Get

Stuff Done: How To Focus, Be More Productive,

Overcome Procrastination, and Master Concentration

By D. Mann

Table of Contents

Get Stuff Done: How To Focus, Be More Productive, Overcome Procrastination, and
Master Concentration
Table of Contents
Introduction
Chapter 1: Doing More with Less
Chapter 2: Task Batching
Chapter 3: Think Your Way to Productivity
Chapter 4: Lifestyle Hacks That Skyrocket Productivity
Chapter 5: Dont Be a Perfectionist
Chapter 6: The Productivity Battle Plan
Chapter 7: Habits to be Productive on Autopilot
Chapter 8: Hidden Hours
Conclusion

Introduction

Most people fail to reach their full potential. Not because they are unintelligent. Not because
they lack vision. Not because they were born to the wrong family or worship the wrong god.

Most people fail to reach their full potential because they struggle to do what is necessary. They
struggle to find the time. When they do find the time, they struggle to get as much done as they would
have liked to. They find themselves struggling to get much done. They feel like they are incredibly
busy, but at the same time, they feel that they do not get anything done.

They feel like a person who does not know how to swim. Theyre in the pool, splashing and

struggling to stay afloat, expending huge amounts of energy.

Then they look to their right and see someone glide past effortlessly, sailing along the top of the
pool with each simple stroke of their arm.

Most people feel that they are incredibly busy. They expend lots of energy. Yet, they achieve
very little. They wish that they could achieve more with less, just like the swimmer who seemingly
sailed effortlessly by.

Society has convinced us all that the key to success is hard work. That our schedules must
always be full, that we must hold countless unnecessary meetings, and we must always be checking
our email and busying ourselves at our computers. We feel we need to always seem busy, even if we
are not actually getting anything done.

While hard work is certainly an important ingredient for success, it is not the be all end all.
Hard work, in and of itself, is useless.

You can work as hard as you like and be immensely busy, yet still achieve nothing. Just like the
person who did not know how to swim.

There is something else.

The key to success is not working hard, but working smart.

Furthermore, put those two together work hard while working smart you have a lethally
effective combination.

You go from flailing around in the pool (working hard), to being able to swim effectively
(working smart), to winning gold medals at the Olympics (working hard and working smart).

And that is exactly what this book strives to do. To help you go from exhausting yourself
without getting much (if anything!) done, to calmly and effectively having your actions summon
results. To get things done. To Get Stuff Done . Even if it seems impossible. Even if you feel you lack
the motivation necessary.

Life is nothing more than a collection of moments. Seconds, minutes, and hours are the
foundation of our life.

As Bruce Lee said:

If you love life, dont waste time, for time is what life is made up of.

This book explores the research and science behind productivity. Countless studies are
examined to help you maximise every minute. Scientific papers are discussed that reveal the key to
motivation. In depth examples enable you to apply these secrets and get more done than you could
ever imagine.

Bruce Lee said that time is life. The result, as Peter Drucker said, is this:

Until we can manage time, we can manage nothing else.

Learning to manage ones time, learning to maximise productivity, learning how to Get Stuff
Done , is one of the single most important life skills one can have. Everything else will fall into place.
You will be able to do and achieve anything you want.

How can we overcome procrastination? For, as Benjamin Franklin said:

You may delay, but time will not.

How can we maximise our productivity?

How can we not only get ourselves motivated, but work smart?

Lets take a look.

Chapter 1: Doing More with Less

Improved productivity means less human sweat, not more.

Henry Ford

Most people consider endless to-do lists and full calendars to be certain signs of productivity.

This notion, however, is wrong.

A better sign of productivity is barren calendars and a complete lack of to-do lists.

Sound radically counterintuitive?

Heres why.

How to Get More Done by Working Less

Its not always that we need to do more but rather that we need to focus on less.
Nathan W. Morris

In 1896, a man named Vilfredo Pareto published a paper. Pareto was an Italian economist. What
this obscure Italian academic paper contained within its pages rocked the world of business to its very
core.

Pareto noted his observation that at that point in time in Italy, 80 percent of Italian land was
owned by only 20 percent of the population. This became known as the Pareto principle, a principle
which he initially developed when he noticed that 20 percent of the peapods in his garden contained
80 percent of the peas.

More recently, this principle has been revived as the 80/20 rule.

Business all around the globe began to notice that the 80/20 rule had implications outside of
Paretos pea garden. Many were astounded to find that 80 percent of their sales came from just 20
percent of their customers.

Likewise, productivity consultants began to notice that Paretos principle provided an

astoundingly accurate analysis of their work, too:

20 percent of people's effort results in 80 percent of their results.

On the other hand, 80 percent of peoples effort results in but 20 percent of their results.

Which efforts would you rather devote time to?

Furthermore, people began to notice that the Pareto principle was true within itself! In other
words, the top 20 percent of 20 percent yielded 80 percent of the 80 percent. Not only was it the 80/20
rule, but you could apply it within itself and get 4/64 rule. In other words, the top 4 percent of your
effort results in 64 percent of your results!

4 percent of customers account for 64 percent of a business sales. Or, in Paretos case, 4
percent of Italians owned 64 percent of the land.

And, of course, you can continue this again and again.

0.8 percent can account for 51.2 percent. More than half of ones results come from less than 1
percent of their effort.

That is truly astounding.

So how can you apply this to your own life?

Well, lets take a look at a few companies that have taken the 80/20 rule to extremes.

First up is Alibaba. If you havent heard of them, they are the worlds most valuable retailer,
valued in the hundreds of billions. Alibabas founder is the richest man in all of Asia.

So how has Alibaba applied the 80/20 rule to achieve the success that they have.

Well, Alibaba determined that one little tiny thing that leads to the majority of the results. The
51.2/0.8 rule, if you will.

So what was that one thing?

Was it manufacturing the product? Nope.

Was it shipping the product? Nope.

Was it describing the product to potential customers? Nope.

Was it coming up with the idea for the product? Nope.

In the retail industry, that one little tiny thing that leads to the vast majority of the results is the
sale itself. When you actually sell the product. When the customer gives you the money. When you
make the sale.

So Alibaba decide to ignore absolutely everything else, and focus on this one little thing.

Some might even call Alibaba lazy. Alibaba doesnt post the product. They dont manufacture
the product. They dont come up with the idea for the product. They dont list the information about
the product or take photos of the product.

They dont do any of that. They just focus on selling.

Alibaba is little more than a basic website. Product manufacturers and factory owners can put
their product and services for sale on Alibaba. Small business owners and entrepreneurs who would
like to buy in bulk or have something custom manufactured browse Alibaba and buy.

Thats it.

The manufacturer comes up with the ideas and produces the products. The customers pay for
postage and arrange shipping. Alibaba doesnt own any retail stores, fleets of delivery trucks, or
factories.

Alibaba does not do anything apart from one thing. Nothing.

Alibaba just makes the sale. That is it.

And now that basic website that doesnt really do anything except make the sale is worth
$200 billion. The guy who made it is the single richest person in all of Asia.

Following Alibabas lead, other companies have applied this 80/20 logic to their industries as
well. In fact, the two most valuable startups in Silicon Valley do just that.

Uber and Airbnb.

Uber is the worlds largest taxi company. But, guess what they dont own a single damn taxi.

Airbnb is the worlds largest accommodation provider. But you guessed it they dont own
any real estate.

With Uber, drivers use their own cars to transport people.

With Airbnb, people can rent out their own accommodation, whether that be a spare bedroom or
beach villa.

Uber and Airbnb realised that there is no profit in owning a taxi themselves or owning their
own massive hotel chain. They just focus on that tiny little bit that brings in all of the profits. They
ignore everything else.

Even McDonalds and Donald Trump have exploited the 80/20 rule.

You know all those McDonalds restaurants you see? They actually are not owned by
McDonalds. After all, the profit doesnt come from owning the actual store. The profit comes from
their food and brand. McDonalds just franchises the stores. Other people build them. Other people
make the burgers. McDonalds simply allows them to chuck a big yellow M out the front and tells
them how to make the burgers.

For basically doing nothing, they take a nice big percentage of the profits. They focus on that
one little tiny bit that matters most. That one little bit where they make the most money with the least
effort.

Likewise, you see all those buildings with Trump written on them? Donald Trump didnt build
those. The money doesnt come from building the buildings. Like McDonalds, Trump knows that the
one little tiny bit of his business that is responsible for most of the profits is the Trump brand. So
Donald Trump merely lets other people design and build the buildings, and pay him tens (if not
hundreds) of millions for allowing them to use the Trump brand.

In his Presidential campaign (this book was written before the general election in the United
States), Donald Trump appears to putting the exact same logic to work, and to much success. In his
run for President, what did Donald Trump determine was the 20 percent that gave 80 percent of
results? The media. National television, newspapers, news websites, and so on. Outlets that put Donald
Trump in front of hundreds of millions of people every day. And so, Trump focused ruthlessly on
just that, stirring up immense media storms, ending up with him getting many times more coverage
than all of the other candidates running for President.

Successful people and companies such as Alibaba, Uber, Airbnb, McDonalds, and Donald
Trump focus ruthlessly only on the things that have the highest return for the least effort.

They take the 80/20 to extreme.

They spend all of their time working on the 20 percent that gives 80 percent of the results. Or, in
more extreme cases, the less than one percent that leads to more than half of all the results.

And what happens when they begin to put all of their effort into that 20 percent? Or 4 percent?
Or 0.8 percent?

They end up with a valuation exceeding $200 billion, like Alibaba. They end up being the most
successful startups in Silicon Valley, with valuations in the tens of billions, like Uber and Airbnb.
They end up with restaurants across the globe raking in tens of billions of dollars, like McDonalds.
They end up with massive buildings, hotels and skyscrapers across the country like Donald Trump.

They focus all of their time on only the most important activities/activity.

As Stephen Covey said:

The key is not to prioritize whats on your schedule, but to schedule your priorities.

If it is not absolutely necessary, get rid of it. It it is not essential, take it off your to do list.

Dont worry about being too extreme.

After all, Donald Trump is a real estate developer who doesnt even develop any real estate.

McDonalds is a fast-food outlet that doesnt even own any outlets.

Uber is a taxi company that doesnt even own a single taxi.

Airbnb is an accommodation provider that doesnt even own any accommodation.

Alibaba is a $200 billion retailer that doesnt even own any inventory or retail anything.

How to Get More Done Using the Power of One

Focus on being productive instead of busy.

Tim Ferriss

Most people have a ginormous to-do list. It never gets done. They might knock off a few things
here and there, but at the end of the day they havent really achieved anything. They feel as if they
have been super busy while getting very little done.

It is frustrating.

However, there is a solution.

Focus on just one thing each day. ONE.

Not just any one thing, but the most important thing. The thing that will truly move you toward
your goal.

That doesnt mean do one thing as in take a single breath and call it days work.

It means focus only on completing a single task.

Dont plan on writing a little bit of an essay, and then working a bit on a PowerPoint
presentation and then working a bit on making some desserts for a family gathering you have on the
weekend and then planning on reading a bit of that famous biography youve always been meaning to
read.

We all know how a day like that ends up. You dont get a single thing done.

You feel like youve been busy all day, but you end up having completed nothing. You feel like
youve done lots, but when you look back, youve actually done very little.

Instead, focus on just one thing. Focus on the most important thing. Focus on the thing that will
move you toward your goal.

In this example, that might be the essay. Rather than briefly work on lots of things, spend the
entire day working on the essay. Spend the day completing the essay.

At the end of the day, you will have accomplished something big, important, and worthwhile,
rather than briefly touched on lots and lots of little and comparatively useless things.

If you tried to focus on all of the things, you most likely would have ended up deciding what
topic your essay will be on, choosing a theme for your PowerPoint, buying some eggs for the
dessert, and reading the first 5 pages of that mammoth biography.

At the end of the day, despite having been incredibly busy, you havent really achieved anything.
You have done very little. You felt productive, yet failed to achieve anything.

As Peter Drucker said:

Efficiency is doing things right; effectiveness is doing the right things.

Or, as Greg McKeown said much more savagely:

You cannot overestimate the unimportance of practically everything.

In the larger scheme of things, you can choose one thing that you wish to achieve in life. That
one life goal. Just one. Your life mission. Other productivity experts call it the Someday goal. The
one thing that you want to do someday.

Then, set a five-year goal based on your someday goal. What is the one thing that you can do
in the next five years that will move you toward achieving your life goal?

Next, there is the one-year goal, which is based on your five-year goal. Whats the one thing that
you can do this year to help achieve your five-year goal?

This is then repeated for a monthly goal the one thing that can move you toward your oneyear goal.

Then again with a weekly goal, and then a daily goal.

That way, you can have a clear vision of what you want to achieve in life. Consequently, you can
differentiate the important from the unimportant. You can focus on that one thing that helps you
achieve your long-term goal.

For a university student or academic, their one thing for today might be to write that essay.

For a landlord, it might be to find a new tenant to fill their vacant property.

For a real estate developer, it might be to find the best construction company to build the set of
townhouses they plan on selling.

For a freelance journalist, it might be to write an amazing article and have it featured on a
popular online news site.

At the end of the day, all of these people would have gotten something super important done.
Rather than dabble around here and there, but not get much done, they actually get a big thing done
that helps move them toward their goals.

The student wrote their essay, the landlord got a new tenant, the developer found a great
construction company and the freelance journalist wrote their article and had it featured on a popular
news website.

They got important things done. They are taking big steps toward achieving their goals. They
also only focused on one thing that day.

As Jack Ma, Asias richest man and the founder of Alibaba, said:

If there are nine rabbits on the ground and you want to catch one, just focus on one.

If you try to catch all of the rabbits and chase them all at once, you will end up with zero rabbits.
Focus on just one rabbit, and youll succeed.

Its the same with productivity. Try to do many things and you shall see no results. Focus all
your effort one just one thing, and you shall succeed.

Why Multitasking Should be Called Task-Halving

Concentrate all your thoughts upon the work in hand. The suns rays do not burn until brought
to a focus.
Alexander Graham Bell

There is no such thing as multitasking. Multitasking does not exist.

The term multitasking is a misnomer. It is a scientifically proven fact that people cant do more
than one conscious task at a time. You cant read a book and write an essay at the same time. You cant
write your quarterly report and drive at the same time. Even for extraordinarily simple things, such as
walking and talking. One study found that people walking while talking on the phone were much
more likely to run into people, and much less likely to notice or remember something as unusual as a
clown riding a unicycle.

Rather, what we do is actually switch tasks. Multitasking is task-switching. And research has
shown that it leads to a 40 percent efficiency loss.

40 percent!

As the American Psychological Association reported:

Shifting between tasks can cost as much as 40 percent of someones productive time.

Thats almost half. In other words, if youre multitasking all day, the work that youve done
could have all been done before lunch, if only youd focused on them one at a time.

By multitasking, you halve the amount of work you do. Youre task-halving.

Science shows that it takes much more time to get tasks finished if you switch between them than
if you do them one at a time. Furthermore, you make more errors. Not only that, but these time and
error penalties increase if the tasks are more complex.

Even more damning, a study showed that people distracted by incoming email and phone calls
saw their IQs decrease by 10 points. Thats the equivalent of losing a night of sleep. More than twice
the effect of smoking marijuana.

You can get fired for coming to work drunk or on drugs, but the same is not true of
multitasking which is twice as bad.

What You Need to Know About Willpower

Willpower is finite.

Psychologists Roy Baumeister and Dianne Tice at Case Western Reserve University researched
self-control and did a study on willpower.

In the paper, cited more than 3,000 times, they wrote, chocolate chip cookies were baked in the
room in a small oven. The result was the all of the studys participants could smell the strong aroma
of freshly baked chocolate chip cookies. Delicious.

Unfortunately for half of the studies participants, they had to eat from a bowl of red and white
radishes. Yuck. To add insult to injury, the bowl of radishes was right next to the cookies, which the
other group of participants ate.

After that ordeal, each participant tried to solve a puzzle. Unbeknownst to them, the puzzle was
actually impossible to complete. The purpose of the study was to determine how long it would take
them to give up.

The results rocked the world of psychology.

Those that ate the freshly baked chocolate chip cookies kept working on the puzzle or 19
minutes, on average.

On the other hand, those that ate the radishes an epic feat of self-denial when surrounded by
cookies only lasted eight minutes before quitting in frustration.

The researchers called this effect ego depletion that we have a limited supply of willpower
that decreases with overuse.

Thats why one is much more likely to say screw it and not go the gym after a soul-sapping
day at work.

So what does this mean for you?

This research serves to further underscore the importance of focusing only on that which is

most important. By attempting to spread your focus across half a dozen draining tasks not only
results in a 40 percent loss of productivity due to task switching, but also rapidly depletes willpower.
But if you focus only on that which is most important and helps you achieve you goals you
have to willpower to power through it and complete it to a much higher standard. You not only see
productivity go up by nearly 50 percent, but you retain willpower. You wont slack off or shortcut on
quality for this one important task that you have set yourself.

Chapter 2: Task Batching

A guy decided to spend an entire year learning about productivity. Yup. An entire year. He read
productivity books, studies, research, and tried all different kinds of productivity experiments on
himself.

Here is one of the more unique tactics he came up with, what he called a mindless list:

Create a mindless list. Accumulate a list of the mindless activities you do (laundry, cleaning,
etc.), and do them all at once while listening to something productive (an audiobook, TED talk, etc.).

This idea of utilizing time that would otherwise be wasted can be applied to many areas of life,
for example one might respond to a few emails while sitting in a sauna and drinking a protein shake.

In my own life, I used to just listen to music while commuting via bus or train. Now, though, I
do work on my laptop. I get a bunch of work done before even having officially started the day. When
I dont have any work to do, I listen to audiobooks on 2.22.5x speed. In fact, I have read (listened to)
more nonfiction books in the past few months than I have during at any other point during my life
within a similar timeframe. I am learning heaps.

One could also do the same when walking the dog or working out at the gym. You could get a
toned beach body and learn about quantum physics. Hows that for productivity?

A famous person who uses this productivity hack is Elon Musk, founder of PayPal, Tesla
(luxury electric car manufacturer) and SpaceX (inventor of reusable rockets and resupplies the
International Space Station). Musk has a personal net worth of $13B. He stirred up a storm of outrage
online when he mentioned in an interview that he manages to find time for his kids within his 100
hour work week by batching them together with email.

One such headline was The Way Elon Musk Manages 5 Kids And 3 Businesses Has People Up
In Arms

Hes the quote from Elon Musk himself:

But what I find is Im able to be with [my kids] and still be on email. I can be with them and
still be working at the same time If I didnt, I wouldnt be able to get my job done.

Musk si also known to not even take a 30 minute lunch break. He simply combines it with
meetings and emails to maximise productivity.

This idea of batching, combining tasks, might seem to conflict with the fact that multitasking
sees a sharp decline in productivity. However, there is no conflict.

Multitasking is bad because it involves combining two tasks that require your conscious activity.
Whether that be operating a forklift while texting your boss or writing a novel while learning to play
piano, it just does not work. You can only consciously focus on one thing at a time. That is a fact. No
matter how intelligent you are, you cannot circumnavigate this fact.

However, we can combine things that are mindless and dont require our conscious attention.
For example, as you read this book, you are breathing, your heart is beating, your stomach is
digesting food, and so on.

Similarly, other mundane tasks such as eating a sandwich or sitting on a bus can done in tandem
with an activity that requires conscious effort.

Chapter 3: Think Your Way to Productivity

Change your thoughts and you change your world.

Norman Vincent Peale

The most powerful weapon we have is our mind. More specifically, our perceptions of
ourselves. Our beliefs.

One demonstration of this was a study that was done that found people who were told that
willpower is infinite (i.e. you dont run out of it after using it for extended periods of time) were able
to get much more done and were much more productive than people who were told the opposite (i.e.
that willpower was finite).

Those that believed that they could keep persisting, because willpower was infinite, did just that.
Those that believed they only had a limited supply of willpower were much less productive and failed
to persist.

As Henry Ford said:

Whether you think you can, or you think you cant youre right.

Likewise, for thousands of years nobody had ever run a mile in less than four minutes. Nobody
had broken the four minute mile. It was deemed impossible. Scientists and physicians declared it
physically impossible.

Then in 1954 a man broke it. He ran the mile in three minutes 59.4 seconds. He had constantly
visualized himself breaking the four minute mile in order to convince his subconscious that it was in
fact possible. And he broke it.

But that isnt the most interesting part of the story. The most interesting part of the story is the
fact that in the months just after Bannister had broken the four minute mile, dozens of other athletes
also did. Eventually it became rather common for athletes to break the four minute mile. Eventually
Bannister's record was broken by 17 seconds.

Why did everybody start doing sub-four minute miles after Bannister broke the record?

Because they believed that they could. They had been shown that it was in fact not impossible.
They had been shown that they could do it. And then, as Henry Ford said, because they believed that
they could, they did!

The key here is this: If you honestly believe that you can get lots of work done, you will. You
will power through the day and not give up until everything is done.

On the other hand, if you honestly believe that you cant get much done and will tire out by
noon, then that is just what will happen. Youll give up early in the afternoon and have a largely
unproductive day.

Likewise, a study was done on different ways of staying on track for dietary goals. The
researchers had one group of people just say No when tempted with cakes, chocolate, or other
unhealthy treats. The second group of people were told to say I cant when tempted. The third group
was told to simply say I dont.

So what is the difference?

No is pretty ordinary. More importantly, it doesnt have anything to do with you (as opposed to
I cant/dont).

Saying I cant tells yourself that you are doing an act of self-denial. That you are restricting
yourself. That youre not allowed. That you cant.

Finally, saying I dont tells yourself that what you are doing is part of your identity, which is
incredibly powerful. You ingrain it into your self-image. You are telling yourself that I dont eat
chocolate that you are not the kind of person who ruins their diet with fattening treats.

So what was the studys results?

64 percent of those that said that they dont eat bad food resisted the temptations.

On the other hand, only 39 percent of those that said they cant eat bad food were able to
resist.

The researchers concluded this:

This finding supports our theorizing that using the dont refusal frame is more empowering

and is more likely to lead to resistance to temptation than the cant refusal frame.

By saying that you dont do something, you are associating that with your identity. By saying
that you cant do something, you are admitting that you are forcing yourself to do something that
you dislike.

If, after a big exhausting day at work, you say that you cant miss your gym session, you feel
as if it will require massive effort and willpower to overcome your desire to just go home and watch
TV. You will likely skip gym as a result.

If, in the same situations, you say that you dont miss gym sessions, you feel as if you are not
the kind of person who skips gym. Youre the kind of person who always goes to gym. You dont
miss gym sessions. That one simple word change makes you feel infinitely more empowered.

As Denis Waitley said:

The winners in life think constantly in terms of I can, I will, and I am. Losers, on the other
hand, concentrate their waking thoughts on what they should have or would have done, or what they
cant do.

Likewise, Marcus Aurelius, a Roman Emperor and stoic philosopher, had the following to say:

You have power over your mind not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.

Focus on productivity and believe that you are able to power through all that you need to do,
and you will do just that.

Your self image, your perception of yourself, your identity, is the most powerful thing about
you.

If you see yourself as a powerful individual who can productively and effectively do all that
needs to be done, you will act as such. You will become as such.

On the other hand, if you see yourself as an unproductive, procrastination-prone person who
cant get anything done, has no willpower, lacks discipline, and is a no hoper, then that is exactly how
you will act. Eventually, you will become exactly as such.

Furthermore, your identity aids you in becoming far more productive because it enables you to
hone in on and focus exclusively on only that which helps you achieve you goal.

In Lewis Carrolls Alice in Wonderland , the following dialog occurs between Alice and the
Cheshire Cat:

Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?

That depends a good deal on where you want to get to.

I dont much care where

Then it doesnt matter which way you go.

By having a goal and building an image of yourself around it carefully managing how you
perceive yourself you can use it as a reference point for directing yourself toward, and achieving,
your goals. By having a clear goal and your self-image built around that, you can easily decide which
course of action best helps you to reach your goals. You will be able to focus only on the most
important tasks.

You will know who you are and what you want to be.

With regard to working on how you perceive yourself (i.e. your self beliefs), consider this Paul
J. Meyer quote:

Enter every activity without giving mental recognition to the possibility of defeat. Concentrate
on your strengths , instead of your weaknesses on your powers , instead of your problems.

If you constantly focus on how shitty you feel and how you enver get anything done and how
you always procrastinate, what do you think is going to happen?

Youre going to feel shit. Youre going to procrastinate.

If you focus instead on what you are going to get done and how you are going to smash through
everything and be the most productive person on earth, what do you think will happen?

Youll feel great. You will get heaps done.

Muhammad Ali, one of the worlds greatest boxers, knew the power of his perception of
himself. He was famous of constantly motivating himself with ridiculous self talk. Here is just one
such example:

Bad!
Been choppin' trees
I done something new for this fight...
I've wrassled with an alligatorthat's right!
I done wrassled with an alligator
I done tussled with a whale
I done handcuffed lightnin', thrown thunder in jail!
That's bad...
Only last week I murdered a rock,
Injured a stone,
Hospitalized a brick.
I'm so mean I make medicine sick!

Bad!
FastFastFAST!
Last night I cut the light off in my bedroom, hit the switch, was in the bed before the room was
dark!

Fast!

And you, George ForemanAll of you chumps are gonna bow, when I whoop him.
All of ya!
I know you got him, I know you got him pickedBut the man's in trouble.

I'mma show YOU how GREAT I AM!

By fueling himself with positive self talk and believing that he was as he used to like to say
the greatest, that is exactly what he became.

Likewise Elon Musk perceives himself as an incredibly productive guy. He does, after all,
manage three multi-billion dollar companies. This image of himself is so deeply ingrained that, as a
biography of him reported, he even pees fast:

Its like a fire hose three seconds and out. Hes authentically in a hurry.

Likewise, Musk doesnt take any time off for lunch breaks, and instead works while eating.

The point is this: Because Musk believes he is a super productive guy, he acts like it. In the end,
he actually becomes super productive.

Alternatively, if Musk considered himself to be a lazy procrastinator, he take his time urinating,
take long lunch breaks, and probably work only 40 hours (rather than 100+ hours) each week.

LIkewise, if Muhammad Ali didnt constantly fuel his self-image with positive self-talk and
consider himself to be the greatest, he almost certainly wouldnt have been anywhere near as good as
he was. He wouldnt have been undefeated. He wouldnt have trained as hard. He wouldnt have been
as aggressive on his opponents. He wouldnt have been the greatest.

Everything depends on your self-image. All of your actions come from within and are driven
by your perception of yourself.

Just like for Muhammad Ali and Elon Musk.

That is the power of self-image.

Chapter 4: Lifestyle Hacks That Skyrocket

Productivity

One of the prime focus of successful athletes is taking care of themselves. They make sure they
eat only the best foods. They ensure they get enough sleep. They look after both their physical and

mental health.

Successful entrepreneurs, CEOs, and world leaders have followed this lead. It is not uncommon
for articles describing their admirable diet, sleep, and exercise routines to spread across the web.

The key lesson is this: In order to achieve maximum productivity and reach our full potential,
we must be healthy and at our peak.

As President John F. Kennedy said:

Mental and physical health mental and physical vigor go hand in hand.

To perform at our peak, we must be at our peak. Furthermore, the physical benefits of exercise,
such as endorphins, warmed-up muscles, increased oxygen intake, more active brains, and so on,
prove to be the optimal way to start the day.

Studies have found that exercise causes an overall work performance boost of 15 percent.
Likewise, Harvard researchers have also found that post-workout blood flow increases productivity
by creating the optimal conditions for productively performing tasks that require focused thinking.

Furthermore, a study from the International Journal of Workplace Health Management

determined that people who exercised were 23 percent more productive on that day than days that they
did not exercise.

To put that into perspective, imagine working from 9am to 5pm after exercising that morning.
The next day, you decide to not exercise. You go to work as usual. While you still might work from 9
to 5, the decrease in productivity means that you might as well have left at 3pm two hours earlier.

Furthermore, if you dont usually exercise before going to work, and one day you do, the extra
productivity equals you staying in the office until past 7:30 pm.

That is a massive productivity boost right there. The importance of health and exercise is hard
to overstate.

Even more damning is that research shows that workers are more productive overall even if they
take time out of their workday to exercise.

Exercise dramatically improves productivity by increasing blood flow to the break, sharpening
your awareness, making you more alert, and dramatically improving focus and concentration.

Additionally as counterintuitive as it may seem exercise gives you more energy. Overall,
exercise ensures that you are on top of your game and that your perform at your peak.

Exercise gives you more energy throughout the day by stimulating the development of new
mitochondria components within your cells. Mitochondria is known as the cells power plant. Over
time, you can develop more and more power plants within your cells, giving you much more
energy. This energy boosts your brainpower and mental output.

Perhaps even more exciting is the fact that exercise immediately boosts your mood. Exercise

causes the body to release several different chemicals in the brain. These chemicals create a sensation
often called runner s high.

British economist George MacKerron and his team of researchers recruited over 50,000
volunteers to help them delve deeper into this phenomenon. The volunteers downloaded an app on
their smartphone and would, once a day, randomly beep and have the volunteer report their
happiness and what they were doing.

The results showed that exercise makes people very happy. So happy, in fact, that only sex makes
people happier.

A direct consequence of this happiness is improved productivity. Other studies show that
happiness leads to a substantial increase in productivity.

Okay, so, in sum, daily morning exercise will improve your productivity by about 23 percent,
giving you the equivalent of several hours worth of additional productivity each and every day. You
also get the benefits of being almost as happy as when youre having sex.

If that isnt enough for you, consider this:

The World Health Organization revealed that adequate and improve nutrition levels lead to a 20
percent increase in productivity. In other words, by succumbing to fast foods or processed foods, you
are robbing yourself of hours worth of daily productivity.

In fact, if you work 9 to 5, you rob yourself of nearly two hours of productivity.

Or, if you want to look at it in light of the improvements gained by eating healthy, its the
equivalent of staying behind and working an extra two hours. If you usually finish at five, thats the
equivalent of staying in the office until 7pm.

Okay so now we know that daily exercise gives us a 23 percent boost in productivity and a
healthy diet boosts productivity by 20 percent. In total, that is 43 percent.

43 percent!

By just simply exercising daily and eating healthy food, your gain the equivalent of nearly
FOUR HOURS of work (if you have an eight hour workday from 9 to 5 for example).

If you start work at 9am and finish at 5pm, that extra productivity equates to staying back in the
office until almost 9pm at night (as opposed to leaving at 5pm in the afternoon).

By simply exercising daily and eating healthy, you can attain these staggering increases in
productivity. Welcome side effects include living much longer, being far happier, and having a super
attractive trim, toned body. Furthermore, if you put that extra productivity to good use, youll end up
wealthier and more powerful.

How a Fake Tomato Made One Man So Productive It Became a Legend

In the late 1980s, an Italian named Francesco Cirillo used his kitchen timer in a method of time

management that has since gone on to become world famous.

His kitchen timer was the shape of a tomato. The Italian word for tomato is pomodoro . Cirillo
would use his tomato-shaped timer to work in intervals of 25 minutes although other adopters of
this technique sometimes use 30 minutes.

After the 25 minutes, Cirillo would take a short five minute break. He would walk around, get a
drink, or do a few push ups. The purpose of the break is to move about (i.e. dont just switch tabs and
not move from your seat).

These 25 minute time intervals are called pomodoros .

After four pomodoros, you take a longer break of 1530 minutes. You then repeat the process.

During the pomodoro (i.e. the 25 minutes of work), focus only on work. If you have any other
distractions that pop up into your mind, either ignore it or write them down and get straight back to
work. Its only 25 minutes, after all.

The idea behind the Pomodoro Technique is to keep your mind fresh and focused. Also, if you
are doing creative work, the short breaks allow your subconscious to work on the problem and come
up with ideas. You will return to your work with fresh eyes. You will also feel refreshed and ready to
get straight back to concentrating and focusing on your work.

Working nonstop can lead to a gradual decrease in productivity due to a loss of focus and
concentration. After working for a couple of hours nonstop, one is more likely to have their
productivity slow to such an extent they just begin browse Facebook or watch cat videos on YouTube.
Before they know it, the day is gone.

On the other hand, the Pomodoro Technique keeps you focused and refreshed, enabling you
continued concentration and peak productivity.

Programmers are known to be fans of the Pomodoro Technique, often allocating individual
tasks to complete during each pomodoro.

All in all, advocates of the Pomodoro Technique herald it as enabling them maximum focus as
well as creative freshness. They claim that this enables them to not only complete projects faster, but
do so with less mental fatigue.

Chapter 5: Dont Be a Perfectionist

The perfect is the enemy of the good.

Voltaire

Regarding Voltaires quote just above, perfectionism is also the enemy of productivity.

As you initially start an activity or begin a project, you make huge leaps and bounds in what you
get done. You are highly productive. However, this is a process of diminishing returns. Once you
have finished it, if you keep endlessly refining and perfecting it and trying to get it just right or
make it perfect, you are wasting your time. You can spend hours and get hardly anything done.

The best course of action (for most things) is to simply get it done and move on. Keep your
productivity up. Keep completing tasks and getting things done.

For example, you can be cleaning your house and end up wasting hours upon hours trying to
make it everything perfectly clean. The best course of action would be to simply tidy the house, clean
what needs to be cleaned, and leave it at that.

Similarly, you could be working out in the gym and trying to do the perfect workout and
exercise every single muscle and use every single machine and weight.

In university, one might spend hours upon hours agonizing over minute phrases and word
choices. In reality, nobody is ever going to notice (or care) about such small and insignificant things.
As long as all spelling and grammar is good, you get your points across, and it flows its good to
go. Dont waste hours combing it for little (and unnecessary) word changes here and there when you
could instead be completing other tasks.

A study published in the Canadian Journal of Behavioural Science found that perfectionism
leads to lower productivity. Although the study focused on psychology professors, it can be
extrapolated to people more generally.

They found that perfectionist professors were significantly less likely to produce any
publications, garner citations (other academics that refer to their research), or publish their research
in high-impact journals.

The leading researcher of the study, Dr. Simon Sherry, concluded that perfectionism trips up
professors The more perfectionistic the professor, the less productive they are. It was also noted
that it could seriously and adversely impact the career development of perfectionist professors.

The Dalhousie University psychology researchers described it as a robust correlation and

noted that problems associated with perfectionism include spending more time than required on tasks,
missing the big picture and focusing excessively on small things, and procrastinating and waiting the
perfect moment.

As Leopold Auer said:

A worker without genius is better than a genius who wont work.

Doing something is better than doing nothing, even if it isnt your best work.

70 percent perfect is better than 0 percent perfect (i.e. nothing), even if it isnt 100 percent.

Charles Darwin, the biologist who came up with the theory of evolution, said the following

about his conceptualization of natural selection:

It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most
responsive to change.

One example of this is pigeons. Those little birds you see pecking at crumbs in cafes. While
pigeons are by no means as majestic, intelligent, or strong as a panda bear or tiger, they are far more
adaptable and responsive to change. Thats why you see thousands of pigeons everywhere, yet panda
bears and tigers face imminent extinction, with only a handful left in the wild. Pigeons have adapted to
an industrial environment created by humans, pandas and tigers have not.

While this analogy is certainly a little stretched, hopefully it makes sense.

Its not so much about being 100 percent perfect as it is about getting things done.

As evidenced by the psychology professor example, those who had done lots of research and
published many good papers were far, far, far better off than their colleagues who had published very
few yet perfect papers.

Dont be like a perfectionist tiger or panda bear.

Be like the pigeons who while not 100 percent perfect march on anyway.

Chapter 6: The Productivity Battle Plan

Productivity is never an accident. It is always the result of a commitment to excellence,

intelligent planning, and focused effort.
Paul J. Meyer

In this chapter, we will explore four different strategies for maximising productivity.

Schedule It

If you want to make an easy job seem mighty hard, just keep putting off doing it.
Olin Miller

Some researchers, determined to uncover the power of scheduling, did a study on it. The wanted
to see if there was any benefit to being specific about when and where you plan to do something.

In this study, they decided to use exercise as that something.

For one group, they told them of the health risks of not exercising, stressing the benefits of
regular exercise. They told everybody to exercise.

The researchers told the other group to schedule exactly when they would exercise, plan for
where they would do it, and consider the exact exercises that they would do. They then wrote this plan
down. In other words, they committed themselves to doing the exercise.

The results were that the majority of the participants in the group that were told of the benefits
of exercise failed to do follow through. They did not exercise.

On the other hand, those that wrote down an exact plan and scheduled their exercise followed
through. They did it. All but a small handful of participants failed to exercise.

As the researchers concluded:

Although health risk perception appeared to be a negligible factor, action planning and
recovery self-efficacy were effective predictors of physical exercise adherence.

Although this study certainly sheds new light on how to go about getting things done, it seems
that the successes of the world already knew:

Amateurs sit and wait for inspiration, the rest of us just get up and go to work.
Stephen King

Dont wait. The time will never be just right.

Napoleon Hill

"Happen to things, don't let things happen to you."

Stephen Covey

Plan

By failing to plan, you are planning to fail.

Benjamin Franklin

One secret to productivity that many people seem to forget is the need to plan. Even for the
simplest projects and tasks, planning will save you an enormous amount of time.

If you dont plan ahead of time, you will end up wasting a tremendous amount of time trying to
figure things out as you go along. Afterwards, youll probably have to fix everything up and
rearrange it all if not eliminate entire aspects that would have all been done on the first go if
only you had planned.

Consider a film director who says, well, well just make it up as we go along! Well figure out
the plot and sequences as we are filming. First, the movie would be terrible, and second, it would take
many, many, many times longer to complete than was necessary.

Likewise, what if a university student wrote an essay but had no idea what points they were
going to argue, what evidence they were going to use, or what structure they would write in? They
would end up with the exact same problems as the film director.

Similarly, what if a programmer had no idea what sort of software he wanted to create, but

decided oh well, Ill just start writing some code and figure it out maybe. He probably would not
end up with any kind of meaningful program. Even after having spent months on it.

Or a business that has no idea what it is going to do or how it is going to generate profit. We
will just start a business! I have no idea what on earth we are going to do but yeah!

If, on the other hand, the university student created a great plan, outlined the points he was going
to argue and the evidence that he was going to use to support his arguments, he could easily write the
essay is a super short amount of time.

Why?

Because he knew exactly what he was going to be doing. He knew what he would write. He knew
what he would argue. He knew what evidence he was going to use to back it up.

As a result, he could quickly write it all and not need to stop once. He could finish it before
lunch time, while his friend that didnt plan would take days.

He saved days of tedious effort and ended up with a much better, more coherent, more
convincing essay.

That is the power of planning.

And its not just essays.

Even Abraham Lincoln knew the power of planning and preparation, as is evident by this
metaphor of his:

Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.

Continuing Lincolns analogy, imagine if he had started chopping down the tree straight away.
The result is that he would spend the entire six hours (likely many more) attempting to cut down the
tree. He would end up exhausted, tired, and maybe even give up.

However, by spending most of his time preparing by sharpening the axe, when he does start
cutting down the tree at the end of those four hours, his axe will be alarmingly sharp. His seriously
sharp axe will glide through the wood, and before you know it, the tree will have fallen.

Once he knocks down the tree, he wont be nearly as sweaty or exhausted as he would have
otherwise been if he started cutting down the tree imeediately.

The lesson is clear: Plan, plan, plan. Prepare, prepare, prepare. If you prepare thoroughly and
ahve a solid plan, youll be able to breeze through the task relatively effortlessly. You will save
yourself much time and energy.

Zig Ziglar himself was a big proponent of this approach:

You were born to win, but to be a winner, you must plan to win, prepare to win, and expect to
win.

 Zig Ziglar

You need a plan to build a house. To build a life, it is even more important to have a plan or
goal."
Zig Ziglar

Task, Not Time

Many people fall into the trap of saying that theyll spend some time on it. They have a task
that they need to do? Or a project that they need to complete? Or a presentation that needs doing?

Ill spend a few hours on it tonight.

Or, if they are more specific:

Ill spend four hours on it on the weekend.

This misguided notion of productivity has lead to the rise of busy schedules, full calendars,
endless to-do lists, packed diaries, and mountains of half completed, unfinished tasks.

Furthermore, a problem with allocating a specific amount of time to work on a task is that you
can distract yourself, be slow, half-ass it, go do something else for a little bit before returning, and at
the end, have done hardly anything. But, you can say to yourself, well, Ive spent my two hours
working on that task, on to the next thing!

The better approach to productivity is to schedule by task, not time.

What this means is that you dont say, Ill spend two hours on it tonight and four hours
tomorrow. You dont commit a few half-assed hours before moving on to the next thing, not having
even completed the initial task.

Instead, you say, Im going to finish this task before I do anything else. I will complete it. You
finish the task, then move onto whatever is next. But, you finish it first. You dont distract yourself
with other tasks. You do one thing at a time.

You dont just half-ass a few hours before moving on. Instead, you finish the task and move on.

Those that allocate by time dont get much done. They jump from task to task and spend lots of
time on each without finishing anything.

Those that allocate by task get heaps done. They get one thing done after the other. Bang, bang,
bang. Done, done, done. One after the other.

Thats why deadlines work so well. When you know you need to get something done, you dont
do anything else until it is finished. You dont come back to it later or go start working on
something else halfway through. You dont go do other things. Instead, you work on the task until it is
finished. You do just one thing. You focus on one thing at a time. You allocate by task, not by time.

Peak Levels

Do the hard jobs first. The easy jobs will take care of themselves.
Dale Carnegie

Everybody tends to find that they have a specific time of day at which they perform at their very
best.

For some, it is during the early hours of morning when they feel fresh and are free from
distraction.

For others, it is late during the afternoon when its warmed up a bit and they have overcome
their morning sleepiness.

Some others find that they are most productive after having tucked the kids into bed and they
have the house to themselves.

Rather than bemoan the fact that youre not a morning person, or that you feel sleepy in the
afternoon, find the time of day at which you perform at your peak. Take advantage of it!

Once youve figured out your peak times for getting things done, schedule your most
important, high priority tasks for these times. Work on easier or less important tasks during the other
times, before and/or after your peak.

International bestselling fiction writer Haruki Murakami finds that his peak time is early in the
morning. Being the productive guy he is, Murakami takes advantage of that fact by writing during that
time. Here, he describes his routine:

When Im in writing mode for a novel, I get up at four a.m. and work for five to six hours. In the
afternoon, I run for ten kilometers or swim for fifteen hundred meters (or do both), then I read a bit
and listen to some music. I go to bed at nine p.m.

I keep to this routine every day without variation. The repetition itself becomes the important
thing; its a form of mesmerism. I mesmerize myself to reach a deeper state of mind.

But to hold to such repetition for so long six months to a year requires a good amount of
mental and physical strength. In that sense, writing a long novel is like survival training. Physical
strength is as necessary as artistic sensitivity.

Murakamis repetitive routine brings us to the next chapter.

Chapter 7: Habits to be Productive on Autopilot

Motivation is what gets you started. Habit is what keeps you going.
Jim Rohn

Bill Gates once said the following:

I never took a day off in my twenties. Not one. And Im still fanatical, but now Im a little less
fanatical.

Bill Gates is the worlds richest person.

Mark Zuckerberg once said the following in response to a question asking why he wears the
exact same outfit all of the time:

I really want to clear my life to make it so that I have to make as few decisions as possible
about anything except how to best serve this community [i.e. Facebook].

The founder and CEO of Facebook, Zuckerberg became the youngest person to ever become a
billionaire, having three commas on his bank balance at the age of just 23.

Steve Jobs, too, was famous for wearing the exact same thing every day. Steve Jobs founded the
most valuable and profitable company on the planet, Apple.

Christopher Nolan, the director of such films as The Dark Knight trilogy, Interstellar, and
Inception grossing billions of dollars while still being some of the most thought provoking and
creative films of our era. A man of extraordinary skill and creativity, he has personally pocketed
hundreds of millions. This is what he had to say when asked about wearing the exact same thing every
day:

Its just what Im comfortable in. I dont like to think about what to wear, so I just wear the
same thing every day.

Even Albert Einstein was famous for wearing the same suit everyday. Though some sources
dispute this fact, claiming that his wife chose his suits for him, the point remains the same. He
automated his life. He didnt worry about choosing what to wear. He plopped himself on autopilot and
focused only on what was important to him. He went on to win the Nobel Prize, revolutionize physics,
replace Isaac Newtons equations, and become Time magazines Person of the Century.

I could go on, and on, and on. But the examples above worlds richest man, the worlds
youngest billionaire, the worlds greatest director, Time magazines Person of the Century, and the
founder of the worlds most valuable and profitable company should suffice.

So what is it that they all have in common?

They have all simplify their lives. They do only that which helps move them toward their goals.
They build strict habits and routines that enable propel them toward success.

They get to the point where they are flying toward success on autopilot. Their deeply ingrained
routines and habits result in them automatically working toward their goals.

They dont worry about taking days off here and there. They dont worry about choosing
clothes. They just automate their lives and achieve their goals on autopilot.

Even thousands of years ago, Greek philosopher Aristotle knew it:

We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then is not an act, but a habit.

These people, the most successful people on the planet, all share this one productivity hack in
common. They focus exclusively on achieving their goals. They create routines and habits that have
them automatically succeed. Rather than have to constantly exert willpower and make decisions, they
just do everything automatically.

Imagine if you did the same. Imagine if you applied this productivity hack shared by
historys biggest success to your own life. As Thomas Edison said:

If we did all the things we are cpaable of, we would astound ourselves.

Chapter 8: Hidden Hours

Study while others are sleeping; work while others are loafing; prepare while others are
playing; and dream while others are wishing.
William Arthur Ward

The most underused productivity hacks is simply waking up early. Rather than sleep in like
everybody else, wake up earlier and use those extra hours to be productive!

Sleep in and you have less hours to do productive work. You achieve less. Arithmatic shows no
mercy.

Leslie Ye says the following:

I try to leave the house as early as possible. That way, I get fresh air and dont just sit on my
couch all day.

Corey Wainwright, HubSpots Director of Content, says the following:

"If I do an easy but rote chore right when I wake up, like clean the kitchen or empty the
dishwasher, I'm usually really productive the rest of that day.

In other words, kicking yourself into gear at the very start of the day, first thing in the morning,
you dont give yourself the opportunity to just laze around all day. Instead, you put yourself in the
right mindset to get things done.

Almost all successful entrepreneurs, powerful politicians, and wealthy CEOs wake up early. One
such person Richard Branson, multi-billionaire founder of Virgin has gone as far as to become
an active advocate of embracing the morning.

In fact, this phenomenon has become so evident there have been several studies done on it. And,
as you might have guessed, they all found that waking up early is correlated with success.

As Forbes reported, one reason that many successful people wake up early is to exercise:

Many successful businesspeople get up early to exercise (before the family is awake and their
official work days start).

Though many also use it to plan out their day, organize their week, set goals, and so on.

As John Todd said:

Few ever lived to old age, and fewer still ever became distinguished, who were not in the habit
of early rising.

Even Aristotle, the Greek philosopher from thousands of years ago, was an advocate of waking
up early:

It is well to be up before daybreak, for such habits contribute to health, wealth, and wisdom.

Probably deciding to steal Aristotles quote, Benjamin Franklin also became an advocate of
starting the day early:

Early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise.

In terms of actual productivity, heres what these two chaps had to say on the matter:

I would have it inscribed on the curtains of your bed and the walls of your chamber: If you do
not rise early you can make progress in nothing.
William Pitt Chatham

Early rising not only gives us more life in the same number of years, but adds, likewise, to their
number; and not only enables us to enjoy more of existence in the same time, but increases also the
measure.
Caleb C. Colton

Conclusion

To conclude, lets take a brief look back at what we have discussed.

First, we discussed how doing lots of things does not equate to productivity. Instead, it is better
to apply the 80/20 rule and focus your efforts exclusively on that which has the highest return. Find
that ONE thing from which all results flow, just like Alibaba did. Futhermore, the importance of only

doing one thing at a time was stressed. Multitasking halves your productivity.

Secondly, we took a look at how we can batch together mindless tasks (as opposed to
multitasking by constantly switching between two complex tasks). Things such as eating, commuting,
and house chores. You can mix them together with work, email, phone calls, audiobooks, and so on.

Thirdly, we explored how your personal beliefs and self-image can have a massive impact on
your productivity. By simply viewing yourself as a productive person, like Elon Musk, or the
greatest, like Muhammad Ali, you begin to act as such. Eventually, you become as such. If on the
other hand, you fill your mind with negative self-talk about how lazy and procrastination-prone you
are, you will make that your reality.

In the fourth chapter, we found out that by making a few simple lifestyle changes exercising
daily and eating healthy our productivity is boosted so dramatically that it is the equivalent of
FOUR HOURS extra productivity (if you work 95).

In the fifth chapter, we discovered that being a perfectionist not only leads to radically lowered
productivity, but also reduces ones success and career prospects.

In the sixth chapter, we discussed the importance of planning and preparation. By simply
planning and being prepared, you can breeze through tasks that otherwise would have taken
agonizingly long, unecessarily wasted countless hours, and required numerous and dramatic
revisions. Planning enables us to not only get it right the first time, but to know exactly what to do,
allowing us to breeze through to completion easily. We also briefly touched on the power of the
Pomodoro Technique to keep our minds fresh and keep us at peak productivity.

In the seventh chapter, we dug up the productivity secret of the planets most successful people:
Strategically simplifying and automating routines and habits that propel you toward success by
enabling you to be constantly productive. By putting yourself on autopilot and pointing yourself
toward your goal, you are able to work tirelessly and productively toward your goal automatically
(i.e. without exerting willpower).

In the eight and final chapter, we delved into the correlation between early rising and success.
Those otherwise unused hours enable you to get more done and start the day before your competition.

Overall, if you carefully apply these productivity hacks to your own life from doing things
one at a time to utilizing the 80/20 rule, from working in pomodoro intevals to exercising and eating
healthy, from optimizing and automating your routines and habits for success to waking up early, and
countless others there is absolutely no reason that you cannot double, triple, or even quadruple
your productivity.

Those who diligently apply these productivity secrets will, before they know it, being doing a
weeks worth of work in a single day.