Transcription
This is a regular to-do list. [music] This is what my daily system looks like. It's actually transformed my life. I've been using this system [music] for the past 10 years. I get much more done, make real progress on my goals, and interestingly, have way more energy, too.
There are five steps in this system. [music] Doing them guarantees you become 99% more effective than almost everyone around you. How do I know this? Because I use this system to get through Harvard and Yale. It's also the secret to how I juggle the many hats I wear now. I'm a full-time doctor, the director of the [music] ER, and oh yeah, I make videos like this on the regular, too.
This system is called the Impact Energy Matrix. Why is a regular to-do list so annoying? Let's see, shall we? Today, I have to change my dog's diaper, feed the rabbit squirrel outside my house, adopt a baby hamster, sue my HOA, and cancel my Only Fan subscription. That's just the first page. What do I even work on first? Most people end up picking random things on their to-do list. But I mean, come on. Is adopting a baby hamster really the best use of my time right now? Without a plan, you waste all your time and energy on low impact stuff, which means at the end of the day, nothing real [music] got done and you're tired.
The impact energy matrix fixes that immediately after you brained up in column one. Column 2 is where you figure out impact factor. I specifically split impact factor into two components, short-term and long-term. I asked myself, whatever life I want to build, whatever person I want to be, how important is this task to getting me there? Zero means it doesn't matter at all, 10 means it's insanely important. Let me show you how this works with real examples on what I worked on today. Writing the Sunday newsletter, short-term of one, because it doesn't help me get more subscribers, [music] but has a long-term impact of eight because it keeps me writing every week, which translates to better videos. Work with the artist to upload better thumbnails. Better thumbnails help now and in the future. Eight [music] and six. Finishing the operational manual for my ER. Short-term of seven because I'll get fired if I don't do it, but long-term of one because it doesn't do much more except save me a few annoying emails later. Infinite memory course. I'm creating this course that teaches you how to memorize anything very quickly. It made all my tests at medical school honestly pretty [music] easy. Zero but 10 because it's crucial to the business as a whole.
To get the overall impact factor for each task, I add up the two numbers, letting me know immediately which tasks are the most likely to move the needle for me. From there, you could just tackle the list in order of priority. But I actually have an even better way. This is where the third column comes into play [music] and measures how much energy it costs to accomplish each task. If working on a YouTube script cost me lots of brain energy, I may actually do this first before I work on my most impactful [music] task, especially if that most impactful task doesn't take as much effort. Sounds counterintuitive and wrong, right? Most people just get the most impactful [music] thing done first, especially if it's easy and impactful, but it's precisely because it's so easy that I don't do it. This is because of a phenomenon I call energy leakage. Let me explain. Let's say writing a YouTube script costs me 10,000 jewels of energy, while doing some emails and uploading a thumbnail costs only 50 jewels of energy. By the way, these numbers are all just to prove a point. Don't focus on the numbers, just the concept. I'll show you an even easier way next. [music]
In the morning, my brain has the ability to work at a capacity of 2500 jewels per hour. Whereas in the evening, my brain can only crank it up to about 100 jewels an hour. This is inherently why if I wait to work on scripts at night, I'm not going to get anything meaningful done. At 100 jewels an hour, it's [music] going to take me 100 hours to finish and it'll probably be sloppy as hell. But in the morning, it'll take just a few hours. While I could work on some emails in the morning, do I really need to expend 2500 jewels an hour on some simple emails? Does that not sound ridiculous? It's the equivalent of putting the engine of a Formula 1 race car in a tiny kid's go-kart and just flooring it. Just because I only use the 50 jewels of brain energy this hour doesn't mean I get to carry the 2,450 leftover jewels to the next hour. Unused brain power is simply lost. That's why you still get tired at the end of the day, regardless of what you did during it. And that's why the next column of the impact energy matrix is reserved for figuring out how much energy each task costs. I use a simple three star system. Three stars for the most intense stuff, two stars for average stuff, and one for easy tasks.
Now that you know how much energy each task takes, you're finally ready to tackle your list. By managing the energy needed for each task with the energy you have available to spend, you optimize your day in the most efficient way possible. Of course, that assumes you know what I call your daily energy cycle. I like to think of ourselves as a battery. We all get 24 hours in the day, but the energy in our battery isn't distributed equally among all 24 hours, right? For me, I'm a morning person. My energy capacity per hour [music] from 6:00 to 12:00 p.m. is at a much higher level compared to the afternoon and [music] evening. In fact, if you were to graph it out, it would look like this. There's a small dip in the morning as I get out of bed. Okay, let's be real. It's more [music] like this. It's at its max early in the morning, steadily declines into lunch, dips afterwards due to some good old-fashioned food coma before rising to a [music] second peak at 3:00 p.m. There's the afternoon dip after that heading to dinner, a post-dinner crash, and a short second win before crashing completely around 10:30 p.m. I know this cycle innately, like the back of my hand, and I structured my entire day around it.
Did you notice something? There are three peaks of energy in my day. These are my most coveted slots of the day and reserved for my three most [music] energy-intensive things of the day. Even though I don't have as much energy in the rest of the day, that's okay. The tasks I do then don't need a lot from me. And so I continue to be productive and most importantly [music] continue to feel good. That's why measuring impact is only one side of the coin. Impact gives structure, but it's understanding energy flow that allows for efficient execution. [music]
Speaking of which, next step is something I call adaptable time blocking. In regular time blocking, you pencil out your day with blocks of time, sometimes on an hour-by-hour basis, but that's way too rigid because the actual energy you have during the day is constantly changing. No day is going to be exactly the same. You want to be able to adapt in real time and minimize any energy mismatches. In adaptable time blocking, you block out your day at a high level based on [music] what you think your energy will look like. The more you use this system, the more accurate your predicted energy curve will become. But then when you go about your day and experience how much energy you actually have, [music] you simply adapt your tasks accordingly to maximize your flow states. If you're in the zone, don't stop based on some arbitrary time block. Stay in the zone and keep working. That's why I generally don't specify a start or an end time to [music] my tasks because they let my energy dictate what I do. If you run out of steam early, that's cool. Just look and find your next most impactful thing with the lowest energy rating. Ah, thumbnail emailing. Highest impact task on my list with a rating of 14. Only has a one-star rating for energy. Good thing I saved it for now, right?
After I finish this [music] task, I take a quick break and wait for my next energy peak. When my energy levels pick back up, I'll work on a two-star energy task. In my current matrix, this is tentatively slotted at 11:00 a.m. But this is more of a suggestion rather than a command. Again, this whole thing is very fluid. Hence why it's called [music] adaptable time blocking. Figuring out your day basically becomes an interesting puzzle. How can I optimally allocate all these things in a way that makes sense for my particular energy curve? The better you know your energy curve, the more easily this puzzle gets solved. I personally first start with my three peaks, always ensuring that the three most intense, most important tasks are slotted in first. With that taken care of, I'll just go down the impact column and compare the energy required to the energy available on my curve and slot things in accordingly. For really important task [music] transitions you can't afford to miss, like a meeting with your boss at 2 p.m. or hang out with your neighbor's ex-wife, set alarms on your phone to remind yourself to task switch.
In the end, the impact energy matrix is just a tool. Don't waste too much time and energy making it perfect and lose sight of the bigger picture, which is what again? Oh yeah, getting important [music] done and doing it efficiently. Stuff like adopting hamsters, feeding rabid squirrels, subscribing to this channel, and sharing it with your grandma. If all else fails, just focus on your top energy peaks and slot your most impactful items there. If you do nothing else but this, you'll already be better than almost 99% of people out there.
If this concept resonated with you, I encourage you to check out this next video on how to plan your next 90 days. Because with the perfect productivity system, you'll be able to do more in 90 days than most people do in their entire lives. For more ideas just like this, check out my subsack, my Patreon, and my weekly newsletter where I publish more actionable tips just like this one. Until next time, my friends. Smell you later.