to get them accomplished on also having goals written down in front you for each day, the week ahead of you. What help you focus in on that day knowing what you have to do for the day ahead and also what you have to do for the next day on my final quick tip for getting focused is exercise . A lot of people leave this one out, working every hour that they have during the week 88 Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and even working Saturdays and Sundays with no time for exercise, not even a brief walk during their lunch. If they even take a lunch exercise is so important not only for the obvious reasons, but for reasons you won't even realize until you start everything you've heard about exercise. Being good for you is true, and that's why they say it. It benefits your body on your mind, and I know this for a fact. I recently came out of a very stress period in both my business and personal life, and at times I was so stressed I couldn't even open the laptop or answer. My phone just couldn't do it. And I'm convinced that one of the biggest things that helped me to Trudeau's period where my visits to the gym exercise helps clear your head helps you see past problems, helps you build resilience and keeps you motivated. And there my five quick tips to help you stay focused. Schedule your meetings for one day a week. Scheduled everything that you have to do in your calendar. Take para naps, set weekly goals on Remember to exercise. I'd love to hear any tips that might help you stay focused. Do you listen to music or drink obscene amounts of coffee? Whatever they might be, leave them into discussion section and I'll be happy to get back to you. So, as always, if you have any questions, just ask, and I'll see you in the next lecture. 12. Where To Apply Your Focus: Hi, My name's Tony Stones and I'm welcome back to the productive entrepreneur, helping you to get organized, get productive and make more profit. This lecture is entitled Where to Apply your focus and, as always, we start off with quotes from famous business people and productive people from that from around the world and throughout history. On this one comes from Alexander Graham Bell. Concentrate all your thoughts at the task at hand. The sun's rays do not burn until you until brought to a focus. So that's a really great quote and obviously very, very related to what we're doing right now. So I've been falling, following along with the last two lectures in this section, you will know how to find your focus by asking that wanting question, What's the one thing I can do right now? Once you have that thing that you need to focus on, I don't gave you some tips on how to stay focused. So now that you have your focus on you know how to stay focused, we're gonna talk about where to apply your focus. So it might seem daunting were to apply your focus, your big areas of your life or the small areas of life. So I focus on cleaning the house today, so I focus on work today. What is it I focus on? We'll start with the big stuff and see where it takes you. Over time, you'll develop your own sense of when to use the big picture question on when to use a small focus question. But you have to start somewhere, so get started. I can't stress that enough. As we said in the last lecture of the Mark Twain quote, success starts with one step. So take that one step today. So where can you apply your focus? Well, you can apply it spiritually now. Spiritually can mean anything to whatever it is your spiritual beliefs are, For me, spiritually is meditation. I focus every day on 20 minutes of meditation, and it really helps to set of my day. I do it every morning on really helps the set of my day. To help me with meditation, I use an app called Headspace. You comply focus to your physical life, and this is, as we mentioned the last lecture exercise. So are you exercising enough? Are you getting enough fresh air Are you recharging your batteries or you just working every hour that you have. You might think that you're being productive by working that way, but you're not set aside some time for exercise. Asked that question, What is the one thing I can do in my physical life? Sort that by doing it, everything else will be easier or unnecessary? Well, if yesterday you are working as many hours as possible and you found it very hard, he retired very early and you couldn't last a whole day. Maybe you're tired. Maybe a run down on exercise will help. So ask yourself that question again. Ask yourself the one. The one question. What's the one thing I can do in my Paris on life? So it's that by doing it, everything else will be easier or unnecessary. So in your Paris in life, what's the one thing that you can do to make things easier? Have you bean? Have you bean delaying a conversation with a friend? Do you have to give somebody some bad news? Whatever it is, ask yourself what you can do right now, and then go do it again. Another area to apply your focus are your key relationships. Your parents, your siblings, your wife, your husband, your girlfriend, your boyfriend, whoever it might be. What's the one thing that you can do in your relationships that will make your life easier ? What about applying focus to your job or to your business? Maybe you're looking for a new job. Maybe you were looking for a promotion in your current job. Maybe you need to focus and show people what you're capable of. What's the one thing that you can do in your job to make it easier or unnecessary? The same thing goes for your business. Maybe you need more sales this month. Maybe need more sales this year. What's the one thing that you can do to increase sales by a factor of five in the next six months on a final area that I think you can apply your focus to is your financials. How your financials looking? When was the last time you reviewed them? Have you outstanding bills? Are you in debt? Believe you? Me? You will feel much better by starting to address these problems now. What's the one thing you can do in your financial life? Such a by doing it, everything else will be easier or unnecessary. Do you need more money? Can you get over time? Start to apply your focus with this question to each of these areas and see how much your life improves. So how do I recommend you use the question? Well, I think you should start each day by asking yourself to focus in question. Research says that framing a new habit takes 66 days. So if I ask yourself the question, you bring a new habit upon yourself. It's gonna take around 66 days for that habit to take hold. And don't be afraid to use tools at your disposal, your diary, your schedule, your calendar, your phone leverage, reminders and also when, when trying to form a new habit. Research shows that those around you can influence you tremendously in the positive under Negative. Don't be afraid to tell those around you what you're doing. If you don't tell people what you're doing, how do you expect them to understand when you can't go out when you don't answer the phone ? When you don't reply to an email, you need to let people know what's going on in your life. Now, if you have time, why don't you leave me a message in the discussion section and tell me how you were applying the focus in question to an area of your life. And as always, if you have any questions, just ask. And I'll see you in the next lecture. Thank you. 13. How To Form Your Goals: Hi, everybody. My name's Tony Staunton on Welcome Back to the productive entrepreneur. Helping to get you organized. Get your productive on, Make more profit. This lecture is entitled, Have the form your goals and kicks off with a quote from Napoleon Hill. A goal is a dream with a deadline, and he's absolutely right if you don't set a specific deadline, an end date on your goals and that's all the art or just dreams. So if you're following along with the last few lectures we've been talking about how to focus, how to find your focus, some focusing tips on the areas of your life, you can apply your focus. Snow. Do you know how to focus on where to apply it? It's time to talk about gold. I used to think that finding and setting gold was a really difficult process, and I think I was just scared by the fact that it was such a big thing. For example, you might have a goal off climbing Mount Everest. Now that is a scary goal. And where do you start with that? You might have a very simple goal of losing. A few pounds might be simple For some people, that might be very hard for other people. But again, where do you start with that goal? But it all starts with a great question. So what I've learned over the years is that setting gold is actually a very simple process . You ask a great question and then you go and you seek out a great answer. Now, I just want to focus in on one word there. Seek. You ask a great question on you, seek out a great answer. A great answer just doesn't come to you. You don't just find what you have to go on, actually look for it. So without seeking out the answer, your gold are never going to get done. They're always going to sit there in the back, your mind around a piece of paper or whatever it is. You have to go and seek out your answers. Great gold. Big on specific. They push you, they stretch you and the aim you at big specific answers. Great goals are also framed to be immeasurable, so there's no wiggle room about what the results will look like. So as we stand so as that as I quote from Napoleon Hill said. It started this lecture. The goal is just a dream with a deadline. So like we say, they're your goals have to be measurable. So here's a question. Here's a Here's a good question. What can I do to double sales in six months? It's big on its specific. A very big specific questions lead to a big specific answer, which is absolutely necessary for achieving a big goal. Now, if we're following on with the last few lectures, you know the folks in question that we've been asking, what is the one thing that I can do right now? If we were to put our sounds question into our focus in question, it would look something like this. What's the one thing I can do to double sales and six months such that by doing it, every ounce would become easier or unnecessary and highly successful? People ask himself this question for every area off their life, and we went through the areas of your life in the last lecture on, they ask themselves every day, this question so highly successful people choose to live at the outer limits of achievement . They not only dream but they deeply crave what's beyond their natural grasp. They know this type of answer is the hardest thing to come by. But they also know that just by extending themselves to find it, they expand, enriched their lives for the better. And how do they do that? Well, whatever they learn they use. So now we're going to adopt their methodology t to make ourselves more productive, more organized, increase our profit and reach our goals. So, as I said the start of this lecture, you seek out a great answer. So whenever you learn, you'll use it to do what Only the great achievers dio the benchmark on the trend. Anytime you don't know the answer, your answer is to go and find your answer. In other words, by default the first thing you should be doing. It's a search for clues on role models, a point you in the right direction. The research and experience of odors is the best place to start when looking for your answer. What will then happen is you're starting notes, a trend you're looking for. The next thing you can do in the same direction that the best performers are heading it or , if necessary, in an entirely new direction. So what you're looking for here is a mentor, someone who was who has walked a pot before you. If you can't find an answer to your question, will then a new answer usually requires a new behavior. Setting a gold you intend to achieve is like asking a question. It's a simple step from I'd like to do that. So how do we achieve that? So you need to be very specific. I'd like to lose £4 is not as specific as How do I achieve losing £4 so you can see the difference in the question there. So remember the process, the setting goals? You asked a great question. And then you go and you seek out a great answer. And don't forget that your answer has to be specific and measurable and always frame your answer in the quest into focusing question. That's the end of this lecture. As always. If you have any questions, please don't be afraid to ask aunt leave. Leave a post in the discussions. Thank you 14. Whats Your Purpose: Hi, everybody. My name's Tony Staunton. And welcome back to the productive entrepreneur. Helping get you organized, get you productive and make more profit. This lecture is entitled What's your purpose? So I've been following along with the past few lectures. You'll know your focus. You know how to apply your focus on, you know, your goals when they were going to talk about your purpose. And, as always, kick off this lecture with a quote, this time from John F. Kennedy. Efforts encourage are not enough without purpose and direction, so you'll see the same kind of sentiment echoing to road each elector in this section taking a step, setting a goal, moving towards something that you want done. Everything started at one step, and it's JFK says here. Efforts encourage not enough unless you're moving with purpose on in the right direction. So there is a natural rhythm to our lives that becomes a simple formula for implementing on achieving extraordinary results, and those extraordinary results are composed off purpose, priority on productivity. The more productive people are, the more purpose on priority are pushing on, driving them with the additional welcome of profit. It's the same for businesses, all business people, one productivity on profit. But too many fail to realize that the best part tube attaining them is true purpose driven priority. Your Paris on productivity is the building block of all business profit. The two are inseparable. A business can't have unproductive people yet magically still have an immensely profitable business. It just doesn't happen. Great businesses are built one productive person at a time. And if you're a one man band, if you work on your own, that starts with you. Connecting purpose, priority and productivity determines how high above the rest successful individuals and profitable business people will rise. Understanding this is at the core of producing extraordinary results. Our purpose, that's our priority. And the priority determines that productivity our actions produce a life lived on purpose is the most powerful and the happiest life of all. If we like a big picture view, we can easily fall into serial success. Seeking Why? Because once we get what we want, our happiness sooner or later Wayne's because we quickly become accustomed toe what we require, knowing what you're doing. Something provides the inspiration and motivation to give the extra perspiration needed to persevere when things go south and I'll give you an example of why it's important to know what you were doing. So knowing the why of what you're doing. Previously, when I was running my business, I used to think it was all about profit. But then when things got hard and difficult and I fell into debt, I realized that it's not about profit. It's about it was about my family. I was trying to provide a lifer. Then I was trying to give my parents. They liked it. They deserve my fiancee, my siblings. All I was trying to do was give them the life they deserve. But I had lost sight of that. That's why it started the business. But I completely lost sight of that, and I taught that I was working for profit. But I wasn't on when I realized my why the why of what I was doing. I completely became re motivated, re energized and inspired and make a bigger success of my business to pull myself out of debt on deliver for the people in my life. That's why it's important to know why you were doing what you're doing because it'll focus you. It'll drive you. It'll inspire you. And when things get tough, it'll keep you going. So in what you do matters your purpose and your life just fi elector in rhythm. That's it for this lecture and have any questions, just ask. 15. No one is an island: Hi, everybody. My name's Tony Staunton. I'm welcome back to the productive entrepreneur, helping you get organized, get productive and make more profit. This lecture is entitled No one is an island and it all has to do with communication skills . So, like the title of this lecture, no one isn't on. Unless, of course, you happen to be an 18 year old student on your summer break, then you are probably IBT. But for most of us, no one is an island on. We kick off the lecture with a great quote from Henry Ford, who said that coming together is a beginning. Staying together is progress. I'm working together is success, and I think by the end of the lecture you'll realize that working together really is one of the main definitions of success. So if you want to be productive and successful, you need to realize that no one is self made. Everyone gets some help along the way. Sam Walton, founder of Wal Mart. He got a $20,000 loan from his father in law, open his four store Oprah Winfrey credits or fighter and his wife. Even the Beatles had George Martin, who has been referred to as the fifth Beatle. Basically, no one succeeds alone, even though you might think that they have or that they dio whatever your profession, there will come a time when you will need the help and support of those around you. Hi, myself. I just coming out of such a time, I thought that I could do everything alone. But as I found out to my detriment, I couldn't for me. Opening open Asking for help from those around me was extremely difficult on May 2, things very clear to me. As I've said, no one is successful alone on the second thing. If you want other people's help, you have tohave excellent communication skills. When your audience is one person or room full of people, the communication skills outline in this lecture will help you to build better, more support of an honest relationships. So, skill number one full disclosure from the very beginning asking for someone's help can be a daunting task. When you do, don't let them or yourself down by holding back. Be open and honest people can only help you if they know the whole story. Skill number two. Be concise. If people are going to help you. They're gonna want to understand exactly what it is you are asking of them. Be concise and to the point. So, for example, I need help with sales because I'm off my target this month. I don't understand financials. Can you help me? Whatever it is, boil your point. Your request down to its most basic element on use that as your starting point on this same rule applies when dealing with customers, Sometimes you might need to deliver bad news. So just not meeting a deadline in these situations. Be concise, clear on to the point skill number. Tree is clarity on being clear on. This has a lot to do. What? Skill number two off being concise. If you were asking people for help, then you need to be clear on what exactly it is that you want from them. Explain the situation that you're in. Tell them the outcome that you would like and how they can help you. Giving people clear direction will save both sides enormous amount of time on help Reduce stress Skill Number four is having the right fax. When you were asking people for help, you need to have all the facts available. If you were asking for help with sales, then there was no point in recruiting a sales person, sending them out to potential clients on letting them believe that the product is 100% right fire. Better off that you were open, honest and give them all the facts that the product is in fact, only 70% working on let them work around that during their meetings and demos. The last thing you need is someone being surprised by a piece of bad news that you could have given them yourself. Real communication is about being honest, open on building trust. If right now you find yourself needing help, then review the points in this lecture on, see if there's anything that you can do to reach out to those around you. And remember, if you have any questions, just ask Thank you, and I'll see you in the next lecture. 16. Team Collaboration: Hi, everybody. My name's Tony Staunton. I'm welcome back to the productive entrepreneur, helping you get organized, get productive and make more profit. This lecture is entitled team collaboration, and, as always, we kick off this lecture with a great quote from Steve Jobs this time who said that great things and business are never done by one person. There don't by a team of people. So no matter what business you're in, at some stage, you will have to work as part of a team. It might be just a temporary thing. It might be just for a couple of weeks for a couple of days for a couple of months. Whatever it is, no matter what kind of business you're in, you might be one man band. But as you grow, your team will grow along with you. You might need to hire a new part time employees or outsource some design work to a person working in another country on the other side of the world, speaking a different language. The matter Watcher situation collaboration is a big part of being productive and successful . When you see your team working together towards a common goal, you will get a huge motivation boost along with a sense of pride in the product that you're creating together in this lecture, I'm thinking I'm going to give you some tips to help grease the wheels of collaboration. So we kick off our list off collaboration tips with our 1st 1 which is project goals and outcomes. When you were leading a team towards a common goal, make sure that everyone knows their roles responsibilities on their deliverables. The project may seem obvious to you, but don't assume that it's obvious to your team as well. At no stage during your project. Should anyone of your team be unsure of what to do next? Tip number two is to choose your team carefully. What expertise is your project require when taking on a new project you might have. You might have a desire to do as much of the work as possible. Try and resist this temptation when putting together a new team. First, think about the scales that each person has. I did the right fit for the right project, and signing the right times to the right people is a key success factor in any project and will save you myself amounts of time. You also need to consider your team's personalities are some too quiet. They they may not engage with. Team members are speak up to ask questions or raise concerns during meetings. Odor potential team members may be too overbearing. I will drown out the rest of the team's voices. You need to choose your team carefully on balance out the skills under personalities that are available to you, our next hip. It's a socialize outside of work. There's a reason why every company on Earth does the oh so awkward team building days because they work. Getting her team to socialize outside of work is a great way to build bunds. Improved trust on increased communication. Take them out for a Friday night drink, a sports event or a traditional team building day. Even if you just get out together at lunch, go for work and have a chat tip him before is to say thank you. You may not think it with your team. Whether it's internal, external or outsourced. Needs constant encouragement on praise, saying thank you for a job well done builds confidence and goodwill. Don't just assume that your team thinks they're doing it, Go jump. Remember to tell them as well. Tip number five is to provide the right to host your team. Make sure that they have everything they need to get their job done. Do they need any any specific self where or project management to or equipment? Don't assume they have everything. So ask. The last thing that you need is a delay, because you're programmers don't have to write software license. Another excellent way to improve collaboration is to introduce your team two different roles. For example, send one of your developers that with a sales person for today, often developers think that they know the product best. Introducing them to your clients will give them a different perspective on Appreciate what goes on outside the development Department. So they're my quick six tips for team collaboration. I'd love to hear your tips on any experience you have in building and managing a team. And as always, if you have any questions, just ask, and I'll see you in the next lecture 17. Communication Best Practices: Hi, My name's Tony Staunton. I'm welcome back to the productive entrepreneur, helping you get organized, get productive and make more profit. In the last two lectures, we spoken about team collaboration on communication skills. All very important to know for effective communication in this lecture, communication, best practices. We're going to bring together those two lectures and give you the communication best practice that you need to successfully communicate beating a team, to reclined or to an audience. And as always, we kick after lecturer with a quote, this one coming from George Bernard Shaw. The single biggest problem and communication is illusion that has taken place, I suppose. In the last couple elections, we spoke about that about how important it actually is to make the effort to communicate its no go. Just thinking that your message is being delivered or not, even they understand what you're thinking. You need to be clear. You need to be concise on your message needs to be delivered. So in this lecture, I'm going to give you some best practices effective and clear communication. It's a great skill, but one that comes with a lot of practice. So the first skill we're gonna take we talk about is being relatable. And what do I mean when I say be relatable? But I mean making a point to get to know the people you were working with as individuals, you're going to be spending a large part of your time with these people. So why not get to NOTAM chatting? Showing an interest in their lives and sheriffs and details about your own life can make the office a much happier place. Several years ago, I got my first job out of college, and on my second or third day, I asked my new boss. How was his day going? To which he replied, That's absolutely none of your business. Obviously, I was completely taken aback by his answer. Not only was it extremely rude, but it also ensured I never asked him a question again, either work or personal related. My next tip in communication backs best practices is keeping a good sense of humor. Making people laugh is a great way to help you relate to them. When people laugh, they open up, but you have to be careful not to overdo it or offend someone. After all, you don't want to become the office clown. Humor is also a great way to help loosen the mood on relieve tension. My next tip is to listen. Not many people realize a large part of communication is saying nothing at all on listening to what the other person is saying by listening. You're showing you the person that you were genuine and respect their point of view. Actively listening also allows you the former well taught out on meaningful response. My next communication tip is to respond in a timely manner Now. I learned this from the hard way. After a weekly team meeting, one of my employees pulled me aside and gave out to me for not replying to his on other team members e mails quickly enough. Most of the time, all that was needed from me was a quick thank you or an OK email, just some sort response So the team would know that I was reading the emails and processing what they said by not responding. I was showing a lack of interest on a lack of respect for their work. Now I respond to every email, no matter how trivial or smaller. My reply. It needs to be. My fifth communication tip is to share your vision. Oftentimes the leader. You have a clear picture of where you want to be, how you're going to get there on what steps are needed to achieve your goals. But these things may not be as clear to those around you When communicating with others. Be sure to share your vision. Number six is to be present when interacting with someone. The worst thing that you can do is be distracted. It shows a lack of respect for a time on whatever it is that they're trying to tell you by being present. You help make people feel heard and understood. Close your laptop or turn away from the screen. Put your phone and sand and give them your full, undivided attention. Number seven under list is to always ask before you speak. Never assume you know what declined or team member is thinking. Always ask. Several years ago, my team came to me and said that one of the team was always late to work, always on his phone and late for deadlines. He was letting the team down, and they wanted me to fire him. I took his team member aside and asked Mr Ending wrong. Was you unhappy with his work with his colleagues or anything, stressing him out and asked him what I could do to help. He told me that his brother was very sick with cancer and that his small business was losing clients and falling into debt to help out. He was taking calls from suppliers and clients and going to some meetings. Obviously, he was under a huge amount of stress. After listening to this member of the team and assessing the situation, I gave this personal time off to help his family. When he returned to work, he was so tankful that is, work rate went through the roof on. His loyalty was unquestionable. So it just goes to show. Always ask. Sometimes you might think, you know, but you don't. And finally, Number eight on our list for effective communication is to write everything down. Part of being a great communicator is your ability to recall no matter what the topic, having a written record makes a big difference. Email conserved its purpose in some circumstances, but when it is not an option, write it down. I have a great notebook that I carry with me everywhere. When it's full up, I put it on my bookshelf and start another one. No matter what, I always have a record of a meeting or a phone call, anything that I need to remember. Think of it as your outside brain. Well, these are my best practices to help you improve your communication. I don't to hear yours to leave a note in discussion section and I'll get back to you as always. Thank you for listening and you have any questions? Just ask, and I look forward to seeing you in the next lecture. 18. Email: Hi, everybody. My name's Tony Stoned him. I'm welcome back to the productive entrepreneur. Helping you get organized, get productive and make more profit. We're moving into a next new section. Now, on this section is entitled Productivity Blockers On in it, we're gonna be talking about all the things that can block your productivity. So we're gonna be talking about email, other people, your inability say no on much more. So we're moving into a new section now, and we're increasing our productivity as we go. So this lecture is entitled Profit productivity blockers email on in this lecture, we're going to be discussing how email can be one of the biggest blockers of your productivity, whatever you even realizing it. And as always, we kick off this lecture with a quote from Jacqueline. Let Leo, who said that one look at an email can rob you are 15 minutes of focus, and she was very right in saying that when you're in the zone when you're in your workflow check and constantly checking your emails is the biggest time TIF out there. It could take you up to 15 minutes to get your focus and your concentration back after you break away and check emails. So let me ask you this question. How long have you bean in your inbox? Today, 10 minutes, 30 minutes to hours or more. Email is one of the biggest waste of your time. There are plenty of plug ins widgets on maps to help you waste less time an email. But they're all worthless if you don't make the personal choice to stop letting email control your life. Although email usually seems like an important task, the fact is, the time in your inbox will swell to the amount of time you allow it. To take up is what's called Parkinson's Law, which states that work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion. I've included link to Parking is loaded in the resource is section, so check it out. Basically, it means that if you love yourself three hours in your inbox, you'll have three hours of email. Allowing yourself only one hour per day in your inbox means you only have one hour per day off email. The choice is up to you now. When I say it like that, it sounds so very simple and the first reaction I get every time I tell someone. This at this Terry, about Parkinson's law is not, but you don't know my job. Or that's just a way my industry is or I have to email as much as I do. These are all excuses, and they were all not true because checking your email is a choice. I hard on a forest, but a choice. When you decided to limit the amount of time email is taking, you'll start having less emails because people know that they can always depend on response for the little things. All those important emails were no longer reach your inbox because of really urgent the person will find a way to get hold of you, particularly to note if you are not, hide your email. 24 7 There are many different strategies for reducing your email dependency, but here are some of mine Number one. Don't open your email before 10 a.m. or before the one most important task of your day is done. This is one of the biggest killers of morning routines on productivity. When you open your inbox first thing in the morning, your insulin getting so into reactive mode instead of being proactive. Reacting to these emails is far less important in taking action on your one priority off the day. Your willpower is highest in the morning, and when email takes over, he used up your morning well, power on things that could easily be completed later. Number two to find some personal rules. Your email. I check my emails tree times a day, a 10 32 PM on a 5 p.m. And you need to adopt a system that works for you. Now, I know some days you might be very, very busy, and you're waiting for an important email to come in for a client, and that's OK. Those days happened, and I have to myself on what I do, Dan, is I check my e o e mails, maybe every hour, or have somebody else check them for me. And if the email that I'm waiting for from a client comes in, then they can let me know. So there are ways and means around having a hectic inbox. You just have to adapt and create the rule and not a real that I have. Is that after 6 p.m. I switch off emails. At times, I have also turned off email notifications on my phone. This way it's not beeping every five or 10 minutes and distracting me. This is one of my favorite rules to do in the evenings and on the weekend is to completely switch email off from my mobile phone. So find out what works for you and then hold yourself accountable on my tour. A tip that helped you cutting back on email is to reduce your time to 30 minutes per day in your inbox. Unless, of course, you're patching over your emails. Any responses together, then you will be checking email one of two times a day, which might have take half an hour, 45 minutes or an error. If you allow yourself more than 30 minutes in the in box, you'll begin to slow down and get caught in the black hole that is email. So, as I said at the beginning, checking email is a choice on constantly checking. Your email is one of the biggest killers of your productivity, and it's completely up to you to stop checking them constantly on that. First, there will be a bit of separation and anxiety, and you'll be like a wonder if that email has come in who's emailed me now. But think about it this way. Kind of Paris and emailing. You survive without a response for an hour to In most cases, the answer will be yes, and everything will move. Will will go along just fine without the response. And that's how I do it now. For example, if declined emails reforesting in the morning when I get back to them just after lunch, that's fine with them. They know that I have other clients in order, have other meetings. They know them. A busy person, if they're query, was really, really urgent. Well, then they have my office phone number on my cell phone number, and they have those means to get in contact with me, and that's fine. I allow that because if it's urgent, they can ring me. So hope these trade quick tips can help you to review your email procedures to reduce the time you check your email on to get more done. And as always, if you have any questions, just ask 19. Perfectionism: Hi, everybody. Tony standing here on Welcome back to the productive entrepreneur, helping you get organized, get productive. I make more profit. This lecture is entitled Productivity, blockers, perfectionism. And, as always, we kick off with a great quote, this time from Vince Lombardi, who said, Perfection is not attainable. But if we chase perfection, we can catch excellence on. That is a sentiment that goes right through this lecture in that perfection is not attainable, even though that's what you might wait for. That's what you might hold off a project for you to simply not attainable. Whenever I used to hear the term perfectionist, I would automatically think that referred to a person who was very good, their job somewhat high standards on who always met them. But one of the things understand, being a productive and organized entrepreneur is that you cannot do everything. You might consider yourself a perfectionist, someone who routinely evaluates the southward by whether or not they're meeting levels of perfection that simply are not attainable. But the be productive means to be in perfect. Do you find yourself not completing tasks because you want to be just right? Ie delaying getting things done because you don't feel like they're good enough. If you find that perfectionism is having a negative impact on your life and your gold, then it is time to start working on us. And here's a list of things that you can start to change right now to help you reduce your perfectionism. Number one, you're thinking patterns. At its most basic level, perfectionism is rooted in the fear of not being perfect or fear of making mistakes. Beating yourself up for not meeting an impossible deadline that no one could meet is an example of the destructive thinking of perfectionism. When you feel those tarts coming, stop and notice how and what you're thinking and try and shift them to be more reasonable, try changing the way you set goals. Another way to overcome perfectionism is the change. Helen. What you care about When you set a goal, you automatically engage imperfections behavior. For example, If your goal is to write 10,000 words of your book this Saturday, anything less than that is failure. Instead, as we discussed in a previous lecture, set your one year your monthly gold, your weekly goal on your right now go and then focus on the priority on the actions that will lead you to the goal you want. Another tip to try is the have a binary mindset. When it comes to perfection, your mind evaluates and Maira the factors when it measures performance quality. Did I speak clearly enough during the presentation? Was I wearing the right clothes? Didn't make eye contact with the audience? You will ask yourself many questions in an effort to find fault. Instead, try adopting the concept of binary data of zeros and ones by distilling your options down to to the criteria for affection. For a perfectionism becomes a much lower threshold. Tell yourself, as long as I get up and speak words in front of the audience, that is success. And finally be mindful. The research is still being done, but mindfulness and meditation based strategy may hold the key to overcoming perfectionism . Using meditation based techniques have helped me with my exact anxiety by identifying the thoughts and behaviors that cause anxiety, pausing, noting and then moving on. I'm experimenting with similar techniques for helping with perfectionism on. Always remember that Don is better in perfect, so there's four tips right now help reduce your perfectionism. I'd love to hear how you have overcome or how you manage your own perfectionism in your daily life. And if you have any tips or questions like to ask, just leave a note in the discussion section. Thank you. 20. Procrastination: Hi, everybody. My name's Tony Staunton. And welcome back to the productive entrepreneur, helping you get organized, get productive and make more profit. This lecture is entitled Productivity, blockers, procrastination. And, as always, we kick off with a quote, this one from CRISPR Parker, who said that procrastination is like a credit card. It is a lot of fun until you get the bill, and I have to say that I completely understand what he means because as somebody who suffers are not from procrastination, I might put a meeting off. I might put it to do off on my put a piece of work off on when you put something off, You feel great about it. You feel like you have the time back like you can do what you want. You might be able to go for a walk or the gym, do a bit of reading, do something that you want to do. But actually the only thing that you were doing is delaying what needs to be done on as Chris for Parker says. Here, it's a lot of fun until you get the bill, so I might put something off for an hour for two hours or until the next day, but then declined will call a deadline unfold. You and I really am paying for the fund that I had the day before. So, as I just said, I have to be one of the world's worst procrastinators. If there is something that I can put off till tomorrow, I will. If there is a client meeting that it can be constant till tomorrow. Consulate. Whatever my default setting is, it's the put things off. It doesn't matter what its relationships, whether it's work or whether it appointments. And for me, one of the hardest challenges I face is taking that first step in any task on their not dragging it out and not letting my motivation leave me. Over the years I blame from various books websites on my own reflection stop. Procrastination from me is mostly due to a lack of focus on as outlined in the previous section. Once you find your focus, you will have your purpose. I would give you a priorities which produces productivity. Andan torrent Profit on here is just a reminder from the last section where we asked, you're focusing question. The one thing that you can do. Question. What's the one thing that I could do such that by doing it? Everything else will be easier or unnecessary. And like I said, since I found this question on since I've read the book, The One Thing by Gary Keller, my procrastination has really dropped. I've seen a really increase in my project productivity just by asking myself this simple question every day. So if you haven't yet found your focus returned to the last section on, go and find it now, no doubt. For most of us, procrastination effects is all. So here are five simple strategies to help you get what you need. Done done Number one Focus on one thing. Whenever I start a new task, my mind automatically jumps to the end, showing me how big task it's so straight away, I'm afraid, because the task seems to me huge. Break your large task down to smaller, more manageable pieces and focus on completing these one at a time. No matter how large task is, it can always be broken down into smaller pieces that allow you to get started on work towards completion. Tip number two set deadlines. What do you like them or not, Deadlines feed a self imposed are set by somebody else. Forces you to focus and get things done. Whatever clearly defined Deadline, your task and Philip a day, a week, a month or longer. And as we discussed in the last lecture that comes back to Parkinson's law, so you forgot what that is. Jump back to the last lecture. Where is a resource? They're linking to? Parkinson's law and lack of clarity causes procrastinate. Strategy. Number four Don is better than perfect. As mentioned in the previous lecture. Perfectionism can be legal to your idea, your product, your book or business. Obviously, you always want to do your best work. But to be profitable, you will eventually need to realize that your product needs to be released to the world. Try not to worry about getting it perfect the first time, as Reid Hoffman, founder of LinkedIn, says, If you're not embarrassed by the first varies another product you've launched too late. The longer you wait, the harder the task becomes in your mind. Remember, Don is better than perfect, and the four tip is to take a break. Ever wonder why some people have their best ideas in the shower or whatever for a walk or ruin, or they wake up after a great night's sleep, ready to get the work. You might not think it, but it has been proven that stepping away from a task can be beneficial to completing a task. Constantly. Thinking about a task will cause anxiety and paralyze you with overwhelming tots. Taking a break will help you be procrastination and get you back on track to completing your gold. My final tip. It's get to work. There's an old saying in sales that says sales fix everything. You've probably heard it in some form or another when it comes to working and getting things done. A similar rule applies, Stephen King puts it. Amateurs sit and wait for inspiration. The rest was just get up and go to work every tip trick and hack about beating procrastination. And when we sit down at a desk and do the work until it's done at the end of it all, nothing else matters. But the work will have to work on the output. All of the tips, tricks and hacks in the world will not help you or your business. So they're my top five tips to help you beat procrastination. If you have any, please let me know and leave a note in the discussion section. As always. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me on. I look forward to seeing you in the next lecture. 21. Other People: Hi, everybody. My name's Tony Staunton and welcome back to the productive entrepreneur, helping you to get organized, get productive and make more profit. This lecture is entitled Productivity blockers order people. And as you know, by now we kick off every lecture with a quote, this time from Oprah Winfrey, who said, Surround yourself with people who are going to lift you higher now you may not think it, but other people play a huge part in your goal to becoming more organized, more productive on making more profit. As we discussed in a previous lecture, nobody succeeds alone on a very lucky there will be those around you who would support and encourage your efforts. Now we all have these people around us family and close friends, people who support us on who are there for us, no matter what. Under his research out there that says we are the average of the five people closest to us . So whoever to five people closest to you are you are an average off, their personalities, all brought together, So if you want to be successful, then you need to start hanging around with successful people. If you want to be an athlete or fitter. You would hang around with people who go to the gym on people who are fitted on yourself. If you wanted to lose weight, you would hang around with people who were losing weight and have a similar goal. That's why clubs and organizations are so popular when it comes to things like getting fit on losing weight when the same is true For being successful, you need to hang around people who are more successful than yourself. Having said that, there will always be those around you who will what you are trying to accomplish, who will not share your vision and question you at every turn. The false prophet thes the people to avoid on. We all know at least one or two. Being around these people is instructive, exhausting and with sap away, your willpower on energy. On the other hand, being with success minded people creates what researchers have called a positive spiral of success, where they lift you up with, um on bring you along on their journey. Their motivation becomes your motivation. Their energy becomes your energy. Your environment must support your goal, and that includes the people you surround yourself with as you move to your journey of getting organized, becoming more productive on making more profit. You will meet many people along the way, and eventually you will develop your own sense of who to avoid. But here's a short list from my experience, and I call these people nice from fire, but far from nice. They may seem like a habit old because you don't know them. You don't know their experiences. You don't know their past. But as you get to know more about them as they get a little closer to you in life, they don't look as good as they previously did. So Type one is the phones profits. If you haven't already, you will soon be approached by the parents and who only wants to help you. They want nothing for themselves. They will say things such as I know Mr X are Mrs Why? Who would be a great client for help. You get your business off the ground, they will tell you that they know and introduce you to everybody on that they can help make your business and massive success. But in reality, they produce on do very little for you. The only thing that they do is waste your time listening to them, because that's what they like. Talking and having an audience type number two are those who are too negative. Anyone who tries to achieve anything in life will, at some stage be knocked down. Some get up and try again. But some stay down on become bitter, angry and resentful of those who have kept trying on of those who succeed. These types of people are easy to spot because they moan and give out about everything. If you're spending time with negative people, you may slowly but surely begin to feel the life being sucked out of you. Try and avoid these people at all costs. And finally, the last type of person to avoid are the Doubters, those who believe. But behind your back, don't your vision, your goal and your business is something that you must believe in to your very core. That's your job. But it's not everybody else's job. There were those around you who say that they believe and support what you're doing, but they really don't. They think you should grow up, get a real job on move on. In many ways, these are the people who would have hired us to be around because their lives are moving forward. They have good jobs, are getting married and buying houses while yours is in a holding pattern as your business takes off. But you're chasing a dream. I was previously in this situation chasing my dream and claiming unemployment benefits many times those around you can see how your future is going to turn out, but you can because you have a vision. You have a goal on. You have your priorities. So keep at this. And finally, I will say that there is one type of person who I have found extremely beneficial in my business journey, and that's an accountability partner. Someone who I can call on the Monday morning tell that my problems tells my fears towns of my troubles. They will have a response. They will listen and they will be able to help. I will also tell them my gold on my priorities for the week, and at the end of the week they will check back in and ask how by doing X have I don't Why have I accomplished what I wanted to do this week. It makes a huge difference knowing that at the end of the week you have to be accountable to someone. So I hope this quick lecture has shown you two people to avoid and giving you an idea of the kind of person that you need to be around. And as always, if you have any questions, just ask. 22. Clutter: Hi, everybody. My name's Tony Staunton. I'm welcome back to the productive entrepreneur, helping you to get organized, get productive and make more profit. This lecture is entitled Productivity Blockers, clutter. And, as always, we start off with a quote, this time from Leonardo da Vinci, who said simplicity is the ultimate sophistication. Now I love coming into a tidy work area, be it at home or be it up my office. Sitting down on a clean desk and getting straight to work helps relieve stress on anxiety. No time is ever wasted looking for stationary or whatever I need to get to work. I know where everything is. I got this habit from reading David Allen's Getting Things Done. If you haven't read it yet, I highly suggest that you do. I loved hiding love, cleaning on love, organizing I always have done. I also love stationary. Every weekend I clean my desk and organize my work area for the week ahead. It sounds very boring, but I love it because it helps relieve stress anxiety and puts my mind at rest. It's a way for me to de stress now. You may not be aware of it, but As clutter builds up around you, it creates distraction, stress and confusion. Have you ever found yourself under some sort of pressure or stress, perhaps from work on began frantically tiding as Marie condo Order off the life changing magic of tidying states. This is not an uncommon phenomenon. Many people get the urge to clean up when they're under pressure. You get this urge not because you actually want to clean, but because you need to put something else in order. Your mind is so hectic it's crying out to put something in order. Your brain is clamoring toe work, but it notices the cluttered space and switches your focus to I need to clean. A tidy de cluttered working area can help reduce stress, improve focus and productivity. Increase your inner calmness. I know what those for me and increase your attention spent so you may not like it, but get hiding. You have a lot of good reasons to give it a try. And as always, if you have any questions, please do not hesitate to ask me in the discussion section on. I look forward to seeing you in the next lecture 23. Habits of the Super Productive: Hi, everybody. Tony Staunton here and welcome back to the productive entrepreneur, helping you get organized, get productive and make more profit. Now we are moving into a new section. What that means for you is that we're moving into some more advanced concepts off getting organized and getting productive, so less hand holding, less kind of step by step, a more walk, truth check lists and guidelines to help you keep your productivity journey moving forward . I hope you're enjoying the course so far. You've any feedback, any tips, anything that you'd like to see. Please leave me a note into discussion section, and with that, we move on to our next lecture, which is productivity habits off the super productive on as always, we kick off with a quote, this one coming from Joseph B. Wirthlin, who said Each minute is a little ting on yet with respect to our personal productivity to manage the minute it's a secret off success. And I hope that that's something that you've been picking up throughout the entire course in that productivity organization on increasing your profit is not something that wanting conduce or any one thing can do. It is the accumulation off small things all out of together, which make you a success or which help you to succeed. So when it comes to productivity, it seems that each of us start our journey with the same question, and it's something similar to this. How do I use my 24 hours in the day to get the things I need done? Done that 24 hours in the day, 1440 minutes on how you spend each one counts After asking this forest question, most people take a step back on, look at the productive people around them, or they find a productive person on the Web and try and emulate them. And we spoke about this in the previous lecture on we call the benchmarking and trending. How do these people get so much done? Work on multiple projects and reach multiple goals? Looking back in your day, knowing that you got what you wanted on is a great feeling. Here are some productivity habits of the super productive to help you get that feeling. Also number one. They have a morning routine being productive stats the moment you wake up the super productive Among this will have a morning routine that they follow every morning for ways to create your own morning routine. Check out lecture eight. Number two. They eat frogs in productivity. This Mark Twain quote is everywhere, and I've already mentioned a couple of times in this serious heat alive for first thing in the morning, and that's the worst thing that will happen to you for the rest of the day. This is probably the single best solution for beating procrastination every morning. The super productive do the most dreaded item on their to do list before to do anything else. You would not believe the amount of time, energy and productivity this habit will bring to your day habit number tree. They only check emails at certain times. This is a tough one for some of us. The first thing we do in the mornings before we even get out of bed is a checker emails, but this leads us down a spiral of negative productivity. How many times have you checked emails in the morning and then spend your time on something non critical or not related to your most important passed off the day? Decide now on how many times per day you will check your email. For me, it's 10 31 o'clock and 3 30 This schedule frees up my time for me to work on what I decide is important. Having Number four they don't multi task. No, you've got your mornings off to the right Start on. Have freed up some time by not checking emails. It's time to focus on exactly what you should be doing. Super productive people know that multi tasking is a big productivity killer. Research conducted at Stanford University confirms that multitasking is less productive than doing one single thing at a time. As Gary Keller asks in the book, The one thing if doing the most important thing is the most important thing. Why would you try to do anything else at the same time? And that's an excellent question. Why do anything else at the same time, if what you're supposed to be doing is the most important thing you should be doing right now? Habit number five. They touched things only once. As you move to your day, you'll be bombarded with inputs. Super productive people deal with things as they arrive because touching things twice is a huge time waster assumes something grabs your attention. They deal with it. Market for action, later, deleted or delegated. Decide as soon as it arrives on your desk, in your email or in your post habit. Number six. They say No, no, could be your secret weapon in increasing your productivity. Super productive people are not afraid to say no, and nor should you saying no. Keep your time for you on the commitment you have already made. From now on, your default answer when asked to do something should be no guarantee. Yield the power of no on watch your productivity increase on your stress decrease. Having number seven, they delegate, you need to understand that you were not the only smart and talented person in your organisation. Otherwise, why did you hire people if you're not going to use them on their talents? The super productive trust people to do their jobs as they focus on their own and finally have a number eight, They get ready for tomorrow today, the super productive and each day by preparing for the next. This practice helps you to feel go to Bill what you've accomplished today clears your head before finishing work on insurers. You have a head start for tomorrow. Check out foreigner lectures for more tips and tricks on preparing for tomorrow. So do the habits of the super productive. And I hope that by now, true this course, one thing is clear as I sat at the start. It's not wanting one silver bullet that will make you organize productive and increase your profit, but instead little habit, little tips, little tricks, all put together in one workflow that would bring your productivity on your organization to the next level. And as we moved through the course, and as we have been moving through the course, you will see the same teams repeated over and over again. On this is not because there's nothing else to talk about, but because it's a reminder, its reputation. It's helping you to learn on helping these things become habitual. So thanks for listening. And as always, if you have any questions, please don't hesitate to ask on. I'll see you in the next lecture 24. Habits To Abandon: Hi, everybody. Tony starting here. I'm welcome back to the productive entrepreneur. Helping you get organized. Get productive. I make more profit. Now, this Elektra follows on nicely from the last where we spoke about the habits of the super productive. On this lecture, we're going to discuss habit to abandon, and these habits to abandon will have an immediate impact on your productivity. So there is some nice overlapping topics between this lecture and the last, which should help to reinforce the points. And, as always, kick off with a quote, a changing bad habits leads to a change in life. And I came from Jenny Craig, and that's what we're gonna be talking about in this lecture. Changing, abandoning and dropping bad habit. So the first for a bad habits is the one of constantly checking emails. I used to be very guilty of this habit to the point of getting stressed out if I didn't check my emails. Since I've put my email checking schedule in place, I've reduced my stress on become much more focused on what I should be doing. Think about it this way. Kind of person e mailing you live it out. Response from you for a narrower to what I've started to recently is creating email auto responders, which says, Thank you for your email today. I'm inclined meetings and have limited capacity to respond to emails. If your query is urgent, please call my office. But a wise are respond to you at the earliest possible time. Thank you. This message is completely feasible and accepted by most to receive it as they understand, or at least should do, that they are not my only client and that I'm busy. You should consider setting up something similar for yourself. Happened number two to abandon is the weekly status meeting. For those of you who can, this is something I recommend doing. You might think that you can't function without the weekly status meeting, but you can, even when there was nothing to really update people on. We still go ahead and have these meetings because we feel like we must update are definitely good thing. But you can save an enormous amount of time but using a shared project management tool, so to base camp or trailer using one of these tools will also help alleviate any apprehension your team may feel by dropping the weekly status meeting habit number Tree is to stop working long hours. At some point, working all of the hours available just becomes counterproductive. Are you really at your best working in under 16 hours straight? Studies have shown that for those who work more than eight hours a day, actually have lower productivity than those who don't. And for those who do work more than eight hours a day, they have increased burnout rates. Instead, try and focus on your task at hand, getting more done in less time. You don't need to be the office martyr. Just a work smarter habit. Number four is not eating that frog Now. We've discussed this before. How doing the hardest task? First thing in the morning is a great way to give yourself some energy motivation and clear your schedule for the rest of the day. When you start work in the mornings, don't hang around. Get your most difficult task forced. Undo it. Call the climate bad news. Ring the bank, Whatever it is, do it. You would not believe the amount of time this frees up, the easier task that you have in your list should be thought of as a reward for getting the hard stuff done happened. Number five is not having breakfast. You need to stop not having breakfast right now. Most was. Don't make time for breakfast. First thing in the mornings were far too busy having a bit of a lie in and then rushing toe work. By the time 11 a.m. comes around, we're tired, groggy on hungry. There is a reason why they say that breakfast is the most important meal of the day because it is. You were missing out on valuable fuel for today by skipping breakfast after a night's sleep . Your body is dehydrated and hungry. You need to give it the fuel it deserves to help keep you alert, unproductive. Think of it this way. Will you go true today and not eat for eight hours? No, I don't think you would. Then why do you do it after a night's sleep? And speaking of sleep habit number six, the drop is not getting enough sleep. Do you get a full night's sleep? At the moment, most business people, entrepreneurs and those who consider themselves highly productive don't This is a productivity killer on an easy one to remedy Reese here to shown that getting less than five hours of sleep is the equivalent of having a 0.10 blood alcohol level. That's the equivalent of going toe work over the drink driving limit. If you are not getting a good night's sleep because you need to get a barely, then go to bed earlier. Habit number seven is eating at your desk. Most was tanked up eating at our desks. We're being more productive because we're coming in a few more minutes of work, but we're not really. Your brain and body need need. Refuel on to get some downtime in eating at your desk of not only lower your productivity but increases your stress as you are not giving your body to rest. It deserves growth. For wall, get some fresh air or chatter colleagues. Habit number eight to abandon is not taking breaks. Eating at your desk is one thing, but not taking breaks at all is quite another has already mentioned your body needs some downtime to process what has been going on that morning or afternoon. Taking breaks helps you to refocus on the task at hand and improve productivity habit number nine to abandon is the idea of giving every task equal importance. Have you heard of the 80 20 rule? But the end of this course you will be sick of hearing it the 80 20 rule of states that 80% of your results will come from 20% of your efforts. Think about that for a second. 80% of euros. Your results. We'll comb from 20% of your efforts. That means 80% of your revenue comes in 20% of your clients. Now that you know what the 80 20 rule is, you can stop treating every task with the same level and level of importance going by the 80 20 rule. If you have 20 tasks for today, four of those tasks would be your highest priorities and produce the best results. 16 will be less important. So focus on what matters and get you closer to your goals and have a number 10 to abandon is multi tasking. I can't stress this enough. Just stop doing it right now. If you're multitasking, stop multitasking. Even if you think you're guarded, you're not Multitasking is a lie. Research has shown that it takes, on average 15 to 25 minutes to get re focused on the task at hand after having stopped to do something else today the air folks, My top 10 habits to abandon right now to increase your productivity. Stop constantly checking your emails. Dropped a weekly status meeting. Stop working long hours. Do your hardest task force thing in the morning. Start having breakfast. Start getting enough sleep. Stop eating at your desk. Start taking breaks. Stop treating every task as if it was of equal importance on Remember the 80 20 rule. There is a link within the resource is section explaining the 80 20 rule and finally stopped multitasking. I hope that you enjoy this lecture on as always. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact me. Thank you. 25. Habits of Famous People: Hi, everybody. My name's Tony stolen on. Welcome back to the productive entrepreneur, helping you get organized, get productive and make more profit. This lecture is entitled Productivity habits and the habits of others. And when I say orders in this lecture, we're talking about the strange creative habits off famously productive people. So what does it take for you to get in the zone? Do you have to be sitting in the right chair with your favorite pan on a clear Midsummer's Night? Well, don't worry. There are some habits off famously productive people that make your habits seem not so strange. And as always, we kick off the lecture with a quote, this time from Edward de Bono, who said creativity involved breaking out of established patterns in order to look at things in a different way. So that's what we're looking up now the different ways that people get creative and we kick off this lecture with Jay Z. In his book, Decoded, he writes about not having the time or resource is to write down rhymes, and they would come to him. As he said, I created little corners in my head where would store rhymes still, to this day, he writes his lyrics in his head before stepping foot in the recording boot. The creators of South Park, Trey Parker and Matt Stone encourage last minute panic, so Park must be one of the few shows, if not the only one on TV, where the entire production of an episode is carried out the week leading up to the show's airing. This last minute panic is all part of their process, which they say leads to more spontaneous brainstorming, topical satire of current events and the inability to second guess themselves on rewrite episodes. Yoshiro Nakamatsu almost drowns when he needs creativity. This has to be one of the most extreme ways to get your productivity juices flowing. The inventor of the floppy disk dive underwater to come up with new ideas. He says he remains under the surface until he attains his flash of genius, which would happen just half a second before death. A little bit extreme for us. Thomas Edison refused asleep when he was on a roll. He refused to sleep, sometimes going 72 hours without it. He was a fan of para napping and thought of sleeping as a waste of time left over from her cave Mondays. I don't think too many productivity experts or held experts would agree with medicine these days. Marissa Mayer slept at a desk while working at Google. Mayer used to work 130 hours a week. To accomplish this, she would often sleep at a desk and get creative with her shares. How she does not born out, you might ask. Apparently, she takes one week of leave every four months and finally on her list of weird and wonderful ways to get productive. Beethoven used to get ideas in his bathroom. The composer would stand at a sink and poor large pages of water over his hands. Then he's dried around the room, bellowing, homing and writing down notes all the while containing to pour water over himself. So there you have some weird and wonderful ways to get your productivity and creativity juices flowing as always. Thank you for listening and you have any questions. Please do not hesitate to contact me 26. Habits Not to Tolerate: Hi, everybody. Tony Staunton here. I'm welcome back to the productive entrepreneur. Helping you get organized. Get productive. I make more profit. In the last three lectures, we spoke about habits off the famous people. Habits are famous people habits off, the super productive on habit to abandon. And now, in this election, we're gonna talk about habits not to tolerate so things within your life within your organization, within your social circles that you should not tolerate. And as always, we kick off with a quote, this time from George Elliot, who said the responsibility of tolerance lies with those who have the wider vision. So getting into this lecture when we talk about tolerance, tolerance is a good trade toe have the differences we encounter in richer lives under organizations. But a successful life in meaningful leadership sometimes has to sacrifice things that we cannot tolerate. There are things that we must refuse to tolerate. And the other things that the pleaders that drainer energy that wear us down on might ultimately destroy us. So in order to know what not to tolerate, you must force go true. This list identify each of these things to yourself onto maybe even some wood in yourself that you need to banish. But go true. This list with me now and see where you can punish these things from your life, and not only from your personal self but from word in your wider group on your organization . So the first thing that successful people never tolerate is dishonestly living. An honest life allows you to be a peace with orders and yourself dishonestly imposes a false reality on your life and those around you. And this is something out of oil a 12 that I think I can agree what most as I've said a few times during this electricity areas. Now, there was a time when I was under serious pressure in my life, financially business personally, all sides and that stress all came about from being dishonest. I would say the customers the product will be ready next week. Or, I might say to my fiancee, Declined is gonna pay me next week and we'll have money to do the things that we want to do , like go for dinner or go shopping. But that was all a lie because my business was failing around me. Clients were not coming in. New business was not coming in. We were rapidly running out of money on the cover over the cracks. I was beginning to lie more and more. And as I just said, dishonesty imposes a false reality on your life and those around you. And that is probably one of the truest statements you will ever hear about being dishonest in that it creates a false reality to do yourself a favor. If you were dishonest with yourself and those around you now identify it, Stop it and tell people about it. And if there are people in your life who are dishonest, and this is very hard for me to say now because I was dishonest people in my life. But most people stuck around, supported me and saw me through the hard patch. But what you need to do round and banish those type of people is if they come to you with a lie, try and understand the position and try and move forward together. That may not always be possible, and that's okay. If you need those people to leave your life, that's okay. They will understand if they're being truly honest with themselves are second trade. Not tolerate is boredom successful? People are generally exploring something new. Life is too short for in activity and staying in your comfort zone. For me, it's books on learning. I am constantly reading constantly, getting new books on constantly learning. Arturo Trait is media ocracy. It's easy and a constant temptation to settle for less. I think this was one of the reasons why my business got into trouble when it did. We got into a nice routine, got a few customers who are paying us regularly, and we just fell into a routine off settling. But what makes some people stand out is their willingness to make the hard choices to allow a life of greatness. So the hard choice can be getting up off the couch. Getting up from your desk on making more sales, even though you're comfortable at the moment, are Ford. Habit is negativity. Every negative talk keeps you from being your best. If you hear yourself complaining out loud or to yourself, find a way to shut it down. Our fifth habit not to tolerate is toxicity at work or at home. A toxic environment would literally make you sick if it doesn't feel right. If it makes you tired or fills you with dread, cut yourself loose on. As I said at the beginning of this lecture, my dishonestly caused a toxic environment at home, and it made me sick with stress and the worry of it all. If you were noticing that now try and find the root cause on deal with it are six. Habit Is this organization Clutter and disorder cause stress and affect your emotional and mental well being? Get rid of what you don't need and keep everything else where it belongs On. We talk about organizing your clutter in the future. Lecture Number seven is on. How the anything on healthy food on healthy relationships on healthy habits, Choose what you do wisely. Remind yourself that you deserve better and then give yourself better. And don't be too hard on yourself just because you have had bad. How it's in the past doesn't mean that you cannot improve in the future, and that kind of brings us into our next habit. Regrets. We all have regrets about what we've done about what we said. Another things, but you can't move toward your future. If your dwelling on the past land from it, right? Any wrongs where you can leave it behind. The vesting that you can do now, if you have regrets, is move forward, as I just said, Right, Any wrongs? Keep doing your best and you can't do wrong. Identify what is being the problem Previously in your life. Try and write it on new forward. That's what I've done and after I've being doing. And to be honest, recovering from regrets from dishonestly from negativity or a toxic environment is an ongoing battle. Everyday habit. Number nine is disrespect. Relationships are at the heart of your success. On respect is at the heart of good relationships. Disrespect, whatever to form on. Whomever it's directed toward is one of the most destructive forces you can have. Number 10 distrust, Distrust often arrived through a succession of little compromises here and there. So be watchful. Focus on building your own integrity on Surround Yourself with others who do the same. So this trust, like I just said, arrives from a succession of little compromises so somebody might be telling you they'll deliver tomorrow, deliver the next day, deliver deliver when they don't deliver that can build distrust and believe you me when you lose the trust of someone close to you, it takes a long time for it to build back up. It's frustrating for both you and the other party, and sometimes it can't always be done. Number 11 is anger. We all feel anger, and in its place it can move you to action. But holding onto anger is paralyzing on accomplishes nothing there to direct anger towards problems, not people, and then get over it on reviewing everything that I've just said in this lecture, anger has been something that has been moving me forward. I wanted better my life. I want it repair the relationships that I have strained in the past and I want to help people around me. The ones who supported me, true to hard times, on anger at myself, for letting things get this way is what keeps me going. And finally, 12 habit is control. Don't worry about the things you can't control. Focus your energy where it can do good and learn to get let go would arrest their my 12 habits to not tolerate if you want to be successful not only with the outside world with your organization, but within yourself. As soon as you identify these habits and start dealing with them, you will notice an immediate improvement in your life, reduced stress and reduced anxiety. You'll sleep better, trust me for it. As always. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact me. Thank you. 27. Habits of Innovators: Hi, everybody. Tony starting here. I'm welcome back to the productive entrepreneur, helping you to get organized, get productive and make more profit. Now we're continuing on with our Electra serious off productivity habits. On in this lecture, we're talking about productivity habits of great innovators and, as always, which I look forward to now, in every lecture, we kick off with a quote the five essential entrepreneurial skills for success concentration, discrimination, organization, innovation and communication that comes from Harold s Geneen on He's dead right in that day or five of the essential skills for success within yourself on with the wider world. I think we spoke about concentration in one of the very first lectures discrimination, I would say as a ruthlessness in what you do and what you do not tolerate, which is what we spoke about in the last lecture organization is a team running through this entire course, and now we're gonna talk about innovation. One of the biggest misconceptions about success is that what you did yesterday would help you succeed tomorrow. It would only help you if you build on it continuously day by day. As I said in the last lecture you can get into the habit where you have a little bit of success. Things are moving along nicely on you. Take a back seat only to wake up one day and realize that what you did yesterday is of no use to you today. To stay on top of your game, your business and your leadership, you need to keep innovating. And some people might think that innovation is something that you were born with, that you have great ideas and that's it. But that's not the case. Innovation is a process of trial and error on To continue innovating, you have to keep learning, thinking, questioning, exploring, experimenting, associating on intersecting ideas. If you can develop these habits, you will get closer and closer to daily innovation. Habit number one is connecting the dots. Great innovators have the habit of constantly contemplating on observing in order to connect unrelated issues and ideas. When you connect the dots, you gained new insight and see relationships that were invisible before, and I think that is that this is something that comes with experience in your business or in your area as a business owner and an entrepreneur. I regular received phone call to think that my business and another business might match up . There might be some synergy there. Areas where we can share common goals and common resource is no. I might not have noticed those connections, but somebody else out there did. And it's something that I'm starting to notice that I see a new product on the market would in my sphere. I might think, How can I use that product that better toe offer better value to my customers? Habit number two. Commit to asking questions. Great innovators have the habit of curiosity, and I suppose that's how you find and learn new things. Being curious, constantly asked questions. Even both things you think you know, you can never ask a stupid question, and that is really true. I never be afraid to ask questions, even if you're in a room full of people who are experience in their areas on, you were afraid of looking stupid. One of the most intelligent things that you can dio. It's ask questions by asking new questions. You challenge the knowledge you already have on get new perspective. The hardest part of establishing this habit is not the syrup for answers but incoming open questions that lead you to revealing answers. Habit number Tree is actively trying new things. As I said twice now already, you can't get into the habit of just moving along in a routine on letting everything come as it does. Great innovators have the habit of actively trying up new ideas by creating prototypes on launching pilots. Think of Edison, who said I havent failed, have simply found 10,000 ways that do not work. The real voyage of innovation is not in seeking new horizons but seeing the horizon in a new light on if you are encouraged actively trying new things by failing, trying again, creating prototypes and launching pilots, I would encourage you to read the Lean Startup by Erik Reece. I include a link to it in the resource Is section. Having number four is defined points of intersection with orders. Great innovators have the habit of finding and testing new ideas to a network of people on organizations, and this comes back to our last habit where if you build the prototype or a nearly lunch of a product, you can release it out to a trusted network innovation is something that happens when we intersect with orders for eight days to germinate and for innovation to happen at a very set of perspectives. Tinker's questioners on Dewars is required. You cannot just launch a product under the world on expected to be perfect. You need early feedback repeatedly. Habit number five have a sense of purpose. Great innovators have the habit of being powered by their passion and using it as a sense of purpose. Their purpose is to make an impact on a difference, so they're not satisfied, satisfied with what is, and they don't ask permission to change the status quo. They're driven by their sense of purpose. And I think this comes back to what we spoken about before in finding your wife, because when things got hard, your why on your purpose will drive you on Habit. Number six is to cross pollinate ideas. Great innovators have the habit of combining surprise and things. Creativity happens when two things collide. To create a whole new idea on inside requires that we solve challenges with new perspectives that happens best when you work with those outside your industry or field. As we've said, a new perspective can be key and finally make innovation a daily routine. Great innovators have the habit of learning and innovating. It's not something to do by accident, but through a daily ritual of exploration and trying new things. As I said at the start of this lecture, if you get into the habit of trying innovation daily, it will be calm. Your daily habit. If we want to become a master of anything, it takes discipline and commitment. Innovators make wrote on learning part of their work rather than relying it to come to them . Adopting the seven habits reboot your level of learning and creativity, which and Tauron learns to innovation and change. So don't be afraid to experiment, to try and to fail and to ask questions. And speaking of questions, as always, if you have any, please do not hesitate to contact me. Thank you, and I'll see you in the next lecture. 28. How to develop grit: Hi, everybody. My name's Tony Staunton. I welcome back to the productive entrepreneur helping you to get organized, get productive and make more profit. Now, in this lecture, it's something that's very close to my heart on something that I think every entrepreneur believes into their very core. And I think it's what makes the difference between success and failure or else a very large part of what makes the difference between success and failure. Some call it perseverance. Some called it stubbornness, but I think it's best described as grit on. We have an X and quote here from Robin Sharma, who, if you haven't seen any of his videos on YouTube, I definitely suggest you look him up, he said. Your icon is more important than your I Q. On. He's so true having the belief in your idea, your vision to your purpose. Your goals is far more important than how smart you think you are, where you think you are. Not so when we talk about grit, what I mean Well, why is it that some people seem to be destined to succeed on orders? Don't How is it that some people are able to plough true the challenges of life, where for orders, the same barriers are insurmountable. Is this something that you learn, or something that you were born with on water examples of people who have stuck with it despite the odds paper. Take, for example, some of the world's richest on most successful people. Someone were college dropouts, somewhere high school dropout. Something didn't even go to school. Take Sir Richard Branson. Now, if you haven't read his book, his autobiography, Losing My Virginity, I suggest you read it. It is one of the best business biographies I have ever read. Richard Branson is proud to admit that he's being dyslexic. All his life on has always fought against the odds from teachers who didn't believe in his ideas to people who didn't believe in his business ideas. If you were to think billionaire philanthropist, I'm worldwide media tycoon on airline owner, he would probably not jump to mind several years ago. Or how about Henry Ford, who was born in poverty. He never went to school, but went on to build Ford Motor Company and became one of the richest men in the world on for many more to consider, Thomas Edison, Warren Buffett over Winfrey, Rockefeller, Martyr Stewart, Bill Gates and many, many more. So how come they old? It's a well, despite off lack of education or anything else that the rest was my take for granted. I think the answer comes down to grit, perseverance, stubbornness. And here we have another saying, I'm not too sure who said it. It's probably just an old saying, but and it goes like I'm successful in business because I'm lucky. But I didn't get lucky until I started working 90 hours a week. And that comes back to her perseverance on the habit of grit. Some people think that businesses big businesses are overnight hits Twitter, Facebook, Tesler on many, many other big businesses. But they're not. Take, for example, Twitter. Twitter was a long time developing. Building, growing and failing before we ever knew about it, became the worldwide phenomenon that it is overnight. Success is a rarity. The ones that pop up in a radar have bean there for a very, very long time. We just don't know about it, but what I saw them true and brought them to success is perseverance and grit, and here's a great picture that sums it up. If a picture is worth 1000 words, I could leave this picture here on end. Electra. Right now you can see the guy in the top who is chiseling away on his way to the diamonds. Eager, hungry, persevering, and the guy in the bottom who was worn out, worn down and has given up. But he is so close to his goal, he is so much closer to his goal than the guy on the top is, and that in one picture sums up business. You have to keep with it now. Sometimes ideas are bad, business models are bad, and it's a good idea to leave them. But what you don't do is stop trying. You try again. You launch another prototype. You follow the lean startup methodology by Erik Reece. And again, if you haven't read his book, read it. Your idea might not be the best idea, but for many founders, Underworld's most successful people, their first idea was never the idea that brought them success. You have to keep trying there. Here are four ways that I Tink can help you get more grit. First proof. Prove to yourself that you can do what you set out to. Dio, for instance, have to bring times in your life where you set out to do something on at the beginning, the middle already, and you taught that it was too much. You've taken on too much and you can't succeed or you can't complete it. But you did. It might be something like a degree, a job, a project, childbirth at the time you felt you just couldn't endure or take any more. But eventually you overcame it, and you made a success of it. When thinking about grit first, think about ways that you have already proved things to yourself. This is your proof that you have previously made commitments and stuck to them. Secondly, apply your passion. Passion is part of grit because if you want to be able to work hard and long at something, you have to really want it really believe in it and really see it. There has to be a deep, intrinsic motivators, a fire inside you that makes things worth doing. Otherwise, you're setting yourself up to bow out at the first sign of hardship. If you can't answer the question, why is this important to me than you won't make it true number. Tree Persistence. There will always come a time in your efforts, your projects, your business, the knuckle down and get on with it. Where no more reading is necessary. No more learning is necessary. No more research is necessary. You just have to get down on do it on when it comes with applying the persistence in whatever it is you're doing at the moment, Here are some tips to help keep you moving forward. Start with something small that you can do on a regular basis. A small walk small, run a small diet Make it non negotiable in your mind. Regardless, however you feel that day, do it. If you don't feel like going to the gym, you still must go put it into your schedule because what gets written down there gets done on. Always track your progress to remind you that you are moving forward. This is something that comedian Jerry Seinfeld believes in religiously. When somebody asked him how he's so successful, he said that he has a big counter on his wall, and every day after he had written down his sketches his jokes, his TV shows, whatever might be. He would put a neck a red X on today. And as he saw the red echoes increasing, increasing on the line of Red X is growing and growing. He became more motivated. So you may not think the tracking your progress is a good idea, but it is key to achieving success and to keep you motivated. I'm moving forward forward. This is something I've come to call the Seinfeld line, and I use it regularly. Obviously. Actually, I use it every day. And the fourth way to increase your grit is to repeat, keep reinforcing your passion and keep working on your persistence. You can apply what we've just discussed the anti behavior or elcom you want to achieve. Remember, you can do it if you want to. Bad enough on you. Keep working hard until you get it small steps until you get there. The fact of the matter is, most of the extraordinary people throughout history on most of the people you see in Forbes list of richest people in the world has to take enormous risks to get there. That almost always means a lot of failing on buckets, loads of grit. I know it's easy to assume that successful people had have something the rest of us don't. They had it easy. It's their parents. They were looking. They had a better education. But it's not. The reality is 73 out of the forest. 100 billionaires in the world are self made, and that's a Bloomberg fact. So review these four tips and get to work on. Eventually you reach your destination and when you have to, Barrett the bad days, the hard days, the days when you don't want to go on. Just remember your goal, your vision on your purpose under why? And always remember. If it was easy, everyone will be doing it. So thank you for listening. And as always, if you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact me, and I look forward to seeing you in the next lecture. 29. Daily habits: Hi, everybody. Tony Staunton here and welcome back to the productive entrepreneur helping you to get organized, get productive and make more profit. Now continuing on with our habits serious, this lecture is entitled daily habits. So what are the daily habits that you can use to get you organized? Increase your productivity on, Eventually, increase your profit? Well, let's go and find out. And as always, we kick off with a quote. You'll never change your life until you change something you do daily. The secret of your success is found in your daily routine. A lot of people are afraid of change because it seems so big. It seems like an insurmountable task, something that they can never do. But the problem is, they're They're biting off more than they can chew. They should start small, and people never realize that what they should do or what you should do if you're trying to change a daily daily routine or daily habit of something else in your life is have your end goal your envision and then break that down. So at the end of the month, I want to do X. So at the end of the month. I want to have written 10,000 words. Okay, we're week by week. I want to have written 2.5 1000 words. Day by day, I want to have written 500 words. So breaking things down into small baby steps eventually lead on build up into your goal into your achievement. So never forget that it might seem like a daunting task whatever it is you're trying to change in your daily life. But breaking it down into its motor parts makes it much simpler and much easier to handle. So let's get into some habits you can adopt daily that would help you build toward your future Gold on purpose Habit Number one is the right to do list the night before the high achievers always right or their to do lists every evening before bed or before the dinner, so they prepared for their following day. This helps to clear your mind, reduce stress and anxiety, and even when you sleep, your mind is focusing on what you have to do it tomorrow. It really helps you to start your day with a jump and always remember to identify your most important task of the day, Whatever it is that day that you have to get done. Haven't number two is mind, body and soul, and this is something that it took me a long time to come to terms with or two to do. I suppose in my daily routines, 90% of the super successful practice some form of physical concentration or held focus activity at some point in the day. For me, it's meditation on this seems to be a very popular habit on on the rise every day for 15 minutes, I meditate on. I meditate on different things. Focus, relationships, creativity. I use an app called headspace, which allows you to select what type of topic you would like to meditate on or gold you would like to meditate towards. And I can't recommend that up highly enough for some people. Instead of meditation, it could be a Roman Coppola Jim, Whatever it is for you remembered daily to look after your mind, body and soul habit number. Tree is visualization. 95% of successful achievers practice writing down the gold plans or vision for success on a regular basis. Now, why do say, write it down and It is a question I often used to ask myself. I have. I know my goal in my head. Your gold could be to make a $1,000,000 in 12 months. You have your goal in your head. Why do I need to write it down somewhere where I might forget it? Our might lose it when research has shown that by writing things down you create a deeper connection, which your goal there is nothing quite like writing something down on. As you write it down, you're more committed to achieving it. So always remember, write down your goals. Your purpose. You. Why you can do it is forcing in the morning and then review it on a daily basis. So if you are going to write down and visualize your goals, your purpose or your wife, remember the following tips. Stretch for more than you can reach. Make everything measurable. Get agreement from your teams, your supporter of your family and set time limits Habit. Number four is gratitude and positive talk. Being grateful and focusing on the positive seems to be a common priority in the lives of the highly successful gratitude on being tankful are powerful and a lot of people nowadays are catching on to this. It is something that I never really considered or thought about. But I know Keep a gratitude journal where every morning are right in what? I'm thankful for what I am grateful for on what I'm happy about. For me, it really brings a sense of what I have in my life to light onto the front. So you might think that your business is failing. You might think that you're stressed, but as you write in your journal, you realize well, actually, you're healthy, your family, you're healthy, your kids are healthy, Things are not as bad as they seem. And you look back on your darker days. Trudeau goggles off your gratitude, your and and realize what was I thinking back then? So gratitude and positivity are a big think. My fifth habit is self development. The super successful focus heavily on learning new skills, reading on listening or watching podcast interviews or information courses such as this. So you're doing something right self development for me. I think I will never stop. It's something that I will never stop doing. Beit Reading, taking new courses, watching Ted X talks, Whatever it might be. The entrepreneur, the productive person, the successful person has an unstoppable sense of curiosity, and I think that is something that I would always have. Habit Number six is networking high achievers know and live by two saying your network determines your network so they make it a habit to work on building new bridges, collaborating, helping orders, attending social events and getting back to people on being a man or a woman off their word . So if you don't already make it a habit to increase your networking on the wrap up, I'll just troll in one little bonus. Have it meetings on accountability. Now we'll talk about accountability for Iran in order lecture. But this is something that is highly practised by the very successful holding accountability called each week or coffee. Catch up with a man, mentor or business partner. Toe. Hold each other accountable. You need somebody in your life to be answerable, to beat out personal or business. If you're new to these habits than I would recommend, starting with territory habits and making them easy short sessions. So don't shock yourself out of the commitment. Just know that naturally, this will feel uncomfortable until you can solidify it as a hardwired habit in your unconscious mind. But the key is to commit and try it for at least 66 days. New research by the London School of Economics has realized that it takes 66 days to form a habit not 21 not 40 not 50 not 65 66. So stick with it. And, as we said in the last lecture, mark off your progress daily as always. Thank you for listening, and if you have any questions, just ask. 30. Night Time Habits: Hi, everybody. Tony Staunton here on Welcome back to the productive entrepreneur. Helping you to get organized, get productive. I make more profit. Now we have spoken about daily habit, morning habits, routines to keep you going throughout the day and motivation. But what about nighttime habits? And, as always, we kick off a quote, this one from Dalai Lama, who said Sleep is the best meditation, so getting a good night's sleep is key to having a successful and productive Next day. These habits will help. You will help to ease you into a decent night's sleep. So, as I just said, what you do right before bed determines how productive and focus you'll be tomorrow. And that is very true. It's very hard to be productive and focused if you wake up after only three hours of interrupted, horrible sleep. I'm sure I don't have to tell anybody that where all we have all fallen victim to a bad night's sleep. So what did a habit that will help you have a better night's sleep? Let's have a look. How about number one? Remove negativity. Some people are warriors by nature. Some people don't worry about a single thing. I am a warrior by nature, which can sometimes make it hard to fall asleep. When I go to bed, I I avoid negativity. I avoid negative news, negative conversations, negative TV, whatever it might be before going to bed, I remove negativity. Read something light. Tim Ferriss recommends this as well. Reading nonfiction while in Bed. If you're reading are Hard, a hard core fiction book about finance a biography at the productivity, whatever might be, it can set your mind racing by reading something light. You let your mind you let your mind wander on, relax, noting stressful or to involve whatever it might be a nice piece of fiction or could even be a magazine habit number. Tree is to optimize your environment. Temperature and light can really affect your sleep patterns. Some people sleep best when it's chilly and completely dark Orders. When is a little bit of light on a bit of warmth, So whatever it is, ensure that your room or your sleeping area it's set up the optimize your sleeping pattern . The next habit is oils. Now this for me, it was a strange one in the beginning, but when my fiance started started spraying lavender on the pillows on in the room. I felt completely relaxed and at ease and had the best night's sleep I've ever had. So now it's a ritual of mine to the eider. Burn a lavender candle or spray some lavender oil around my sleeping area. For some people, music is a great way to fall asleep. Something mellow before bed. I listen to classical music. Some people might even put on white noise, something in the background like whale sounds, ocean sounds, whatever might be. It doesn't matter, so long as it helps you get a good night's sleep. And as I just mentioned white noise, some people have running water, which for meters and work. It just makes me get up in the middle of night. Some people like animal sounds, whatever it might be on, whatever helps you to get a good night's sleep, don't be afraid of using it. You can get many APs now on your iPhone, your android device that would simulate white noise. A gentle home in the background keeps shark noises at bay on, let you drift asleep and stay that way until the morning. And finally, here's an important one. Stick with the same bad time. One way to ensure you get enough sleep is to get the bed early each night on at the same time. There's no point going to bed. 9 31 night, 10 o'clock. 10 30 11 oclock. 12 o'clock Sometimes, yes, it can't be avoided. You might have a social engagement, but for the most part, try and keep your sleep time the same every night. A lot of successful people are in bed. 9 45 lights out by 10 30. Try a new routine and see what works best for you. So they're my tips to help you get a better night's sleep on. As always, I'd love to hear your feedback opinions on how you get a bad night's sleep, and if you've any questions, please just ask 31. How to recover when plans fail: Hi, everybody. My name's Tony Staunton. I'm welcome back to the productive entrepreneur. Helping you to get organized. Get productive. I make more profit. Now we're moving into a new section. So congratulations. First on getting this firing the course on this section is how to section. So my hope for this section is that as you move to your productivity journey long after you finish this course, you might have a how to question how to recover from failure. Have to set goals, how to keep motivated, have Tikolo barely. Whatever your how to question is this the section that you will be able to constantly come back to? So with that in mind, we kick off this section on this lecture would how to overcome setbacks. And, as always, we start with a quote this one from Samuel Beckett, who said ever tried ever failed. No matter. Try again, Fail again, fail better. And I think that that's something we've touched upon before in that being successful being productive, I'm making something out. Something of your life means that you have to try and you have to fail and you have to try again. Be it with a prototype wouldn't idea were declined. With a product with a friend, you have to try. You have to fail and you have to try again, and that's all there is to it. Persistence, grit. Keep trying. When you were setting gold, an attempt on attempting to improve your life. You'll spend time developing plans to help you achieve your objective. Many times these plan will prove to be effective and will lead to the achievement of your goals on orders. Every so often, though, your plan fails and you suffer a setback. Setbacks happen to everyone, But knowing how to react when your plan failed is an essential part of achievement. This is a simple little process, which you can work true whenever your plan fails, which will help you to adapt and get back on track without any great stress. So part one or Step one is to clarify what the gold waas when your plan failed, the first thing you need to do is to clarify what exactly you are hoping to achieve. You need to understand how close you came to accomplishing your goal. Realism and ocracy are important to help you avoid overreacting step number to clarify the outcome once you are clear on what you were trying to achieve, is imperative that you understand the outcome you achieved. It is rare that absolutely everything goes wrong. So take the time to determine both the positive on the negatives. Ask yourself what went well and what did not go so well. You'll need to make some changes, but it's important that in making those changes you did not undo the good work that you have already done. Step Number Tree is to list the things that went wrong. Build on the previous step but making a list of everything that went wrong. Try to capture every little detail. If orders were involved, ask them for their thoughts. Remember to focus on the goal, and this is not a moaning session. You are trying to identify the things that prevented you from achieving your goal. If people want to talk about odor issues, leave that for another time. Step four. Break your list down. When you feel that you've captured every detail, you need to divide the list into when a plan fails. Not everything which caused it to fail will have bean within your control. Example. bad weather. Therefore, you must name or to list things which I control and things which are outside of my control . Review each item on your initial list carefully and place it under the appropriate heading . Step five. Ignore what you cannot change often, when a plan fails, people choose the curse and moan about the things that kind of control. If you focus on the things which you kind of control, you'll soon find yourself banging your head against the wall instead. Took this list away and resolve to focus solely on what you can change. When you focus only on the areas where you could make a difference, you will achieve greater results at a much faster rate. Step six. Make an action plan. No, no, you're left with a list of things that you can control. You need to develop an action plan for making the necessary changes. Action plans are not effective when they're focused on avoiding the negative. Your list is a list of things that went wrong. You now need to determine what you would want to happen. In each of these instances, I made plans for making this happen and finally step seven is to take action when your first plan fails, you must not waste time wallowing in despair or self pity. These things happen onto everyone. At this point, you have no conducted a review and created some action plans for changing the situation. You need to set the wheels of change in motion at the earliest opportunity. Identify an action which you can take to get things going and take the action as soon as possible. So always remember that even the best of plans fail on At some stage. Everybody fails. But the main thing is to get up and try again. Thank you for listening, and I see you in the next lecture. And as always, if you have any questions, just ask. 32. How to stay motivated: Hi, everybody. My name's Tony Staunton. I'm welcome back to the productive entrepreneur helping to get you organized. Get productive on make more profit. This lecture is entitled How to Stay Motivated. I'm a kick off with a quote from Thomas Edison, who said, Our great our greatest weakness lies in giving up The most certain way to succeed is to always try just one more time. So I hope by now you can see a patron starting to marriage to the last year lectures, which is grit, persistence on always trying again. So let's talk about how to stay motivated before it's let's talk about the importance of motivation. So do you lack enthusiasm and sometimes Diz est to finish a project. Are you somebody who believes that I will do that, but never actually does. If you never do what you intend to do, you may have a problem which motivation which I won stage did. When you have motivation, you were driven on more determined and create the life you want. You don't suddenly believe that everything in life is easy, but you know that you are prepared to do whatever it takes to achieve your goal. regardless of the challenges that get put in your way, many people suffer from a lack of motivation. But just because it's common does not mean that you should accept it as a way of life. Motivation is one of the most important factors in determining the level of success that you will achieve. It is required, wrote the entire gold process. The following are some key ways to stay motivated. Number one. Identify a goal. Gold come from a desire to change something in your life. You may be motivated by positive or negative factors. Maybe were unhappy with some aspect of your life. If that's the case, you will identify what you want instead and set a goal to achieve it. Alternatively, there may be something with you enjoy in life, but you would like to experience more of it. There may be something which you would like to add to your life, whether it is a desire for change, a desire to add more our desire to add something new. It is motivation for improve circumstances, which inspires your goal. Number two and how to stay motivated is your priorities. Whatever you want to achieve in life, you'll need to commit yourself to it and focus your energy on it. There is only so much that you can do as time and energy are limited. As you're constantly on a date with things that you could do, you need to be able to prioritize your activities and focus on your most important tasks. This allows you to achieve your best results. Motivation is critical in helping you to determine which activities should be prioritised number. Tree is action. Anybody can draw up a plan, but the value of that plan will never be known until you put it into action. Just getting something done is a big step. Setting a goal is not enough In achieving it, you need to take consistent, decisive and effective action to bring that gold to reality. The difference between those who consistently take action towards their gold and those who do not is motivation. There will be days when you don't really want to do anything on these days. It is your high levels of motivation which will push you true. Step number four is overcoming setbacks. One of my favorite books is the Success Principles. How to get from where you were toe where you want to be by Jack Canfield. If you haven't read it, I encourage you to do so. It is a life changer. In one section of the book, Jack provides a rather amazing statistic. He tells us that 94% of all sales people have given up under sail after the four time of asking. But 60% of old sales are made after the four time of asking. That means that 94% of sales people miss out on the chance of making a sale because they don't have the motivation to keep going. This can be applied to all gold. How many times have you given up on something just because you hit an obstacle? And we spoke about this on the last lecture when we spoke with grit. Almost any gold ward achieving is going to require some resilience. You will hit obstacles on when you do. You must decide whether you will continue or give up. Motivation will ensure that you keep going, and finally you must stay the course. You must stick with your commitments. Many of your most important goals will require a great deal of time to accomplish. They don't just happen overnight. It is easy to lose motivation and lose sight of your objectives as time goes on. If you allowed this to happen, you may never reach your angle. It requires a special kind of person to keep the and the price for a long period of time and keep taking consistent action towards their goals. What makes these people special is that they're highly motivated and to take action to reinforce their motivation on a regular basis. A clear vision for life on effective gold to realize that vision are essential if you want to get the best from life. However, goals in division are only dreams unless you take consistent action to bring them to life. To take this consistent action requires motivation on motivation, rarely happens by accident, and when it does, it really last for long. There's a great quote. I can't remember who said it, but they said motivation is like sharing. It wears off, and that's why I do it every day. So don't think that just because you have motivation on a Monday, you'll have motivation on a Friday. It's something that you have to do every day, as always. Thank you for listening and even have any questions. Please do not be afraid to ask and I'll see you in the next lecture. 33. How to build self confidence: Hi, everybody. My name's Tony Staunton. I'm welcome back to the productive entrepreneur, helping you to get organized, get productive and make more profit continuing on what are how to lecture Syria's. This lecture is entitled How to Build Self Confidence. And, as always, we kick off with a quote, this one coming from Thomas Carlyle, who said Nothing build self esteem on self confidence, like accomplishment or how right he is. Because accomplishment is a great motivation of booster. It is a great way Just give your confidence is shot in the arm. You could be having a terrible day, and something will just go your way. You might win a contract. You might get a nice email from a client or compliments from somebody, some sort of a small piece of accomplishment that really does just lift you up so your self confidence can be infected in many ways. When you fail to achieve your jack objectives, it is easy to believe that you do not have the ability or you're not good enough. Whoever as we've already discussed the difference between success and failure is rarely Jude any lasting ability. But Maura, the ability to pair severe One of the biggest factors in determining your level of success is often your self confidence. As Henry Ford said, Where do you believe that you can or you believe that you cannot? You're right, so your own mind reinforces your self confidence. If you want to achieve your goals and objectives, you absolutely must have self confidence to see the job. True, as the size of your goals and ambitions grow, your level off of self confidence must grow to match it. So here are 11 simple strategies to help you build your self confidence. These strategies are very easy to implement and lead to rapid growth in your self confidence levels. And don't try to use them all at once. Maybe pick one and use one a day, one a week, or pick to whatever you feel comfortable with. But don't overwhelm yourself by trying to do them all at once. It's a strategy number one. Present yourself or confidence. If you're allowing Jing round at home with family or friends, it may be acceptable to dress down on a little unkept. These people know who you really are. Your appearance is unlikely to have a huge bearing on their tart about you. However, how you feel about yourself is reflected in your appearance. If you have an important event, for example, an interview or a meeting taking the time to ensure your well groomed and we're in clean, well fitting and appropriate clothing, we'll give you that extra boost of confidence. When you know you look great, you feel great. That little bit of effort goes a long way, and as you notice the difference, you're bring this new approach into mawr areas of your life. Number two. It's a smile and look people in the eye. Now this might sound obvious that a smile will help you build Report with Orders announces . It also sounds obvious to state that when you smile, you feel happier and more confident. But despite this, so many people do not smile. When you smile a make eye contact, it shows you have a certain ease and warmth about you. Dis enables orders to feel more at ease in your presence, which will improve the quality of your interactions as you start to interact better with orders. Your self confidence grows until communicating with ease becomes a natural process. Tip number tree Give genuine compliments. Toe odors. When you take the time to complement orders, it demonstrates that you feel good enough about yourself to give positive feedback to orders, and that is very true. It takes an awful lot of confidence to be outgoing and give somebody a compliment. Don't miss. Take this approach for insincere flattery. Be sincere and be honest. The compliment should always be genuine and honest at forest, and they take a little time for you to find the positive in orders. But it becomes easier with time over time as you adopt the necessary mindset. Not only will you find positive and orders, but you also see more positives in every area of your life as you do so you realize that your life is in better shape than you'd proves it heart, and as a result, your self confidence grows. Number four is to be appreciative. Sadly, we find it incredibly easy to find the negative in our lives. It is not always as easy to identify the positive dotty are there and staring right at us. When you approach the positive in your life, you don't just identify the things that you like you take a moment to focus on how your life is better because of them, and this comes back to having a gratitude. Journal. Practice appreciation each day and you will eliminate negativity from your life. You're not trying to develop delusions about how amazing I'm wonderful your life is. You just want to develop a more realistically optimistic view whereby you can identify and appreciate the positives in your life. So if you haven't already get back to that gratitude journal strategy Number five is to play to your strengths. We can all do most things, but what difference is the standard to which we can perform the task throughout your life? You will encounter tasks which you are not there suited to performing. It's nothing to be embarrassed about. There are things that we're good at and things that were about it, and it's the same for everybody. If you spend a lot of your time performing these tasks, you're likely a struggle on your self confidence will be impacted. Instead, focus on doing whatever you're best at. You'll be better able to perform. The task on your self confidence will receive a boost with each task there you successfully complete on an extension to this strategy is, do the tasks now you're best. At in the morning. You'll feel like an expert on know without a doubt that you excel in these areas, know your strengths and plated him. Seek work in an area which makes the most of your strength and knowledge and skill set and wherever possible, delegate or outsource the tasks which do not suit your strengths. This is one of the key factors and leadership and success the ability to delegate that which you are not good at. Strategy six is to accept your imperfections. Perfectionism is just a mechanism used inflict pain upon yourself. Perfection is night or possibility, nor necessity for success. Nobody has ever been perfect. A nobody ever will be, despite how it may seem or what they tell you. Rather than seeking to achieve perfection, you can always just try to do your best. Then you can learn from the experience and strive to do better the next time around. This way, you're constantly improved without the stress inducing pressure of always trying to be perfect. Imperfections only showed at your human. Not that there was something wrong with you. Strategy seven is to be prepared. This model isn't just for the Boy Scouts. Practice allows you to familiarize yourself with the challenge that lies ahead. Example Presentation. This allows you to reduce the fair associated with stepping into the unknown. As you practice, you realize that your capable off dealing with the challenge on your self confidence grows . You've practiced in advance to perform whatever needs to be doing. If you're really concerned about something going wrong, you can prepare for not to identify your worst fear example. You forget your speech. Then you can identify a solution. Have some notes on standby to jog your memory. You condemn practice your presentation going wrong whereby you forget your words and can implement your solution. This will give you the self confidence to believe that you can cope with whatever comes up . So practice I'm being prepared is a very big thing in your self confidence on being successful. Next set effective goals and work to achieve them. When your life has direction and purpose, you know where you're going on what you're trying to achieve. You then set gold, which will help you to consistently work towards these objectives. Did you achieve your gold? You can see the progress that you're making towards fulfilling your purpose. You are able to focus better on each day, has meaning. With the accomplishment of each gold yourself, Conference receives a little boost as you see that you can achieve whatever you want from life. Strategy nine is to embrace whatever it is that might be your passion, passion and love at the most powerful emotions. Sadly, we only tend to think of love in terms off that nonsense that you see in Hollywood movies. Love comes in many forms, and when you make room for love in your life, you will be happier and more confident. One of the most important things that you can do is to make room for the things that you love and have passion for in your life. Sadly, when you struggle for some time, one of the first things that you could tends to be your favorite hobbies. However, the hobbies that you love and are passionate about Philly would positivity, which helps to boost your happiness and health. It also makes you feel more in control of your life, which adds to your self confidence. Tip 10 is to always do your best. No matter what kind of work you do, you can strive to be your best at it. When you know that you have given your very best to the task, you know that you could not have given anymore. This allows you to feel relaxed and more confident about your performance. When you always give your best. You also build a reputation with friends, family, colleagues and customers, which enables you to receive positive self conference building feedback. And finally, strategy 11 is to accept disapproval. No matter what you do in life, there will always be people around who disapprove of you. You could bend over backwards to try and place these people, but would not succeed. It wouldn't be you. They're proving off. Instead, it would be to Paris, and you are pretending to be when you value the approval of orders to highly, you end up sacrificing your own gold dreams aspirations, which is a form of self rejection. This form of self rejection has disastrous consequences for your self confidence. When you give up the need for approval, you'll be free or feeling compelled to put on areas and impress people. Instead, you become more authentic and real with yourself, proved yourself instead of orders that you're competent and confident. Honors will see that anyway. Spare my tips and strategies to build your self confidence. You owe it to yourself to develop and build your self confidence. So why not select one of these strategies and start working on it? Today? Your faith in yourself will grow with every small step you take. Start today and begin living as a person You long to be. Thank you for listening, and, as always, if you have any questions or feedback, please do not hesitate to contact me. 34. How to capture commitments: Hi, everybody, Tony, starting here on Welcome back to the productive entrepreneur, helping to get you organized, get productive on make more profit. Now I am often asked for the best piece of time management that I can offer, and the answer is a fairly simple and obvious one. Capturing your commitment. And that's the title of this lecture. How to copter commitments. And I suppose in a way it's inspired by getting things done by David Allen. And we're kicking off this lecture with a quote from him, which is have a place either digitally or manually, the whole all relevant collateral materials and thinking. At some point you lie to get used to lots of commitments or make fewer, probably boat, and he's right. As you move through life, your commitments were lighter. Increase decrease, but in most cases you're going to reach a balance. But having a place to capture all your commitment is key. So now just on a side note for this lecture, you can see that the format has changed slightly that I've added an image to the background . So I'm very interested to hear your feedback on the layout of the course so far. Do you like the animation? Do you like the slides? Do you like the flow? So any tips or feedback you might have on the course layered look and feel I'd be more than happy to hear. And you can leave me a note in the discussion section. So with that said, that's moved through some ways to help you come to your commitments. The forest is in trade. Always have an entry on your desk. I have a little cardboard folder from I Care that I put all my documents into for the relevant day proceeds. Invoices. Piece of paper that I've written notes on whatever it might be when something new arrives or when you return from somewhere else. Take every piece of paper you have acquired reported in here. This may include notes, business cards, receipts, letters, documents, whatever you condemn, process a process. Everything to determine the appropriate action to take. Number two is a notebook. So, if possible, always carry a pan a notebook with you. Any commitments which you make can immediately be captured in your notebook. When you return to your work area, you can tear out the pages containing the commitments and place him in your entry for processing number. Tree is to ask you the person team ality There will be times when you're away from your desk and you have no means to take notes. You bump into somebody else and they're asking you for something. You agreed to do it, but you have no way to capture it. So what do you do? Easy. You ask them to email you with the request. If it is really important to them, they'll email you, which will take the pressure off of you. Tip number four e Mail it to yourself. Thanks of smartphones. Ipads. Thanks to smartphones and ipads, you probably have access to email at any moment if you're away from your desk and somebody asked you to do something for them, you can always e mail it to your own account, and you will be able to process it when you get back. Number five is voicemail, and this is one that I find very useful in the same manner as your email. You can use your voicemail, the capture, your commitments or your ideas. Simply dial into your own voicemail and leave the details. Of course, you have to be certain that you're going to check your voicemail upon your return to work. But if you dio, this is a very handy tip. And finally, a portable task list. Your mobile phone, your iPod, whatever might be. No doubt you have some sort of up order. Isn't app available to help you capture all your commitments? And if you're like me, you move around quite a bit, so you probably keep your task list somewhere that you can get easy access to. I keep mine in an app called Romney. Focus. You might use something out. Scougall, Google Ducks word whatever might be. Therefore, you will probably have your task us with you whenever you're away from the phone. Despite this, you should generally avoid placing a task directly on your task list. You should process a request commitment for us to determine whether it's something which you should really be doing before you added to your task list and then my six quick and easy tips to help you cops. Your commitments. If you have any tips and tricks of your own, please let me know, as always, thank you for listening and even any questions. Please do not hesitate to contact me 35. How to stop making excuses: Hi, everybody. Tony, starting here on Welcome back to the productive entrepreneur helping you to get organized, Get productive on make more profit. Now, as we continue on what or how to lectures, this lecture is entitled How to Avoid Making Excuses and, as always, you know, by now we kick off with a quote. If you really want to do something, you'll find a way. If you don't, you'll find an excuse. That's I'm Jim Rohn. If you really want to do something, you'll find a way. If you don't, you'll find an excuse. That's a very simple patrol quote. Excuses are so easy to make. We almost make them without even realizing we're making them. But they lead you down a rocky road, eventually breaking commitments, being dishonest and letting people down. So building self discipline is all about putting an end to your excuses. It's about taking responsibility for your behavior on your life. It's about getting the most out of all that life has to offer. And if you want to get the most out of life, you have to get up off your backside on go out after your goals, and that begins with putting an end to your excuses. The ability to avoid making excuses on focus on the task at hand is seriously underrated. It's a very difficult thing to do to stop making excuses. There are many things which can come between you and your goal. Some of them will lie outside of your control. When these kind of events occur, it is easy to start pointing the finger at something else. So here are some ways to help you stop making excuses. Number one is to take responsibility. We've talked about this earlier, but this is one of the foundations of success. Whatever your goal, maybe you're going to struggle to achieve it unless you take responsibility for your life. When you accept responsibility for your life, learn to focus on the things that you cannot control. You will find it very easy to avoid making excuses when things go wrong. He was always accept responsibility for the things you do on the things you failed to do. Even when events outside of your control occur, you should avoid making excuses and identify the things which you can change to get a better result the next time when you accept responsibility you take control of your life. I believe you. Me, I've been to this process of taking responsibility on does not always easy, but once you do, you'll feel a hell of a lot better. Number two. Focus on what matters. Most excuses occur after the fact something has to go wrong before you point out that it's not your responsibility or not your fault. This is particularly evident in the field of time management. Most people waste valuable time on things that do not really matter things that are not the priority. As a result, they failed to complete the tasks which really do matter. They don't respond to productivity problems by making excuses. It's a way for them to justify poor decision making. You can avoid making excuses here by avoiding these situations. To do that, you simply need to identify your most important task and focus on completing it. If you don't have spare time, you can focus on tasks of lesser importance. Tip Number Tree is the tink of your life as a training ground when you start to regard your life as a training ground, setbacks are painted in a completely new light rather than berate yourself for mistakes. You make you realize that failure to achieve your goal provides an amazing opportunity to learn from your mistakes. When you implement what you learn, you achieve much better results. But this attitude You begin to see failure as an essential part of your education in life, and we spoke about that before. Sometimes you have to have failed to move forward. But failure is not a bad thing, and it just helps you to achieve better results the next time. Tip number four is remembered a long term goal. It is your long term goals that are really important. If you were to focus solely on your long term goals, you might feel overwhelmed by the size of the goal and the fact that the deadline is far away. That is why you must break your long term gold down into smaller gold, which which you can achieve quicker, allowing you to feel you have accomplished something on. Take a step towards your long term goal. This way, you achieve your most important goals step by step when you find a temptation to make excuses. There was no better time to think of your long term goals. This helps clarify where you are at on why you are doing the things you were doing. You can see the rewards that await you at the end of the journey, which builds your motivation and finally, except challenges. Almost nothing worthwhile in life comes without a fight. And as we've said before, if it was easy, everybody would be doing it. Challenges are an essential part of life, which would be embraced, engaged on overcome as they allow you to grow as a person. Where do you like it or not? Your face challenges along the way, so you might as well avoid making excuses and get on with the job of overcoming them. No point in prolonging the unnecessary. Be a front. Be honest. Excuses won't get you anywhere. Instead, they're terrible destruction, which take your focus off your most important task on reducing your confidence and self belief. So avoid making excuses on face. Your challenges head on. You'll be more empowered, more confident. I'm more successful. So there's some quick tips on how to avoid making excuses. If you have any of your own, please let me know. And as always, thank you for listening. Do you have any questions? Did not hesitate to ask. Thank you 36. How to rest: Hi, everybody. Tony Staunton here. I'm welcome back to the productive entrepreneur, helping you to get organized, get productive and make more profit. This lecture is entitled How to Rest on It continues our election. Syria's off. How twos. And as always, we kick off with a quote, this one coming from William Penn, who said, True silence is the rest of the mind on it is to the spirit what sleep is to the body nourishment on refreshment. Now I should point out that rest is not taking a break. I'm talking about full on rest, full on time, away from work or what? Or away from whatever it is that you were doing. A healthy and violence time management plan must have sufficient time for results. Preparation growth on phone balance allows us to perform at our optimum level and extract the maximum joy from life. So one team that's been running through a lot of these lectures is taking the joy from life where possible. All of these factors contribute. However, one very important factor is often overlooked. Rest. You may not realize it, but rest underpins everything that we do and allows us to perform at our optimal level when required. But what is rest time? People often think they arrested when they take it a little easier and cut back on their work. This is not quality rest time. High quality rest time requires a complete break from any work related tasks on a complete rest from anything which applies pressure to the mind or body. Sometimes period periods of inaction are necessary. It may help to think of rest time intelligent in terms of weight training. During away training session, a great deal of pressure is put on the body. The body suffers a small amount of damage to the most of fibres, which have bean worked before. Pressure can be applied to these muscle again. Sufficient rest time must be allowed for the muscle fibers to be repaired. As the cycle is repeated, the muscles become stronger and stronger. When coping with life's pressures, the body and mind behave in the same manner. Once about of pressure has been dealt with sufficient rest Time must be allowed to enable the body and mind to recover and grow. Otherwise, burnout and breakdown become inevitable. Sufficient rest time is essential for optimum performance, but too much can be detrimental. The negative consequences of too much rest include failure to produce results, lack of preparation Desler no growth, minimal phone and engagement in life. I hope this quick short lecture has explained to you how important it is to rest. And you have any questions? Please do not hesitate to contact me. And I'll see you in the next lecture. Thank you. 37. How to wake up early: Hi, everybody. My name's Tony Staunton on Welcome Back to the productive entrepreneur, Helping to get you organized, get productive and make more profit. This lecture is entitled How to Get Up at five AM and, as always, we kick off with a quote, this time from ancient Spartan warriors. Who said those who swept more in training bleed lesson, war on? What's that Got to do? What get up at five AM we're getting up at 5 a.m. As Robin Sharma says, beating the battle of the bed gives you more time in today. More time to be productive, more time to prepare more time to get things done. So many creative people, successful people and productive people wake up at 5 a.m. As they call it. They call it the 5 a.m. club, and this is something that they have ingrained into their lives and every morning routine. And I think that if you were to ask the world's most successful productive people, one of the first things they say is that they have a morning routine which starts at 5 a.m. or if not very early, the people who do get up at five AM As I said, they call this the 5 a.m. club, and it makes the hour between five AM and six AM their golden error. They get up, they might meditate. They might exercise. They might do a bit of reading whatever it might be. It's their golden hour to get what they want done. And it's not a just productive or rich. People are successful people to do it. But many of the world's top athletes on elite performers do it. So if you are going to start getting up at 5 a.m. Remember, as we said previously, that it takes 66 days to form a new habit. Not 21. No authority, not 40 not 50 66 days. So you need to get up at 5 a.m. or whatever time. Five. Authority Flight 45. For me, it's 5 a.m. At the same time, every day for 66 days in a row, a great way to help you get up at 5 a.m. It's a schedule your wake up time. As we've said previously, what gets scheduled gets done. So by writing it into your calendar or putting it into your Google Kong, your apple counter. Whatever might be, it deepened. Your commitment gives you a precision off. Taught that laser focuses your mind toe. Wake up at 5 a.m. if you don't write it down. If you don't commit at the paper or to your counter, it remains of a gold on very gold. Only get vague results To begin your journey of waking up at 5 a.m. You have to ensure that you get a good night's sleep. And when it comes to sleep, it's quality, not quantity, that matters. There's no point in having five are asleep, which have bean interrupted on restless throughout the night. I'd much rather have tree four hours off solid, uninterrupted, peaceful sleep. So turn your sleeping area into a bubble of focus with no stimulus. And what does this mean? Don't look at your computer before going to bed. Don't check your Facebook. Don't check the news. Don't check your phone. Don't check your emails. Relax. Do a bit of light reading whatever it is to help you calm down on ease into your sleep. Do it. Here's a tip to get up early that most people overlook they set the alarm clock, but then they just leave right beside them in bed, we saw under a nighttime standard their bedtime stand. Whatever it is, most people don't think of the simple step, which is to put their alarm clock somewhere else out of reach in another room, wherever it might be. Because getting out of bed to switch off your alarm clock will ensure that Europe otherwise you're just hit the snooze button. Finally, one last tip is that when you get out of bed, jump out of bed with a bit of energy and passion and make that become your ritual. Try and remember that as bad as you feel at 5 a.m. Five past 5 10 past five. You won't feel like that in 15 20 minutes you will have your morning routine. You will get your routine done. You might have your error. Some people divide there are open to 2020 20 exercise reading on reviewing whatever. It might be 20 minutes of each to get your our started, so I'd love to hear your tips. How early you get up, how you maintain that routine on what helps you get a parity in the morning. And as always, thank you for listening. And you have any questions? Please Do not hesitate to ask. Thank you. 38. Why leadership matters: Hi, everybody. My name's Tony Staunton. Welcome back to the productive entrepreneur, hoping to get organized, get productive and make more profit. Now we've just finished the set, the how to section on. Then it. We answered some questions, such as how to overcome failure, how to overcome setbacks, how to wake up early things like that. And that brings us to the Met to the end of the main part of our course. And we're going to finish up with some thoughts on leadership because if you've been following long on, if you implement the routines outlined, you'll find yourself moving into position of leadership. Your life will become much more successful. You be more productive, you be more organized, and as a result you will be moving into positions of leadership. So I think it's a good way to start winding down this course with talks on leadership. And, as always, we kick off this lecture with a quote, this one coming from the great Peter Drucker, who said Management is doing things right. Leadership is doing the right things, and I suppose that's the difference between management and leadership. In a nutshell. Doing the right thing and doing what you think is right. So here, eight ways to help you lied. Hopefully, by following along with this course, you've moved into a position of responsibility or leadership number one lead with vision. When you have an incredible vision and you were able to convey to orders, your leadership will matter, because it comes from the strength of purpose. Number two. Leader of communication When you remember that communication is a two way street on you, express your vision on ideas to orders. It is fueled by true communication number. Tree Lead with recognition. When you appreciate and recognise those that work for you and recognize their hard work, your leadership matters because you treat people the way they know that they should be treated. Number four Leader questions When you lead with questions, your leadership matters because you're willing to admit that you don't have all the answers . And as we said previously, there is nothing wrong with asking questions at any time. Number five lead with efficiency when every gold is actionable on important on, the reason for every decision is understood and your leadership will matter because it is based in your belief in creating a future number six leader connecting when you surround yourself with good people on the best time and building genuine relationships, your leadership matters because it extends beyond your personal strengths. Number seven. Leader character. When your leadership is rooted in your character, your leadership matters because it to reflect your integrity on who you truly are. Number eight Leader Empowerment When you empower orders, you instill confidence in others. Your leadership matters because you empowered him to take ownership of their own work and their eight quick tips to think about in your leadership situations and, as always, thank you for listening and have any questions. Please do not hesitate to ask, Thank you. 39. Conclusion and Thank You: Hi, everybody. Tony standing here on Welcome back to the productive entrepreneur. Well, this is the last lecture in the productive entrepreneur. Serious, and I really want to say a big thank you on a very big well done for making it this far. And as always, we started every lecture with a quote. So it feels right to end this lecture on this course with a quote on its one of my favorites from one of my favorite people of all time. And it's from Winston Churchill and you can find no better Paris an in history for inspiration and inspirational quotes than Winston Churchill. He really epitomises the can do attitude, the die hard attitude that never say no to never give up attitude. So if you haven't looked that more gentle, look into him. But his quote is now. This is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end, but it is perhaps the end of the beginning, and that's how I feel about this course. And that's how I hope you feel about this course that this is simply the end at the beginning. What I want for you now is to go off into your life into your organization into your business and take the lessons that we've learned here together on applied to your everyday life. What I don't want you to do is go away with these lessons and never come back to this course again. I am here as a resource for you where you can ask me any question about productivity organization that you like. So always remember that just because the courses over does not mean that you're learning is over. And I've tried to stress throughout the course that there are no limits. So what you can do only the limits that you put on yourself. So why'd you leave her now? And you go forward. Remember, there are no limits but the limits you put on yourself if you can believe it, you can achieve it on my final question to you now is no. Do you have the tools, the ideas? The resource is what is your next step? What is your next project? Your next to dio your next action. Always remember the noting matters unless you take action. I wish you the very best of look in all your future endeavors I hope to see you here again and speak to you in the discussion section for one last time. Thank you. Anywhere. Any questions? Please Do not hesitate to ask.