The Ultimate

Productivity Guide
27 Productivity Hacks
For Superhuman
Performance

BY JARI ROOMER - PERSONAL GROWTH LAB

Dear Friend,
I'm excited to share this guide with you, and most
importantly, help you become highly productive.

In my opinion, improving your productivity is one

of the most important things you can do to
achieve your personal & business goals, tap into
your full potential and create your dream life.

By learning how to work smarter, you’ll find that

you’ll have more free time (without feeling guilty),
you’ll significantly increase your income or
profit, and you’ll no longer feel overwhelmed or
stressed because of your work.

If you don't know me yet, my name is Jari Roomer and I'm the founder of Personal
Growth Lab. It's my mission to help entrepreneurs, content creators, coaches &
other high-achievers like you create a life of freedom by sharing tips and strategies
on peak performance.

I discovered years ago that only after raising my personal performance I was able to
create a life of freedom for myself. Only then did I consistently do the things I
always knew I should’ve done. And finally did I achieve what I always wanted to
achieve: A profitable online business that enables me to work independent of
location or a 9-5 schedule.

Chances are that you already know most of the strategies and tactics in your given
field that lead to good results. Yet, somehow, you still haven't reached what you
thought you would’ve reached by now.

You see, achieving your goals is not just about working harder - and it's not just
about putting in more hours or just 'being disciplined'.

Yes, it does help - but it's not the most important. There's still something missing
from that equation.

Something incredibly important.

It's your ability to work smarter..

 By working smarter, you’ll save yourself a lot of energy,
effort and, most importantly, time.

Remember, time is the only resource you can’t get back, ever.
Spend it wisely.

If you want to become extremely productive and reach

superhuman levels of performance, you'll have to do
things completely different than how you've been doing it
until now.

You’ll need to break certain beliefs and social conditioning

about productivity - and re-learn what true productivity is.

These are things you don't learn in traditional education programs.

The truth is, even most 'gurus' and 'experts' simply shout out popular self-development
advice that is completely wrong (even though it sounds good..)

They put you on the wrong foot, without you even realizing it.

They instill the blueprint in your mind by telling you that you need to work harder and many
more hours in order to reach your goals. They tell you that you need to kill your social life if
you want to become successful and that you need to maximize every minute you’re awake.

I say, screw that...

I (among many others) discovered that there is another way. A way that allows you to have
more free time, that encourages you to do less instead of more (For real? Yes, for real) and still
get more results in just one week compared to what most people get done in an entire month.

With this guide, I hope to inspire you to take smarter action and thereby elevate your
performance.

That's the key to achieving your personal & business goals...

But enough rambling for now..

Let’s dive head-first into the 27 productivity hacks that’ll help you perform at superhuman
levels. I hope you get a bunch of value out of it, and that you enjoy going through the guide!

To Your Personal Growth,

Jari Roomer
Founder Personal Growth Lab

Ps. The tips that I’ll be sharing in this guide are all tested by myself (in fact, I use most of them
every single day) and the majority are scientifically proven by many studies. So you won't find
any BS advice here ;)

Pss. Follow me on Instagram (@jari.roomer) where I share exclusive peak performance

content, new projects I'm working on and what I'm doing day-to-day.
Hack 1: Turn Off Alerts & Notifications
Alerts and notifications are the biggest sources of distraction for the modern day
knowledge worker. Every buzz, sound, light or pop-up pulls for your attention and opens
a new mental loop that wants to be closed. Fighting the temptation of checking your
phone or social media is incredibly hard, and only becomes harder as your willpower
depletes during the day. Therefore, make the decision to protect your valuable time and
focus by turning these alerts and notifications off.

Keep in mind, these notifications exist to suck you back into social media and messaging
apps. In other words, you’re serving the agenda of the app developers instead of
following your own path.

One of my friends, who can be found a lot on his phone during work hours and his free
time, actually shared his statistics with me during an average week. He received a
stunning 1607 notifications and spend an average of 3 hours and 15 minutes per day on
his phone! That’s 1607 times he got disrupted during his work, thought process, social
interactions and creative problem-solving. If that’s not a productivity killer than I don’t
know what is!

Hack 2: Follow An Empowering Morning Routine

My morning routine is one of those habits that
allows me to consistently have high-performance
days. By doing habits like meditation, affirmations,
goal-setting, goal-reviewing and setting my
intentions for the day, I set myself up for a highly
focused and productive day.

I clearly notice that on those days where I don’t

follow my morning routine, I have much more
trouble being productive, staying focused and
working on my priorities. Therefore, create and
follow your own morning routine asap! If you want
to learn more about morning routines, check out
the article underneath.

==> 7 Essential Morning Ritual Habits For A Productive, Energetic & Successful Day
Hack 3: Hydrate
One of the simplest but most overlooked ways to improve the performance of your brain
is to drink enough water. Drinking enough water is incredibly important to your ability to
concentrate and focus.

The brain consists of 75% of water, so it’s no wonder that we start to experience
immediate effects when we don’t drink enough water. I always ask people who feel
sluggish, unfocused and low on energy if they drank enough water. The answer is almost
always no.

In short, drinking enough water makes sure the energy production of the brain is
functioning well, while not drinking enough leads to lower energy production, leaving
you to feel foggy, fatigued and not sharp. All of which leads to heavily decreased
productivity levels. Therefore, give your body the adequate amount of water. You'll be
able to think faster by 14%, stay focused for much longer, experience less brain fog and
fatigue — and feel a lot more energized. That’s one easy way to boost your productivity!

Hack 4: Set Daily Goals & Intentions

One of the main reasons why so many people are unfocused and struggle with being
productive is because they don’t know exactly what to do right now, today. They might
know that they want to earn more money, lose weight or build a business, but those are all
goals somewhere in the future. But what about right now? What about today? Despite your
long-term goals, procrastination will kick in when you don’t know exactly what it is that
you’re supposed to be doing today.

If you lack clarity about what it is that you should be doing today, your mind will start
making other plans. Easier plans, lesser important plans, plans that might be pleasurable
and rewarding in the short-term, but not in the long-term. In other words, you’ll
procrastinate, lose focus on your main goals and take a hit in your productivity levels.

Therefore, always set 1–5 daily goals and write them down in a productivity planner or in a
high-quality journal such as The Self Journal. Make sure you create the clarity of knowing
exactly what it is that you should be doing today. Make your goals very precise and specific
so that you know exactly what to do. Giving this structure to your day will help you work
with a lot more focus and determination.
==> Check Out The Self Journal Right Here
Hack 5: Avoid Multitasking
According to research, once we get
distracted or try to shift from task to task,
it takes on average 25(!) minutes to
regain our full focus on the task at hand.
This is a phenomenon called ‘attention
residue’, which implies that some of your
attention is ‘left behind’ at the previous
task (or distraction) your brain was
dealing with. Your brain can’t simply shift
from task to task effectively, as its
capability to focus has literally decreased.
Furthermore, shifting your attention back and forth between tasks and distractions drains
energy from the brain — as it uses glucose — making us feel tired, less motivated and less
productive. This is why so many people are completely worn out by a day of work, even
though it’s physically not that demanding. Therefore, avoid multitasking and instead focus
on one task with your full attention. This way you'll have more energy and focus left to
really crush it.

Hack 6: Schedule Your Days & Weeks

By scheduling your days and weeks you’ll become a lot more effective. I clearly notice
how my most unproductive days are the ones that I didn’t schedule or didn’t schedule
well enough.

If you don’t schedule your days and weeks, you will just wander around. You kind of
know what to do, so you’ll have a kind of work ethic. You need to protect your time for
those most valuable tasks or else it’ll fall prey to distractions or other people’s agenda.

Therefore, create a solid battle-plan for your days and weeks. One that you can simply
follow and execute. This will help you save valuable decision-making energy (which is
proven to be a limited resource) during the day — and work with more determination and
focus.
Hack 7: Declutter Your Workspace
When I’m doing deep work, there’s literally
no object in sight on my desk except for my
water bottle, my earbuds and my laptop. In a
study done by Harvard University, it’s shown
that a decluttered working environment
leads to a significant increase in your ability
to focus. Furthermore, it turns out that the
participants who worked in a decluttered
environment were able to work for longer
periods of time compared to those who
worked in a messy environment.
The reason why is that all objects in your vision (whether you consciously notice them or
not) fight for your attention, which costs your brain a lot of energy as it needs to filter
the objects out or resist it's temptation. After a while, your brain will be too tired to
continue this process and you’ll feel more sluggish, unfocused and unwilling to work
hard.

Furthermore, realize that every object leaves an impression in your mind and that those
impressions create thoughts which then can be distractions. Really be strict about this if
you want to perform at your highest possible levels.

Hack 8: Eat Your ‘Veggies’ First

When I was a little kid (okay, I admit, I still do this sometimes) I used to always (reluctantly)
eat my veggies first so that I could enjoy the more delicious foods such as meat, fish or
potatoes more.

Nowadays, I use this same principle in my work. I start the day with my most challenging
and most intensive task so that I can get it out of the way. Usually, this task is also my
most important task for the day. It’s often the task that is the most valuable and has the
biggest potential upside if I do complete it, and the biggest potential downside if I don’t
complete it.

This way, I make sure I never procrastinate on my most valuable tasks anymore and that I
consistently make meaningful progress. Furthermore, by consistently ‘eating your veggies'
first, you’ll prevent yourself from falling into the trap of productive procrastination (where
you fill your entire day with lower value tasks and then procrastinate on your most
valuable/important task).
==> Read: 'The Key To Better Focus & Productivity: Work Early In The Morning'
Hack 9: Review Your Day
One of the simplest but most effective productivity habits is to review your days and
weeks. By looking at what went well and what didn’t go well, you can streamline your
work process and analyze which habits and activities you should do more or less of.

Most people don’t analyze their own behaviour and therefore they have blind spots
that continue to hinder their productivity, focus and success. Self-awareness is the
key here. So take a few minutes each day to review your day — and to set yourself up
for an even more productive and focused day tomorrow.

Hack 10: Minimize The Time and Effort Spend on ‘Busywork’

Busywork can be defined as all those tasks and activities that we spend a lot of time and
energy on, even though they don’t significantly contribute to the achievement of our
most important goal(s).

We easily fall into the trap of doing busywork, simply because these tasks and activities
often hold some value and lead to some progress towards our goals. Therefore, they can
be hard to identify at first.

Yet, spending too much time on busywork leads to a lot of downsides such as increased
stress, feeling overwhelmed, creating a false sense of productivity & accomplishment,
and not achieving our business or personal goals.

Continuously tweaking your website, posting on Instagram, reading books and

blogposts, getting your email inbox to zero and redesigning your logo, business cards &
flyers can all be forms of busywork. And there are many, many other examples.Of
course, it depends highly on what type of work you do, but busywork can be found
everywhere.

Way too many people spend way too much time on these type of tasks, and therefore
completely destroy their true productivity without realizing it. Instead, spent the majority
of your time and effort on your most important, most valuable tasks.
==> Read: Stop Doing 'Busywork' And Start Doing Important Work
Hack 11: Reflect More Often
When was the last time you took a top-down view of your goals, business, projects or
challenges? And… When did you step back in order to look at your main thing from a
different perspective?

Sometimes, stepping away from your main thing for a few hours (or days) might just
be much more productive than just blindly hustling with your head stuck in the sand.
You might just come up with new ideas, breakthroughs or perspectives that can save
you days, weeks or even months of hard work.

Remember, it doesn’t matter how hard you work if you work on the wrong things.
That’s why it’s better to take a break every now and then in order to step back, reflect
and prioritize so that you can execute in a highly focused and productive way.
==> Read: Why You Should Reflect More If You Want To Become Highly Productive

Hack 12: Journal Every Single Day

Your mind shouldn’t be a storage place for ideas, but a generator for ideas. The more
ideas you store in your head, the more cluttered it’ll become and the less working
memory you have available to generate new ideas. Therefore, always store your ideas
onto paper and write them down in your journal. This frees up valuable mindspace that
can now be used to generate new ideas, solve difficult problems and focus deeply on
your most challenging and important tasks.

Furthermore, re-write your bigger goals in your journal every single day, so that you can
align your mindset and daily actions with your bigger ambitions.

I’d also recommend including a daily goal-setting component in your practice. Each day,
write down 1–3 goals that you want to achieve for that day. Ask yourself, ‘what goal(s), if
achieved today, would help me get significantly closer towards achieving my bigger goals?’
This is why I like The Self Journal so much, as it already has a built-in daily goal-setting
component.

Doing this practice makes sure that you don’t just wander around during the day. Instead,
you create a focused plan of attack for your day that will make you a lot more productive
compared to not setting these daily goals. Creating the clarity about what exactly you
intend to achieve today is going to be a game-changer if you don’t already do this.
==> Read: '5 Powerful Benefits of Journaling Every Single Morning'
Hack 13: Sleep Smarter
Getting high-quality sleep means that you’ll have more energy during the day to work
hard on your goals, be more creative, have stronger discipline, focus with more
intensity — and overall be a lot more productive. Oh, and did I mention it’s one of the
keys to minimize stress too? In other words, getting high-quality sleep is key for peak
performance and a happy life.

I’d highly recommend you check out the book ‘Sleep Smarter’ by Shawn Stevenson,
which helped me to sleep like a baby or check out my article ‘7 Tips To Sleep Like A
Baby & Feel Incredibly Rested’ below!
==> Read: 7 Tips To Sleep Like A Baby & Feel Incredibly Rested

Hack 14: Identify Your Most Valuable Tasks

If you want to reach levels of superhuman
performance, you need to get clear on your
Most Valuable Tasks (aka, your MVT’s).
Without a doubt, this step has had the
biggest influence on my productivity levels
of all the productivity hacks, techniques
and principles out there.

The point here is that you identify 1–5

tasks that contribute the most to the
achievement of your goal.

These tasks are absolutely mission critical in order to achieve your desired outcome.
These tasks have the biggest upside when completed, and the biggest downside when
left unfinished.

It’s not about any task that leads to some progress towards your desired outcome. No,
it’s about those tasks that contribute significantly to your desired outcome. Write these
tasks down on a list and refer to this list every single day. You should spend the majority
of your time and energy on those tasks.

Often, there are only just a handful of tasks that are mission critical. The rest should either
be outsourced to someone who can do it faster and cheaper, or it’s merely smoke that
clouds your vision and should, therefore, be eliminated.
Hack 15: Continuously Do A 80/20 Analysis Of Your Work and Life
According to the 80/20 rule, only about 20% of your activities should be your priority
as these activities will account for the majority of results (about 80%) in your life or
business. They are essential to achieving your desired outcome. We should spend
more of our time, effort and energy on these mission-critical activities.

This also means that about 80% of your activities account for only 20% of your
results. In other words, they are non-essential. Yet, they take up the biggest portion of
your time, effort and energy. You should resolve to spend less time, effort and energy
on these activities.

Essentially, the 80/20 rule is all about identifying the things that are truly important
to your life or business. Usually, there are only a few things that are essential to your
happiness, business success, health or wealth. Although the rest can definitely be nice
and still add some value to your life or business, it’s non-essential. It won’t move the
needle that much — unlike those few things that are essential.
==> Read: How To Reclaim Your Focus Using The 80/20 Rule

Hack 16: ‘Chunk’ Your Goals & Projects

Chunking is essentially the process of breaking down a large goal or project into many
bite-sized tasks. This way, your project is no longer this intimidating mountain you need
to climb, but you can simply focus on taking the very next step (again and again).

You can chunk your projects or goals by writing down all the tasks that are necessary to
accomplish your goal at this point in time, on one big list. Remember, you can always add
more tasks on-the-go as you come up with them. But for now, just focus on what you
can come up with at this moment. The list you’re now creating is what I call a
‘Masterlist’.

Instead of not knowing where to start or feeling overwhelmed by your big project or
goal, you’re going to take a look at your Masterlist. There, you can find all the bite-sized
tasks that you’ve identified so far. Simply pick a few tasks of this list and start tackling
them one by one. Each time you complete a task, visually cross it off your list and pick
out the next task. This process will help you overcome procrastination and get clarity on
your progress - which will make you a lot more productive.
Hack 17: Meditate Daily
Did you know that meditation literally changes
the structure in your brain? And did you know
that this has been proven by hundreds of studies
already? Even if you don’t resonate with the
spiritual woo-woo around meditation, you’re
seriously missing out on some scientifically
proven benefits that meditation provides.

Honestly, I never expected meditation to have

such a big impact on my life - but it did.

Meditation helps me stay calmer and experience less stress, which helps me perform
at higher levels. Furthermore, it improves my ability to focus and make better
decisions (aka, be more disciplined) so that I can work for longer on challenging tasks,
and actually do what I set out to accomplish. This, in turn, all has a major impact on my
productivity levels - and it’ll likely do so for you too.

Therefore, I’d highly encourage you to pick up the habit of meditating for at least 10
minutes per day, preferably at the start of your day. You won’t regret it.

If you are a beginning meditator, or if you want to learn more about the scientifically
proven benefits, check out this article right underneath!

=> Read: How To Start Meditating For Beginners (And The Scientifically Proven Benefits)

Hack 18: Ignore The News

One thing that I started doing a few years ago is ignore the news as much as possible.
Let’s face it, the news is designed in such a way to keep you watching - and the way to do
so is by showing you a lot of negative news. Why? Negative news stimulates your brain a
lot more than positive news, as it’s perceived as a danger according to the old software
our skulls.

Instead, preserve your valuable headspace and other mental resources to focus on
something useful and productive, such as working on your most valuable tasks. You’ll
have a lot more peace of mind and be able to focus on what’s truly important.
Hack 19: Use Parkinson’s Law
Essentially, Parkinson’s Law states that ‘work expands to fill the time available for its
completion’ which means that if you give yourself a day to complete a two-hour task,
then (psychologically speaking) the task will increase in complexity and become more
daunting. We will, in fact, take the entire day to accomplish this relatively minor task.
The extra time might not even be filled with more work to actually improve the
quality of the output. Often, the extra time is just filled with more stress, tension and
worrying about how to get it done. Often, we fill a lot of the time procrastinating and
wasting hours away.

By assigning the right amount of time to a task, we gain back more time and the task
will reduce in complexity. In other words, we need to make our deadlines shorter.
Almost always do we find ways to get the task done within the deadline we set for
ourselves. When under (the right kind of) pressure, we’re capable of amazing things. All
of a sudden we turn into a creative, problem-solving, productivity machine. Because
of this pressure, you force yourself to focus on those elements of the task that are
actually most important, instead of nit-picking about the details and thereby wasting
valuable time.

Hack 20: Batch Produce

Imagine how crazy it would be if you’d do your laundry every single time you’d have
dirty socks or a dirty t-shirt instead of doing it once every few days when you’ve got a
full laundry basket.. It makes sense to collect dirty laundry over a few days and then
‘batch produce’ your laundry all in one go right?

Yet, when it comes to our work, we often (metaphorically) do our laundry multiple times
per day without batch producing it. Instead, aim to batch produce certain routine tasks
as much as possible so that it won’t disrupt your flow multiple times per day (or week)
and do it all in one efficient session.

For example, instead of checking your email inbox every few minutes, schedule one (or
more) fixed moments of an x amount of minutes during your day, in which you’ll answer
a lot of emails in one sitting. This way, you protect your focus for the more important
tasks.

Another example is posting on social media. Instead of manually posting every single
day, which would disrupt your focus, you could batch produce once per week and plan in
all your Instagram of Facebook posts. This way, you don’t have to think about it
anymore for an entire week in the same way you wouldn’t think about your laundry
every single day.
Hack 21: Do The 15-Minute Exercise
One of the reasons why people procrastinate is because they have no momentum. And
according to the laws of physics, when something has no momentum (so when it’s
standing still) it takes a lot more force to get something in motion compared to keeping
something in motion that is already in motion (aka, something that already has
momentum). In other words, we need to start gaining momentum fast if we want to
prevent procrastination from showing up. If we have momentum, it’ll require a lot less
force to keep on working. And that’s where the 15-Minute Exercise comes in. The 15-
minute exercise consists of 3 easy steps:

Step 1: Pick out the task that you should be working on.
Step 2: Set a timer for 15 minutes.
Step 3: Work for 15 minutes on the task.

That’s it. Simple right? The reason why the 15-minute exercise works is because we’re
starting to get in motion by simply working for a very short (non-intimidating) amount
of time. We went from standing still to moving — and according to the laws of physics,
something that’s already in motion requires a lot less force to keep in motion. That’s
exactly how momentum works in our mind too.

Hack 22: Get An Accountability Partner

Like Jordan Peterson wrote in his must-read book, 12 Rules of Life, we are much more
likely to take care for other people and make sure they follow through on their goals
than we do for ourselves. Therefore, we need accountability partners in our life to keep
us ‘in check’. If you truly want to avoid procrastinating, become more productive and
increase your odds of success, this is an absolute must.

Your accountability partner is essentially someone who holds you accountable for your
progress (or lack thereof) on your goals. This person will be checking in on your progress
regularly (preferably daily), to make sure you’re doing what you’ve set out to do. You’ll
need to share your main goals and sub-goals with your accountability partner — and
your daily progress towards the achievement of those goals. So, if you’ve been
procrastinating and wasting time, you’ll have to confess this to your accountability
partner.

The mere experience of having to confess to your accountability partner that you’ve
been procrastinating can be so painful that that can serve as the primary incentive for
you to actually get the job done at those moments where you feel the most inner
resistance. While it’s not that painful or shameful to confess to yourself that you’ve
been procrastinating, it’s a totally different ball game when you have to confess this to
someone else.
Hack 23: Use The Tide App
Personally, I use the Tide app as a timer for my meditation practice (it has a built-in
breath guidance) and as a timer for when I use the Pomodoro Technique or
Parkinson's Law. What I like about Tide is that the app looks beautiful and it’s also
completely free to use.

Hack 24: Use The To-Doist App

To-Doist is the app that I use every single day to arrange my daily to-do’s. Unlike many
productivity apps, this one is super simple and straightforward - and that’s why it works
so well. You can assign priorities to your to-do’s so that you always know what you
should work on first. Plus, it’s completely free to use!

Hack 25: Use The Forest App

Forest is a really cool app that I use when I want to prevent myself from falling into a
social media binge-hole. With Forest, you can set a time limit for how long you don’t
want to use your phone at all, so that you can focus on being productive or give your
brain a well-deserved rest. When the time limit has been reached, a nice-looking tree
has popped up in your virtual Forest, which visually shows you how well (or bad) you’re
doing.

Using this app has helped me to improve my ability to focus, prevent distractions from
creeping in and decrease my phone and social media use overall.
Hack 26: Use The RescueTime App
By using RescueTime (which can be used in sync with your desktop and smartphone) you
can track how much time you spend on what apps and websites, so that you can
analyze your own digital behaviour. This gives you valuable insights into how much
time you actually waste (or how productive you are!) which you wouldn’t have known
otherwise.

On top of that, you can use RescueTime to block certain websites and apps for an X
amount of time so that you can protect your focus, stop procrastinating and be highly
productive instead.

Hack 27: Learn On-The-Go Using Audible

One of my favourite productivity hacks is listening to audiobooks using Audible. I love
reading, and I highly encourage everyone to increase their amount of self-study. In fact,
books are a major reason for why I am where I am today. However, finding the time to
sit down and read can be quite difficult sometimes. Before you know it, you fall behind
on your reading and your books are just collecting dust on the bookshelf.

One way to combat this is by using Audible. With Audible you can transform ‘lost time’
into productive time. All of a sudden, your showers, walks, daily commute to work and
exercise become your daily moment of self-improvement and learning.

Not only do you become more productive by transforming lost time into self-
improvement time, but you’ll also upgrade your skills - which is a major factor into
become more more productive and successful.

Right now, you can get 2 audiobooks completely for FREE when you sign up for their
free trial!

==> Click Here To Get Your 2 Free Audiobooks

 Next Steps
Hopefully by now you're planning on using some of these productivity hacks asap, or you've
already tried some of them and experienced the amazing benefits!

In the coming few weeks, I'll be sending you more tips & strategies about improving your
productivity, overcoming procrastination and getting better focus.

In the meantime, check out the following if you want to get more peak performance content
and self-development tips:

--> Follow Me On Instagram

--> Read The Personal Growth Lab Blog

Also, feel free to shoot me an e-mail at info@thepersonalgrowthlab.com to ask me anything

(I don't bite!)

To Your Personal Growth,

Jari Roomer
Founder Personal Growth Lab

Ps. Something awesome is coming SOON. If you're serious about elevating your
performance, improving your productivity 10x and creating a life of freedom, you're going
to love what I have in store for you this April.