THE ONE THING YOU NEED TO REMEMBER ABOVE ALL ELSE

Knowledge is power, once you know something, you can do something about it!

LINKS TO RESOURCES MENTIONED IN TODAY’S EPISODE

Transcript

Hello and welcome to this week's episode of the podcast. How the Devil Are You? I hope you're doing really well. I hope you are back fully in the swing of things now with a good way through January. So I really hope that you are back and feeling energized and ready to go. I know that lots of people had a slower start this year, so.

I'm really hopeful that you are feeling ready to take on whatever this year might throw at us. So one of the things I do in the Club and I thought I would share with you is we have challenges. Every so often we do a focus on a challenge where it just means that we are all focusing on the same thing, or that we are all working towards a similar goal.

And it just keeps everybody focused. It just keeps everybody driven and motivated. And at the beginning of January, one of the challenges I like to do, Productivity challenge because this is the time where we might be struggling to get back in the swing of things. We might be struggling to be productive.

But I think generally at any point, it's good to kind of go back to some of those productivity things. I know that even though I have kind of routine and I know what I'm kind of, I know what makes me work well and what doesn't. I still have to remind myself to do it. It's still not always as easy. Just once you've done it once you've got it, not at all.

So I thought I would share with you the things that I suggest that my members do to help them be more productive in their world and things that I do. So the very first thing I get to do them at the beginning of the week, they get one thing a day to do, is I get them to track their time. Now, this might seem like a little bit counterproductive given I'm giving them something else to do on top of the things that they're already doing.

However, when we track our time, we actually get knowledge of where we're spending our time. Now knowledge is power. If we don't know something, then we can't do anything about it. It's like when you know when people like they're nervous to launch or they're nervous to put a new product out there. And when I ask them "What's the worst that that can happen?"

And they go, "Well, what if no one buys?" Well, if no one buys and you've tried, at least you've got some knowledge about what you did and what results you got, and you can do something with that. Whereas if you don't even try, if you don't even do something in the first place, then you literally have no idea how it's going to work.

So the same with being productive. The first thing to do is recognize how and where you spend your time. And I think you will be surprised. We had lots of lovely comments in the group about things that they were surprised about, about how they were spending their time, how much time things took. This is always a classic, like sometimes when you're putting off something really big, it never takes half as long as you imagine it will.

However, sometimes when you think, oh, I'll just do that one thing hours later, you're still doing that thing. So for me it's about knowledge. Like I said, it's about not beating yourself up, that that thing took forever. It's about going actually in the future when I'm planning that in, again, I know it's gonna take me longer than I think.

So let's give that two hours instead of one. So that's the first thing they have to go through and track their time. So if you are gonna do this, if you track your time, then I would say literally have a piece of paper to the right of you. If you are old school, if you wanna do it online, there's lots of apps that can do it.

And for every 30 minutes of every day, you can literally write down what am I doing? And I will write down things like peeing around if I can't remember what it was I just did. So, yeah, but that in itself helps you be productive because then you start realizing. That's where I'm wasting time. And sometimes, like I said, just the act of writing things down makes you a little bit more productive.

So that's the first thing I ask 'em to do. And then I get them to kind of just give that some thought and have a look at it and think, is there places that is eating my time up? Is there something else I can do? So the next thing I get them to do is I get them to plan their day. Now I have to say, this is one of the most productive things that I can do in my business that makes me really productive.

Am I always good at doing it? Absolutely not. Sometimes I'm dreadful. But I can tell I've been dreadful because of how little I might have got done in a day. So I will plan my day every 30 minutes again. So, so I'll start with the meetings I've got. Obviously I'll book in any calls, any meetings. Then I tend to put a bit of time in in the morning for prep and do my morning routine and that sort of thing.

Obviously, I make sure I put lunch in and then I try and work out what time I wanna finish, and then I fill in the gaps. So I look at what's on my to-do list. I look at what's on my kind of plan for the week, and I try and fill in the things I need to do in between those things. If you've got a big project, what I find really useful, is if you're not sure, well, if you think just have right, this is a huge project.

It's gonna take ages. I would still put in an hour or two to work on it, knowing that you're going to stop after that hour or two, just because then it's, it gets it started. Whereas sometimes these projects that they're so big and you think, oh, I need like a whole two, three days for that, then you never get started.

So actually just giving yourself like an hour or two to start to work on it, just like gets it out the way started. So yeah, so that's the next thing I do. And basically, like I said, I plan in, when I'm taking breaks, I even plan in times where I put like, you know, emails, social messing around. So I just put in things like that as well, just so that I've got space to do all these things.

I don't pretend I don't do them, I just make sure I plan in the space. And then I try and stick to it. Obviously, I don't beat myself up if something goes awry and I don't manage everything I say. I just use that as more knowledge, more information, and then maybe put the things back on my plan for the next day.

But at least I've given myself a bit of a plan and somewhere to go with that. So the next thing I asked them to do was to look at removing any distractions. Now for me, distractions are the normal stuff that is for everybody. Social media, emails, voice notes, slack, all those kind of things that disrupt your day.

And I want them to think about is there actually ways they can avoid them or remove them and what can they do about them? So for instance, if you are distracted by emails, you could put your computer on do not disturb, so that you only look at emails twice a day or three times a day. if you are distracted by social media and if you work in social media, this is very hard.

But again, kind of keep focused. Keep bringing yourself back to it, saying, you know, okay, I got distracted, but I'm gonna stop now. One of the things I say all the time, we have an online event every year called SOAR in the Club for members only, and couple of years back, we had a phenomenal speaker called Laura Try, and Laura's rode the ocean.

So she rode from like, I'm gonna get this really wrong, and she's a dear friend and I feel awful that, I don't know this, but somewhere like from Spain ish, part of the world, all the way over to Antigua. So they were on the ocean for like 70 odd days, I think it was. I'm probably absolutely getting this wrong.

But anyway, it was a long play, long way and they rode and Laura came and did a talk for SOAR, which was so inspirational and everyone was in tears in the end. And. One of the things she said is the work that they did on the boat, because they were obviously rowing and they did something like two hours on, two hours off.

So she never slept for more than like two hours the entire time and maybe it's 40 odd days. Anyway, whatever it was, it was a flipping long time. So she, everything they did everything the how they spent their time have to be focused around, would it make the boat go faster. So they never did an activity unless it made them get to Antigua quicker than they would've done.

So things like having to stop the boat to take off all of the. See, I'm gonna get so wrong, but like barnacles is that right on off the bottom of the boat. So they would stop the boat, which would feel counterproductive because obviously they could keep rowing, but actually by stopping and cleaning off the bottom of the boat meant that they could row faster and that wouldn't hold them back.

So one of the things I asked myself all the time is, is it gonna make the boat go faster? So even though I'm not rowing to Antigua, you'd be pleased to hear, cuz I probably wouldn't manage 10 minutes, but I ask myself that all the time. So if I do get distracted by one of these distractions, I very quickly go, is this making the boat go faster Teresa? And if the answer is no, then I stop. And it's not always easy, but I think that reminder for me really, really helps me. So think about your distractions. What can you get rid of? What can you move? Even things like family. I have to say, like sometimes if my doors open in my office, people will interrupt me if they walk past.

Um, But if I close my door, they don't interrupt me. So if I need some focus time, maybe I just close my door for a bit. Okay, so the next thing cause this, like I said, over five days. So day four was eat that frog. Now you've all probably heard of this concept or read the book. However, I constantly find myself having to remind myself of this that often we will put off the thing that we don't wanna do and it will lure over us like something huge.

So, Whatever that big thing is that you are putting off, that's the thing you do first, cuz the sense satisfaction. And how happy you are gonna feel once you've done that is going to be huge. And like I said, weirdly with these things, they often take way less time than you think. However, with the things that you think, oh, I'll just change that one thing on the website, then three hours later you're still messing around.

Um, I don't, I don't mean messing around, I mean, still trying to do it. So yeah. So what is the one thing that you've been putting off and put it at the top of your list and do it first. And that's a really powerful one. Like I said, very simple but very powerful. If you haven't read the book, do read the book.

It's basically, it says what it does on the Tim, but you know, It's, it's good. And the last one that I did, because it was Monday to Friday, is plan your week ahead. One of my favorite things, and this is weird, I dunno why it's my favorite thing, but I actually really enjoy looking at my diary for the following week and writing down what I've got coming in.

Because I feel more organized, even though at the end of every day I have to remind myself what's tomorrow? And I have to make sure like, this is, this is terrible. But I, I used to be really good at waking up over early. Like I'd wake up at four or five and that was great. And I was good. And I've got out of that habit.

And now to the point where I have to look, if I've got something in at nine, I've gotta set an alarm for like seven to make sure I'm awake. I dunno whether it was Christmas. Lying in. I don't know what it was. But anyway, so yeah, so every night I double check what tomorrow holds, what meetings I've got, and every morning when I plan my day, I obviously put in my meetings that day.

So the, the final thing I got 'em to do was to have a look at what they've got coming up so they could stay focused. Note down what went well that week that we've just had, what didn't go so well. Were there places where you were distracted? Were there tasks that took longer? Like I said, the only way we're gonna improve is to measure what we're doing and learn from it.

So like I said, planning the following week coming up is always something I do as well. So as always, these episodes are now gonna be kind of short and sweet just for you to kind of take something in. Hopefully I'll give you something. I'd really love some feedback from you guys.

I'd really like to know what is it you want me to talk about? I am always. I love talking about the mindset stuff and I love talking about the slightly kind of woo stuff, although I did say, I wasn't gonna say that word, but I really struggled to find another word for it. Um, But do you want more practical things?

Do you wanna a mix of both? I'd really love to hear what you think. Anyway, that's it for today. Hopefully you will now have a very productive week. If you do something particularly brilliant that helps your productivity, please let me know. I would really love to hear from you. I love hearing from you. The, one of the things that brings me joy is community and hearing from people and connecting with people.

So if you've never dropped into my dms or commented on a thing, please do so. I'd love to hear from you. Okay. Have the most wonderful week, and I will see you next week.