Productivity “hack” (counter-intuitive)

My friends, today we change the topic. 🙂 No more GDPR stuff.

Today, I want to talk a bit about how I run my schedule and my business. And about priorities.

Some people worship the “hustle”. They’ll brag about the long hours they work and act like they’re better than everybody else because they are “taking massive action”. That phrase always cracks me up, BTW. 🙂

Me? I take action. But, I know what’s important to me. And I know taking action on everything… is stupid.

See, here’s the thing…

We often think about productivity as various ways to get things done quickly and efficiently in the least possible time. Right?

It’s about checking off those to-do’s.

What if we could also address it by moving a little further upstream?

What if… we just didn’t put that to-do onto our to-do list in the first place?

See, productivity isn’t always about how to get the most done in the least time. Productivity is often about deciding what does – and does NOT – show up on your to-do list.

A big part of productivity is knowing what NOT to bother worrying about.

Like many online entrepreneurs (and perhaps yourself, too)… I take my business seriously. I take my customers seriously and I’m here to serve my Lab members as best I can. It is a top priority.

At the same time, tho, I’m not here to serve my business. My business is here to serve me.

I’m big on “lifestyle design”. My goal, in essence, is to be able to do what I want, when I want, where I want, and not have to worry about money. Now, that money part is easily the part we focus on. And some people make the quest for more money the main thing to the point where they’re willing to do almost anything to make it happen. Even working 16-18 hour days.

But, that’s not what I want. I want to go camping alot. Travel with my family. And I will say “no” to things in my business if it takes away from that. I’ve done it many, many times. Even if I know full well that it’d make me more money, I’ll say no if it hurts my time and location flexibility.

Saying NO is important for productivity. It is like knocking an item off your to-do list by not even doing it.

Tomorrow, I want to talk a bit about priorities and re-evaluating the things you’re working on. For me, it’s pretty liberating.

But, for now…

Take stock in the things on your “to do” list. Even the stuff on your future to-do list. I mean, we all have ideas for things we’ll do later. Especially in this blogging and online marketing space, it is hard NOT to come up with a ton of great ideas you could implement with your own website, right? So, take those into account, too.

And I’ll see ya tomorrow. 🙂

– David