Transcription
Habit number one: Organize tomorrow today.
Imagine I come to you and ask you to play a game with me. You will get 10 questions. If you answer them correctly, you will win money. Each question is worth a thousand dollars. However, there are three questions that are worth ten thousand dollars. You have 24 minutes to answer all 10 questions. But here's the thing: I will not tell you which of those questions is worth ten thousand dollars. You will only know how much you have won at the end of the game. So, the game starts now.
I've made it hard for you by not telling you which of those three questions are worth ten thousand dollars. But what I don't know about you is that you are a pretty smart person, and you have already figured out the trick and know that question number two, number four, and number six are the high-value questions. I don't know how you did it, but you somehow figured out the trick before the game begins. Now, as soon as the game starts, which questions are you going to focus on first? The answer is obvious, right? You wouldn't move on to another question before you made sure that you answered those three questions first. The remaining seven questions are just bonuses. If you get them right, there's a very high chance that you will win quite some money in this game because you knew the trick.
This was a hypothetical game, but what you don't realize is that you are actually playing this game every single day in real life. When your day starts, you get 24 hours, and you get a list of tasks you need to work on. Just like in our game, most of those tasks are worth one thousand dollars, and only two or three are worth ten thousand dollars. If you can identify and prioritize those three high-value tasks and get them done first, you will gain an unfair advantage, just like you did in that game by prioritizing those high-value questions.
In life, the biggest underrated skill is probably the ability to prioritize. Successful people don't get everything done. They don't even get most of their to-do lists done. Their secret is that they have the habit of getting the most important things done. Organizing tomorrow today is a simple habit that can help you prioritize and plan your day more effectively. Here's how it works: Every day before you eat your lunch, you spend five minutes planning for tomorrow by asking two simple questions. Number one: What are the three most important things I need to get done tomorrow? Number two: Among these three important tasks, which one of them must I complete no matter what? So, when you look at your list, it should have three tasks on top and one highlighted as a must, and finally, several smaller tasks that you also need to complete but are not your priority.
Identifying daily priorities might seem like an insignificant step to take, but doing it the previous night turns your subconscious mind loose while you sleep and frees you from worrying about being unprepared. You wake up with great ideas related to the tasks you hadn't even considered. As you sleep, your brain will automatically start preparing for the successful closing of those loops. This is known as the Zeigarnik effect, which basically means that uncompleted tasks stay both in the conscious and subconscious mind until the task is completed. In other words, the mind doesn't like unfinished business. High-level mathematicians and writers use this method a lot. Before going to bed, they take a few minutes to analyze the problem they are working on or are stuck on, and then the mind works all night to close the loop, and they wake up in the morning with great ideas.
Another benefit of organizing tomorrow today is that you can go into your next day feeling more prepared and less anxious. In the morning, instead of trying to generate momentum, you will come in with momentum already in place, and when you knock off that first most important task from the list, you will be generating even more momentum. If you are going to apply this habit to your own life and start organizing tomorrow today, then keep these three things in mind. Number one: Don't wait until it is the very last thing in your day to organize for tomorrow. Do it a bit earlier in your day. Before lunch is a great time. Make a rule for yourself to organize tomorrow before you take the first bite. Number two: For some reason, if you can't work on your important tasks, then at least spend one minute on them. This will help you to develop the habit. Number three: Remember, if you don't prioritize, other people will do it for you. You are always working on priorities. The question is, whose priorities are you working on? Yours or somebody else's?
Second habit: Say no.
You've just got home from work. Your wife and your son are waiting for you so you can have dinner together. You sit down to eat, and your son starts telling you about his day, and that's when your phone shows you a notification. "A co-worker needs your help to find a document. Do you remember where we left the sales report?" he asks. You interrupt your son and start texting your friend. What can you do? You think you have to help your co-worker, or he'll be in trouble. While you do that, your family has dinner, and now your wife is the only one who knows what happened during your son's school day. I'm sure that if I ask you who's more important to you, your son or your co-worker, your answer would be, "My son, of course." But what you just did was trade something important for something urgent.
Urgent and important are two different things but very easy to be confused. For example, let's say you're at work trying to finish a report by the end of the day. It's a report you have to submit every day by 6 PM. While you are busy with the report, suddenly your boss messages you and asks you some urgent questions. If you are like most people, you're going to stop working and answer all the questions your boss is asking until he is satisfied and goes away. Then you will start working on that report. But here's the thing: you already lost momentum in quite some time as well, which means you will probably miss the 6 PM deadline and work overtime. Not just that, you are also going to miss the dinner with your family, and then when your partner asks you why you are late, you will start complaining about your job and blame your boss. I know you won't like this, but you are the one to blame, not your boss. You were the one who didn't have the courage to say no to your boss. You were the one who traded something urgent for something important.
The right thing to do in this scenario was to explain to your boss that you were working against an important deadline and you would get back to him once you were done. Urgent things come up all the time. When you say yes to one urgent thing, you're saying no to another important thing. Just like when you said yes to your boss, you said no to your own work and to your family. I know saying no is hard. It is uncomfortable, and we've not been used to doing it, especially when the person is someone above us. But without it, life becomes impossible to handle.
I once heard a story about a retired athlete who is always eager to help people. For years, he would help anyone in any way he could, to the point he was more burned out than he had ever been before retirement, and he was spending less and less time at home with his family. So, he made a very simple change. He placed a picture of his wife and kids on his desk, next to his phone. Every time a call came in, he would stop for a moment and think about what he was really saying yes and no to. He didn't stop helping others, but he became more selective about his actions. So, remember, when you say yes to something, you're saying no to many other things. You're always choosing. Choose wisely. Put a sticky note on your computer, if you have to, to do whatever you need to do, but make saying no a daily habit.
I don't want to sound like I've mastered these habits and I'm here to teach you. No, I am still struggling. I am still catching myself reading an email on my phone while my daughter is trying to talk to me. I am still missing dinners because I forgot to say no. The important thing is that compared to yesterday, I am a little bit better today at saying no, and that is what matters. We should always compare where we are today compared to where we were yesterday, instead of comparing ourselves to others. Okay, I went off-topic here a bit. So, to summarize, make it a habit to say no, especially to the things that are urgent but not important.
Third habit: Focus on one thing at a time.
Bobby Gasoff had just finished college with the ambitious goal to join the Navy SEALs. These guys are the best of the best in the U.S. military when it comes to combat. He prepared himself, and when he got there, he was in peak physical and mental condition. But there was something called Hell Week that he wasn't prepared for. It was designed to separate the toughest from the rest, and it was brutal. They had less than 30 minutes of sleep each night, and they were always cold and wet. By the third day, Bobby was completely exhausted. He still had four nights to go, and the best runner and swimmer in the group had just quit.
When the trainees finally got a few minutes to eat in between activities, the instructors would walk among the exhausted men and call out the long list of brutal activities that were scheduled for the rest of the time left. This was a tactic designed to overwhelm the weak candidates and eliminate them. Bobby thought about quitting too, but instead, he came up with a strategy. He would narrow his mind to a single focus point. Thinking about the four long days of torture that were coming was driving him crazy, so he decided to focus only on the very next step. Bobby acted as if that was the only hard thing he'd ever have to do in his life. Bobby kept his one-step focus the entire time. Among the 240 men, Bobby was one of the 24 left and one of the only two who graduated as an officer.
Bobby is an example of the power of focus. When you focus on too much, not only do you get overwhelmed, but you lose focus on the really important things. One of the most common traps to fall into in business and life is to try to focus on too much and lose focus on the really important things. Doing so not only causes underperformance but also has a tremendous negative impact on your confidence. Simply look at your own life. How much information do you have access to on an average day? Technology is amazing, but humankind is still learning how to deal with it. Technology gives us the ability to receive more information, but it doesn't teach us how to prioritize that information and deal with it.
So, you have a full email inbox, several texts to reply to, courses you need to take to improve at work, and networking events to attend, and you still need to find time for your loved ones. Which one of these are you going to focus on? Here is what is certainly going to happen: If you focus on too many things, you will not feel fulfilled. You will always be busy, but not productive. There's a big difference between busy and productive. Busy people are like a fire that produces so much smoke but very little heat. On the other hand, productive people are like an intense fire with no smoke. Busy people are very good at producing a huge cloud of smoke. They are always talking on the phone, they are always running from one meeting to another, and they are always working overtime. There is so much smoke that when you are looking from the side, you assume that there is a huge fire going on, but in reality, there is no fire, there is no heat, it's just smoke. The person is just busy and not productive at all.
So, to summarize habit number three: If you want to feel fulfilled and productive, don't focus on too many things. Focus on the single most important thing. Try to apply it to all aspects of your life. For example, apply the same principle to this video and pick only one habit and work on that instead of focusing on all three.
Now, either when you are establishing one of these habits or any other habit, there will come a day when you will hit a wall. Maybe on day three or on day 13. There will come a day you will not feel like exercising. You will feel stressed, and you will be tempted to ruin your progress. Building a new habit is never easy, but luckily, I have quite practical tips for you that you can use for any kind of habit. So, here it is. A lot of books say that it takes us 21 days to build a new habit, but that's not correct. The reason is simple: your habits are in a constant state of formation. You are constantly making them stronger or weaker based on how much attention you're giving them each day.
If you're trying to add a new habit to your daily routine or replace a bad one with something else, you must understand the three phases of habit formation. The first phase is called the honeymoon. This usually starts when you're inspired by something cool, like a book, conference, podcast, or an idea of having six-pack abs. The first few days will feel easy, and you'll say to yourself, "Oh yeah, I can do this. I am ready for the challenge." Unfortunately, the honeymoon phase doesn't last forever. On day three or on day eight, you start facing the obstacles. This is where the second phase, the struggle phase, starts. This is the point where "I can do this" turns into "This is harder than I thought," or "Is it really going to matter if I miss a day?" You start battling between your new habits and old habits. This is a normal stage and the most important one because this is where most people give up. This is the graveyard for many habits. To pass this stage, you only need to win two or three of your struggles.
Here are four techniques to help you pass this stage successfully. Number one: Ritualize. For many people, the weekend is the best part of the week, but for me, it was the worst part. Why? Because I had all my habits ritualized during the week, especially my diet. However, the weekend was the only time I didn't have rituals. Very often, I would eat healthily and exercise the whole week but end up ruining all of my progress during the weekend. For a while, I couldn't figure out why this was happening, but then realized it was all because I had very few rituals for the weekend. So, if you want to make it easy to win your struggles, ritualize your new habit for the entire week.
Number two: Recognition. When you get to day three of the exercise plan and you are lying in bed debating with yourself about whether or not you want to go out in the rain and get it done, recognize where you are. Learn to simply say to yourself, "I have entered the struggle phase." Recognizing that you are in a struggle phase is like taking the blindfold off before the fight begins. Now you know what you are fighting. Remind yourself that it is important to win this one today. Why? Because each time you win a struggle, the next one becomes easier to beat, thanks to the momentum you are creating. Momentum works the other way too. Each bite you lose makes it easier to quit the next time.
Number three: Ask two questions to yourself. When you're in the struggle, ask yourself, "How will I feel if I win this struggle?" and "How will I feel if I lose it?" This changes your focus from your struggles to your emotions. As you do that, focus on the good feelings like hope, optimism, and pride, instead of the negative ones associated with losing.
Number four: Life projection. Visualize how your life will be in five years if you do not make the desired change and consistently win your struggles. What will your life be like five years from now if you keep on following the same diet, if you don't exercise, if you don't quit smoking? Be honest with yourself. Create a detailed projection and imagine how you would be feeling then. Now, do the same thing, but if you succeed. What will your life be like if everything goes well? This is a powerful exercise that will help you win your struggles.
Finally, the last phase is called second nature. At this stage, your desired habit requires very little effort to happen. You feel like you already have won the battle, but don't let your guard down so fast because there are three big monsters hiding behind the bushes, ready to attack.
Number one: Discouragement monster. One of the unfortunate realities of the world is that just because you work hard and do the right things, good things don't automatically flow to you. For example, you changed your diet and did all the right things, but it didn't produce the weight loss results you hoped for. It is very easy to slip into the mindset of, "Why do I bother? It doesn't matter what I do anyway." The discouragement monster is very dangerous because it will make you stop trying. However, before you stop, remind yourself that the progress comes in spurts, not in regular intervals. You don't lose half a kilogram every week; you lose nothing for two to three weeks, and then suddenly you lose a kilogram. This is just the nature of progress in anything.
Number two: Seduction of success. After you've been successful with the new habit, it's easy to let your guard down and slip back into old ways. Let's suppose you're trying to lose weight and manage to get your new eating habits to the second nature stage. You look at yourself and think, "Oh, I've managed to eat healthy for the last three months. I am rocking it. It won't be a problem if I eat a piece of cake today." And you're right, it won't be a problem to make an exception now and then. But if you make too many exceptions, you'll end up back where you started before you know it. One success should prime you for the next success, not become a point where you can bail out.
Number three: Disruption. This can come in many forms. You might get sick or go on a long vacation. Whether it is vacation or illness, any break in the routine is a potential danger, and it can take you back to the struggle phase. I have personally found out that it is very important to take it very easy after a disruption. For example, if you were exercising for one hour before you got sick, don't push yourself to exercise the same amount after you recover. Take it very easy for a few exercises until you re-establish the habit. Otherwise, you will feel discouraged for not being able to perform at the same level and lose your habit.
I will quickly sum up everything we covered in this video. Habit number one: Organize tomorrow today, and make sure you always complete your three high-value tasks first before you move on to the other tasks. Habit number two: Say no as often as you can during the day, especially to the things that are urgent but not important. Habit number three: Don't multitask. Learn to laser focus on a single task at a time and on a single goal at a time. If you focus on too many things, you will be busy but not productive. Don't be the guy who produces tons of smoke and very little fire.
Finally, we talked about the three phases of habit formation and how understanding each phase can help you to win through your struggles when establishing a new habit. If you would like to learn more, check out the book called "Organize Tomorrow Today." This video was created based on that book. And if you would like to learn more about habits, then check out the summary of the book called "Atomic Habits." You probably see it on your screen right now. Thanks for watching.