Transcription
What's going on everyone? My name is Ali Al Carguli. I'm a NASA post-doctoral fellow. I'm also the founder of Next Level Systems. It's a behavior engineering and productivity company for ADHDers that currently does about $300,000 per month.
In this video, I'm going to explain to you the four steps to hyperfocus, how you can double your productivity instantly using four simple steps. Uh, this is an ADHD system. The system works very well for people who have ADHD. ADHD is kind of the worst-case scenario for productivity because of the way your brain is configured, the way your frontal lobe has executive dysfunction. Uh, you you have like hindrance in being able to plan tasks, prioritize, execute on tasks, get started on tasks. You may get started on task, but then you may not finish it. You get bored qui-ckly and you want to work on things in parallel, but then you have too many open loops. You have too many open tabs. And if you have ADHD, then you understand what I'm talking about. It's something I I experienced myself uh for a very long time. I still have ADHD, but thankfully I've learned systems to learn how to deal with it. And today, I'm going to talk to you about one of the most important systems, which is my fundamental ADHD productivity system. And this hyperfocus system is composed of four steps which is subtract, add, divide and multiply. And then within the add step, I'm going to talk about four steps within the second step which are maintaining clarity, learning how to prioritize, learning how to manage your time, and then learning how to execute.
Basically, this is kind of like the physics of of productivity, especially for ADHD. Like you always need to in order for you to execute, you need to decide when you're going to sit down and execute. Is it now? Is it later? Are you going to schedule a task? If you don't do that, you can't execute. In order for you to schedule a task, you need to identify what the task even is, right? You need to prioritize. And in order for you to prioritize, you need to get you need to have clarity. You need to know what you want deep down. You need to have heart and mind alignment. You need to really know what you want deep down and actually be able to articulate it and have a vision in front of you. But before I want to talk about that, first thing I want to talk about is the subtract step. And this is something that has not only worked for me. This is something I've actually shared with over 6,000 clients and they all have fantastic results. We've only been doing this for about like a year or so uh since I started my company and I'm just so excited because it's such a simple framework.
So, first step is you always want to subtract before you add, right? Most people start with the app. This is where productivity gurus go wrong. They instantly tell you use Pomodoro, do go and do this, install this app, add this plugin, add this thing to your life. Well, the problem is with ADHD especially or with with being trying to be productive in 2025, uh it's a mental bandwidth problem. You already have a cluttered mental bandwidth. Your mental balance can only handle so many things to focus on and so many things to do and think of it as like you have a pile of things and and we're and and most productivity gurus tell you to just keep on add more things to the pile, right? That's why what I have figured out early on is that before you add, you first need to subtract. What does subtract mean? Subtract means like phone, computer, environment, basically identifying like what are the things that are distracting you that you need to remove from your life, right? In order to create room to add something such as productivity system that's going to help you be productive. You need to delete. You need to remove things from your life, right? If you skip this step, you're not going to be able to be productive because you're going to keep adding things and it's just not going to work out. And again, when I say subtract, like things that you can subtract is, for example, minimize phone usage. Make sure that your environment is curated in a way where like if you have a TV like right in your face and you're trying to sit down and do work, well, that's going to distract you. Maybe you should subtract that TV. Um there if there's toxic people in your life or there's relationships that are very draining or very demanding that don't offer anything in return or don't actually give you any satisfaction, you should subtract that relationship. And I'm not saying from that like I'm not saying you should go and cut everyone off and be cold about it. No, you should basically identify who are the people that genuinely care about you uh and and have your best interest in mind and who are the people that do not. And the people who do not subtract, right? Just simply remove them from your life. Create a boundary. Remove access to yourself. Uh and and this is a very important step that almost 99% of people skip. But until you do that, then you're going to be unable to do the following.
So once you go ahead and subtract things such as like um like unnecessary phone usage, uh too many tabs on your computer, then the next step becomes simply to add. You want to add something in your life. And in this case, you want to add a productivity system. You want to add something that's very simple that's catered to your ADHD brain. Now what I call over here this ADHD system, it's kind of like almost like the physics or the neuroscience of how productivity happens like as a human. And this applies to everyone, neurotypicals and ADHDers. Like again, first like how do how do humans operate? Humans take action based on desires, right? Like you have a desire, like let's say you're thirsty and you have a desire to quench your thirst and you go and and drink some water, or you have a desire to like build a family or whatnot, or grow a company or whatnot. And then that compels you to take an action of some sort. So step number one is always clarity, right? You have to get crystal clear on what you want. You have to understand what like you have to ask yourself, what do I want? What do I really, really want? And a good way to start this is to ask with what do I not want? And this, by the way, this is something that's very underrated because most people think their problems are execution or time management or prioritization when their problems are actually clarity. Like you simply just don't know what you want, or you think you know what you want, or you know you want too many things, which means you don't know what you want. Because when you dig deep and try to figure out what it is that you truly want, usually like one or two things emerge, like something emerges very, very clearly. And a quick exercise you can do and uh to think about this is say if I erase this over here is to imagine like this is you and you're choosing between like multiple paths in life and you ask yourself like if I was 90 years old, for example, like on my deathbed or whatnot, which path am I likely to regret and which path am I least likely to regret, right? And that should give you clarity because very often it's the things that we would regret that give us signals that that's actually what we want deep down. And sometimes you may have conflict with like what you want. Like you want something deep down, but then you have a limiting belief or some type of um unconscious sabotur that's preventing you from wanting it. That's a discussion um more on beliefs. Probably best save for another video. But the idea is that clarity is always paramount. It's number one thing. Without clarity, nothing else can work.
But suppose you go ahead and achieve clarity and you are crystal clear on your goal. Now based on that, you want to be able to prioritize, right? So again, let's say my goal is to grow a company. Like in my case, one year ago when my company was barely getting started um my company was like to get at first like 10k per month and then once I got to 10k per month, I was like, okay, let's get it 50k per month and then once I got at 50k per month, I did the 100k per month and then after that and so on. Now, in order for me once I set that goal and I get that clarity, I need to prioritize, right? I need to prioritize what are the specific tasks, what's the ladder, what's the sequence of events that's going to actually help me get there. And for that, you need a prioritization algorithm or a prioritization system or a prioritization technique. Uh, there are so many different ones. Um, there's a lot of like like some some are like simpler than others. I'm not going to get too much into like different ways that you can prioritize, but basically once you get crystal clear on what you want, you want to be able to have something a system of some sort that helps you always like know what step to take. What should I work on like now? What's the immediate first step that I need to take to increase the odds of helping me achieve this goal? Now, this is also an art because if you um if you set, for example, your goal to be way too long-term, then it's going to be way too far out, too abstract, uh and it's going to be unclear to you like how you're actually going to achieve it. There's not going to be enough dopamine in your brain to actually go ahead and pursue that. So, your brain's going to be like, "Dude, screw that. I'm not going to do that." Or if you set your goal like as too short term, like like too too short into the future, then it's going to lack that it's not going to be enough time for you to achieve something meaningful. and it's going to lack that inspirational element which you would absolutely need um in order for you to actually achieve your goals. So again, once you get crystal clear on your goal, next step is need to prioritize.
Now once you go ahead and prioritize, only then you talk about time management. And this is something that really annoys me, pisses me off about most productivity content on YouTube. Uh, people spend so much time talking about time management, but they don't talk about prioritization and clarity. They say, "Oh, make a schedule for this, set a routine for this, do that, schedule this time, time block this, time block that." But they have not done like step zero which is subtract or steps one and two which is like clarify and prioritize. And guys, time management is is something that's a lot simpler than it needs to be. But it's also a double-edged sword. Like if you have ADHD, this time piece is the most sensitive. And I'm I'm going to explain why that is. If you're someone higher up on the ADHD spectrum, you suffer from something called time blindness. Meaning your percept the circuitry in your brain that perceives and and estimates time is fried up. Right? That's part of your dysfunctional executive function, which is just a fancy word of saying like there are certain parts in your brain, especially this frontal part of your brain that are not doing their job. The the CEO of your brain um has has some has some challenges, which is fine. That's also what makes you very creative, makes you very empathic, uh gives you a lot of advantages. But if you have ADHD, you suffer from timeliness. Meaning, it is very crucial that you are exact and incremental about your time and you you set your schedule in a certain way. For example, um if you never make it, like let's say there's an important task that you need to do. Uh, if you don't set an intention and say, "I'm going to do this either now or schedule it at a specific time," you're never going to do it because of your time blindness. Your brain does not contextualize that task within time. So, you'll never really be able to do it and time will just go by and you'll never actually do it. That's why a lot like there's different kinds of procrastination for ADSDers. Some are based on this timeliness, some are based on emotional avoidance, limiting beliefs. Again, we're going to talk about that in a separate video. But a lot of it simply just comes from lack of intention. Like when am I actually going to sit down and do this? So once you go ahead and get clear on your goal, then you actually decide what's the first step to work on. Then it becomes time for you to actually decide when you should do it. And my favorite thing to do is to follow an opt-out approach is to just say, "All right, I'm going to do it now. If I can't do it now, I have to schedule it because I know that if I don't do it now or if I don't schedule it, then I'm screwed, right? Like I'm my timeline is going to kick in. It's going to take over." Also, this um factors in when like with how you manage your day, how you like for example, if you have a meeting like in the middle of the day, um that's going to like destroy because again your timeliness is now going to uh translate into waiting mode and now you're going to be paralyzed. You're going to be unable to actually do anything within that time because you're waiting for that call or that meeting. So there's this kind of unfortunately factors into all sorts of things. But again, you only start scheduling things or talk about time once you have prioritized and once you have clarified.
Now finally, execution. This is the one that people actually struggle with. And this one's so important that I'm actually going to draw like a little diagram over here because people again over complicate execution. It really does not need to be that complicated. So I want you to think of execution like from a physics perspective as just a potential mismatch. So let's say you're over here and you're trying to get over here and there's a gap in energy and you're trying to jump over here, right? Obviously in order for you to make that jump this requires energy and it requires initiative and it requires a lot of things. So very first step very first thing we need to do is we need to shorten this gap, right? And this is why gurus will tell you uh oh just chunk the task or break it down into smaller tasks. But what they really don't explain to you is that you don't need to break down the whole thing into like a bunch of smaller tasks. All you need to focus on is that very first task. You only need to focus on that first step. So that very first step, I'll give you an example. Like let's say I need to sit down and and record this video right here. And my brain like tells me, "Oh, I got to sit down and and and and record this video. I need to make an outline. I need to do that." And and and the gurus will tell you like, "You should chunk it. You should make it into like small menial task." That's going to be too overwhelming cuz now you're going to spend too much time thinking about that sequence of steps. And you're like, "The step four makes sense here, the step six makes sense here." No. All you need to think about is that first step, and you want to shorten this gap over here from where you are and where you'd like to do first step. So an example for me recording this video right now um for the self-talk the things I was telling myself as I was recording this video because I I have ADHD as well. So I had this tendency to avoid and procrastinate. It was kicking in. And the way I handled it is I told myself, okay, I don't need to uh first of all, let me reframe the expectation. This video is probably going to suck. It's probably not going to give views. People are probably not going to care about it. And that's fine. I I have valuable knowledge that I want to help and want to share and put out into the world and and and that and that's it. So that what that does is it like lowers the expectation a little bit. So now like I brought it over here where like now my brain thinks, okay, the stakes are low. Video doesn't need to do great. I don't need to go viral. I don't need to do any of that crap. All I need to do is simply share my knowledge with other people and that's good enough. So what that does is it lowers the stake. Makes it easy for me to take the test. Second thing I need I I was telling myself is, okay um I don't really need to sit down and record the whole video. Let me just grab my phone and put it on this tripod over here and see if I'm if I'm even in the like let's see if even the lighting is good. Let's see if I'm even in the mood to record. Um and I went ahead and did that. And then once I had and I did that, what I did is I shortened that even more and I made it very ridiculously easy to take that first step. Now once I took that first step, then it became very easy to take the next step, which is take grab this microphone over here and just put it on my shirt. And I went ahead and did that over here. Once I went ahead and did that over here, I said, I honestly like I I took a shower earlier. Um I I'm feel like my energy is good. I think I look decent. Um like yeah, let's just go ahead and record this video. What's stopping me from recording this video right now? And then that takes me over here, which is press record. Once I press record, I start talking. And before you know it, I have crossed this entire thing, which is going from like an idea of a YouTube video all the way to posting and you watching it right now. And that's all through like a combination of understanding why my brain is is having that resistance cuz I have a deep understanding of the ADHD brain. But also um focusing only on the first step in a serial pattern that allows me to do that. Obviously, there are certain other action triggers. Uh, for example, if you're in a very noisy environment, you need to make sure that you reduce noise, like noise cancelling headphones, for example, work or or things of that nature. There's all sorts of different techniques, whatnot, uh, which again, I'm not going to cover too much in depth in here, but the idea that I want you to understand is that, um, first you need to subtract, then you need to add a productivity system. You need to first clarify, prioritize, manage your time only, and execute. I'm going to make separate videos on what it's like to uh, divide and to multiply. Those alone are like topics uh of their own. But if you're someone entrepreneur higher up on the ADHD spectrum, really looking to solve your problems very deeply, then I have something that I really really think uh would be able to help you. It's something called Next Level Peak Performance is designed for ADHD uh brains. It's something I had built myself and shared with other people. They're having crazy success with it and they're crushing it. So I'm going to put a link for that below in the description. So you should go ahead and click on that and learn more about it. If not, that's totally okay. Then I'll see you in the uh one of my next videos. Peace love.