Transcription
[Music] Battle-tested ideas to double your productivity. You definitely want to take great notes through this.
Number one, to get the energy, do the work. What does that mean? It means that what most people do, what ordinary entrepreneurs do, is they wait until they feel inspired and have energy before they attack their to-do list or focus on execution around their most important projects. Is that not right? Most people wait till they feel the energy. Show of hands. Would you agree with that? Fantastic.
What do remarkable entrepreneurs do, and the most creative people? They do the work to get the energy. Every single time you complete a project on your to-do list or something that you resisted that was important to do, literally, you have a corresponding release of what I call completion energy. I invite you to start trying this. Your to-do list things, all the messes, all those most important things that you haven't been doing, one at a time, start completing them. You will start finding that there is a corresponding release of energy every single time you achieve something on your to-do list. And eventually, you get to a place where there's so much energy, you almost feel unstoppable.
To get the energy, do the work. Another way to put it: the more productive you are, the more energy you start receiving. I think ultimately, it goes back to the biology. We are hardwired to experience progress. We're hardwired to experience progress. So, at some level, there's a corresponding release of endorphins every time you achieve something that's important and meaningful to you. So you feel better, you have more energy, which allows you to produce even more.
Number two, I suggest to you, starting today, adopt a mindset where you work for 90 minutes and then you get up and you take a break. Work for 90 minutes in 90-minute cycles and then get up and take a break. How could you take a break? What could you do for a break? It might be as simple as saying, you know what, I worked for my 90-minute cycle. I know that through the way energy works and energy cycles, I need a break right now. I will get up and I will have a cup of coffee. By the way, coffee, how many people love coffee? Show of hands. Coffee is one of the best health drinks in moderation. It's full of antioxidants. And one of the things I've observed, and in moderation, but the most creative people use coffee to keep them productive as well. I have one cup of coffee a day. I love it. Sets me up for the day. I'm going to take you through the morning protocol that Jeffrey talked about, that I use, that I teach to our clients. One of the things I do is that cup of coffee is part of it.
But just work in 90-minute cycles. After 90 minutes, get up and go for a walk. After 90 minutes, go have a glass of water. After 90 minutes, get up and move, go for a workout. This whole idea that sitting behind a desk for 10 hours straight will make you productive is nonsense. It's not borne out by biology, by the study of energetic cycles, by science. And yet, most ordinary entrepreneurs have fallen into this seduction. "The harder I work in a linear way, the more productive I will be."
Here's a little cheesy metaphor for you. If you were to drive a Ferrari 120 miles an hour, 365/24/7, it would break down. How does it work? You drive it fast, you maintain it. You drive it fast, maintain it. What I'm suggesting to you is, if you look at human beings, every single part of a human being physically is about a cycle. It's a pulse. Your heart beats, there's a pulse. The blood flows, there's a pulse. So, what I've learned is, and this is something that most people don't know, the real secret to peak performance is working in pulses. Work hard, pull back, and renew. Work hard, pull back, and renew. Work hard, pull back, and recover. Work in 90-minute cycles, then recover.
How do you build the metaphor? The bicep metaphor. You stretch it. Stress is not your enemy. Stress on the muscle tears the muscle, which causes it to grow. Stress is your friend. Stress will allow you to push past your barriers, which expands your capability. Stress is your friend. Stress makes you better. Helps you think more physically. Stress you run more than ever before. You lift more than ever before. You work out harder than ever before. That stress expands capability.
Here's the enemy. The enemy is not recovering from the stress. When you work hard, most entrepreneurs, they push, push, push, push, push, and then they do not take the time to recover. And then they start, here's the real key, they start depleting their capability because they're working so hard. They're facing so much stress. They're pushing so hard, but they never recover. So, their intellectual ability, their productive capability, their creative capability, their physical capability, that capability, and their resources begin to diminish. Show of hands. I'm curious, who resonates with what I'm saying? Show of hands. So, that's the key. 90-minute cycles and then recover.
I know it's after lunch, guys. Everyone stand up, please. You're an awesome audience, but I know there was a big lunch. And by the way, I think there's a lesson in that, right? Which is we are affected by everything that we eat. We're affected by everything that we do. So, what are some things you've learned to just really quickly, let's say you've been working for 90 minutes, really quickly elevate your energy? Let's see if this works. Everyone take a bottle of water or a glass of water. I just want to make this real-time because we learn most not intellectually, but experientially. Everyone grab some water. Grab your water. And here's what I want you to do. Drink, drink as much water as is in front of you. Let's go. I just want you to experience this. Just drink, drink lots of water. [Music] I want you to do it so you actually experience it.
Now, what I want you to do, I want you to just jump and jump up and down. Some of you like jumping jacks. If we get some music, would be great. [Music] And I just want you to move. Okay, let's see. Doing some jumping jacks in the back there. Let's see. Move around. [Music] And have a seat. Who noticed a difference in the energy in the room right now? Put raise your hands. How long did that take? >> A minute to do that. How many people honestly have shifted your emotional and physical state? Show of hands. Look, I want you to look around the room. Okay, this is what you want to be doing to manage your emotional, intellectual, physical states for peak performance. Work in 90 minutes, get up, move, drink some water. How many people drink water and you have more energy right now? Show of hands. Fascinating. Most people are dehydrated.
Number three, to double your productivity, remember to model the sprinter model. What does the sprinter do? So, work like a sprinter. What does the sprinter do? The sprinter has a burst of performance and then recovers. A burst of performance and then recovers. So, what I try to do, I work 90 minutes, I take a break. I work 90 minutes, I take a break. I work 90 minutes, I take a break.
Let me challenge you a little bit. What if you were to work three weeks and take a week off, and then work three weeks and take a week off, and then work? I know that's my job. It's my job. It's my job. Who would agree with me? Work expands to fit the time available. Okay, just play with me. You only have three weeks to do the work in a month. Because if you had a deadline to do the three weeks, if you were going on vacation in Bali or Barbados or beautiful Bermuda for a week, you'd get all the work done in three weeks. Correct? >> Of course you would. You would have the courage and discipline to say no. You would harness your mental focus on the few things that are most important. You would marshal your resources to get the work done. So you would be distraction-free for your week in Bali. Correct? >> Okay, just play with me. What if every single month you took off a week? You still get the same amount of work done because work expands to fit the time available. But you would feel guilty. So it's not about the fact that it's not available to you. It's all about your saboteur. You would feel guilty.
Let me ask you a question, Fasil. If you were to take one week off every four weeks, what would your life look like personally? Amazing. What when you came back to the office, what would you be like with your teammates? >> Energized and >> and ready to rock. What would you think about the quality of your ideas? Would even one of those ideas you came back with a week on Barbados, would even one of those ideas possibly make you $50,000 easily? Maybe $100,000? Every once in a while, a million-dollar idea, which properly executed from one week off on the beach.
What I learned from Buffett: always measure the value versus the cost, right? Value. Phenomenal. That's one thing the billionaires do. It's all about the value. They'll spend the money if they get the value. They don't worry about the cost. Costification. >> Oh, it's the society. To have what 1% have, you've got to be willing to do what 1% do. How many times have I suggested through the entire super conference? Be weird. Be eccentric. Don't be in the middle of most people because society would say, "You're taking a week off every four weeks. What would happen to your business?" I've tried to make a case that that would actually make you a lot more money. You'd actually live even longer than I know you're going to live. You'll have even more energy. Your team would love you even more. You'll have better ideas, more passion doing that.
So, what I'm suggesting for your daily work routine, and also for your weekly, and also for your life, is you can call it this: distributed vacations. >> Distributed vacations. >> How do you manage your customer expectations around that? You build a business that'll run without you. You build a business that'll run without you. Scale, scale, scale, scale yourself. Lock. So, literally, you go back with these ideas. You build a culture. You build a team that allows you, what did Gerber say? Work on the business, not in the business. Ideally, you want to build an automatic business. So, you take the week off, then you come back and coach and develop. Helpful concept I'm sharing here. Distributed vacations. Would you have a lot more fun as a result of this one idea? Please do it. Please do it. Please do it.
I'm going to share my time management system Jeffrey referred to that I apply, that I teach. Here's one of the other things I teach on the same point about work 90 minutes, take a break. Work three weeks, take a break. Work one year, take a month off or two months off. But here's another thing. I'm going to just really go out on the edges and play and challenge you with: what if you worked every few days and then you took a day off? I'm going to actually teach you a time management system where you label your days according to different activities. And I'm going to challenge you, and I've taught this to my clients, and some of my clients are here today, and if they want to put up their hand or they don't have to put up their hand, but one of the things I encourage them, and they fight me on this, and I say to them, "One of the first things you've done now that you've engaged me, you're not allowed to work on Fridays anymore." [Applause] Well, you're going to get the work is going to expand if you have if you only have four days to do it. Will you do your work? >> Okay. So, why work Fridays? I say to them, and they go, "What? What would people think?" Who cares what people think? But I feel guilty. Then figure out how to move through your guilt. And they, "What would I do?" And I say, "Here's what you do. 10:00 on Friday, you book a massage therapist. Would that be a good idea?" One of the best moves you can make. Buffett, don't worry about the cost. Focus on the value. If a $100 massage will give you another few hours of productivity every day, by the way, I get two massages a week. It's one of the best investments in my life. Buffett, don't worry about the cost. Focus on the value. If two massages every single week allows you to sleep far less. Anyone know what I'm talking about? Show of hands. It's unbelievable what it'll do for you. Physical trainer, hire that trainer. Oh, but it costs too much. Cost versus value. How much more productive will you make? How much more profit will you make? How much more passionate will you be? How much more will you love life if you're in great physical condition? Value versus cost. Key thing that the billionaires have learned. Every Friday, what do you do? You get a massage. What a concept. And they see everyone else going to work. They go, "Where are you going?" "Went to the super conference. Taking a massage." Then what do you do? I'm going to challenge you. Here's what I get my clients to do. Go see a movie. Go see a movie. Hang out with the people. There's like five people in the theater and sit there, watch a great movie. Then what do you do? Usually you eat Thai food. Try >> then Italian food. And just literally, what I have my clients do is on that Friday, it's their recovery day. It's their renewal day. Oh, big thing. I must mention this. Two requirements on your Friday renewal day. Number one, you can't do any work because recovery with interruption isn't real recovery. If I was an elite athlete and I'm recovering, so my muscles are growing, by the way, talk to any elite athlete. The recovery of the muscle doesn't happen when you're stretching the muscle on the track. The recovery of the muscle happens >> when you're resting. It's a big idea here. On that Friday, you're not wasting your time. Fasil, say to yourself, "I'm not wasting my time. This is growing my capability." How does a muscle, the bicep metaphor, how does a bicep grow? You stretch it beyond its usual limits. This is a big metaphor. Go past your limits. Stress it. Stretch it. It then begins to break down. The breakdown, the discomfort is nothing more than growth waiting to happen. I've been saying this all weekend, correct? But now I'm giving you a physical metaphor. Then literally, in that recovery of the bicep, when the world says, "Sprinter, athlete, what are you doing?" You're sleeping. Here's the big idea. That's when the growth is actually happening. Similarly, on your Friday, when the world is saying, "What are you doing? Why are you not working?" You say, "I am like a world-class bodybuilder. I've worked Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. I have pushed my envelope. I've been with my team. I've built culture. I've executed flawlessly around my deliverables. And now I'm going to rest, recover, and refuel. And it's not a waste of my time. It's not a waste of my time. This is where I grow in capability. It's where I grow in my capability." Okay. My challenge: start taking Fridays off to recover. Go to art galleries. Try new food. Get a massage. This is when your capability, your strength, your ideas will actually increase.
Number four, you want to double your productivity. Use your most valuable hours for your most valuable work. When you study the science of creativity, you will realize, you will realize when you study this, that we are most creative in the morning, generally. And if you look at the routines of the most successful people, what do they all have in common? One of the things was what? >> They get up early. Many of them were at the desk at 6:15, 5:00 a.m. Didn't one person say, "I get up in the darkness and I start the first page." So important. I get up in the darkness. I start writing the very first page. Why? Because we have the most energy. Then it's almost as if we wake up in the morning and we have a full vessel of energy. The day depletes it, but the next morning we start full again.
What I'm suggesting to you is those early morning hours, especially between 5 and noon, are your most valuable, creative, productive hours. Why would you spend that time checking email? Why would you spend that time sending texts? Why would you spend that time on Twitter? Why would you spend that time on YouTube or Facebook? Ladies and gentlemen, victims love leisure. Leaders love learning. You can predict someone's income by measuring how much time they spend in entertainment versus education. And yet, what do most of us do early morning? We get to the office. Most of us don't get to the office even with a plan. We don't get to the office having practiced in the morning. Could you imagine an Olympic skier, right? Getting to the slope in Kitzbühel or wherever it is and saying, "I haven't practiced, but I hope to win the gold." And yet, how many of us in this room take the time every single day before we get to the office to practice? I mean, ladies and gentlemen, you're in show business. If you're in business right now, you're in show business. And when you get to the office at 9:00, it's showtime. You're no different from Lady Gaga, Justin Bieber, Foo Fighters, YouTube, Madonna, Metallica. Who else? Mana getting the stage. It's showtime.
So use your most valuable hours for your most valuable work. Practice before you get to the office. Once you get to the office in the morning, work on the projects, develop the team, do the things that will get you closer to your magnificent obsession. And then check email in the afternoon. Low-value activities during low-value times is what I'm suggesting to you. And why do most of us actually distract ourselves in the morning? It's the saboteur. It's a great way to avoid not doing anything. It's a great way to avoid achieving where we want to be.
Number five, use strategic time blocking. And as I mentioned, the recovery day strategy. And as I mentioned, on that day off, no work, no technology, no Blackberry, no computer. It's a day with you to recover. Ladies and gentlemen, most people's idea of recovery and recreation, big idea here, most people's idea of recreation does not recreate them. On your day off, do activities that recreate you, that refill your energetic well, that inspire you, that restore the sparkle in your eye. When you go home at night, you've expended your energy. You've expended your creativity in the evening. Why would you want to watch TV? Why would you want to check email? Why would you want to mindlessly surf the net? Does that recreate your four capabilities? Intellectual, physical, emotional, spiritual. I'm curious how many people after four hours of watching TV or surfing the net feel actually more exhausted, more depleted, more discouraged than you did before you started. Show of hands, please. Look around. How about if you were to spend the evening walking with your family or reading something valuable or chasing your portfolio of passions? Maybe it's a sport. Maybe it's a family meal. Maybe it's watching the sun come go down. There are certain activities that will literally recreate you. Being out in nature, being with your loved ones, having a great meal, those will recreate you. That is recovery. It will then refuel those four capabilities so you get back to work with more energy.
What's this strategic time blocking thing? Well, this is what Jeffrey was mentioning last night that I taught him. It's how I managed my life, and it's also one of the first things that I teach the one-on-one coaching clients that I work with. I'm going to share it with you. The primary principle is: the things that get scheduled are the things that get done. The things that get scheduled are the things that get done. The things that get scheduled are the things that get done. So, what you want to do to really double your productivity is you want to begin every single Monday with what I call a blueprint for a beautiful week. You want to begin every single Monday with a blueprint for a beautiful week. Literally, so you have a template for the coming seven days that you automatically follow. You can find this on Microsoft Outlook. You can find this, you know, some weekly schedule. How many people in this room can figure out a way or find a way or do it yourself? Have a weekly Monday to Sunday schedule. Correct? We all can do it. Once you have that, you can again, you can customize it for yourself. You then break it into your days for the coming week. When do you do this? I encourage our clients to do it Sunday morning. Why? Sunday night often you might be tired. You might not have the willpower, the energy, the interest in doing it. You do it Sunday morning. How many people heard Jeffrey say this was one of the single best things he did to grow a business that he sold? Show of hands, right? Did you hear him say that? Before he wouldn't get up. Now he got up at 5:00, and the second thing he did was this schedule. This is it. That. So I loved when he said it because I think, and I hope it brings home to you, that if you do this, you will multiply your productivity and your effectiveness massively.
So, when do you do it? Sunday morning. How long did he say it takes? An hour. Correct. An hour. And ritualize it so you don't rely on willpower. Make it a habit. Every Sunday morning, make it your sacred time. Every single Sunday, 7:00 to 8:00, 7:00 to 8:00, you work on your weekly design process. You want to make it fun, have a beautiful cup of coffee. You want to make it fun, find some way to incentivize yourself. Okay. What do you do then? Well, the first thing you do is you apply the concept of strategic time blocking. You label each day according to a different focus. Mondays, often admin. On those days, you're with your team. On those days, you're at the office. On those days, you're dealing with the administration of running a business, of coaching a team, of responding to customer concerns. And then on those days, you actually block out chunks of time. Really important. So on the schedule, you go 8:00 to noon, a single activity. 8:00 to noon, you have a single activity, or whatever it is for you. And then you can actually schedule in here. I do it. I teach our clients to do it. 5:00 a.m. to 6:00 a.m. You've got your pro athlete protocol, which I'm about to explain to you as well. So, you've got 5 to 6, 7 to 8, you drive your kids to school, you're with your family, you have breakfast. 8 to noon, you have this. Then 1:00 to 3:00, you have your next block of time. Again, this is something around dealing with the team, dealing with the business of business. And again, you can do what you want in terms of what's going to work best for you. 3:00 to 5:00, it might be some kind of renewal or recovery. 7:00 to 10:00, dinner with family. 10:00 to 10:30, write your gratitude list. And here's a great question to ask yourself. Very powerful. Before you go to sleep, what are five good things that happened to me today? Show of hands. Is that a good question to ask yourself? No matter how bad your day was, how many people can find five good things that happened to them in one day? How would you wake up the next morning? More energized. Simple, powerful idea.
Tuesday. So, you may say Monday is your admin day. Wednesday is your other admin day. You see what I'm getting at? You're actually allocating certain themes to each day. Maybe then you go, "Tuesdays are my blue ocean days or my creative days." What do you do on Tuesday? You work at home. Or if you already work at home, maybe on those days, what you do is you turn off all technology. Would that be interesting? To literally say on Tuesday, here's your schedule that you write Sunday night. 5:00 to 6:00 is your pro athlete protocol. Means you work out, you do this, you do that. But I'll tell you about it. 6:00 to 7:00, breakfast. 8:00 to 9:00, whatever. You don't have to do every single minute. And then 9:00 to 1:00 p.m., creative, no technology. Literally, you turn off your mobile, you turn off notifications, you unplug your TV, you unplug your computer, and you work in a solid chunk of time from 9:00 to 1:00 every Tuesday. Show of hands. Would that alone massively increase your productivity? Show of hands. I'm curious. Almost every hand in the room went up. Right. So, literally now you're building a protocol that allows you to be productive. And the key again, turn off your mobile, turn off your computer, etc. Then 1:00 to 4:00 is your next chunk. Evening time. Well, a lot of people are saying, "I want more work-life balance. How do I do it?" Schedule it. The things that get scheduled are the things that get done. Schedule it. So, what would that look like? I know this is not the sexiest part of the program, but it just could be the most valuable. It's very tactical, very granular. What do you do on your schedule? 7:00 to 10:00, read to my kids. Number one. Number two, communicate with my partner. Or just call it family time. Just call it family time.
Wednesday, back at the office, perhaps you've got your whole day. Block it all out. Thursday, 5:00 rise. Morning block. This Friday. Maybe Friday is going to be your recovery day that I help our clients really lock into. And yes, you'll feel guilty about it. Challenge yourself because the muscle grows in the rest, not in the expenditure on the performance. So you take the Friday. What do you do? The things that I mentioned. Weekends you might work on Saturdays, and Sunday might be a sabbatical. In the old days, they called it the Sabbath. What was a sabbatical? Well, it was a day when people would put away work because they understood at some visceral level that you need to renew. It's the sprinter's model that I suggested to you. And on the Sabbath, what would people do? They would have long meals with the family. They would walk in nature. They would walk in the woods. They would read from the wisdom literature. When you read from the wisdom literature, you get reconnected to the things that are most important. So, literally, what you're doing here is you're saying, "Two of my days are for working in the business. Two of my days are for working on the business." You literally institutionalize working on your business right onto your schedule. Or it could be three and two, whatever ratio works best for you, but one day out of seven, make it all about pure renewal, refueling, and recovery. It's one of the single best things I can teach you as remarkable entrepreneurs. At least one day a week. No technology, no noise, no meetings, zero work. And what do you do on those days? You get massages, you ski, you hang with your family, you paint, you go to movies, and you become playful like a child again. Is it a waste of time? No. That is essential to peak performance because you come back strong. You grow in your capability. You restore depleted capabilities. Does this make sense? Was it helpful? Show of hands. I'm curious. >> Fantastic. >> Why not take the recovery day Saturday? >> You can take it any day you like. >> You can take it any day you like. >> You don't like it on a Friday, huh? So what I do, what I encourage our clients to do, and I'm just sharing with you, they actually start taking Saturdays and Sundays off with their family, and they take the Fridays off as well. Ladies and gentlemen, I promise you, once you apply this idea, you will get more done in four days than you've ever done achieved in seven days. Work expands to fit the time available. If you only had four days to get that big client project done, you would achieve it in four days. Why? Because a deadline marshals your energy and your resources and focuses the mind like you cannot imagine. But when we have seven days, what do we do? Death by meeting, busyness by busyness. We're not moving quickly.
What I want to do is just take a minute here. Teacher learns the most. Teacher learns the most. You learn the most by teaching. Find a partner. Teach them strategic time blocking and the process that I just shared with you. Okay? We're just going to spend a couple of minutes on it, but I want you to teach it so that you see the gaps in your learning and you understand it even better. Go ahead, please. Just a couple of minutes. [Music]