The one thing I get asked ALL the time is…..⁠⠀

“How do you get so much done?”⁠⠀

So to kick off the #ocpodcast I rapid-fired my Top 5 Productivity Hacks.⁠⠀

For me, productivity isn’t driven by the need to get more done. It’s actually just about being more efficient and mindful of the time I spend working on my business so that I’ve got plenty of time to do the things that I really love outside of the business.⁠⠀

I’d much prefer to spend my time on long hikes, ocean swims and exploring new places that sitting behind a screen.⁠⠀

Let’s dive in….

 

Here’s what we cover:

• The ONE thing I do every day to make sure I can be my most productive
• The productivity habit that the best entrepreneurs I know ALL use
• How eating the frog for breakfast will having you powering through the tasks you’re avoiding
• How to dismiss your biggest distractions

 

Links and resources:

• Be sure that you’re subscribed on Apple Podcasts or Spotify so you don’t miss an episode!
• If you’re keen for more head over to my other podcast One Wild Ride for a listen
• Ready to launch & leverage your own gig? Download my free guide to starting and scaling your business over at theownerscollective.com/startandscale

 

Enjoy this episode?

Be sure to be subscribed on Apple Podcasts or if you’re an Android user you can follow on Spotify. While you’re there, I’d LOVE you to drop me a rating and review, as is helps get this podcast into the ears of more fine folks like you.

 

Full Transcript

Right off the bat, I run a really lean business model. I don’t have tonnes of staff. I like to keep my overheads low and my responsibilities to a minimum. So what this means, is that I need to be super efficient with my time and with my energy.

For me, productivity isn’t driven by the need to get more done. It’s actually just about being more efficient and mindful of the time I spend working on my business so that I’ve got plenty of time to do the things that I really love outside of the business, long hikes, ocean swims, gardening and traveling. The last thing that I want is to be stuck behind a computer screen all day and night.

So these are my top five productivity hacks, the ones that I use every day and every week. They’re super simple and super effective for working in and on your business.

 

1. Write your list ‘to do’ the night before.

This does two of really important things.

First and foremost, it empties your subconscious of your task list. Most of our brain activity is happening in our subconscious, and it’s the subconscious’ job is to keep you safe, to keep you out of danger, and to keep you alive. So, it retains all of this information that we store up over days, weeks, months, and years.

Now, if you run a business, you know that there are hundreds of things to get done every single day. So your subconscious is collecting all of those little things and storing them up. If you don’t have a process to get these things out of your subconscious, what is going to happen is at three o’clock in the morning, you’re going to get that ping that you forgot to send that email or you didn’t get that thing to a member or you didn’t hang the washing out, you forgot to get the milk. This is your subconscious getting the space to release that task list.

So if you sit down and actually write your list at the end of your working day, what you’re doing is you’re taking all of those tasks out of your subconscious and putting them out onto a page.

Essentially, what your subconscious does then is, it knows that you’re safe. It knows that those things have now been recorded and then it can relax a little bit. And when your subconscious relaxes, you’ll have a nice thorough and deep night sleep.

Secondly, when you sit down at your desk first thing in the morning, you’re ready to go. You’re not going to sit there shuffling around your paperwork or your to do list or Asana, you’re actually just going to sit down and you know exactly where you’re going to start.

This is going to save you 20 minutes at the top of your day.

 

2. Get one thing done ON your business, before opening your email

If you get just one important thing done on your business, each of your working days, that is a huge amount of things that get done on your business every single year.

At the start of a working day, you’re in a very proactive state and that’s where you want to stay. So whatever’s on top of that list, that’s the one thing that is going to move the needle on your business and make sure that things are moving and shaking and happening in the direction that you want them to happen, right?

What I can promise you is as soon as you open your email or you open your social media, you’re completely reactive. Whether that’s to clients, to customers, to team members. As soon as you open that email, you are in a reactive state and all of a sudden you’re on everyone else’s time.

So for me, that one thing might be around writing a blog or recording a podcast or mapping out a new area of a program that I want to deliver. I find it most productive to do creative things first thing in the morning. My creativity, my focus, my drive is really high in the morning and tapers off in the afternoon. So I know for me that is prime time, that’s when I want to get this stuff done.

 

3. Eat the frog for breakfast.

Essentially, if you’ve got something that you don’t want to do, get it done early. Don’t leave it hanging around until the end of the day, just putting it off and putting it off, because it will sit like a monkey on your shoulders and you can’t shake that energy all day.

 

4. Dedicate one day a week to working ON your business.

Ideally, this is a full day per week. If you can only manage a few hours, start there.

I remember the first time I heard this advice and I was like, “A day a week?” I didn’t even have an hour a week to myself. How could I implement a day a week? But just start where you’re at. That might be two hours a week, progressing up to half a day and working up to that full day.

Of all the entrepreneurs, and early-stage entrepreneurs that I’ve worked with, the ones that grow their businesses the fastest are the ones that implement this full day a week working ON their business. Now to give you an idea of what you could be doing on those days, anything from creating content, working on your marketing, streamlining your systems, setting up collaborations.

On this day you should NOT be doing client work. If you’re in a product-based business, it’s not about sending out orders. So typically it’s going to fall into the realm of marketing or systems. And it’s nice to balance those two out as well. So to spend some of the time working on your business on the external front-facing stuff as in your marketing and then sometimes on the back end. So is there a system that you need to implement or one that you need to streamline? So look back and front in your business.

 

5. Switch all of your notifications off.

To stay in a proactive state you need to switch those notifications off, from your phone and your desktop.

Most importantly, delete the email app off your phone. We spend plenty of time on our desktop, and no one is going to burst into flames if you don’t get that email. It powerfully leaves work so that it doesn’t follow you around in your pocket.