Ingeniosity Issue #9: How I stay productive all day

Hey Ingeniuses,

Did you know that only 21% of workers believe that they're actually productive throughout the whole day?

That means that almost 80% of the workforce doesn’t think that they’re being productive throughout the day…

Fortunately, I would consider myself one of the 21% - I pride myself on my ability to really get massive amounts of work done on a daily basis, consistently, the whole day, every day.

I believe that my ability to be extremely productive was the main factor behind the $100,000,000 in sales I produced over the last 20 years.

Here are the 6 hacks that I'm using to stay hyper productive all day:

PRODUCTIVITY HACK #1: No morning ritual

I know a lot of entrepreneurs and business owners are really into health hacks or morning rituals to kick themselves into gear and get more done.

Things like cold showers, sauna, meditation, breathing techniques, red light, etc. etc.

Now, there's nothing wrong with these things by themselves, I actually do incorporate a lot of these things, like the sauna, into my own life.

The problem is when these are all must-haves, non-negotiable parts of the day that happen every morning before you dive in.

Your time is valuable, and if the first 45 minutes, first 2 hours of your day are spent on these things, you're not only wasting a lot of potental work time, but you're also wasting momentum.

These habits are "nice-to-haves" - as in, they're beneficial, but if it came down to a few more hours of productive work versus a few hours in the gym, I just have to choose work.

These rituals can also make your day too rigid.

Business owners have to adapt, and be flexible in response to their environment.

The landscape changes literally every day, and if I'm forced to dedicate a non-negligible part of my day to a morning ritual, I'm making myself rigid and less responsive than I could be.

All the time - there's either surprise fires to put out, or brand new opportunities pop up where I have to respond lightning fast too - if I HAD to have this non-negotiable morning ritual in my schedule every day, I would be a lot less responsive.

PRODUCTIVITY HACK #2: ELIMINATE ALL DISTRACTIONS

My 2nd productivity hack is to eliminate all distractions when I'm working.

The reason for this is because I can get 10x more done when I'm laser focused.

I actually mean that. In the same hour - if I was listening to a podcast, and responding to text messages, and checking my email inbetween tasks, and so on, I would actually get 1/10th the work done versus if I was just working and doing nothing else.

PRODUCTIVITY HACK #3: BECOME UNREACHABLE

This is kind of an extension of the last hack, but it's important.

When you want to be productive, you have to become unreachable when you're working.

Discord messages, slack notifications, phone calls - all of these things are distractions, and each time you let these things consume some of your attention, you lose momentum.

There's momentum to your producitvity.

You will get more done 4 hours into a focused work day versus 30 minutes into that work day.

You can get an insane amount of work done when you let that momentum snowball up over the course of the day.

When you're able to get to this state of work, some people call it the flow state, some call it "deep focus", some call it "getting in the zone", but whatever you call it, it's important that you're able to get there.

The thing is, outside bids for your attention will destroy your ability to reach this state of extreme momentum.

I make myself unreachable for large portions of the day so that I'm able to get there.

Now, that doesn't mean never get in communication with anyone.

It's important to collaborate with your colleagues - just set aside dedicated times for when you want to catch up on your communications and put yourself on "do not  disturb" mode for the rest of the day.

PRODUCTIVITY HACK #4: Give yourself less time

The amount of work you have to do will fill up the amount of time you give yourself to do it.

If you give yourself 6 hours to do something, you'll take up all 6 hours to do it.

If you give yourself 1 hour to do the same thing, you'll do it in just an hour (and the quality will be just as good as the 6 hour version).

This idea is known as Parkinson's Law, the principle that states that work will expand to fill the time available for its completion.

PRODUCTIVITY HACK #5: Have quality sleep

I can't tell you how important it is to get a quality night's sleep.

The difference is night and day between days where I'm running on enough sleep or not.

You don't have to over complicate this - it's actually very simple to make sure you're getting enough sleep.

Here are some things I do to have good sleep hygiene:

1. No caffeine after 3pm (it takes a few hours for caffeine to leave your system).

2. Magnesium before bed.

3. Exercise regularly (I can more easily fall asleep when I'm consistently working out).

4. Limit screen exposure close to bed time.

5. Don't worry too much about when you go to bed, but consistently wake up at the same time every day.

6. Get sun exposure as soon as I can in the day.

PRODUCTIVITY HACK #6: Do What You're Doing... When You're Doing it.

What does that mean?

Well, I go over all 6 hacks and elaborate on this one at the end of a free training I uploaded to YouTube earlier this week: