How To Triple Your Productivity

To say I’m obsessed with productivity and time-ROI is probably an understatement. For as long as I can remember I’ve been fascinated with the art and discipline of goal setting. Over the last 10 years I’ve probably tried every system there is. And none of them worked. So I decided to build my own hybrid approach which I’ve been using since 2011.

There are thousands of articles that talk about the impact of goal setting so I’m not going to go there. What I do know, though, is there’s no one-size-fits-all approach. By hacking together the best approaches from various systems and mentors, I’ve created something that I would estimate has helped me to be 10x more productive over the last 4 or so years.

I take it to the extreme, though, so I’d say you can at least  triple your productivity by following this simple system at the start of each week.

What do I mean by productive? I mean getting more leverage from the resources I have and accomplishing more while exerting less personal effort. I mean defining a clear roadmap for the next 12 months that’s balanced across the important areas of life: health, business, relationships and contribution. I mean knowing what to say yes to — not because it sounds interesting, but because what you say yes to is in context and part of the roadmap you’ve defined for the coming year.

Before any goal setting or productivity system will work, though, you’ve got to have the right people on your team. That means the right leaders (if you own a company), etc. Fix your people problems first otherwise they’ll slow you down massively. That lesson is hard to learn but easy to give.

So the system I’ve been using for a while is pretty basic and there are 4 parts. Basically it will make you outcome focused so you stop doing stuff just to be busy.

1 — Goals categorized by area of focus

Every year starting on December 1st, I spend about a month brainstorming goals for the different areas of my life. I scribble those goals down — even if they aren’t clearly defined yet. I come back to them whenever a new goal comes to mind and add it to the unsorted, messy list.

Once the list is finished, the goals are moved into areas of focus that are important to me. Those areas are:

After you move your goals into the areas of focus, you prioritize them. Most important goals at the top of the list, least important at the bottom. Easy.

2–12 month timeline

The next step is to use something like Google Docs, Photoshop or Trello to create a horizontal timeline of the calendar year. You then go about roughly placing your goals across various months of the year — about where you’d expect to complete that goal.

For example, if you plan to hire a head of marketing early next year, put that goal in February. If you plan to take a trip to Japan later in the year, place that goal in October.

After you’ve placed all of your goals on the timeline.

As you progress every week, you move the green bar across the timeline to represent where you currently are in the year. As you achieve your goals, you grey them out.

You might think it’s weird to position your goals on a timeline like this, but it’s incredible what it does to your subconscious mind. By writing something down and giving it a completion date, you find your goals are almost automatically completed within a few days of that date.

Your brain works behind the scenes to figure out the resources, team, advisors, communication, planning, etc you need to get something done.

3 — Draft look back statement

You can’t predict the future. Or can you?

Once I’ve laid out my goals on the timeline, I then write a 2–3 page look back statement. I start by asking myself this simple question:

Why do this? It comes back to your subconscious mind. The power of writing something down can’t be underestimated. If you’re a visual learner, the timeline locks the goals in your head. If you’re an audible or kinesthetic learner, the look back statement locks the goals in your head.

So how do you write a look back statement? Organize your list of goals not by area of focus but by overall priority. Start at the top of the list with the most important goal you will achieve next year and work your way down.

Then just write a paragraph describing what achieving that goal means for you today(remember, you’re standing a year in the future from now) and why achieving it was so important for your life.

You must write these paragraphs in past tense, as in, you’ve already achieved them. This is another way to trick your brain and subconscious mind. Your brain has no idea if what you’re telling it is true or not and it assumes everything you say is true and works to make it so.

This has been proven over and over again by science.

4 — Wheel of life

I’ve borrowed the wheel of life from Tony Robbins. It’s a simple construct that helps you grade each area of focus every week. For areas where you grade yourself low (on a scale of 1 to 10), you dedicate some time and focus to boost your rating — say from a 4/10 to a 7/10.

Your wheel of life is structured as a circle and the areas you want to focus on are included as spokes on the circle, like this (click to see a larger version):

Areas you’re doing well in get a rating of 8, 9 or 10. Areas where you’re doing OK get a 5, 6 or 7. Areas where you’re struggling get a rating of 1, 2, 3 or 4.

The analogy Tony uses for the wheel of life is a tire on a car. If you look at how you connect each of the spokes on the wheel — and if that were a tire on a car — how would the car drive?

A high performance tire is round, so if you look at the example wheel of life above, you’ll see that the spokes are connected with lines that are jagged. If this was a tire on a car, the car would barely drive.

And that’s the idea. You need a focused approach to all of the areas of you life that are important to create a well-rounded tire. If you rate your business progress a 10 and family a 2 then your wheel will be off — and your car (your life) won’t drive (function) well.

See the 3 highlighted areas of focus in yellow? Those are the 3 areas you choose to focus your efforts on over the coming week. Generally you choose the 3 areas where you’ve self-rated the lowest.

You then take those areas and look at which of your goals you can work on in the coming week to drive those ratings up.

In the example wheel of life, those areas of focus are:

1. Business
2. Learning
3. Health

To improve each of those, you’d look at your goals timeline (part 2) and pencil time in your calendar to work on progressing towards the goals you’ve selected. It’s OK to add new goals to your list if you need to as well. The idea is that a system is just a system. It’s there to provide structure and to support you, but it’s not set in stone.

You should review all 4 parts of the system at least once a week and pencil that time into your calendar as a recurring event. I like Sunday afternoons or Monday mornings for an hour.

Once you’ve decided what you’ll focus on for the week, make sure you block out that time in your calendar as well. It’s a forced discipline that lets you “set and forget” so you end up with at least 50% (ideally 70%) of your awake time accounted for. And that’s the time where you’re making progress on the goals you’ve decided are important to you.

That’s it

It’s a pretty simple system that works. The idea is that your yearly goals define your quarterly focus which defines your monthly and weekly priorities which are what you work on to improve the areas of focus that are important to you.

I don’t believe you can be happy when most of your areas of focus aren’t performing well. With this system, you’re forced to give attention to the things you’ve decided matter to you, so it keeps you progressing on all fronts throughout the year.

Like all systems though, it only works if you stick with it. Once I came up with the system it took me a few weeks to get used to it, but now I can’t live without it.

I don’t think it’s a great system if you’re planning incremental gains in your life next year. For those, you can use Clear, Omnifocus, Google Tasks or some other basic system. But if you want to 10x your productivity, goals and progress then maybe give it a shot and see how you like it.

P.S. If you liked this post then you’ll like my books as well. You can get them on Amazon.

How To Build a Blueprint for Success

P.S. If you liked this post then you’ll like my books as well. You can get them on Amazon.

The Tao of Making Money

Tao means Way. The Tao of Making Money is the Way of Making Money. What natural principles does making money follow?

Making money is part of nature, and struggle is a symptom that you are out of harmony with the flow of nature, how things work. The word prosperity originally meant “to be in the flow”.

I would like you to grasp something simple yet elusive to many.

First, let us hear a few words from the wise and successful, and then we can move on to the Tao of Making Money:

“To live through an impossible situation, you don’t need the reflexes of a Grand Prix driver, the muscles of a Hercules, the mind of an Einstein. You simply need to know what to do.” –Anthony Greenbank

“It is not because things are difficult that we do not dare; it is because we do not dare that they are difficult.” –Seneca

“The world is not to be put in order; the world is order, incarnate. It is for us to harmonize with this order.” –Henry Miller

“If we do not know what port we’re steering for, no wind is favorable.” –Seneca

“There is a science of getting rich, and it is an exact science, like algebra or arithmetic. There are certain laws which govern the process of acquiring riches, and once these laws are learned and obeyed by anyone, that person will get rich with mathematical certainty.” –Wallace D. Wattles

“The reality of life is that your perceptions – right or wrong – influence everything else you do. When you get a proper perspective of your perceptions, you may be surprised how many other things fall into place.” –Roger Birkman

“Our life is what our thoughts make it.” –Marcus Aelius Aurelius Antoninus (121-180), Roman emperor and Stoic philosopher.

“What saves a man is to take a step. Then another step.” –Antoine De Saint-Exupery

“Vision is not enough unless combined with venture. It is not enough to stare up the steps unless we also step up the stairs.” –Vance Havner

“Nothing comes from doing nothing.” –William Shakespeare

“To your subconscious mind the solutions to your problems of poverty is to become rich, but it is logically invalid for it to pursue this course of action if it has been told that it will make you a bad person.” –Simon Hall

“To be ambitious for wealth and yet expecting to be poor; to be always doubting your ability to get what you long for, is like trying to reach east by traveling west. There is no philosophy which will help man to succeed when he is always doubting his ability to do so, and thus attracting failure.” –Charles Bandouin

Do you see a pattern there? Well, I will spell it out for you. Here, then, is the Tao of Making Money:

Wealth Consciousness + Mindset + Strategies + Action = Great Wealth Guaranteed

To understand it, let us look at it backwards.

The result you want is wealth

Your results always follow your actions (and beliefs). If you don’t get into a car and drive to London, you will stay where you are. If you don’t get off the couch, you will stay on the couch. Simple: the result is the child of the action.

Your actions follow your beliefs. You cannot act outside of what you believe. Have you noticed that?

Your beliefs are simply thoughts that you think over and over again (mindset). And your thoughts can be organized into a system that works (a strategy). And a strategy can be learnt; all you need is to be exposed to it to come from not knowing to knowing.

Most importantly, your thoughts arise from your state of being (consciousness).

When you are happy, you have happy thoughts and you feel happy. When you are sad, you have sad thoughts and you feel sad. State comes first, followed by thought and then the corresponding emotion. You may not know it, but you always choose your state; it just doesn’t happen randomly (maybe unconsciously, but not randomly, and you will learn how to make the unconscious conscious).

A state of being that believes in abundance, infinity, possibility, openness, flow, and so on, is a state of wealth consciousness. If you have a lack consciousness state of being as your predominant one, you cannot make wealth. It defies natural law and hence it is impossible. In fact, if you don’t have wealth consciousness, you will not even believe or perceive opportunities to make money even if they are staring at you right in your face (you wouldn’t know money if it hit you in the face).

You must first create within you a state of wealth consciousness. This must be your primary mission.

Your subconscious mind (the storehouse of your beliefs) controls almost everything about you. For example, it controls your autonomic nervous system. What is that? Here is what the Microsoft Encarta encyclopedia says: “Autonomic Nervous System, in vertebrate anatomy, one of the two main divisions of the nervous system, supplying impulses to the body’s heart muscles, smooth muscles, and glands. The autonomic system controls the action of the glands; the functions of the respiratory, circulatory, digestive, and urogenital systems; and the involuntary muscles in these systems and in the skin. Controlled by nerve centers in the lower part of the brain, the system also has a reciprocal effect on the internal secretions, being controlled to some degree by the hormones and exercising some control, in turn, on hormone production.”

Which all means that your hormones, energy levels, actions and so forth are controlled by the subconscious mind. If you have told yourself that you are clumsy, the subconscious will work with your hormones, motor skills, and so on and make you act, move and talk stupid. If you have told yourself that you don’t fit in social situations, you will find yourself standing in the corner not fitting. Whatever you say, boss. Your subconscious is like a computer. Whatever you program into it, it makes happen. No questions asked. You are the boss, and whatever you say, happens.

Your imagination, your thoughts, what you perceive, what you don’t perceive, what you see and what you miss, how you act, what you feel… these are all determined by one thing: your programming, what you repetitively tell yourself (and what you repetitively got told or observed during your youthful formation years).

So how do you take the quantum leap, how do you step out of the box of your own thoughts and see beyond it. How do you program yourself for success? Well, the same way you create all programming: practice. Repetition. You have to not only find what works positively for you, but you have to practice that new positive way over and over until it becomes part of you. Positive thinking and self-help advice will not work unless you make it permanent for you by practicing it over and over. Your entire physiology has to be rewired; your neural pathways (which create pattern and memory) have to be redrawn. All this happens by practice.

Repetition. Repetition. Repetition. Practice. Then one day, like with everything else you ever learnt through practice, you just find yourself automatically doing it! It becomes you! Take right action – repeatedly! Learn and practice right thought repeatedly!

P.S. If you liked this post then you’ll like my books as well. You can get them on Amazon.

We all want abundance in some form or another, whether it is wealth in the monetary sense to being richly blessed with meaningful relationships or even to achieve self-mastery — the wealth of spirit.

In this past decade, and, even prior to that, we have been introduced to the idea of the Law of Attraction with popular books such as The Secret and the Jerry and Esther Hicks series, just to name a few.

So Why Is It Still Hard To Manifest Our Desires?

We hear catch phrases like ‘Be in the Flow’ but what does that practically mean to you? How can you step into this flow and apply it to your situation or reality? Wishful thinking just isn’t cutting it for some. Here are some fundamental reasons why it may not be working for you:

1. PATIENCE

I have to get this one out of the way first because it is a simple yet integral principle when you are applying deliberate manifestation. You need to learn the art of patience. Think of a seed — it gets planted but it still needs time, rich nutrient and mineral-based soil, sunshine and water to blossom into its full growth potential. Any hint of doubt (or drought, in the case of our seed) will hamper its chances of reaching the surface and begin its graceful climb towards fruition.

2. ACTION

Once you have ascertained what you do want to create in your life, have you taken the necessary steps to get the wheel in motion? If you think that ‘couch manifesting’ is going to take care of everything, let me tell you now — it isn’t. You need to actively participate in bringing about your desire. Set yourself realistic goals and hold yourself accountable to them.

3. MINDSET

The world is full of abundance and opportunity, but far too many people come to the fountain of life with a sieve instead of a tank car… a teaspoon instead of a steam shovel. They expect little and as a result they get little. ~ Ben Sweetland

If you are having thoughts of lack about what you want to see in your life then that is what you are calling into existence. This is like wanting to lose weight but only concentrating on all the most fattening foodstuffs — this kind of thought-stream is counter-productive. Instead of thinking the worst, think about the way you will feel when it does come into your life. How will it change your life? Does it feel good when you are in that space of living out your fantasy? If the answer is yes, then that is the emotion or feeling that you need to fertilize, in your mind, whenever you are practicing co-creation.

4. VIBRATION

As I addressed in the last point, when you truly allow yourself to feel the desired outcome emotion, it enhances your power to manifest tenfold. Think of ‘the thought’ as the key in your ignition; ‘The action’ is the spark that ignites the engine and ‘the feeling’ or emotion behind the thought is the gas that gets it all going — the driving force.

5. ALIGNMENT

Abundance is not something we acquire. It is something we tune into. ~ Wayne Dyer

You need to regularly align to what it is you want. Set yourself that weekly goal and check in with yourself. Has this week seen you get any closer to what you want? If not, why not — what could you have done differently? Sometimes we have to assess that what we are trying to manifest is still truly what we want. If you change your mind then that is fine, just don’t kid yourself. If you change midstream to another outcome it is better than plodding along with a manifestation that you are now uncertain about. Your emotional potency will also be lacking if it is not what you want anymore, so, as the old adage goes, it will be like breaking wind against thunder.

What Can I Do To Bring Abundance Into My Life Now?

Well, now that the blockages have been outlined, let’s take a look at what you can do in this moment and in the near future to bring about the expediency of your manifest will.

The energy behind any deed needs to be from your genuine source. Any fake or compromised gestures will be meaningless in the pursuit of true abundant living.
Metaphorically this is like taking a flat battery and expecting it to work in your camera. What goes around comes around, the intent you put out into the universe will come back to you, so, if you are handing out ’empty’ words or actions, your boomerang effect will be just as hollow and meaningless. Acting with true integrity is the key to manifesting the life of your dreams.

6. TOKENS OF UNCONDITIONAL LOVE

Life in abundance comes only through great love. ~ Elbert Hubbard

When you visit someone or just bump into them, bestow a gift upon them. This could be a silent blessing, well-wish, compliment (make sure it is genuine), a heart-felt hug, a flower or a small gift. With this action you are giving freely. Do not expect anything in return, that will be taken care of energetically in a way that you may only come to realize when it happens.

7. GRATITUDE

Whatever we are waiting for – peace of mind, contentment, grace, the inner awareness of simple abundance – it will surely come to us, but only when we are ready to receive it with an open and grateful heart. ~ Sarah Ban Breathnach

List all the things that you have in your life now that you are most thankful for. This could be from the smallest thing to the largest thing. For example, you may feel immense joy sitting in your garden — give thanks for that. You may have a pantry full of food and a roof over your head — give thanks for that, and so the gratitude ball starts rolling and we start to have a clear insight as to how much abundance already exists in the present. When you start this exercise, you will find more and more things that you can be grateful for from the air that you freely breathe to the limbs that operate at your will. It is a truly eye-opening experience for those who think they are lacking in some way or another.

But Why Should This Work?

The reason why this does work is because the more elated you feel about your current situation, the more joy you are injecting into your energetic field. This doesn’t just get lost in space, it is a frequency that you are emitting outwards and it is going to be matched.

This is how our lives really work in the subtle field of energy. Your energetic signature or emotional frequency is what you are setting yourself up to attract. You are like a magnet, attracting that to you which you are putting out via your emotions or feelings. This is why it is imperative that your thoughts are steered towards being more positive, which will then allow your feelings to be in alignment with what you do want.

You cannot bring into your experience joy if all you are feeling is sadness. You cannot be wealthy if all you feel is lack. These are basic principles that, unfortunately, too often get overlooked when we try to view our own lives and how they are turning out. It is often hard to face the truth that what you put in, you get out. But if you are to make any headway in this life, you need to face the core truth of what you are creating consciously or even subconsciously. This is actually good news!

Always Look On The Bright Side Of Life

Life isn’t going to just randomly happen to you anymore — you are always in full control of your life and can guide it in any direction you choose. You always have a choice, never forget that — our freewill is our greatest asset.

This isn’t to say that your life is going to be all cotton-socks and pink roses — you may very well have your fair share of everyday mishaps. What will change is how you perceive these obstacles and what you choose to do with them. The world isn’t going to change, it is how you view it that will make the change you desire.

Put into this world what you wish to get out and you will be in the flow. You will be in the driver’s seat steering your life into abundance.

P.S. If you liked this post then you’ll like my books as well. You can get them on Amazon.