PRODUCTIVITY SECRETS FOR
ENTREPRENEURS
 
Time Management Hacks,
Strategies, and Tools to Help You
Get More Done!
 
 
 
 
 
Bowen Gutierrez
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Bowen Gutierrez @ 2022

All Rights Reserved

 
 
  

CONTENTS
 

INTRODUCTION

CHAPTER ONE

PERSONALITY MANAGEMENT

CHAPTER TWO

PATTERNS

CHAPTER THREE

TEAMS

CHAPTER FOUR

PRODUCTIVITY TOOLS

CHAPTER FIVE

PRODUCTIVITY OUTSIDE OF WORK

CONCLUSION

YOUR BATTLE PLAN

BONUS
 Introduction
So, what exactly is the subject of this book?
Here is the most straightforward answer. It is intended for
people who want to get things done quickly. If you're a
professional looking for ways to improve yourself and gain
an unfair competitive advantage, or if you're looking for
practices that will get your ideas from not just planning but
doing them faster, this is the best choice you've made. Not
only that, it will also enable you to enjoy all the benefits of
the current global economy. Benefits likes
Making your location irrelevant in terms of getting
remote jobs.
Being rewarded for your expertise in the same way
that top-tier professionals on the planet are.
Outsourcing work to low-wage countries with highly
skilled workers
You'll learn how to take advantage of online tools to
manage your projects and finances easily.
And, of course, manage your time and other
responsibilities.
These are built on a solid foundation of principles and
practices developed by thought leaders such as Stephen
Covey, Tony Schwartz, Charles Duhig, Kelly McGonigal,
James Newman, and many others. They have dedicated
their lives to personal development and outgrowing their
current selves.
This book is aimed at entrepreneurs and tech professionals.
However, the principles and tools in this book will improve
anyone's lifestyle and productivity.
So, what makes this book unique?
There are, in fact, hundreds of other productivity books and
courses available. And the answer is straightforward. In
contrast to many other books, this isn't just another feel-
good book with trite advice. All the principles and
techniques discussed in this book are supported by actual
scientific experiments and years of research.
And the reason for this is that, like you, I am a student of
productivity, and I am tired of all the generic advice that has
no value and no real-life application. I want to help you stop
wasting time and get back on track. I promise to keep things
simple and honest, and I won't waste time on gimmicks or
nonsense that doesn't matter. You'll learn how to make
better plans, avoid distractions, use your energy more
efficiently, and live the life you want without allowing your
day job to consume all of your time. You'll get the real deal
here.
If you want to create tens, if not a hundred times more
wealth than you currently have with the skills you will learn
in this book, or if you're in search of the recipe to work one
day a week, settle for your current account, and spend the
rest on whatever brings you joy, this book will help you do
just that in six steps.
First, we'll discuss yourself and how to program yourself for
success. We'll talk about your determination, motivation,
habits, goals, decision-making process, and, of course, your
comfort zone.
Then we'll go over your patterns, the kinds of activities you
spend your time on, principles and techniques for increasing
productivity, and how to avoid distractions, procrastination,
and information overload.
We'll also discuss your ideal team, because you can't do it
alone. Topics such as remote working, cost of living,
arbitrage, managing your team through effective meetings,
excellent reporting, and becoming a master of delegation
will be thoroughly explained.
Then, we'll go over the tools that will help you scale your
effort and stay on top of everything from project
management, recruiting, communication, time tracking,
and, of course, finances for your team.
Things outside of work that affect your "personal" energy
will be discussed at the end of this book. Exercise, nutrition,
stress, and sleep are just a few examples.
And we'll finish with an actionable battle plan to get you
from knowing to doing. The ultimate goal is not to educate
you, but to drastically alter your lifestyle to be worthy of
yourself.
Now, prepare to get your hands dirty. On the inside, I'll see
you.
 
 
 
 Chapter One
Personality Management
As I stated in the introduction, the entire chapter will be
devoted to self-management. Here is why. Whether you're a
lone wolf or part of a large team, how you manage yourself
is central to everything. And I'd like to begin with something
that we could all benefit from more of. That is the strength
of your will.

The Strength of Your Will

Willpower is the ability to compel yourself to do more of
what you believe will move you closer to your goals.
So, this book will assist you, whether you struggle to get out
of bed in the morning, go to the gym regularly, or focus for
more extended periods.
And, as promised, I will focus heavily on practical
applications.
Without further ado, let's get started.
Here is a list of five basic techniques for increasing your
willpower.
1. Meditation
Meditation is the quickest way to boost willpower. It may
appear strange. I wasn't a believer in meditation either,
even though hundreds of studies have shown that it can
help you focus, reduce stress, and have more willpower.
Would you like to know what the best part is? Meditation
impacts people who have never done it or find it challenging
to do it when they try it out. So, if you're having difficulty
clearing your mind, even for five minutes, the chances of it
having a significant impact on your willpower are higher.
But hold on, it doesn't stop there. Neuroscientists have
discovered that your brain undergoes physical changes after
about 11 hours of meditation. When you meditate, your
prefrontal cortex, the region of your brain responsible for
complex decision-making, receives more blood flow, just like
when you exercise your muscles.
Let me remind you once more. Look, this isn't some health
guru telling you that meditation helps you connect with your
inner self. I am not saying otherwise, but I am not ruling it
out either. Scientists used brain scans in these double-blind
experiments.
Keeping the practical approach in mind, I'm sure you're
wondering how to proceed. Many people believe they
understand the Lotus posture, which is a lengthy, multi-step
process. Sitting in a chair or on the couch is the most basic
method. Then close your eyes and try to let go of any
thoughts racing through your mind. Concentrate on your
breathing if this is difficult for you. Slowly inhale while
counting to four, then slowly exhale to four. Practice this
twice a day for at least 10 minutes.
It is something that anyone can do regardless of how busy
they are. Don't fool yourself. You have the time, so give it at
least three weeks and see the results for yourself. The only
problem I had was remembering to do it. Any reminder app,
however, can easily handle this.
The second effective way to demonstrate willpower is to
pause and plan.
2. Pause and plan your reaction.
Pausing and planning your response will take more practice,
but it will become much easier once integrated into your
decision-making process.
So, how exactly does this work? And how does it benefit
you? I'm going to safely assume that because you're
reading this book, you're very busy, trying to accomplish
more, and under a lot of stress. And therein lies the issue.
When you are stressed, your brain makes poorer decisions
than when you are relaxed. Perhaps worse isn't the best
word to use here. When stressed, your brain makes short-
term decisions and does not consider the long-term
consequences.
As you may already know, this dates back to ancient times
when we needed to hunt animals to survive. This was when
no adequate provision for modernized security and comfort
was made. Consider coming face-to-face with a tiger, armed
only with a spear. I believe that this will not be the right
time to be making long-term decisions. In fact, at that point,
parts of your brain will typically shut down, and you will go
into survival mode, focusing on how to avoid being
devoured and escape the scene alive.
Or, you're starving in a store a couple of thousand years
later. Your brain immediately prioritizes obtaining the most
energy possible, causing you to reach for the sugary candy
bar rather than the vegetables. The pause and plan strategy
comes in handy here. You can use the Pause and Plan one to
pause the fight or flight survival mechanism and make long-
term decisions with enough practice.
As I previously stated, it may take some time for this
strategy to become a habit. You'll probably forget about it at
first, but once it becomes a part of your thought process,
you'll begin to make better and better choices, and the
benefits will compound.
To apply the Pause and Plan technique effectively while
making things easier on yourself, focus on your breathing
and slow it down. Yes, it's that simple. All you've got to do is
slow down your breathing. So, the next time you're
overwhelmed and want to increase your chances of making
the best long-term decision, you know what to do.
 3. Forgive Yourself.
The third strategy for increasing willpower surprised me as
well. It is the practice of teaching oneself to forgive oneself.
Allow yourself to forgive yourself for all of your previous
errors.
This was discovered by tracking procrastination in students
who did not prepare for their first exam at Carleton
University in Canada. Those who did not forgive themselves
were more likely to procrastinate than those who did. It will
be forgiveness, not guilt, that will help you get back on
track.
Following this highly calm, almost Zen-like strategy comes
the final one, which not everyone will appreciate: burning
down your ships.
4. Burn Your Ships.
You've probably heard of the conquistador Cortes, who
burned down his ships before the battle to keep his people
from fleeing if he lost. He and his warriors could only return
home if they won and captured their opponents' ships. To
put this into practice, you must limit your options by
committing ahead of time.
Let me illustrate this with an example from Stephen Covey's
7 Habits of Highly Effective People. Let's say you desire to
start jogging but never do it because you're always too
tired, late for something else, not in the mood, or any of the
other 1000 and one reasons and excuses you make for
yourself.
The best way to get started and keep going is to join forces
with someone and commit to jogging at the same time
every day. You could make it a rule not to contact each other
before the event.
You do it this way regularly because you know the other
person will be waiting for you. Even if neither of you wants
to go, you will go because you owe it to the other person.
5. Consider your future self.
The final tip for regaining willpower and making better
decisions is to imagine your future self as an actual person.
Watch out for the future you whenever you make a decision
that benefits you in the short term, but is extremely harmful
to your future self.
When you consider your future self as a person, you are
more likely to consider their desires in your actions. So, to
cut a long story short, get to know your future self and what
they want from their choices. Then, whenever you have a
choice, think about it. That's all there is to improve your
willpower.
Try implementing at least one of these suggestions daily for
30 days and keep track of your progress.
In the following section, we'll discuss motivation and how it
affects your journey to reaching your goals.

Motivation
Motivation is a word we hear a lot. It appears to be the only
word people are searching for on the internet. Everyone
wants motivation, even if it's one of the last things they
need. Don't get me wrong here. I'm not opposed to books
that provide motivation and inspiration, but they aren't as
life-changing as we give them credit for.
While writing about this, I came across an old meme that
pretty much sums up my thoughts on motivation.
 
If you take a closer look, you'll see that everyone, including
yourself, is guilty of this at some point.
According to Tony Robbins, whom I'm sure everyone has
heard of, motivation is like taking a shower. You need it
regularly, not just once. But knowing your WHY is even more
important than motivation.
What motivates you to do what you do?
And you'd be surprised at how few people take the time to
answer this simple question for themselves. Motivation will
quickly dwindle if your WHY is unclear or the mission is not
well defined. You'll soon forget you had it in the first place.
And it doesn't stop there. It's also because we live in an "I
want it now" mindset, where we want everything right away.
We want immediate gratification. Unfortunately, the
fundamental principles of nature do not operate in this
manner.
Let's say I want to lose weight. I might be motivated to lose
20 pounds in the next 24 hours, but it's not going to
happen. If I want to see positive results, I need to watch my
diet and exercise for a few weeks to see consistent results.
The same is valid for achieving goals.
Motivation is what propels you forward. It compels you to
purchase a gym membership as well as sports equipment.
On the other hand, your routines will assist you in losing
weight. We'll go over that topic in greater detail in the
following section.
It would be best to recognize that being inspired and
enthusiastic is not enough, though it certainly helps. It's
about deciding if this is something you genuinely want to do
with all of your heart. And you may need to ask yourself this
question to get the answer. "What would I do daily if I had
everything I ever wanted?"
And if you can build a career around that, you'll never have
to work another day in your life since you'll be doing what
you enjoy. Understand my point. You may always enjoy
everything about your job. However, if the core mission is
your passion or true calling, it will be much easier to stay
committed and achieve your goals.
I hope you aren't disappointed that this isn't about getting
you excited or on fire, but rather about you looking inside
yourself and discovering why.
I did promise at the start of this book that my goal was not
to get you hyped up and on fire for three days, only to have
you add another item to your list of "things I could have but
didn't." But have this as one of the many things you have
accomplished and are proud of. That is why, in the following
section, we will discuss the other essential component of
getting things done, having good habits. How to get rid of
old ones, create new ones, and understand how they work.

Habits
According to English poet John Dryden, "we build our habits
first, and then our habits make us."
No, that has been the case for ages. Recent scientific
advances have only reinforced the significance of habits in
our lives. These practices build a visible pattern in our
brains, causing us to change molecularly. It's not just
thoughts. We'll get to that as we go along.
First, let's analyze a habit to better understand how it works
and how we may utilize that knowledge to our benefit.
It is made up of only four parts. The Cue is followed by the
Routine, which is followed by the Reward, and the
Craving constantly replenishes this loop.
Let's consider this from a realistic standpoint. Assume you
want to stop a nasty habit. You want to make a change in
your life, whether it's smoking, eating too many sweets, or
anything else.
The first step is to recognize each component of the habit.
Determine the true source of the craving, then the cue, or
what starts this circle. Then there's the routine, the easy
part, followed by the reward.
Knowing each aspect of your actions will help you better
understand their origins. That is the first step toward
changing them.
You may have noticed something. Change, not remove, I
said. And this is because, as previously stated, a habit
changes your brain on a physical level and will be with you
indefinitely. It will never go away. It simply waits in the
shadows, waiting to reappear. As a result, the simplest
method to break a bad habit is to replace it with a good one.
You can accomplish this by eliminating one of the
components. You can get rid of the cue or craving.
However, removing the routine is always the best method to
eliminate it; otherwise, simply removing the reward will
cause the habit to fade gradually.
I'll give you an example from my personal experience that
worked well for me. It may appear to be a small and
unimportant change, but it has considerably increased the
productivity of my workdays.
As you might have expected, I spend a lot of time in front of
my computer, and I frequently go to Facebook or other sites
to waste time by seeing comics, videos, or anything else. I
eventually find myself inputting the URLs of these websites
and spend between 10 and 30 minutes doing so. And if you
do it several times a day, it quickly becomes a productivity
drain.
Knowing the components of the habit as you do now, I
devised a remedy. I couldn't fight the urge since you have to
disconnect from time to time. You can't focus for eight hours
at a stretch. I couldn't avoid the cue since the cue for this
action was boredom, and you never know when you'll be
bored.
But, thanks to the reward, I was able to discover a solution.
More specifically, I installed specific Chrome extensions that
flashed a message that said, "Get back to work, bro,"
whenever I visited particular URLs. And instead of a rush of
dopamine, I was told, "Get back to work, bro."
At first, I found myself accessing this routine rather
frequently, and seeing that it was on a different page
greatly irritated me. However, as time passed, it gently, but
indeed, became inactive. Now, whenever I'm bored and
know I won't be able to escape on those procrastination
websites, I sit up, stroll about the office, maybe have a quick
conversation with other employees, and then get back to
work.
You can also find a solution to your bad habits by focusing
on any of the above components. It is not always that
simple. It may be time-consuming at times, but you have
the recipe now to your advantage. Use it.
Another strategy for creating and keeping new habits is to
build momentum.
Make a checklist with the first items being things you
already do regularly and the following being things you need
to accomplish. After completing four of the six items on your
list, it will be easier to meet the other two items. And they
don't have to be significant obstacles. It might be as easy as
making your bed in the morning or holding a quick team
meeting each day.
Another critical aspect of habit formation is called timing.
Timing is something that is frequently overlooked. When a
crisis occurs, it is the perfect opportunity to change habits.
Dozens of studies have found that when consumers
experience a significant change in their lives, they switch
brands. Who would have guessed that a divorce or a health
condition would cause you to switch between Turgeon's and
sock brands?
Let's use your company as an example. If you believe a
procedure is insufficient or worthless, it is time to act and
change it when a catastrophe is imminent.
Let's take a quick look at breaking negative habits and
forming new ones.
To change a bad habit, you first need to acknowledge it.
Second, build momentum; and last, get the timing right. I
hope this insight into practices improves your life and brings
you closer to your goals. Check out the book's last section
for references and further reading if you want to learn more
about habit creation or any other topic discussed in the
book.
Following that, we'll spend some time discussing successful
goal setting.

Goal-Setting that Works

If you're not getting things done consistently, it's probably
not due to a lack of talent, effort, or motivation. Goals that
are unclear or confusing are the most common culprits. But,
before I go into the science of goal setting, I'd like to do a
little experiment to show how important goal setting is. This
exercise was taught to me at a training session by Gary
Bencivenga, one of the finest copywriters of all time.
Let's get started.
Close your eyes slowly and imagine you're in a crowded
stadium. Close your eyes and imagine the intense
atmosphere and the wait for the game to begin. Now open
your eyes and tell me how many people were dressed in
red. Most of the time, the answer is "I don't know" or
"None."
Close your eyes once more and visualize yourself in the
same stadium. Look around for folks dressed in red; you'll
probably start spotting them. Some are close; some are far.
But the essential thing to remember is that you may now
see them and, if desired, reach out to them.
The same is true for your goals.
You will never accomplish your goals until you know what
you want and have a clear picture of them, even if they are
staring you in the face. And now that we've established the
context, let's get into goal setting and how things have
developed through time.
Napoleon Hill and his book "Think and Grow Rich," which
was published more than 70 years ago, were among the
first to codify this, and in the book, he laid the basis for
achieving your goals in six simple steps.
Step number one is to decide precisely what you want to
achieve. The more details you can include, the better. Some
people strive for financial success. Some folks would like to
be healthy. Others want to be acknowledged for their
expertise in a particular field. And this strategy is valid in all
circumstances. So, once again, meticulously document your
goals.
Done?
That was the easy part. Perhaps it's incredibly comfortable.
Now comes the challenging part.
What are you prepared to pay in exchange?
Of course, there is no such thing as a free lunch. And to
acquire something else, you must make a sacrifice. For
example, if you want to be more productive, you may need
to spend less time on social networking sites during work
hours. If you're going to lose weight, cut back on the mojitos
after work. Each action always comes with a cost.
Now that we've agreed on the critical points, it's time to
choose a date.
When do you intend to complete your task?
Putting a time limit on your aim helps hold you accountable.
If the answer is "Someday," it will never happen. And, as we
all know, the road will someday lead to a town in the middle
of nowhere. I'm not passing judgment or anything. I had
planned to enter the training industry for the past five
years. I kept telling myself that I'd do it when I had some
spare time. And for the next two years, I did nothing except
fantasize about the concept. It wasn't until I set a deadline
to publish the first book that I began to pursue that goal.
And this brings us to the fourth phase.
Having a well-thought-out plan
You already know what you want. You know when you want
it, but you have to figure out how to get it. This can include
anything from the skills you want to learn to the hobbies
you want to pursue. You will need to find resources or
prepare in any other way.
It would be best to approach this by making a roadmap for
yourself.
Let's assume you want to be a front-end developer. Your first
step should be to determine the required abilities and how
long it will take you to acquire them. And what steps do you
have to take to get from where you are to where you want
to be? You set various milestones and try to develop a
realistic timeline for yourself, and you stick to it.
Often, significant improvements do not occur overnight but
rather with subtle movements made each day toward the
objective. Consistency, not leaps, will get you there.
Consider it a marathon, not a sprint. Step five is now
complete.
Having a clear expression of intent
This is your contract with yourself, which you intend to
keep. Step six is to write it as a professional contract and
then print it.
Read it aloud at least twice a day, preferably in the morning
and before going to bed.
It may appear to be the oddest phase in the entire process,
but it is crucial. It is the most prominent and straightforward
method of explaining things. As the saying goes, "If it's out
of sight, it's out of mind." It is simple to complete all five
steps. Forget about the sixth question and come back to it
four months later and ask it. Why haven't I achieved my
objectives yet? The answer is straightforward. You had
forgotten about them. However, reading your goals daily will
keep you rooted and prevent you from becoming distracted
by your day-to-day life and duties.
Then there's the other advantage, which is much more
intriguing. I believe you would agree with me that our
subconscious mind significantly influences how we make
decisions and carry out our daily activities. And reciting your
goals aloud can entice your subconscious mind to cooperate
and assist you in accomplishing your objectives. And you
will experience this through ideas that appear to come from
nowhere. That's your subconscious mind at work in the
background.
You may have noticed this while doing something as easy as
riding a bicycle. At first, you must focus on maintaining your
balance, peddling, and looking ahead. However, once it is
automated, you may cycle faster, better, and focus on
something else while doing so. In reality, focusing on
something specific, such as your balance, causes you to
lose it, resulting in poorer performance on the bicycle.
According to Napoleon Hill, one of the founding fathers of
personal development, this is essentially the whole recipe
for goal setting and success.
After around 50 years, the SMART acronym became popular.
Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Time-bound.
We've already discussed being Specific and detailed, so
let's get right to the Measurable part.
Once upon a time, a great man said, "If it isn't measured, it
won't get done." You can't keep track of development unless
you have a way to measure it. As a result, strive to find a
technique to quantify your progress toward your objectives.
Then comes the following step.
Your goals must be Attainable. While it's OK to have lofty
goals, there's a significant difference between a goal and a
plan, and this goes hand in hand with being practical. As
you may have discovered by now, no matter how badly you
want something to happen, certain things take time.
Let's assume I want to perform 1,000 push-ups by next
week, but I can only do ten right now. While the aim is
possible, it is incredibly unrealistic because that is not how
muscles work. It doesn't matter the magnitude of work I do
or how many resources I have at my disposal; that will
never happen. Make sure your goals are Realistic, even if
they are audacious and brutal to achieve.
Last but not least, Time-Bound. We've already talked about
how crucial it is to keep oneself accountable and on track.
And now that we've covered the fundamentals, let's talk
about how you may incorporate them into your daily
routine.
I'll go out of my way and assume your goal is something
that will take months or years to complete. Anything less
than three is acceptable. Things may change as you travel
further out. You might change your mind. Also, the optimum
time to divide your efforts is weekly. Basically, after each
week, have a clear overview of your accomplishments and
have those building blocks lead to your final goal in a few
months or years. What you accomplish daily is entirely up to
you, as long as you reach the milestone by the end of the
week.
Before you move to the next step, I recommend writing
down a specific goal for yourself. It could simply be
something easy that you've always wanted to do but
haven't gotten around to doing. That being said, it's time to
move on to the next portion, which discusses decision-
making.

Making a Decision
We will go over the following topics: Decision-making, what
is it? The distinct decision-making styles and the benefits
and drawbacks of each pose, most crucially, traps and
hazards for individual or group decision-making.
One of the most prevalent decision-making errors is viewing
it as an event rather than a process. Deciding on a range of
feasible possibilities to achieve a very particular objective is
the dictionary definition of decision-making. The optimum
attitude of mind for analyzing it is as follows.
First and foremost, you prepare. Second, make the correct
decision. Third, you notify the appropriate person. Fourth,
you put into action your decision, and fifth, you evaluate the
results. You can make changes based on the input you
receive.
And throughout this five-step decision-making process, keep
the following factors in mind: First and foremost, what is
your desired outcome? What is the goal of the decision?
Second, what are all of the options? Remember that saying
"Yes" to one choice usually means "No" to the others. Keep
that in mind at all times.
Third, when does that decision need to be made? Is speed
critical? Is taking it later limiting your current options? Does
it save your company money or provide extra profits?
Fourth, on whom will this decision impact? employees,
customers, stockholders, or business partners?
You may need to go over this sequence formally to ensure
that you fully understand it. Keeping track of these
parameters, on the other hand, will save you a lot of time
and aggravation in the long run. And the larger your
organization, the more critical it is not to overlook any of
them.
Let's go over the five-step decision-making process once
more, this time in greater depth.
1. Get ready
As I previously stated, preparation is essential since the
more you research, the less you invest. Good planning
might provide more options or make the decision much
more manageable, exposing your firm to fewer dangers.
However, please don't overdo it and risk becoming
paralyzed by analysis, where all you do is research and
never get around to doing anything. To paraphrase General
S. Patton, "A decent plan forcibly executed now is preferable
to a flawless plan violently executed next week." You may
skip the volume portion when making business decisions.
Still, the speed with which you make them is always a
defining aspect of your capacity to respond to market
developments, client wants, and competitors' strategies.
 
2. Making the decision
You decide after completing the necessary preparations.
And there are numerous techniques for doing so, so we
have a lot to talk about here.
The first is autocratic decisions, which are dictatorial. One
individual wields absolute power, which is beneficial to your
firm if that individual is a gifted visionary. Decisions are
sound and swift.
Another consequence of autocratic decision-making is that
individuals in the ranks may feel unappreciated and
dissatisfied with their workplace.
Then there's participatory decision making, which is the
polar opposite of authoritarian decision making. In this case,
the person in charge solicits opinions from team leaders and
a council or board of directors. This frequently diverts the
company's attention away from any hazards that the leader
was previously oblivious to. Having multiple relevant points
of view on any issue is always a good thing, and it is an
excellent strategy to prevent danger.
The drawback is that it takes longer to make these decisions
than autocratic decision-making. As a result, you may have
a problem unless your organization's communication is
streamlined.
Then there's democratic decision-making, which is the
best so far but has problems. For starters, it is slower than
the previous two. It also risks people accepting it simply to
fit in with the group. And, in the end, it's still a dictatorship
because the majority decides for everyone.
And we have unanimity for our final type of decision-
making. Without a doubt, this is the greatest of the four.
However, it is the hardest to put into practice.
It entails a significant amount of bargaining, examining
inputs, and reaching an agreement. Steven Covey refers to
this as "going for the win-win." However, if you can do this
right and incorporate it into your daily operations, the
benefits to your organization will be enormous. Your team
has better synergy since your employees are happier and
more efficient. People will definitely feel a sense of
belonging to a broader whole and will be able to contribute
to the greater good. As the proverb goes, "great rewards
come to those who tackle big obstacles."
The third step of the decision-making process is one more
critical factor: communication.
3. Communication
It all comes down to three things.
a. What was the decision?
b. Who made it?
c. Why was it made up?
All parties on whom the decision will impact must be
informed. And it's critical to select a suitable channel for
each one. In many circumstances, an email is sufficient. A
more personal approach may be required in some cases. As
a result, you should always analyze the medium through
which you express your decisions.
 
 
4. Execution
I won't go into detail on execution because it differs from
company to company. In layman's terms, this is about how
you do things, your routines, which are entirely up to you.
5. Measuring your outcome
The final phase is to assess the outcomes and impact of
your decision and, if necessary, adapt. And this is crucial
because not all of your choices will be correct. Being able to
react and get back on track can help lessen the harm that
wrong decisions can cause.
Now that we've gotten this far, I'd like to debunk three
common myths regarding decision-making.
a. The CEO makes the decision.
When a company isn't doing well, people often point the
finger at the CEO, even though many vital decisions are
beyond their control. Either they must consider internal
issues, policies, and non-public feedback, or the board
decides. But, to keep it in perspective, the larger the
company, the less authority a single person has and the
more variables that go into any decision.
b. Decisions are taken at a predetermined time in
the conference room.
This is also incorrect because many decisions are made by
employees who are involved in actual work processes or
after brief chats around the water cooler. They can indeed
take on a more official form during a meeting. They usually
stem from an external necessity, such as a work sequence,
a market demand, a client desire, and so on.
c. They are outstanding.
We want to think that our decisions are logical, but this is
not true.
We make many gut-feeling decisions that are typically
emotional, social, and sometimes political. This is because it
is only human nature to feel at the end of the day. We are
not robots, no matter how much we wish we were.

Decision-Making Issues and Risks

I'd like us to go over some of the most severe issues and
risks associated with decision-making, one of which is
cognitive biases.
Bias in cognition
More specifically, many of our decisions are neither logical
nor even consistent with earlier ones. Many studies have
demonstrated that people are overconfident and may take
more risks than they anticipated. Then there's more bad
news. The sunk-cost effect occurs when we commit
significant resources, whether time or money, and are less
inclined to let them go, even if they are a lost cause. And as
a result, we wind up wasting even more resources. This
problem can be seen in gamblers. After losing a certain
amount of money, they lose even more in an attempt to
make up for that first loss. Don't fall into the trap of
attempting to return to zero.
The Recency Effect
Then there's the recency effect, which states that we trust
more readily available information. Then there's one of the
most common traps: intentionally seeking facts that support
our present beliefs while ignoring or rationalizing data that
contradicts them.

Getting Rid of Decision-Making Risks

So, how can you overcome all of these obstacles? How do
you avoid making these errors?
The answer is shockingly straightforward. You can overcome
these obstacles by following these three methods.
1. Identify them.
As easy as that. If you are aware that there will be traps
ahead, you will tread carefully and avoid most of them.
2. Instead of dismissing feedback, give it your full
attention.
Embrace constructive criticism and alternative opinions.
3. Integrate openness into your company's
culture.
Jack Welch, who is esteemed as one of the best CEOs of the
twentieth century, was among the early adopters of this
characteristic of transparency. He associates this trait with
all successful firms seeking rapid, sustained growth; the
capacity to completely express yourself and provide
criticism, even if unpleasant, without people feeling
wounded, repressed, or personally attacked.
And, before we finish, I'd like to discuss people who are not
a one-person show but are part of a larger team. Now for
the good news. Group decisions are frequently superior to
individual decisions. Research on the TV show "Who Wants
to Be a Millionaire?" discovered that 91 percent of the
audience's choices were correct. Staggering. However, for
group decisions to be effective, they must include these two
essential traits.
First, the group should vary in terms of different cultures,
specialties, points of view, and levels of expertise. Then it
would be better if they were self-sufficient. I was referring to
the openness I mentioned earlier. People should not feel
compelled to conform because doing so leads to "group-
think." Irving Janis, a psychologist, investigated this. And, if I
were to sum up his entire life's work in one line, it would be
"people will go along to get along."
And if your team suffers from groupthink, you will
experience all of the drawbacks of group decision-making
while receiving none of the benefits. As a result, you should
incite controversy and debate. There was no conflict in the
sense of violence or personal insults, but rather opposing
points of view.
Let us conclude this portion of decision-making with one
more point.
Don't put too much pressure on yourself to always make the
right decision. Focus more on rectifying bad ones when
possible, and continually strive to increase the speed at
which you make decisions while aiming for consensus within
your business. We'll discuss your comfort zone in the
upcoming chapter. And how the way you see things isn't
always the way they are.
 
 Chapter Two
Patterns
Look, there's something that you, me, and everyone else
have in common. It's the great equalizer, and it's the same
24 hours a day. Ultimately, it comes down to doing more in
less time. They're just two methods of accomplishing it.
The first is to become more efficient with the time you
already have, which is also the main topic of this book. The
second step is to delegate.
We'll go over delegation in greater depth in the coming
chapters. For the time being, let's concentrate on controlling
our own time, and we'll begin by addressing the four
quadrants of time management—a balance between MP and
PC. The late Stephen Covey proposed these ideas.

The 4 Quadrants and P/Pc Balance

Before discussing the four quadrants, I was hoping you
could participate in this little experiment.
Pause for a moment to think.
What would you do if you had one extra hour each day?
Think about it. No rush, but make sure that's what you
would do if you had an extra hour. Hold that thought for
now, and we'll get back to it soon.
 
We were talking about the four quadrants. In the top row,
we have important things, with the first quadrant being
things that are also urgent. And these are problems and
fires that you constantly have to put out. To-dos from your
boss or a client are calling you.
Before we can define it, they are things that act upon you
from the environment that are urgent and pressing. You
need to handle these things because you can't just do your
job if you still want to have one tomorrow. This is something
everyone has underplayed. No matter how high or low on
the corporate ladder they are, they are
Moving on to the second quadrant, we have things that are
still important but not urgent. Here we have something like
prevention, planning, empowerment, renewal, and
relationship building in general, either with others or
yourself.
You require a quick clarification. Things, people, and tasks
that are important to your value system are included. This is
the quadrant where all highly effective people spend their
time, and I'll get to that in just a moment.
Quadrant three is composed of things that are urgent but
not important. Items that are either pressing or simply
proximate. In quadrant four, some things are neither
important nor urgent. Things like playing the latest video
game that just launched, watching the news, or checking
your Facebook feed every 15 minutes.
Assuming we're all highly active professionals, most of our
time is spent in Quadrant One and Quadrant Three because
there's always a new bug, a new feature our boss wants to
be added, or a new problem a client has, so we're
constantly putting out fires.
However, the problem with always being in Q1 and Q3 is
that you get burned out. And your driving motivation dies
down. And although you put in the hours, things just don't
get done fast enough. And for every task you complete, two
more appear, and you just feel overwhelmed.
And here comes Quadrant Two. It never acts upon you. You
have to be the one that takes the initiative and acts upon it.
However, the more time you spend in quadrant two, the
smaller and smaller quadrant one gets, and you get even
more time for quadrant two.
Problems will never go away, but it's one thing to have the
situation under control and another to constantly improve
yourself and avoid the stress that makes you feel
overwhelmed. But since you've read this book to this point,
you're already in Quadrant Two. You're here not because I
wrote an exciting description, but because you took action
and wanted to better yourself and get more value from your
time.
Now, let's get back to the question I asked at the beginning
of this chapter.
What would you do with an extra hour each day?
Most of the time, what people answer is something in
quadrant two in general. Their answer is usually to spend
more time with their family and friends and improve their
current relationship with loved ones. And if we count only
the ones directly related to business, it's something that
involves learning, planning, or preparation. Because if you
don't spend time in those areas now, you will have severe
headaches down the road.
For me, Quadrant Two-goal was to have a huge whiteboard
in all my offices for close to 10 years now. And I think this is
a good symbol for this activity because all the work done on
that whiteboard is planning, preparation, and seeing the big
picture. Having this bird's-eye view before starting a project,
before going into the trenches, coding, or planning a
campaign, has a massive impact on the outcome.
We all know how difficult it can get if you want to make a
change halfway through a project. It can sometimes be the
equivalent of starting from scratch. The same goes with not
allocating time for quadrant two activities. Spending more
time on preparation and planning will save you 10-fold, and
you won't have to mend fences and fix bugs down the road.
Another way to look at this, besides the four quadrants, is
the P/PC balance, where P stands for Production and PC
stands for Production Capability.
Imagine working for a software company that is very well
established in its market. And you're its new product
manager. To impress your manager, you cut funding from
bug fixing to support the development of new features. And
guess what? Profits skyrocket, management is thrilled, and
you get a raise, maybe even climb the corporate ladder.
Then someone gets to replace you, and that person realizes
that the product needs an update and new features to be
added. You might require some downtime or even new hires
for support. From management's point of view, profits drop
and costs go through the roof. The new product manager is
seen as inefficient and the source of the company's
downfall. All this might be an exaggeration of real-world
circumstances. It shows the importance of the P/PC balance.
If you look just at the bottom line, you can make any
corporation profitable almost overnight. You just got
employee training, research, development, and anything
that's BC-related, and profits quadrupled.
And for a quarter or two, things are great. But before you
start enjoying those profits, problems will begin to rise, and
Quadrant One activities will dominate your business.
To summarize these two principles, remember to allocate
adequate time to quadrant two. And never neglect the
production capability of yourself, of the team you are part
of, or of the company, which can be anything from
upgrading your skillset to allocating time for maintenance of
your infrastructure, planning, preparation, and, of course,
building with your co-workers.
And now that we've clarified this, I can't wait to talk to you
about the Pareto principle and some interesting approaches
to it. We’ll take about that in the next sub-section.

Pareto's Principle
Dr. Joseph Juran first proposed it, and it was named after the
Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto. The 80/20 rule is also
known as the law of the vital few and the trivial many. In
essence, it states that only 20% of your efforts are
responsible for 80% of your results. This principle can apply
to a variety of aspects of your organization.
For example, if you earn 80% of your money from 20% of
your clients, 80 percent of your complaints come from
twenty percent of your clients, and 80 percent of your
earnings come from twenty percent of your investments.
Here are some further technical examples. Microsoft stated
that 20% of their problems generated 80% of their errors,
and in software development, 20% of the code usually
contains 80% of the faults.
However, one crucial aspect of the Pareto principle is that
the two numbers do not always sum up to 100. For example,
you could have 64% of your results come from just 4% of
your work. What remains constant is the principle that most
of your results are the consequence of a tiny percentage of
your time. What you should concentrate on is expanding
that timeframe as much as possible.
And if you work in management, consider what Jack Welch,
possibly the best CEO of the twentieth century, said while
running General Electric. Every year, the top 20% of
employees receive the highest pay rises globally, urging the
remaining 70% to join the top 20%. And the bottom 10%
were fired. As a result, the company was continually
evolving.
The same should be said for your time. The most enjoyable
activities should be done when you are most rested and
energized, and they should take precedence over all others.
A straightforward task for you will be to determine which
activities produce the best benefits. You quantify them in
terms of lines of code created, sales generated, or customer
inquiries answered. After you have a clear grasp of your
function in the team, you can quickly identify the tasks with
the highest returns and prioritize them above all others.
If your job is more complicated, here is a simple technique
to determine which activities to prioritize.
Take out a pen and paper and jot down all of your to-dos for
the day or week. Then you must evaluate the effort and
outcomes for each item on that list. Sign each To-Do with an
effort value ranging from 1 to 10 and a result value ranging
from 1 to 10. A score of 10 represents a significant effort or
achievement, whereas a score of 1 represents a minor effort
or result.
Then divide the results by the effort to get a priority value
for each item on the list. To make the most of your day or
week, prioritize your priorities and begin working on them
first. Even if you do not complete all of them, you will
demonstrate that you obtained the greatest number of
results possible in the time allotted.
Here's another unique variation on the Pareto principle that
you may use in your daily life. Assume you have three hours
and intend to read three articles. A fantastic way to
approach this is to skim through 12 articles in one hour and
then devote two hours to reading the best two in-depth. In
this manner, you will undoubtedly get the most bang for
your buck.
Assume you need to produce a block post for your
organization. Instead of devoting an hour to writing, spend
10 minutes brainstorming ideas and 50 minutes penning the
finest idea you came up with during the brainstorming
session. The same may be said for all forms of activity.
So, after reading this page, think of inventive methods to
tackle your present task to acquire more value from your
time by applying the Pareto principle. That being said, I
hope to see you in the following sub-section, when we'll
discuss the gray zone and how you should assess your time
in terms of energy levels rather than hours and minutes of
labor. Continue reading.

Energy Levels and the Grey Zone

Here's something I've found myself doing very frequently:
But we've all fallen into the trap at some point. And the
productivity sin is not devoting yourself to what you're doing
right now. Thinking about friends and family while at work,
or, much worse, thinking about work while among friends
and family. As a result, you miss out on both because you
aren't enjoying either one.
This is referred to as being in the "gray zone." You're unable
to focus and engage fully in the task at hand. This also
occurs when you commit another major productivity sin:
multitasking.
According to data scientist Pragya Agarwal, the human brain
can handle 11 million pieces of information each second.
However, our conscious minds can only process 40 to 50
bits of information every second. As a result, our brains
occasionally adopt cognitive shortcuts that might lead to
unconscious or implicit prejudice, which can have major
ramifications for how we perceive and act toward others.
That's why you can't focus while listening to two or three
people talking simultaneously because listening to and
understanding two people requires roughly 60 bits of
information per second to absorb.
As a result, multitasking deprives you of the actual focus
you can devote to your work. While multitasking is
beneficial for those chores that do not involve focus and
creativity, it is a burden for those that provide you with the
most value.
And for the remainder of this section, I'd like to walk you
through an interesting exercise that will help you better
define and comprehend the gray zone, as well as how to
avoid becoming trapped in it.
Let's call the time you're producing your talent "your talent
time," because that's when you use your strengths to create
value and achieve your professional objectives. And the
other is your renewal time, when you relax, rejuvenate, and
recharge.
I'd like you to halt for a few moments and make a list of
activities. And for each one, including all the activities in
which you use your strength and those you revitalize with
them. You can do things like create that brilliant marketing
campaign that requires your main strength. When you
renew your work permit, you can include meditation,
working out, or drinking a beer with friends on your list of
activities.
Following that, you must finish the slightly more difficult
process of identifying the friction blocks that prevent you
from performing those activities with complete focus on
each item on that list. Consider the conditions and
structures that will allow you to carry them out. This way,
you'll be able to put in place procedures that will enable you
to perform those tasks more efficiently and on-demand. If
they are repeated enough times, they will become
automatic and habitual.
We are, as Aristotle stated, what we repeatedly do.
Excellence, then, is a habit, not an act.
Remember to stay out of the gray zone once more. Find
your talents and refreshment activities and create
mechanisms to turn them into habits to make the most of
your day. That's all there is to the Gray Zone. If you want to
learn more about this issue, I recommend Tony Schwartz's
book, The Power of Full Engagement.
Tony Schwartz and Jim Loehr highlight this energy principle
in the book, where time is not the primary currency of great
performance. After working with great athletes and
determining how to achieve peak performance at specific
times, they arrived at this result.
In their research, they discovered that full participation is
dependent on four factors:
 1. Physical
2. Emotional
3. Psychological
4. Spiritual
Consider all of this as if it were a set of muscles. And, as you
are fully aware, both overuse and underuse degrade
capacity. As a result, discovering and surpassing your
boundaries should be a constant goal. However, never
overlook the importance of recovery. Schwartz refers to it as
rejuvenation. Sharpening the saw is one of Steven Covey's
seven habits. But what it boils down to is giving yourself
time to recover intellectually, physically, emotionally, and
spiritually.
To push your boundaries, you must venture beyond your
comfort zone regularly. However, intentionally doing so
demands a significant amount of work and is not
sustainable. That's why you'll need to develop a ritual or
habit that assures you that you don't have to rely on
conscious energy all of the time but rather on automation
and habit patterns. We just discussed habit formation in the
last part, so you should have no trouble with this.
And now, for this section, you must design a ritual for
yourself that allows you to step slightly outside of your
comfort zone effortlessly, as well as one for regeneration. It
can apply to any endeavor, no matter how big or small. The
key goal is for you to understand how this works. You may
use it in every aspect of your life.
In the following sub-section, we'll go over one of the most
popular productivity approaches right now, the Pomodoro
technique, as well as flow, which is something that all
brilliant brains employ to generate flawless work. I hope to
see you in the next section.
The Pomodoro Technique vs. the
State of Flow
If someone told me that one of the most famous time
management techniques of this decade would be based on
a kitchen timer in the shape of a tomato, I wouldn't have
believed it either. The Pomodoro technique proves that
great ideas are not limited just to laboratories or research
centers, but the kitchen as well.
So, what is it and how does it work?
It's actually quite simple. It's based on the idea that if you
structure your time into chunks of productive, uninterrupted
work with small breaks in between, you will get far more
done than usual.
So, what you do is work for 25 minutes, then take a five-
minute break. Each continuous 25 minutes is a "pomodoro."
After four Pomodoros, you can take a 15-to-30-minute
break. And believe me, you will be amazed by how much
you can get done by zoning out and focusing on one single
task at a time. You'll be surprised by the results after just six
Pomodoros a day.
Studies have shown that these frequent breaks increase
mental agility, so you won't be lagging behind or losing
productivity throughout the day. Look, I'm perfectly aware
that some of you can't completely shut off the world and will
get distracted. And the solution to this would be the four-
step formula for Pomodoro interruptions.
1. Inform people about what you're doing and ask them
not to interrupt your Pomodoro.
2. Negotiate a time where you can discuss what they
want to ask.
3. Remember to schedule time for that discussion.
4. Call them back at the scheduled time.
As far as tools go for using the Pomodoro technique, you
can either go with the physical timers or with the software
version. I prefer the app for multiple reasons. For starters, it
looks cooler, and I have my phone with me all the time, so
it's accessible.
Also, an app keeps track of what project I'm working on and
how many Pomodoros it takes for each task. You can adjust
the taking sound as well, because sometimes it gets me
more focused by creating that sense of urgency with the
timer on. But after 8 to 9 Pomodoros, it can get annoying,
and I sometimes muzzle it. Something you can't really do
with a physical timer.
However, in my pursuit to make this book the only one you'll
ever use when it comes to productivity, I want to mention a
principal totally different and somewhat opposed to the
Pomodoro technique. I am referring to the state of flow,
that almost trancelike state where hours pass like minutes,
where you're fully immersed in a task and feel as if things
are on autopilot and you get an enormous productivity
boost, also known as hyperfocus.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, a psychology and management
professor at Claremont University, is someone who has
studied and researched the concept of flow extensively. In
fact, I recommend you listen to his Ted Talk as well after
reading this book. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi said that flow
happens when you're doing a task that challenges you,
especially in your area of skill or expertise. That's why I
think this chart of challenge level versus skill level would
help you better understand things.
As you can see, flow is somewhere between arousal and
control. And obviously, if you have no skill at a big
challenge, you will worry or even have anxiety. If you have
high skills and a small challenge, you will get relaxed or
even bored.
Now, I know some of these might seem quite self-evident.
However, from experience, having a visual representation of
a principle makes it far more helpful than just telling you
about it.
So, what is better at the end of the day?
To focus on getting into the state of flow or to use the
Pomodoro technique and constantly interrupt yourself every
25 minutes?
Ultimately, it's up to you. That's why we showcased both
sides of the productivity coin.
However, keep in mind that they still have something in
common. And that is focusing on a single task and not
getting distracted. I recommend you experiment with
both and stick with the one that works for you.
For example, I sometimes don't track my time. However,
starting the day with a Pomodoro sets the tone for the entire
day because it gets me in that state of "I will get stuff done
today". I'm not saying in any way that one approach is
superior to the other, because both have countless benefits.
In the case of Pomodoro, all those five-minute breaks will be
a good occasion to get up from your chair, move a bit
around the room, and stretch. This will also reduce
eyestrain. If you're not physically in as good of shape as you
want to be, maybe you should pick the first option.
And as far as the state of flow goes, what I didn't tell you
and saved for last is that the study was initially focused on
what makes people happy and creative. The research shows
that the more you are in that state of flow, the more fulfilled
you will be with your work.
So, whatever method you use, as long as you apply one or
the other, you will always get some additional benefits. It's
all down to what's more important to you right now, and
what fits better with your personal style coming up.
Next, we have a subject that we started scratching the
surface of in this section. It's multitasking and how bad it
could be for your productivity levels.
 

Multitasking
We'll start with why we do it so much, continue with why it's
bad for us, and then I’ll show you methods to remove
multitasking from your schedule altogether.
Why do we like multitasking in the first place?
Well, in many ways, it's like a drug. A study by Earl Miller, an
M.I.T. neuroscientist, shows that switching between tasks
and completing various mini tasks, like answering an email
or replying to a tweet, gives us a surge of dopamine.
For those of you not familiar with dopamine, it is a
neurotransmitter that, when released, gives you pleasure.
And this action/reward process creates the feedback loop.
And the more we do it, the more we reinforce that loop and
the more likely we are to do it again.
How exactly is multitasking bad for us?
The first serious studies on multitasking, and its effects on
the brain started in the 1960s, and the initial findings were
quite interesting. Your brain never actually does multi-
tasking. It just switches really fast from one task to another.
And the search effect is where all the damage happens.
It has been proven that it decreases learning and the ability
to assimilate new information and skills. Also, the work you
do, while multitasking is prone to having far more errors. If
you don't believe me, try for yourself this simple
experiment. Write an article in complete silence, then write
another article while having a conversation with someone.
You'll be amazed by the lack of quality in your second one.
Some more recent studies have shown that multitasking
actually lowers your I Q. while doing those tasks. It is similar
to skipping a night's sleep. And although it's not relevant to
work, if you multitask while driving, you are four times more
likely to have an accident. And this just goes to show how
much of an impact your brain has on its ability to multitask.
How do you stop multitasking and deliver more great work?
The first step is to carefully choose your tools. Most of them
do more harm than good. For example, having email or
Facebook notifications on is in no way a productivity tool.
This is because while working, you will constantly get
interrupted and never fully focus on the task at hand. That's
why I encourage you to take an hour or more off if needed,
and sort out which tools actually help you and which ones
do more harm by constantly interrupting you throughout the
day.
Next, replace old habits with new ones. We already
discussed habit creation in the previous section, but let's
quickly go over it once more. It's actually quite simple. You
have a cue, which is basically the set environment and
circumstances to start it, the actual habit, and then the
reward. The reward element will eventually generate a
craving. That's why it's so hard to break a habit.
This can be seen very easily in people who smoke.
Whenever someone else lights a cigar, their brain notices it
and starts craving one as well. And before you know it, they
have a cigar in their hand. The ideal way to stop this never-
ending loop is to either remove the habit cue from your life
or to somehow break the sequence.
And here's a personal example of what I did a few years
back.
I found myself obsessively going to this website with a lot of
memes and comics, and it just became an automated reflex.
Whenever I got bored or something, I opened a new tab and
boom! Ten minutes later, I realized I hadn't done anything
productive. What I did was install a browser called Block
Site. It's not really that relevant which one it is. But what's
important is what it did. It allowed me to block websites. So,
whenever my brain went on autopilot to that website, it was
not given the reward it usually gets, but instead it got a "Get
back to work, bro" message.
And what? At first, I saw that page quite often, especially in
the first few days. Eventually, I lost the craving to go to that
website. So, I broke the habit with a simple browser
extension. The same can be applied to any habit you
currently have that is robbing you of productivity. But since I
can't know all your bad habits or your procrastination
websites, it is up to you to be honest with yourself.
Your next obvious step is to eliminate bad habits and form
new ones. You can start with what's in front of you right now.
Your desk. Remove all clutter from it because the more
things you have in front of you, the more likely it is that you
will be distracted. Block notifications on your phone. Then
move to your screen. Do you have any unnecessary add-
ons, tool bars, or other things that you never use or that just
spam you with trivial information? Remove them. Remove
anything that is not core to your goals and work flow.
I'm not saying you are no longer allowed any form of
distraction or that all your time should be spent working a
full 10 hours a day. But I'd rather create a system where you
decide when you take a break and watch a cat video on
YouTube instead of the cat deciding for you.
You can do this by using the Pomodoro principle you've
learned in the previous pages of this book or by giving
yourself a reward whenever you reach a specific milestone.
You know best what reward is proportional to an hour or two
of productivity during the day. After achieving a goal and
completing a significant task, you can take a guilt-free
break. And that's about all in relation to multitasking.
Remember the three-step formula to cure it? Choose the
right tools, create the right habits and say no to distractions
by blocking or removing them all together. And in the next
sub-section, we will talk about information overload, the
problems it creates, and how to deal with it effectively.

Information Overload
If we were to make a chart of the biggest problems facing
modern professionals, this would be at the top of the list.
I will tackle this similarly to how we tackled the previous
sections as well. I'll start with some context and formalize
the problem, and then I'll cover two unpleasant conditions
overload creates, in this case, the paradox of choice and
paralysis by analysis. And I’ll end this section with some
exercises on how to deal with it and improve your current
work process.
Let's do it.
Information overload is basically the difficulty a person can
have understanding an issue and making decisions due to
the presence of too much information. If you want a more
industrial definition, it is when input exceeds processing
capacity.
So how much information are we actually exposed to?
Well, a study by the University of California concluded that
the average household consumes about 6.9 zettabytes of
information a year. That's 1,000,000 by 1,000,000
gigabytes. And to bring that figure to an easier
understanding, we’re exposed to 100,000 words each day,
via information that crosses our eyes or something we hear.
While reading the study, something that Eric Schmidt said a
few years ago came to mind. Every two days, we create as
much information as we did from the dawn of civilization up
until 2003. So, you could say that the numbers above will
only rise in the years to come. And the two unpleasant
conditions this creates are:
A. Choice Paradox
Basically, the more choices you have, the more unsatisfied
you'll be with your decisions. This is covered in detail in the
book of the same name by psychologist Barry Schwartz.
Long story short, more choices or freedom creates higher
expectations. And whenever you make a decision, be it what
platform to create your app on or what type of sandwich to
eat today, it will always make you think. "What if one of the
other choices would have been better?"
Another bad side to having lots of choices is that whenever
you are not satisfied with the results of your decision, it's
your fault. And Barry, the author, gave a great example of
him buying jeans. If there is only one type of jeans, you buy
them, and if you're not happy with how they fit, it's not your
fault. But if there are 100 types of jeans and you get one
that is close to perfect, you're actually less satisfied with the
choice because you'll keep thinking, "What if there was a
better choice out there?" And if you don't like them, it's your
fault for making a bad decision.
B. Analysis paralysis
The second unpleasant side effect of information overload
that is even more specific to technical professionals is
paralysis by analysis. This is quite frequent in software
development and manifests through exceedingly long
phases of project planning, requirements gathering, and
data modelling.
Those of you familiar with agile software development might
have heard of this as an example of anti-patterns. In fact,
agile development explicitly seeks to prevent paralysis by
analysis by promoting an iterative work cycle that
emphasizes working products over product specifications.
Now that we've gone through all the hardships that
information overload creates, it's time to focus on dealing
with it. I'll give you five methods for this.
1. Brain Dump
This is actually more of an exercise. What you have to do is
write down a list of all the things that are going through
your head right now. So, pause for a moment and make a
long list of everything that's on your mind. Every task, every
to-do, every problem, every business deal, everything. This
should take a few minutes.
Done?
Perfect.
Now what you have to do for each item on that list is decide
an exact time when you will complete it, or just decide to
remove it from the list altogether. If it's a business venture
that you were offered, either accept it and put things into
motion, or just let the other side know that you're not
interested for the time being.
Having 100 things in the someday category is just a waste
of your brain power and energy, and it will limit your ability
to focus.
2. The Two-Minute Rule
The second method of dealing with information overload is
the two-minute rule. What you have to do is split your tasks
into these two categories. There are tasks that take more
than two minutes and ones that take less. Then group up all
those small tasks and do them in the same compact
timeframe. If you keep alternating between those bigger
tasks and those two-minute ones, they will take 10 minutes.
Also, constantly switching your focus from one thing to
another won't help your productivity either. That’s why it's
important to focus on one at a time.
3. Making Important Decisions First
The third method to deal with information overload is to
prioritize the important decisions first. We talked about this
in the previous section, where I discussed prioritizing tasks,
but I want to share another insight on this.
In the book The Willpower Instinct, author Kelly McGonigal
discusses how willpower is a limited resource. So, if you use
it on trivial decisions and tasks when you are faced with the
important ones, you might run out of it. That's why it's
essential to start with the important tasks first.
Many companies use this information to determine your
willpower being a limited resource. You can see it every day
in supermarkets in the way they place their products to
maximize profits. There's a whole science to product
placement; the structure files, what goes on eye level and
what doesn't, pricing, and even the music.
4. Subdue Authority
Pushed down authority is the fourth method of dealing with
information overload, and this is extremely useful for
managers. It's basically a stewardship delegation. You
delegate in such a way that the people you manage
understand the project goal, so you don't have to review
their methods; you just analyze the results.
5. Turning Things Off
The last and sometimes hardest to implement solution to
information overload is to turn things off. You can't get
overloaded with information if there's no emitter. So, turn off
phone notifications for interrupting apps. Close the TV and
radio and, most importantly, leave that email tab open in
your browser.
And, if you use even one of these techniques, you will notice
a significant improvement in your ability to deal with
information overload, as well as advantages in your
decision-making speed.
In the next sub-section, we’ll discuss the topic that burdens
most of us. It's procrastination. But you know what you have
to do and why you have to do it, but you delay it until the
last minute anyway. And if you have this problem, I hope the
next section will help you in the fight against procrastination
and get that project you've been putting off done already.

Procrastination
The dictionary definition of delay is the action of delaying or
postponing something. Look, if you don't have any trouble
with procrastination, you can just skip this section
altogether. If you have a friend or team member who is a
chronic procrastinator, you can get some value from it. The
problem with this is that the solution is not that obvious.
And if advice like stopping procrastinating worked, then the
solution to obesity would be to tell obese people to lose
weight. Tell the press people to avoid apathy, and you get
the idea.
While I was doing the research for this topic, I found many
approaches that explained the concept and solutions to the
problem, but the one that stuck with me the most and got
enormous amounts of attention was a blog post titled "Wait
but Why," written back in 2013.
In fact, that blog post got so much attention that the author,
Tim Urban, wrote two follow-up blog posts to further explain
the concept. So, all credit goes to him on this one. However,
interpretation and other ideas are an added bonus by
myself that will hopefully help you deal with procrastination
better.
Let's assume for a second that you're a normal person, that
is, a rational decision maker. You know what things you have
to do? You plan them out and do the work gradually, and
more often than not, you deliver on time.
Unfortunately, the mind of the procrastinator is different.
You have someone else that occasionally takes control of
the steering wheel. It's the instant gratification monkey. This
monkey has a very hedonistic view on life. Basically, all it
cares about is now and being capped for the present and
doesn't do any long-term planning. And the problem
procrastinators have is that this monkey is in control more
often than they would like.
You might wonder, how do they ever get things done?
And the answer is because there is another crew member
called the Panic Monster. But he is asleep most of the time
and only participates when the deadline gets too close and
there's danger of a disaster happening.
For example, if you have to write a business plan in three
weeks, the instant gratification monkey will just watch
YouTube videos and read articles and news that have
nothing to do with the project. Check your email every five
minutes and even do other tasks. That implies delaying
work on that important business plan. When the deadline
gets too close for comfort, that panic monster wakes up,
and the instant gratification monkey runs away. Once again,
you get at the steering wheel and get to work, all pistons
running, and usually, somehow, you manage to deliver it on
time or with small delays.
However, this comes at a cost. For starters, you hate
yourself for not doing the best work you could do and, quite
often, you underachieve. And it's extremely unpleasant to
pull all-nighters when you know you had more than enough
time to deliver the work. And you never get to do things the
way you want to do them, because you're always
alternating between procrastinating, panicking, and
finishing things at the last minute.
Not to mention the blows to your self-esteem and self-worth,
for knowing that you could have done the task better with
less stress and that you promised yourself that you wouldn't
ever do this again.
So how do you cure procrastination?
And although it's not technically a disease, well, that's what
they said about depression until 40 years ago. I'm pretty
sure there will be medication for procrastination in 10 years
from now. But until then, you need to get things done
without guilt, anxiety, and self-hatred because of the instant
gratification monkey.
 A. Planning
The solution will be something that you hate and love at the
same time. It involves planning and doing, and all
procrastinators love planning. However, most of the time,
the plans are pretty vague. For example, let's say you want
to learn to code. Well, this is not an ideal set up for failure.
First, you'll waste lots of time identifying the right language.
Which is the best one, as well as the pros and cons. Then
you might schedule time but then postpone it for whatever
reason, because you see learning to code as this huge
undertaking, when in fact it's like building a house. You just
lay one brick at a time, and eventually you will get the
house built. Even if you lay a brick a day, a house will get
built at some point.
A quote from "Wait But Why" stuck with me. And I hope it
will have the same impact on you. "A remarkable and
glorious achievement is just what a long series of
unremarkable and inglorious tasks looks like from far away."
This applies to all areas of life.
If you want to lose weight, you don't do it overnight. You
watch your diet, exercise each day, and eventually you will
get there. If you want to learn how to code, you practice
each day for an hour or more, and eventually you will
master it. And the more time and effort you put into it, the
faster you will become skilled in that particular area.
However, as we discussed in previous sections, never
overlook the renewal period.
Getting back to the topic of planning, you already know how
to do it. You know how to set effective goals, deal with
multitasking and information overload, and also have the
techniques to take action, like the Pomodoro technique, for
example. So, it's time to put them to good use and decide
on one thing that you want to commit to and what is
required to see it to fruition. It can be a career shift, that
important side project you've been putting off for months
now, or even something personal, like running your first
marathon, and each day or every time you schedule it, do
it.
And this is the second part of the solution to procrastination.
B. Doing
This is the "make it" or "break it" moment. Getting started is
where the instant gratification monkey is the strongest.
Once you get started, its power is weakened because what
it thrives on is your low self-esteem. And as soon as you
start working on your goals, you feel better about yourself
because you're actually doing it, not just planning. And the
further along the road you are with your goals, the easier it
will be to keep doing it. Because you can slowly start to see
the finish line, this is when the crazy part happens.
Remember your archnemesis, the instant gratification
monkey, and how he only likes to have fun and seeks
pleasure? Well, when it sees that you're at 70% with your
project, it knows that when you finish it, he will get to have
fun and no longer force you to procrastinate. So, you're far
more likely to finish a project if you don't quit early on.
Here are five things to keep in mind in your struggle with
procrastination.
1. Everything is a choice.
Know that everything you do is a choice. Even your state of
mind is a choice. How you react to circumstances is your
choice. If you plan on learning to code for one hour each day
and you miss one day for a very objective reason, you can
either decide to stop altogether, or do not give up and
forgive yourself for the heck of it and get back on track.
2. Set yourself up for success.
Create methods to defeat the monkey. This is mostly dealing
with interruptions, which we already discussed earlier.
 3. Measure your progress.
Keep track each day of how far along you are with your goal.
Even that 1% progress will keep you motivated. Slow
progress is still progress. If we both do the same things each
day, and you’ve decided to learn something for just one
hour, that's a 4% difference in our activities. But in a year,
you'll have mastered the new skill, and I'll be back where I
was last year. That’s how big of a difference a 4% shift can
make.
4. You are the future.
Remember that the future "you" is a real person, and he or
she is not that much different from the present you.
Whenever you delay something in the future, you will have
to handle it. But he has the same habits, the same fitness,
the same everything. So, the next time you avoid doing
something, remember that you yourself are the future YOU
at some point.
5. Demonstrate it to yourself.
Prove to yourself that you can do it. Whenever an athlete
has a cold streak, they don't get out of it until they actually
start doing and getting results. And the fastest way to raise
your confidence is by doing it and showing yourself that you
can do it. That's about it for procrastination.
And yes, I know this was not the most scientific approach to
it. But the reason I chose this format is because it got
incredible results and attention. And although it is trivial, it
gets the job done. This is the last topic I will cover as far as
your patterns go.
We'll end this section with a quick summary and some key
takeaways. And then we'll move on to the next sub-section
where we discuss your team.
 
 Chapter Three
Teams
In this entire section, we will cover your team. We’ll go over
everything from recruiting the best people you can, no
matter their location, how to manage your project, have
effective meetings, clear and concise progress reports, and
much more.
But before anything, we need to clearly define your role.

Your Role
Let's start with the basics. Since you're reading this book,
you might be in one of two categories. Either you are an
entrepreneur and want to scale your efforts, or you are
highly skilled in something and want to grow a business
around it. This book will help you have a bigger impact.
Either way, the principles of building your team stay the
same. When it comes to yourself, you need to focus on your
strengths and not your weaknesses, and the people you get
on board should be strong with your week. If you want to
build something better, it only makes sense to hire people
that can outperform you, or at least have the potential to do
so in the proper context. Before building your team, make
sure you have a clear outline of your strong points and your
weaknesses so you can hire the right people for the right
tasks.
You might be good at starting quickly and getting an idea off
the ground, but you might be horrible at following up. That's
why you need someone to cover your blind spots. And
although we'll go over recruiting and details in the next
section, keep in mind for now that there are two aspects to
choosing the right people.
First, you have their value system, which is more innate and
harder to change. This includes things like how they view
business, how they deal with people, and how they react to
stress. And then there's the skills part of things, which many
companies focus on when recruiting and end up regretting
down the road. You might have a highly skilled person and
realize months later that he or she is not a cultural fit with
the way you see or do things, and the workflow becomes
ineffective because they don't share the same vision.
What you save in the short term by not having to train
someone, you lose in the long run because there will be
internal conflict, or that person may become unproductive
or even decide to change jobs because they don't share
your why, the reason you do things. Anyone who has ever
done recruiting knows how hard it is to get to that point
where communication is flawless and without friction,
because everything requires trust, and trust requires time.
Once more, remember these core aspects of your role. You
need to have a clear vision of what you want to build and
make sure the people you hire share that vision. Also, you
need to be self-aware and know what your strengths and
weaknesses are, and hire people to compensate for those
weaknesses.
While job-specific skills are important, make sure your future
team members' views of things are in alignment with yours.
Because while skills can be gained pretty quickly, you can't
change a person's view of life overnight.
So, I prioritized the WHY over the HOW. Besides these two,
you need to lead by example. There's nothing more
inspiring or contagious than passion. And you should be the
one that shares that with your team, making them believe
in the vision and making them part of it.
That being said, we’ll jump to recruiting and the actual steps
of building your team.
If this book has been valuable to you so far, do well to give
it an honest review.

Recruiting
Recruiting is a core factor in your success. This is because
you choose a team with which you will face both good and
bad things, and they will determine the outcome of your
business. And as Bill Gates said while he was building
Microsoft, "Take our 20 best people away and I will tell you
that Microsoft will become an unimportant company." And
it's not always about hiring the best individual talent, but
rather hiring the ones with the most synergy. And you can
see this in sports, where individual value alone is not the
defining outcome for victory if teamwork is not present.
And although that synergy, be it communication, goals, or
vision, can be thought or grown, you need to make sure
there is potential for growth in the first place. And that's the
hardest part when recruiting, identifying potential and drive.
So how do you do that? Do you look at a person's work? Do
you look at how they talk? Maybe they're good interviewers.
Maybe they are just charismatic. So how do you make the
best choice?
Here are some guidelines that will help you do just that.
To begin, take a bird's-eye view of what they claim their
goals are and the steps they have taken to achieve those
goals. And if there are clear signs of inconsistency between
the two, this should be an alert. And you might even ask
them about this clash between goals and action and see
what response they give.
The second thing you should keep your eye on is more
related to your skills. And this is to look at what they do in
their spare time. For example, if you're hiring a designer,
ask them what they do in their spare time. If it's still design
work for personal projects, chances are this is their true
passion, and they don't see it as just a job. Then ask them
to share with you the projects they liked, because
sometimes a portfolio might be work that a client chose, not
what they thought was best.
Then comes action. While some might be good at
interviewing, what you're hiring them for is execution. What
you should do is start a small project with them. It could be
a few hours of work or a few days, where you assess the
way, they do their job bid. How well they estimated their
time. Their responsiveness or the way they communicate,
their discipline, if they need constant monitoring or not, if
they're autonomous, and, of course, their skill level.
Practically, what you get is a glimpse of what they will be
like as team members when they join the company.
However, I said you need to hire people with a similar vision.
Don't confuse that with hiring people because you like them
or because they like you. Both are dangerous and expensive
mistakes.
Another important factor in your decision-making is to start
with stars. Don't hire people in the hopes of changing them.
Nothing has a lower return on investment or a higher risk.
Also, make sure all your players are made up of "A" players.
And what I mean by "A" players is internally motivated.
People with a similar drive, each one highly skilled in their
role, as autonomous as possible. I do not agree to search for
approval or disagree because of ego. People are focused on
delivering great work.
The reason you need your entire team to be all "A" players
is because they amplify each other. In time to get this
broadband connection between their brains and just deliver
impeccable work at an incredible pace. No egos, no friction,
no politics, just great work.
However, this benefit comes with a risk if you put a "C"
player between them. What happens is that they instantly
all become "C" players because they no longer focus on the
work. This is because they just don't understand why this
new person is not as driven and committed to the goal as
they are.
So, whenever you make new hires, make sure you're making
the right decision. And don't break the existing synergy.
The last factor you should take into consideration when
recruiting is to never limit yourself to local talents. Go
worldwide. Hire the best people you can find in the world,
not the best people in your city.
That being said, I'm looking forward to seeing you in the
next sub-section, where we start things out by analyzing
remote work, its pros and cons, and everything in between.
After that, we'll focus extensively on the operational side of
things and how to manage your team effectively.

Working Remotely
We're going to cover these four steps. First, we will discuss
the benefits because there are plenty of them, both from
the employer and employee point of view. Then we'll cover
the drawbacks of remote work because they are present as
well. Afterwards, we will move on to methods of maximizing
the benefits of remote work and minimizing the risks.
Employers' Benefits
Let's talk about the benefits for the employer, in this case,
you, and you'll see why they considerably outweigh the
drawbacks.
For starters, you have access to the best talent you can get
worldwide. You're no longer limited to a local market, which
can sometimes have a workforce that's too expensive or
lack the highly skilled professionals you're searching for.
Another benefit is the fact that offsite employees usually
involve lower costs and logistics. You no longer require the
infrastructure necessary for a big team, like an office with all
the bills and additional services and responsibilities that
come with it.
The third great aspect of having a remote team is that you
can easily spot underperformers. Usually, people that don't
perform well in the role might compensate through
charisma. However, with remote teams, individual results
are far more easily noticeable if you put in place the right
systems.
And the fourth benefit is one overlooked many times.
However, it can really show in terms of productive work
delivered. It means having fewer interruptions. You have far
fewer distractions from coworkers because they can't really
come by your desk and ask you something and ruin your
flow. And then there's the fact that due to all the benefits
they have, your employees will be happier.
Employee Benefits
Now, speaking of that, what are employees' wins if they're
part of a remote team?
For starters, it's the fact that they no longer waste time on
commuting. Suddenly, going to the office takes just 10
seconds, and getting those two extra hours each day to
spend with friends and family is quite a bonus.
Then we have the fact that they can do more rewarding
work than the local opportunities. Remember our chat about
the state of flow where you are skilled and faced with a
challenge, and how being in that state makes you happy
and fulfilled? No longer being restricted to the local market
means they can be part of projects they actually want to be
a part of now that location is irrelevant.
And you might be wondering, well, if it's all that great, then
why isn't everyone doing it?
The truth is that, although great, remote work has some
drawbacks as well, and you need to always consider them
and make sure to keep them in check. For example, you
might lose on the human connection side of things. Sharing
and making people part of the vision might be a bit more
difficult if you never talk to them in person or do so once or
twice a year.
Then there's the fact that the people you do employ need to
have discipline and self-control. This is because it's easy to
lose focus if you're at home and have minimal supervision
and interaction with your team. And remember those
distractions from coworkers we talked about earlier? Well,
they might still exist, but in this case, they might be from
friends and family who don't really understand that,
although at home, their loved one is actually at work.
What can you do now to make remote work, work?
In essence, it is just about two things. Relationships and
systems You need to build relationships between your team
members, and you can do that either with periodic calls,
face-to-face meetings, or at least by having a yearly meet-
up. Also, you should always communicate your vision, your
goals, changes, and events so people feel part of this tribe,
even if they're halfway around the globe.
In fact, many studies conclude that happiness comes from
just four things.
1. Perceived growth
2. Perceived control
3. Connectedness
4. Higher purpose
And while the first two come from doing the work itself, the
remaining ones are your responsibility to encourage and
facilitate.
Then comes the second thing you need to manage to get
the most out of your remote team. And that is setting in
place the right systems. And this involves everything from
choosing the right project to management tools, having
effective meetings, and implementing a proper progress
report system.
Things which we’ll be covering in detail in the rest of the
section. That being said, we’ll end this conversation on
remote work here and jump to the first operational factor of
your team. Efficient Project Management, covering
strategies, tools, and optimization.

Project Management
This boils down to communicating with your team about just
three things. These are:
1. Your vision
2. The actual steps and goals for fulfilling that vision
and,
3. Tracking progress on those goals.
And to do all this, you need a variation of the following
tools: For starters, a common calendar with which
everyone has a big picture of when everything needs to get
done. And as we discussed in the section on goal setting, if
things are not time-bound, then the odds of getting them
done are diminished.
Then we need a chat for all our instant communication. The
reason why chat is superior to calls or face-to-face requests
is that it limits interruptions while at the same time being
fast and efficient. A chat you can always ignore if you have
something truly important to finish. And that usually makes
the difference between a productive or an unproductive day.
As for tools, you can use anything that works for you. I
initially created a group on Facebook but realized it
distracted the team because when you're on Facebook, you
can easily get distracted and caught up in non-work
conversations with friends and family, and you'll just be one
click away from scrolling through your newsfeed.
However, a good solution was found in Skype, but even that
can become disruptive if you're part of multiple teams or
have multiple topics in the same group chat. The option that
worked best but had similar problems with Skype was slack.
I know everyone is on the high train as far as slag goes, but
it does the job. The only problem is that it can get really
noisy fast for bigger teams.
Moving on to communication, you'll always want something
instant. And this takes the shape of a message board where
people can get updates on what's happening on everything
that involves them without having to read through hundreds
of lines of chat. You can solve this by using a private forum
for your company, or by adding a message board plug-in to
your website, or by using various project management apps.
Basecamp is the one I personally prefer, and I have been
using it since forever.
The next essential part of project management is something
we all adore seeing Marcus complete. It's on our to-do list.
And I will enjoy that little dose of dopamine we get each
time we complete one and get to move on to the next.
As far as to-dos go, if you're still a one man show, you can
go with whatever you want. I think I've used about 90% of
the to-do productivity apps available in the last few years.
However, if you plan on growing your team, make sure you
use something that allows an easy transition to a team work
environment. At the risk of sounding a bit biased, I use
Basecamp for this as well. But you can go with any other
software like Todoist, which does a great job, or Trello, which
tackles things a bit differently with the whole project board
interface.
Another piece of software I used that is worth mentioning is
Asana or Wrike, both of which have excellent user interfaces
and are a pleasure to work in.
After to-dos, you have your documents and files. While most
project management software has this feature, I personally
recommend using a specialized service like Dropbox, Google
Drive, or OneDrive. I use Dropbox because it works great. It
never glitches, is easy to use on a daily basis, and has an
almost non-existent learning curve. Also, I'm forever
grateful to them for a feature where it saves previous
versions of files or deleted ones. And that can be a lifesaver
if you ever happen to be in such a desperate situation.
And the last core component of great project management
is a progress report. Although they might not seem like a
core activity, you'll be amazed by how powerful they are, if
implemented properly. The simplest form of report I've used
consistently is the GRP (Goals, Results, Problems) format,
where you write at the end of each day for 5 to 10 minutes,
what you planned to achieve, what you actually achieved,
and why you didn't.
By having access to all these, you'll know at all times what
the status of each person on your team is. It also has the
capacity to help them out and execute better by solving the
problems they face. The simplest way you can implement
this is by adding a form to my website where people
complete it at the end of each day.
Of course, you can use an email autoresponder for this, or
use a project management software that has this feature.
But whatever you do, make sure you keep doing it because
that's where the value comes from. In fact, the most difficult
part of it is to transform this into a habit for everyone.
We'll go into more depth on the benefits of progress reports
later in this book. For now, remember that in order to have
effective project management execution, you need to have
all six of these needs met. A calendar, a chat, a message
board, a to-do system, proper documents and files, and
progress management in a streamlined report system.
That being said, we move onto the next subject, where we’ll
analyze what makes meetings effective and how you can
avoid making them black holes of productivity. Looking
forward to seeing you in the next section.

Effective Meetings
These are by far the black holes of business productivity,
and they are as disruptive as they are expensive.
For example, something as mundane as a one-hour meeting
in a team of six could actually be considered a day of work.
And that wouldn't necessarily be a problem if the meeting
had a clear result, which in most cases, they don't, and the
only thing they do is create the need for even more
meetings. You might have guessed by now that I don't
necessarily like them, and the bigger your organization, the
more likely that you hate them as well.
But before we go on and create the perfect meeting, we
must first take one apart and see what it's made of. So, take
a moment and think about what the point of meetings is
anyway. And usually, it's one of the four.
1. Decision-making meetings
We may need a group decision on a company change of
direction and need to take action. These usually go pretty
well due to the clear outcome, and if they fail, it's usually
due to internal politics.
2. Informing meetings
The second type of meeting is the informative ones, where
it's mostly a form of presentation and then a Q & A, which
makes it extremely easy to go off track and not be relevant
to the context.
 3. Planning meetings
We have planning meetings, which are very delicate
because in these types of meetings you might discover
countless problems and side goals that need to be achieved
towards the big goal. And this usually leads to more and
more meetings.
4. Problem-solving meetings
Problem-solving meetings are open-ended meetings and
don't necessarily have the desired outcome, especially since
there is no guarantee the problem will be solved.
 
Now that we know the main categories, we should analyze
what’s at the core of an effective meeting.
There’s this trio you always need to focus on. Purpose,
Format, and People
What is the desired outcome of the meeting? Always have
this in mind.
What's the approach?
What's it about?
What needs to be ready prior to the start of the meeting?
If you don't take care of this, just don't have it in the first
place.
Then there are the people. Who needs to be there and why?
To make it simpler for you to execute, I've prepared this five-
point checklist that will make your meetings far more
effective and easier to schedule.
1. Why are you having it? Can you not have it at all and
still achieve the goal? Can an email replace it?
2. Who needs to be there? Are you sure everyone needs
to? Are you sure they need to attend the entire
meeting? Could they just join for 10 minutes, then get
 a summary, and not have to spend two hours
listening to things that are not relevant to them?
3. How long will it take? If you don't have a strict
timeframe, preferably with intermediate goals, then
you won't get the desired outcome. For example, you
might have a problem-solving meeting where you
allocate the first 10 minutes to a brainstorming
session. Then another 10 minutes identifying the best
option. Then, in the last 10 minutes, they discuss the
actual execution and action steps that need to be
taken.
4. What does everyone need to prepare? Nothing ruins
meetings as fast as someone not being ready for
them, because you instantly waste everyone's time.
So, make sure each member is prepared, be it with
that analytics data, that research, or that prior
discussion with the client.
5. Who needs to be informed of the changes generated
by the meeting? Do your clients need an update?
What members of staff need to be informed? Also, the
method of communication used is relevant. In most
cases, one email update will do. But in some, maybe
a phone call is required, or even a face-to-face
discussion. Whatever the case, make sure you always
follow up because otherwise the actual execution,
which should be the successor of a meeting, will not
happen or might be unclear and vague.
And now that you have the systems in place, it's time to
discuss the tools.

Remote Meeting Tools that Work

In most cases, either Skype or Google Hangouts will do the
job if we're talking about remote teams. They're free, simple
to use, and have practically no learning curve. However, if
you think you've outgrown them, the alternatives would be
software like Crowdcast, GoToMeetings, or Bluejeans.
Although not necessary yet, keep them in mind in that
mental drawer of tools for later use.
And that's about all there is to having effective meetings.
Pro Tip:
Before we end, I'd like to recommend a type of meeting that
I think all teams should have because it generates
phenomenal results in terms of work done and also in terms
of the synergy your team has. And I'm talking about the
morning stand-up meeting.
Each morning, you and your team should have a quick 10-
minute meeting while standing up. This standing up rule
should be applied even if you do it over Skype. Its purpose
is to make it short, since you're not sitting and relaxing. And
what you can discuss in that meeting is just three things.
1. Remind everyone of the vision. Your why? Why are
you doing this?
2. The ONE thing that if everyone completed today,
would make it a successful one.
3. Any updates or changes with the company?
Long story short, 10 minutes standing up, vision, execution,
and news. Do this for a week and you will be amazed by
how much more streamlined and focused everyone is. That
being said, our effective meetings section comes to an end.
In the next sub-section, we will talk about progress reports
and why they should be part of your daily routine as well.

Progress Report
Look, I think 99% of all productivity books and courses
neglect the importance of good progress reports. But I just
can't stress enough how important these are to your
success. If you look at the surface layer, they help you keep
track of your day-to-day progress and where you are in the
process of achieving your goals. And, as the saying goes,
"What doesn't get measured doesn't get done." But there's
so much more to progress reports. Here are just some of the
core benefits they create.
For starters, you can more easily track individual effort and
results and see who is growing and doing their best and who
doesn't keep up. And for those that can't keep up, you have
the chance to help them improve.
Another essential benefit is that you will be able to better
estimate how much time things take. If you have repetitive
tasks or similar ones, you'll become much better at
estimating how long they will take and what the main
problems you will face will be. This will give you more
confidence and accuracy for future projects, so you will
never overextend when setting deadlines. It doesn't stop
here. Knowing more about your tasks and responsibilities
and how long they take will also help optimize business
processes that are making your operation more efficient.
The final benefit that is frequently overlooked is the one
concerning your legacy. Where precisely will you be creating
a track record of everything you do? Basically, it's a
testament to your team's commitment to delivering great
work. This has vast ramifications.
For example, it will help you in marketing and
communications because it will allow you to tell your story
better. The benefits don't stop at marketing. They also go as
far as helping you get funding or finance because making
business plans becomes easy.
Following through on those plans is the difference between
successful businesses and failures. And those progress
reports are confirmation that you have a disability. Enough
with the benefits. Let's talk a bit about the how.
Every business has a core activity and a focus. Progress
reports should come to support and enhance that, not take
time from it. That's why this entire system should take as
little time as possible. I personally tested out tens of
systems and strategies, and the one I'm going to
recommend has proven both to be efficient and also stands
the test of time. And it's extremely simple.
At the end of each day, everyone needs to make a quick
report with just three things.
First, their goal for that particular day and the results.
Second, what they actually achieved, and third, the
problems and obstacles that held them back from achieving
everything they set out to do.
I always tell people. If this takes you longer than 10
minutes, then you're doing something wrong. As far as how
you implement this, the answer is simple. You can create a
form somewhere in a private area on your website where
the team submits these reports. You can use the Basecamp
check-in feature, or you can go with a more basic solution
where everyone sends you an email with a specific format,
like a daily report (D R dd/mm/year, Full Name).
I encourage you to give this a try for at least two weeks, and
you will be amazed by how much more insight and control
you have over your business.
However, there's one important part I left out that might not
always be pleasant but is essential. You or someone in a
management or leadership position on your team will have
to actually read these reports and adapt your business
accordingly.
If you neglect this aspect, you're missing out on more than
80% of the benefits because, although you have the data,
you're practically not doing anything with it. You don't really
need to do this on a daily basis. Try to allocate some time
each week to reading and analyzing these reports, because
maybe they will just confirm that things are running
smoothly. But if you needed to change something and failed
to do so, the cost would be much higher down the road in
comparison to that extra hour each week. That being said,
we have arrived at the end of this chapter.
In the next chapter, we'll discuss the tools you need to
implement all the strategies and principles recovered in the
book so far. We'll go from project management to
communications to time tracking and even financial
management.
 
 Chapter Four
Productivity Tools
Overview
Congratulations!
We’ve come a long way after going over your productivity
and your patterns. It came as the obvious layer to be
applied on top of all the principles and strategies you now
possess. If we were to compare this book to building a
house, everything we did so far was to create a solid plan
and foundation, which in many cases can take just as much
time as building the actual house. Now it is your turn to go
and apply everything to the existing workflow.
This chapter will cover two main areas, with the first being
planning and communications. Here, we started with the
platforms where you can recruit the right people to help you
achieve your goals. Then we’ll go over project management
tools in a bit more detail. We then jump to communication
software with both instant and non-instant options and, of
course, file sharing.
The second main area of this chapter focuses on ways you
can be more efficient with your time. Going over time
tracking apps, solutions to reduce distractions, and even
tracking and having a bird's eye view of your finances
Also, an important point is this: every tool I showcase in this
book, I have personally used. In fact, most of them I still
actively use. I'm not in any way rewarded for recommending
them. And I'm just telling you what worked for me and other
professionals I know and sharing some great products.
Due to time restrictions, since it would take over 1,000
pages to explain every tool in detail, I won't cover all of
them extensively. However, don't confuse this with a
complete list of productivity tools, because that's not the
point of it.
These are the criteria upon which we based this selection.
1. Practicality
Is it practical? Can I use it consistently? because there are
so many tools that look nice and seem useful. But in actual
day-to-day use, they feel natural, and the likelihood of them
becoming part of your workflow is slim to none.
2. A Focused Solution
Do they do one thing well? I don't want them to do
everything. Did they do the specific task they were meant
for exceptionally well? If they do 10 good things, they're not
on the list.
3. Is it worth the price?
Is it financially sustainable? Look, if I didn't consider these
tools to pay for themselves with the value they bring, they
wouldn't be on this list.
4. Speed
Are they fast? This is a book on productivity, and that's
about getting more done. And the only way to get to a
destination faster with the same route is with increased
speed. This has multiple aspects to it. First, there's the
speed at which you can access the solution. Second, there's
the speed at which you learn and integrate it into your
routines. And then there's the speed at which you can use it
consistently.
If it doesn't gain your time, it's not here.
5. Design
Is it user-friendly and eye-pleasing? Design is important.
Look, it's mandatory for a product to do the thing it was
created to do. But if it looks stunning, the better it is for the
end user.
And that being said, enough of our talking about them. Let's
see what they can actually do for you, and we'll start with
platforms that allow you to recruit the best talent that will
help you achieve your goals.

Recruiting Platforms
If possible, hiring people that are on site is the ideal option.
But in many cases, the talent you want and need might not
be available in the same city as you. That's why you should
think globally. And the best option for this is going on
freelancing websites.
We already discussed what to look for in people when
recruiting, so we won't go over that again. Instead, we’ll
focus more on where to search for those people.
The first platform I’ll encourage you to use is Upwork.
1. Upwork
What you might not know is that I actually started my
entrepreneurial career there. At the time, it was called
Elance-oDesk. Freelancing has been one of the most
rewarding and educational experiences I've had in business.
Well, let's get back on track.
Freelancing works because it's flexible and it allows you
access to the best talent you can afford worldwide. Based
on the reviews, you know they're reliable and you can easily
test their way of working together on a small project.
Now, head over to Upwork.com for a second and see how it
works.
The process is extremely simple. You create a detailed
project description where you go over everything you need
done. Afterwards, you wait for the freelancers to submit
their proposals. Then pick the one that you think has the
ideal skills and style to match your project needs.
You might consider having some short interviews with the
top two or three choices before you get to work. And as far
as the concerns you might have regarding seeing the
project done, most of them get completed on time and as
expected. In the rare cases of disagreement, Upwork
handles the dispute and even offers assistance with
arbitration if it gets that.
Payment wise, things are pretty simple. The freelancer is
charged 20% or less of what you pay, and depending on
what model you choose, hourly work or fixed price, you're
either billed automatically on a weekly basis or once a
milestone is done and approved.
What I encourage you to do right now is go to Upwork and
search for some projects similar to yours and see how other
people looking to hire formulate their project descriptions.
Also, search for freelancers based on some of the keywords
in your project to get a new overall idea of hourly rates, how
many people are qualified for these jobs, and just to get an
overall feel of things.
Here are some alternatives to Upwork, and the first on the
list is peopleperhour.com.
2. Peopleperhour
Although a smaller network, I've had exceptionally good
experience with this platform, both as a service provider
and as an employer. Maybe it's due to the way they filter
professionals or the fact that it's not yet a saturated
platform.
But whatever the reason, it's a great one to work with, and
you should definitely consider it in your search for skilled
professionals for your team. And for my last
recommendation, we have freelancer.com.
3. Freelancer
This is very similar to Upwork. The biggest difference, in my
opinion, is that it's more crowded. The downside to that,
from a freelancer's perspective, is that it means lower rates,
and from an employer's perspective, it means more time
spent on finding the right people.
Although the qualified professionals are definitely there, you
might spend more time finding the ones that match your
needs.
Forums
Besides these three recruiting platforms, another great way
to find talent is on specialized forums, depending on what
industry you're in. It's also a great place to search for
business partners.
To summarize everything, when you go on these platforms,
you get a feel of what types of projects there are and you
see how others formulate their project descriptions, bids,
and how they position themselves in terms of pricing. You
scroll through some professionals that are available for hire.
Then you make your own project, wait for proposals, have 2-
3 interviews to make sure you're picking the right people,
and go ahead and start working on your goals.
And speaking of your goals, in the next sub-section, we'll
cover project management apps that will help you execute
and get closer to achieving them.

Platforms for Project Management

1. Basecamp
As you might have expected, when it comes to project
management, the platform that will always be at the top of
my list is Basecamp. And it's not just about the software. It's
about the values and principles behind it, many of which
have been detailed in the book Rework, written by the
same team behind Basecamp.
Principles like ignoring the real world, which isn't a real
place. It's an excuse. It's a justification for not trying. It has
nothing to do with you.
Planning is guessing, and writing a plan makes you feel in
control of things you don't control, or that the size of your
team doesn't really matter. Maybe the right size is five
people. Maybe it's forty.
Don't accelerate growth if you don't really need it. See what
feels right or something that many wear as a badge of
honor, workaholism, which doesn't save the day. The real
hero is home early because he was able to figure out a
faster way to get things done. What you do is what matters,
not what you think or say or plan. Until you actually start
making something, your brilliant idea is just that: an idea,
and everyone's got one of those.
Getting back on track to the actual platform and why I
personally think it's the best solution for businesses of any
size is because of its components. You have your campfire
that solves all your instant communication needs, except for
calls and video meetings. Then you have message boards
that replace all those confusing email threads. Then you
have to-dos, so you don't have to micromanage all day
long. Then the calendar, so you stop having headaches due
to other calendar software not sinking with the rest of your
team.
Then you have the automated check-ins to stop wasting
time on status reports and meetings. And last but not least,
you have darks and files that replace other third-party
apps like Dropbox or Google Drive.
As far as costs go, you have a month to try it out for free,
then a flat monthly cost of $99. No matter how big or small
your team is, no matter if you use it for one or 10 projects,
having great support is a priority for you. I’ll let you know
that all my problems submitted to Basecamp so far have
received a human reply, not an automated message, in less
than five minutes.
In case you don't like Basecamp, let's look at some other
project management tools. One that I've always been using
on and off is Trello.
 
2. Trello
Trello’s totally different approach has been a breath of fresh
air in the productivity software scene, and for many
business processes, this board and card approach has been
extremely useful. And considering that it's practically free
for most users, I think you should give it a try, even if you
use other software already.
Trello has a way of growing on you, and if you're anything
like me, you'll forever use it, even if it's on and off,
depending on specific project needs. Moving on, we have
Glip.
3. Glip
Glip’s main mission is to reduce the time you spend in your
inbox and streamline your workflow. Obviously, it has all the
core productivity features needed for any project, and what
makes it different is that it's more focused on
communication. If I were to make a comparison, it's like
Slack, with project management features on top. As far as
cost goes, it's free for most users, unless you need
thousands of hours of video chat that you can't do over
Skype or Google Hangouts.
4. Asana
Asana is another piece of software I've used but haven't
really stuck with. With its latest design overhaul, it is one of
the most appealing and easy-to-use platforms available.
Also, unless you need the premium features and have a
team of up to 15 people, you won't really need the premium
version, which by itself won't even break the bank at just $8
a month per team member.
 
5. Wrike
We have Wrike, which again is a pleasure to work with and
finds a way to integrate more traditional project
management principles, like the use of Gantt diagrams in
keeping track of multiple product versions and edits, with a
fresh and flexible report system.
Also, it has some great case studies if you're a marketing or
creative team on how to use the product best, from agile to
waterfall and everything in between.
I know there are hundreds, if not thousands, of alternatives.
But as I said, I'll only recommend products I actually believe
in and have personally used, and that makes sense. Long
story short, you should try out Basecamp. If that's not
financially viable for you right now, look for a more
affordable alternative and use what makes sense for your
needs right now.
That being said, we'll move on to the next sub-section,
where we'll go over to-do apps that are focused more on
you than your team, each one bringing some interesting
features and approaches to how you see productivity.

To-Do Apps
In the previous section, we analyzed project management
tools that give you a global view of things. Now we're going
to take a quick glance at some basic to-do apps that you
can use not only for your business needs but also for your
day-to-day problems, like shopping for groceries or telling
your mom happy birthday.
The main focus will be on simplicity and function, not the
complexity of features. We'll cover the apps on this
spectrum, from project management to the simplest and
purest form of task management.
Below is a comprehensive list of to-do apps.
1. Wunderlist
Wunderlist is by far the most complete To-Do app out there
right now. It has been awarded countless times, is feature-
packed and dares to compete with even project
management software. Among the features that I enjoyed
and found quite useful when using it were the reminders,
the list sharing functionality, and especially the fact that it is
accessible from any device you can think of. A smartwatch
can be used with a PC, a Mac, a phone, a tablet, or even
another smartwatch.
2. Any.Do
In addition to other features, Any.Do has this teamwork side
to it and is far slimmer in features in comparison to
Wunderlist. I'm not saying this is a bad thing. It all depends
on what you want. You decide if you pick focus over
functionality. What got me hooked on Any.do was the
seamless integration with calls and alarms, and I can
honestly say it's by far the least interruptive to-do app I've
ever used.
3. Checkmark 2
Checkmark 2 not only looks like a great minimalistic app but
has something that's only recently started to appear in to-
do apps. It's Jill's (location-based) reminders. So, the next
time you pass by a shop, if you have a reminder to buy
something there, Checkmark 2 will let you know.
This location-centered focus saves me countless hours.
That's why, although not my main to-do app, Checkmark 2
will forever be on my home screen.
4. Taasky
Taasky is a vibrant app that allows you to easily create tasks
sorted by categories. And what I can dare to say about it is
that it makes work fun.
And those are the to-do apps that I use and recommend.
And depending on your specific needs, I'm sure you'll be
enjoying at least one on a daily basis.
Next, we have software focused on communication,
covering both instant and non-instant types of tools. That’s
what we’ll discuss next.

Communication Software
I'm pretty sure everyone knows about these tools, but I
can't not talk about them and how valuable they are,
especially when we're talking about communication with the
remote team. Let’s jump right into it.
1. Slack
Slack is the king of text communication, with themes of all
shapes and sizes. Everything is channel-based. You can
organize things by topic, theme, or goal, and you can even
have invite-only channels for those top-secret projects. The
reason why I am a big fan of text messages over calls is due
to the fact that you have access to them even after the
conversation has ended. So, if you discussed a problem with
someone and forgot something, you can instantly go back,
search for the answer, and get back to work. This is
something you can't really do with calls.
Also, Slack has the benefit of being a non-instant channel of
communication, meaning it can also be used in a non-
disruptive way.
2. Skype
Skype offers not only text chat but also audio and video
functionality. You can use it for interviews, meetings, and
even scenarios where you need screen sharing. You can
create multiple groups.
However, unlike slack, skyping gets noisy and disruptive
pretty fast, and is clearly inferior if we're talking about text.
An alternative would be Google Hangouts, which in many
ways does the same things as Skype. Besides design, the
main difference between Skype and Hangouts is that it's a
Google product. As a result, it's much better connected with
the software in that suite, just like Skype will get more and
more connected with Microsoft solutions.
That was about everything as far as instant communication
goes.
 
Now comes the time when you have to deliver a message,
and it's not urgent. We've already discussed slack and how
it's ideal for teams. In the same category, we can include
campfire, a Basecamp feature, and any project
management software chat.
Then there are more complex needs, and TechSmith, whose
most well-known software is Camtasia, is a company that I
am a huge fan of and that has always been ahead of the
curve. Camtasia allows you to easily record your screen and
add video. It is both professional and easy to use at the
same time, and it's surprisingly powerful when you want to
share something like changes to a website layout or
anything that involves training new staff.
They also offer a barer-bone version of it called Snagit that
allows you to provide feedback, great documentation, and
more clearly express a problem. And if you want an even
simpler version, you can use Jing, which is free and can be
easily integrated with an FTP server to store your files
remotely.
Now, the way I normally use Camtasia is to create the video
I want, either a quick training session for new employees or
some clarifications for a client, then render it and upload it
to YouTube as an unlisted video. So, the only people who
have access to it are those with the link. It is fast, private
and easy to come back to if needed. You can do that, or you
could subscribe to Screencast.com, a service offered by
TechSmith, and store all your content there, or you could
use other software like Dropbox.
If you have any specific needs, make sure to check all the
other TechSmith tools that might be relevant to your
business. But with this small bundle of tools that I’ve
covered so far, you can pretty much communicate
everything with your team as long as everyone has an
Internet connection.
That being said, we'll move on to the next sub-section,
where we’ll cover file sharing and storage solutions.
 
 

File Sharing and Storage

Here we have four options, each specific to what you want
to achieve.
1. Dropbox
I currently use Dropbox, and the reason I highly recommend
and chose it over all the others is that it's a standalone
solution, and I want it that way. It does a single job perfectly.
It's easy to use and has a clean design, making it friendly
with all devices. It's pretty much everything I want from a
file storage and sharing solution.
The free version offers two gigabytes of storage, but you'll
outgrow that pretty quickly. I personally have the business
version with three users. The Pro version is something that
will clearly suit all your needs at 10 euros per month. The 1
terabyte of storage will clearly be enough.
 2. Google Drive
Google Drive is the next option. And what, for me, was a
negative feature, for you might be an incentive. More
precisely, integration with other Google products, in this
case, Gmail. Basically, with G suit, for just 3.3 euros a
month, you get 30 gigabytes of storage, or 1 terabyte per
user for just 6.6 euros a month.
But as I said, that is shared with your Gmail address. So,
over time, that storage might get filled with emails. For
example, right now I have the 15 GB free storage plan, but
my Gmail account has 11 gigabytes of email, and my reason
for not wanting to stick with a single provider for all my
software needs is that it makes my business far too
dependent on that company, and I'd rather not have all my
eggs in the same basket.
3. One Drive
One drive, in many ways, is the Microsoft equivalent of
Google Drive.
You have 5 gigabytes of free storage, and 50 gigabytes for
just $2 a month. Or, if you get it with the Office 365 plan,
you get one terabyte of storage for just $7 a month.
4. iCloud
iCloud is the last suggested solution we have. It offers 5
gigabytes free, and then you can pick one of their plans,
depending on your needs. You can get 50 gigabytes for $1 a
month, 200 for $3, or one terabyte for $10.
As you can see, as far as pricing and storage ratio go,
they're all very similar. And like I said, it's ultimately up to
you what environment you want to go with. Dropbox,
Google Drive with Google, Microsoft OneDrive, or Apple
iCloud are all options. Or you can use a service that's
offered by another solution you're using, like your project
management software. But the reason I advised against it is
due to the fact that it will clearly lack the features of a
product whose sole purpose is storage and sharing. That
being said, we will move on to the next type of tool, more
focused on productivity and improving the way you spend
your time, and we'll start with time tracking software.
 
 

Time Tracking Tools

You need to pay very close attention when you choose these
tools because the main problem is whether you use them
consistently or not. More than any other category, you need
to enjoy using them as that is what will make the difference
if you integrate them into your routine or if you just use
them once or twice and then forever forget about them.
Before going over some actual tools, I'd like to point out the
reason why I should use such software in the first place. And
that reason, although obvious, often escapes us.
It's a fact that you can't improve what you don't know.
Here's an actual example: We all believe we work 8 hours a
day when, in reality, we only have 5 productive hours. That
can seem like an incredibly productive day because the
actual time spent on doing work is not the entire time,
you're at the office. But when you don't track it, it's difficult,
if not impossible, to determine what went wrong and what
went right.
Also, there’s the problem of tactics. Without knowing where
you waste time, you won't know what to change, and a time
tracking tool will allow you to do just that. Identify when
you're investing and when you're wasting your energy. I'll
start with what I consider the most complete software to
track time and block distractions:
1. Rescue Time
The light version of Rescue Time allows you to track time
spent on websites and applications, set goals, and get a
weekly report. It will always be free. Then you have the
premium version that allows you to get much deeper. You
get contracted time away from your computer, block
distracting websites with the "get focused" feature, have
more control over filters, and it's just $9 a month.
I've been using this for close to 10 years now, and nobody
has been so brutally honest with me regarding how I spend
my time as this software, not even myself. It helped me
escape productivity black holes like pointless meetings. It
helped identify procrastination websites where a quick scroll
turned into 30 minutes of no work being done, and it helped
me better understand my patterns and how to change them
to get the best out of my day.
Perhaps you don't need or want software that tracks your
entire workday and is already self-aware, and all you want is
something to track how much time you allocate to each
project you work on, or better identify how much time
specific tasks take. For cases like these, you can use
software like Hours.
2. Hours
Hours is an app I enjoyed and still enjoy for its slick design
and functionality. For me, it proved once more the
importance of good design and how it's essential for a
successful app. If you want something that's not IOS
exclusive, you can go for Toggl.
3. Toggl
Toggl is free for teams of up to five and friendly to all
devices and operating systems. Not only that, you can
integrate it with dozens of third-party software like
Salesforce, Fresh Books, Trello, Asana, Basecamp, and even
Gmail. And if you want something very specific, which I've
also recommended in the Pattern section, I highly
encourage you to use the BeFocusedPro app.
4. BeFocusedPro app
The BeFocusedPro app allows you to utilize the Pomodoro
technique.
These are the core time tracking apps that you could use to
better estimate how long tasks will take, better monitor your
projects, and most importantly, track and understand the
way you use your time in order to optimize the way you
spend it.
Next, we're going to cover tools that help you reduce
distractions. And while time tracking apps are more passive
and observant of what you do, these are more proactive in
their approach and will stop that habit loop and replace it or
remove it all together.

Software to Reduce Distractions

We've already discussed in the previous sections how
interruptions can really disrupt your day. And although you
feel as if you've been doing your best, nothing significant
gets achieved. The main reason being that it's not just the
time you spend distracted alone, but also the time it takes
to get back into the zone with your task that you lost.
Many studies show that it can be as high as 15 or 20
minutes. As a result, if you get distracted three times every
hour, the chances of you actually doing something
productive are highly diminished. The obvious goal is to
reduce distractions as much as possible, and they usually
are of two types. Active and Passive.
Active is when you get a notification on your phone, and
you'll instantly look at it. And these are the easiest to deal
with by just stopping those notifications for that app or that
software.
A quick exercise
Identify which notifications you need and which you don't,
and remove all the noise. Or if we're talking mobile, you can
easily customize your do not disturb feature and block
out everything during specific moments throughout today.
But the most annoying problems with interruptions are the
ones that are actually habit loops where we ourselves do
the interrupting. Throughout the day, our brains go into
autopilot quite a lot. And if you're used to checking your
Facebook feed every 15 minutes, guess what will happen
when your brain goes into autopilot. That's why we often
find ourselves browsing various sites at random and don't
really remember why we started doing so in the first place.
The tools that come into play here are browser
extensions, and what they do is block the habit loop, or
precisely, block you from getting that reward and jolt of
dopamine when you reach that social media site or that
news feed. Depending on your drug, you might need a
different solution. Here are mine, and here's how you can
easily find one for yourself.
For starters, you can use Block Site to block access to
procrastination websites like 9gag, so you don't waste half
your day scrolling endlessly through memes. Setting things
up takes just a few seconds, and then you're good to go.
Every time you try to visit one of the websites you've
blocked, you'll get a friendly reminder to get back to work
instead of the page you wanted.
However, in some cases, the solution is not that simple. For
example, I wanted to block Facebook, but at the same time,
I still wanted the communication side of it. That's why I got
an extension called "Facebook News Feed Blocker" that
allowed just that endless communication without that time-
sucking news feed.
And if you want a specialized solution that works for apps
that are not just limited to a Web browser, you have Cold
Turkey that will allow you to do just that. However, you
have to pay $25 because the free version is limited to your
browser, just like all the extensions I mentioned.
What I highly encourage you to do right now, before moving
on to the next section, is to actually install one of the
software packages I mentioned above and start using it. I
guarantee it will be extremely annoying at first, but you'll
thank me once those time-wasting cabin loops are broken.
Next, we have something that many say is equivalent to
your time, and if you haven't guessed it already, I'm talking
about money. That's why we'll look at some tools that will
help you better manage your finances.

Apps for Financial Management

Quick Disclaimer
I am not an accountant or certified in any way to give
financial advice. Furthermore, this is not the main scope of
the book, and this section has the sole purpose of
recommending some tools that will help you better manage
your finances in a way that will allow you to understand,
faster and in a more visual way, your spending habits.
We'll start with something I've been using on a daily basis
for close to two years now. It is the Spendee app, and I
can't stop saying good things about it.
I'll start with something that many claim, yet few deliver.
The intuitive side of it. Besides the obvious features of
adding expenses and income, different categories, and
notifications, it also has interesting ones, like sharing wallets
with family and friends. And I just can't speak enough about
how important it is to see where your money goes, because
otherwise you'll never truly know objectively what you're
doing with your hard-earned cash.
For example, for me, a revelation was when I realized I was
spending more on coffee than on my office rent at some
point. In the next month, the new office, Burke, had an
espresso machine that practically paid for itself in three
months’ time.
Another advantage of financial management apps is that
they will help you better estimate expenses for future
months. No, if you're in a position to start saving money or
investing in something and adapt your financial decisions
based on that data, which is just so clear and impactful, you
won't believe it until you try it for yourself.
Another app that is more mainstream is Mint.com, and it
helps with so much, from easy budgeting to investment
tracking. It even tells you your credit score.
Then we have Expense Tracker 2.0. The app won me over
with its design on a 10-inch tablet. The reports were just
astonishing, and I have to admit that although I am not
actively using it right now, it raised the bar as far as what
the financial management app should do when I first got it
three years ago.
And as with all the other categories of tools, I know there
are plenty more, but most of them have some deal-breaking
drawbacks.
Either they don't give the bird's-eye view I find essential, or
the category system is glitchy and ineffective. Or they seem
incomplete, or even worse, overcomplicated. The main
problem with financial apps is not always with what they do,
but with how you get to use them consistently.
At first, I had a daily reminder on both Spendy and another
app to keep adding expenses and income, so it became a
habit. If you use any of the apps I recommended above, or
anything else, you need some due diligence to form the
habit of adding your expenses and income.
That being said, we’ve come to the end of this chapter. In
the next chapter, we’ll talk about productivity outside of
work, covering things like exercise, nutrition, stress, and
even sleep.
 
 Chapter Five
Productivity Outside of Work
As we started discussing in our previous chapters, there are
many factors that influence productivity without having
anything to do with business. Things like your fitness level,
what you eat, how you sleep, your stress level, and even the
people you interact with. And we're going to look at this in a
very practical and pragmatic way. This is not me teaching
you something, but merely putting out there what I consider
common sense that we all forget because we get caught up
in day-to-day living. And the first thing I'd like to cover is
exercise.

Exercise
Before we begin, a quick disclaimer once more.
I'm not a trained professional or certified one on this, but
someone with a true story that shares his experience based
on some solid principles.
Before we take a look at the benefits and impact of
exercising, I'd like to point out that six months prior to
writing this chapter, I had 212 pounds and lost about 45 in
the meantime, about 20 kilos by allocating just three hours
a week to exercise, sometimes even less.
And it's not even about the weight loss. It's about my
fitness, my energy levels, and the quality of work I can
deliver. The non-obvious benefits are the biggest, and my
view on exercise is quite basic.
This is a book on productivity, right? And what we use most
of the time to get things done, in fact, all the time, is our
brain. But guess what? A healthy brain is part of something
called our body, so a healthier body means a more
productive brain that can get more done.
Why don't we focus all the time on keeping a healthy body?
Why is most medicine focused on curing rather than
prevention?
The answer is simple, and we talked about it when we
covered the four quadrants.
Working out is a quadrant two activity. It's important, yet
never urgent. You need to act on it. It doesn't affect you.
And we always put it off because there are a lot of other
urgent things, neglecting the fact that nothing is more
important to our wellbeing than our body. And I'm not trying
to preach here. If anything, I'm guilty of not exercising more
than anyone reading this book.
Let's take a closer look at some studies on the effects of
exercising on productivity, and we'll start with a clinical trial
run by the Body Brain Performance Institute in association
with Swinburne University and the Brain Sciences Institute.
There was a clear link between physical fitness and brain
function, and it also reduced stress levels at work. More
than that, your physical fitness influences the number of
sick days you take. PricewaterhouseCoopers calculated
those sick days in the UK, for example, cost businesses
nearly $44 billion a year. Not being in shape impacts, in a
very strong way, the quality of work delivered.
And it's not just about the short-term results; it's a known
fact that as you age, your body generates fewer and fewer
brain cells. In recent studies done on mice focusing on
aging, exercise helps prevent this regeneration slowdown. In
other words, by the time you are in your 50s, 60s, or even
70s, if you exercise, you'll have far more brain cells than
your sedentary peers, which will make you far more
productive and competitive in the workplace.
And there's more good news. You don't need to set up a
storm. In a randomized controlled trial at the University of
Georgia, they split people into three groups. Low-intensity
exercise, moderate-intensity exercise, and no exercise.
During the six-week experiment, both exercise groups
reported growing levels of energy. In fact, the low-intensity
group reported less fatigue, which means you can get
increased productivity without having to go through intense
exercise.
When neuroscientists examined the brains of new
exercisers, they discovered an increase in both gray and
white matter brain cells, the insulation that allows brain
cells to communicate quickly and efficiently with one
another. Physical exercise makes your brain bigger and
faster, and the prefrontal cortex shows the largest training
effect.
And like I already said, I'm not going to cover the how-to
side of things because there are plenty of qualified, certified
professionals out there. But I hope I've persuaded you about
the why part of the equation.
And as far as getting yourself from being sedentary to
exercising regularly, most experts agree on this.
1. Choose an activity you love.
You have to choose an activity that you actually like. If you
like tennis, do that. If soccer is your sport of choice, go for it.
In fact, recent studies suggest that how we feel when
exercising can influence the degree to which it ultimately
benefits our health.
2. Improve yourself constantly.
The second step towards committing to an exercise
schedule is to look at it as constantly improving
yourself, and this is quite easy to do in most sports.
Besides, the simple fact that you're reading this book right
now goes to prove that you are already passionate about
self-improvement, so you are hardwired to perform.
3. Join a group
The third step is to be part of a group. Socializing makes
exercise more fun, and it improves your chances of keeping
it up. If you want to be productive, go find yourself a team,
and that's all you need to know in regards to exercising and
why you should integrate it into your lifestyle.
In the next sub-section, we'll talk about another important
factor that goes hand in hand with this one.
It's nutrition. Continue reading. Don’t stop.

Nutrition
As with exercise, the logic is simple. Food is your fuel (gas),
and the quality of your fuel (gas) determines the quality of
your performance. You can see the importance of that with
your car every day. Let's discuss the science part of things.
Everything we eat is converted by our body into glucose,
which provides energy to our brains. When we’re low on
glucose, we have a hard time staying focused. That's why
it's so difficult to concentrate when you're on an empty
stomach.
So far, I guess it's pretty simple. Now, here comes the part
that we often forget.
Foods are processed by our bodies at different rates. Some
release glucose fast, like soda after our cereal, but after
that, we fall into a slump. And some, like cheeseburgers or
BLTs, provide more sustained energy. They, however, require
our digestive system to work harder, and that reduces the
oxygen flow to our brain, making us sleepy or tired.
One of the reasons we continue to ignore this is that when
we decide what to eat, we are at our lowest point in terms
of energy and self-control. A solution to this would be to
plan your meals ahead of time so we don't make bad
decisions when we're hungry.
Another good practice that requires caution is snacking
throughout the day. As a result, instead of having spikes in
your blood sugar levels, they will be more evenly
distributed. And if you think nutrition is not a huge problem,
here's what a report from the International Labor
Organization says. Poor diets on the job are costing
countries around the world up to 20% in lost productivity,
either due to malnutrition that plagues some one billion
people in developing countries or to excess weight and
obesity that afflict an unequal number of people, mostly in
industrialized economies. "If you work on nutrition alone,
you can increase your productivity by up to 20%." Just think
about it.
Ignore everything else in this book, but improve this single
aspect of your life, and you'll get close to an extra day a
week.
The same study claims that in the US, direct medical costs
accounted for approximately 51.6 billion, 39.2 million lost
work days, 239 million restricted activity days, and 89.5
million bed days. I mean, the numbers are just mind-
boggling. Just think for a second how much improved
productivity you could have by just taking care of nutrition,
exercising, and using just some of the practices in this book.
It will be like having a part-time assistant that works for
free, and he or she will be as skilled as you are and always
understand what you want.
As with exercising, I won't go into detail on the how-to side
of things because I am not in any way qualified to do so.
That's the job of your physician or nutritionist. With this
section, I mainly wanted to make you aware of the huge
impact nutrition has on your performance and offer yet
another avenue for improving your workout.
Coming up next, we'll cover one more important factor that
influences your productivity: stress. Its causes, how to deal
with it, and how to use it to your advantage.

Stress
A state of mental or emotional strain or tension resulting
from adverse or demanding circumstances.
I bet you already knew that, and more precisely, felt that on
several occasions throughout your career. Before I go into
depth with this conversation, I'd like to point out some of
the results of a survey conducted in 2012 on its impact on
work.
41% of people lose 15 to 30 minutes of productivity a day
due to stress, and one in three loses one hour or more
because of it. And if that wasn't enough, keep in mind that
55% miss one or two days a year due to stress, and 29%
lose 3 to 6 days a year. And one in five attributed missed
deadlines and mistakes in their work to stress.
Also, several other studies concluded that about 70% of
workers in the U.S. considered their office a significant
source of stress. That is why you should be aware of it at all
times because it has an impact on your performance and
productivity.
So, how exactly does it work?
Well, the stress response curve dates back to 1979. On the
other hand, you have stress on one side of the performance.
As stress levels rise, so does performance. Then, after
passing through the comfort zone area, you'll still get some
increased performance until you reach fatigue.
From that point on, performance drops as stress levels
increase, eventually reaching exhaustion, ill health, and
even a breakdown. So as long as the stress doesn't pass the
fatigue threshold, it's positive stress, also called "use
stress." After that tipping point, it is distress, and it will
lower your performance.
But what are the causes of stress in the first place? Because
if you aren't aware of them, you can't effectively manage
them.
They're split into three categories: environmental, which
covers economic, political, or technological uncertainty;
organizational, which includes task demands, role
demands, interpersonal demands, and organizational
structure; leadership, or even organization life cycle stage.
And then we have individual factors, which can be family
problems, financial issues, and, of course, personality.
All these factors go through the unique lens of the individual
and how he or she reacts to them. These may cause a wide
range of symptoms, from physiological ones like headaches,
high blood pressure, or even heart disease, to psychological
ones like sleep disorders, depression, anxiety, and a decline
in job satisfaction, and, of course, behavioral ones like loss
of productivity, absence, work accidents, and even quitting
the job.
If you see yourself in any of the above, chances are your
stress levels are too high.
Now, how do you deal with it?
The first thing you could do is something I presume you
already did, and it's to get better at self-management and
time management. Get better at things like meditation,
exercise, keeping track of your nutrition and even listening
to music. In extreme cases, medication is recommended,
but, as stated in previous sections, we'll leave that to the
qualified professionals.
As with most problems, once you acknowledge it and decide
to do something about it, things will start to improve. And
now that you know more about stress and how it works and
are aware of its causes and symptoms, I hope you'll find it a
lot easier to deal with it. And in the next sub-section, we'll
talk about human cycles, which, among others, will cover
one that is very important to your productivity: sleep.

Human Cycles
Everything has a bolt, a rhythmic, wavelike movement
between activity and rest. You can see this quite easily in
nature. The switch between seasons, day and night,
everything has these predictable cycles, and since we're
part of them, we work pretty much the same way.
The most obvious human rhythm is a circadian one. This is a
24-hour sequence that we call a day, and we need to sleep
for about a third of it to function properly.
But before we go into depth with sleep, which is the main
focus of this section, I'd like to tell you about another cycle
called the Ultradian Rhythm. Generically speaking, this is
a recurrent period throughout the circadian day.
In a book I already mentioned in our conversation, "The
Power of Full Engagement" by Tony Schwartz and Jim Loehr,
they mentioned a sleep researcher called Nathan Kleitman,
where he described the basic rest activity cycles as 90
minutes, during which you hit a big performance, followed
by rest.
Although this was first observed in sleep patterns, later, it
was found that we function the same way throughout our
waking hours. Long story short, you need to periodically
unplug to maintain performance.
The ideal time frame, according to Schwartz, would be 90
minutes of work and 20 minutes of renewal. However, even
he admits that not being used to this might require some
time to adapt, so people could start with a smaller duration.
Does this sound familiar to you?
I hope it does, and that’s where the Pomodoro technique
immediately comes to mind. It's practically the same
solution to the challenge of getting the most value out of
your time. However, it was reached in a different way. And
that's why I kept encouraging you in the previous sections
to experiment with things and see what fits your personal
needs and existing habits. Maybe you'll discover you're
more productive with a 30-minute work and five-minute rest
pattern. Or maybe you'll get more done with 90 minutes of
work and 20 minutes of rest. To achieve peak performance,
consider this an experiment on yourself.
When it comes to productivity, it's not a one-size-fits-all
scenario. It's what works for you and what gets you
productive.
To wrap this up and take a deep dive, I'd like to point out the
essential idea, which is to try to create a sustainable
change in your existing schedule and not use the
know-how of discourse for one week, then feel
overwhelmed and quit. The keyword here is
"sustainable."
Moving on to what many consider a waste of time because
you aren't doing anything productive, but we all still need it,
we have sleep.
Sleep
Now, how much of it do you really need?
Well, the consensus on this is that adults require 7–9 hours.
Anything below or above is unhealthy.
In a six-week experiment done on people where one group
had to sleep for eight hours, another for just six hours, and
the third one for only four hours, researchers found that the
first group was very energetic. The second one had slow
reaction times similar to being drunk, while people in the
third one actually fell asleep during the surveys.
Think of it like your credit card. You keep withdrawing cash
from it, and at some point, you'll need to pay it back. Fail to
do so repeatedly, and you might end up with a horrible
credit score. In this case, it comes in the form of sleep
disorders, which can be a pain to live with. However, don't
panic just yet. Even if you abuse your sleep patterns for a
few weeks, you're not at any risk of permanent problems
and can rejuvenate your brain function if you get some good
quality rest.
But if you don't sleep properly for a longer period than that,
then you put yourself at the risk of permanent cognitive
impairment. That is having a more difficult time focusing,
being slow in reaction times, and not to mention a loss of
creativity and problem-solving abilities.
And it's not just that. Not having proper sleep increases your
chances of obesity, heart disease, and also diabetes. And
before we end this section, I'd like to share some things I've
been experimenting with and reading quite a lot about. It's
polyphasic sleep. And unlike monophasic sleep, it
occurs when you split your sleep patterns into multiple
segments of lower duration. That is, saving on your hours of
sleep is required, and it allows you to get more stuff done.
The simplest polyphasic sleep pattern is the biphasic one,
where you sleep 5 hours and 1/2 at night and take a 90-
minute nap at midday. Then we have the Everyman pattern
with 4.5 hours of sleep and two 20-minute naps. After that,
we have the Dymaxiom pattern with four 30-minute naps,
one every 6 hours. And the Uberman gets six 20-minute
naps every four hours.
I've personally tested them all, having a work schedule that
allows it. And I must admit that the Dymaxion and the
Uberman were just impossible for me to sustain. After three
weeks, I felt so sleep deprived that I just went to bed and
woke up 14 hours later.
Some of you might try experimenting with this and even
have success with it, but I guess it just wasn't for me. What
did work great was the biphasic sleep pattern with two
chunks of 3 hours of sleep. The disadvantage is that, while it
may be fine for you, it will be strange for everyone in your
life.
In my case, I never got to sync my schedule with others so
we could socialize.
For the sake of not becoming a hermit, I adopted the
monophasic sleep pattern once again. The 1.5 hours saved
each day were coming at the expense of calling friends and
family at 2AM, forgetting that it's 2AM for normal people.
disrupting my meals because you're not really sure when it's
breakfast time and when it's dinner time. And, of course,
working with remote teams and not syncing very well with
everyone's schedule. I guess it depends from person to
person and what your productivity needs are.
But at least now you know how to adapt your sleep patterns
to get the most out of your day. And since we slightly
touched on something that abnormal sleep patterns impact,
I think we should maybe take a closer look at it as well,
more precisely on people. How do the people around you
impact your productivity?
People
Look, I think they're by far the most important factor outside
of yourself that influences your outcome and life. I can list
millions of quotes on the importance of the people around
you, but most revolve around this. "You are who you hang
around with." They influence your goals, what you consider
good or bad, what you consider success or failure, and,
most importantly, how you react to success or failure.
You might not always have control over how people around
you influence you, but you certainly do have control over
what people are around you. That's why you need to
carefully analyze who you spend time with. A very
pragmatic way to look at this is by making a list of your
goals. Your life goals are not limited to work. Then, make a
list of the people you spend time with and compare the lists.
And odds are, if you are making progress towards your
goals, it is because the list makes sense to each other.
This doesn't mean you're being opportunistic. If you want to
be a good father, mother, son, or daughter, you spend time
with your family, right? If you want to get rich, you spend
time with people that are right now where you want to be at
some point. If you want to get fit, you spend time with your
gym trainer. I think you got the idea.
In essence, conversion is about you being consistent with
the people you have around you and your goals. As a result,
you increase the likelihood of achieving those goals and not
sabotaging yourself.
And that's about everything I had to say about factors that
influence your productivity outside of work.
All that we’re left with right now is your battle plan, where
we have our last conversation before you go and actually
apply all the techniques and strategies you've learned from
this book.
 
 Conclusion
Your Battle Plan
And here you are, in the last section prior to what I consider
the most important part of any form of education: doing,
actually using the knowledge disseminated to achieve a
desired goal. Otherwise, all you got was some information
that, besides being a good topic of conversation, won't fulfill
its true potential and purpose. And to get the full value from
this book, I've prepared five action steps that you can follow.
Look, you already purchased and read the book this far, and
at this point, it makes no financial difference to me if you do
anything with the knowledge possessed or not. But I really
want you to do something with what you've learned. And
the reasons for me to actually want you to succeed and
integrate into your life, the practices, strategies, and tools
I’ve laid out in the book are still selfish. Your results will be
proof that everything I said and recommended works not for
one, ten, or thirty people, but for hundreds, if not
thousands.
And besides the promotional value your success story will
have, I also feel empowered, knowing that I contributed to
that success, even if it was only 0.5%.
Enough of my reasons. Let's take these five action steps.
1. Take Action Now!
You need to take action now. Do something about it today.
It doesn't matter how insignificant it is. Taking action is right
now. Install that tool, do one Pomodoro, search for one new
team member. You decide, but do it today.
2. Start with one thing.
You've read the entire book, enjoyed it, I guess, and now
you want to do everything. But it doesn't always work that
way. If you want consistent results and sustained
performance, you need to start with just one thing and keep
adding to it. Maybe you'll meditate for 10 minutes a day.
From now on, maybe you'll track just three Pomodoros each
day. Maybe you’ll install an app and use it regularly. But
whatever you do, start with at least one.
3. Treat it like an experiment.
Look at it as an experiment, and the reason for this is that if
you look at things as challenges, you'll have two options:
success or failure. But experiments are something different.
They are a discovery tool. You'll never fail. You'll just identify
strategies that either work or don't work for you.
You don't have to win every time, and to quote Colossus
from the movie Deadpool I recently watched, "Four or five
moments." That's all it takes to become a hero. " Everyone
thinks it's a full-time job. Wake up a hero. Brush your teeth
like a hero. Go to work as a hero. Not true. Over a lifetime,
there are only four or five moments that really matter.
Moments when you're offered a choice: to make a sacrifice,
conquer a flaw, save a friend, spare an enemy. The same
goes for you and boosting your productivity. You don't need
every strategy to work. Sometimes one can be more than
enough.
4. Make yourself accountable.
Knowing that someone relies on you will make you far more
responsible and more likely to keep going when the going
gets tough than being accountable to yourself alone.
5. Have a clear finish line.
Set a clear objective of what you want to achieve with the
information you have gotten here. Create an objective and a
deadline. And once you reach that, analyze it, see what
worked, what didn't, why it did, or why it didn't. What can
you improve moving forward? That's all. Nothing more,
nothing less.
I'm Bowen Gutierrez, and it's been a pleasure to go through
this book with you. And I'm looking forward to hearing about
all your results and the things you managed to achieve by
using this book. And as you go forward, although we haven't
met personally, know that I am rooting for you from the
sidelines.
Good luck.
 
 Bonus
This bonus section has the purpose of making your life
easier by getting more detailed information on many of the
ideas covered in this book. On many occasions, I talk about
some topics that deserve hours of attention in just a few
minutes because, to be honest, if I wrote a hundred-
thousand-word book, I am not sure how many people would
read it from start to finish.
With that in mind, I'd like to share a resource that will help
you specialize in the areas that interest you most. Without
further ado, let's proceed.
First, we have "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People"
by Steven Covey.
You can look at this as the Holy Bible of productivity and
effectiveness because the book doesn't focus only on the
how, but also on the why. Or as Stephen says, "At some
point you might get to the top of the ladder and realize
you're leaning against the wrong wall." The first time I read
it, I had an authentic paradigm shift that helped me see
perspectives that I was blind to before. It truly opens up
possibilities in both your personal and professional life.
The second book I'd like to recommend is "Flow" by Mihaly
Csikszentmihalyi.
This book is for those interested in what makes you enjoy
your work and better understand the process that makes
you more fulfilled. And since most of us work 8, 10, or 12
hours a day, actually enjoying those hours makes all the
difference in the quality of the life we live.
Moving on to our third book, we have "No Bs. Time
Management for Entrepreneurs" by Dan Kennedy.
The reason why I'm a huge fan of Dan is that he tells it like it
is. No fluff, no cliches, no political correctness. That's why
many call him the "Professor of Harsh Reality." Also, the
book is written by someone who's been there, done the
required work, not just in theory, but at a practical level.
Besides being informative, his books are also quite
entertaining. You certainly won't yawn while reading any of
them.
Then we have Essentialism: The Discipline Pursuit of
Less by Greg McKeown.
The title says it all. It's about doing less, but doing it better
and focusing your efforts on your strength. In a world that
constantly pursues more of everything, this book comes to
shed light on the important few.
Book number five is The Paradox of Choice: Why More
is Less by author Barry Schwartz.
It's very similar to the previous one in terms of the view of
things. However, it has a totally different approach. Down to
earth examples with practical advice clearly written by a
man of the people. A book that will make you rethink the
way you look at a choice forever.
Then we have book number six, Rework, by Jason Fried and
David Heinemeier Hansson.
If the previous one made you rethink your choice, this book
will make you rethink the way you do business. The book
demolishes the conventional belief that you need a business
plan, careful monitoring of your competition, an 80-hour
work week, or meetings. It highlights that what you really
need is to stop talking and start working, and it does this in
a very straightforward language.
The Power of Full Engagement by Jim Loehr and Tony
Schwartz is our seventh book on the list.
In many ways, it felt to me like a modern version of the 7
habits of highly effective people. Now don't get me wrong.
The book is not a copy in any way. I think of it as a remake
of a very good movie. With a new cast and a new story, but
with the same focus: productivity. The book is extremely
captivating, with great examples and studies done on
athletes, and will give you new insight on performance and
delivering consistent results.
Then we have The Willpower Instinct by author Kelly
McGonigal, and I must say, I absolutely loved this book.
It was the most fun and captivating one I've read in a while.
The book started as a university course for people that
wanted more willpower, be it to lose weight, quit smoking,
stop procrastinating, or anything else you could think of. It
has tons of fun examples and quirky experiments that you
could do, and it's so interactive that it hardly feels like a
book. If you want to have some fun reading, this is for you.
Moving on to book number nine, we have The Power of
Habit by Charles Dulwig.
This book will help you understand how your brain works
and how to take control of your habits. What this book has
accomplished is to take cutting-edge scientific discoveries
and make them so easy to understand and use in a very
practical way. I have never read an author that can take raw
data and make it fit into such captivating stories with
characters that you authentically get attached to.
And then we have book number ten. Focus by Daniel
Goleman.
If you have serious attention issues like me and your brain
just wanders off endlessly, then this is for you. With book
number eleven, we were almost at the end.
Release Your Brakes by James Newman: It was
recommended to me by my first employer, a guy I highly
respect and whose opinion I highly value. He is a very
successful entrepreneur. And I must admit, I didn't fully
grasp the value of it until I re-read it recently. If anything,
the book helps you understand that you see the world, how
you are not how it is, and having that awareness will help
you perform much better with no additional effort, because
you will remove inner conflict, flawed perspectives, and, as
the title itself says, you will release your brakes. You stop
driving around with your parking brake on.
And for my last book recommendation, I have another one
from Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson, Remote.
This book is a must-read for everyone who works remotely
or plans on doing so. It's not only filled with advice on
dealing with the challenges of remote work, but also
highlights other benefits. You can look at it as a guide that's
going to show you precisely how a remote work set up can
be accomplished.
And besides books, I really want to share three YouTube
channels that over the years have greatly increased my
productivity and also my understanding of things.
And I'll start with London Real, with Brian Rose being an
astonishing curator of people worth watching, with long
form interviews that are just gems of wisdom and
inspiration. Some of the shows I enjoyed the most were the
ones with Peter Sage, Ido Portal, and Simon Sinek.
Then we have Gary Vaynerchuk, who does an incredible
job of documenting and analyzing business problems. His
advice is both inspirational and impractical, and I highly
encourage you to keep an open mind to what he says.
although he might seem a bit over the top at times.
And last but not least, we have Dan Pena, who, although
some of you might not adore him, tells it like it is when it
comes to business and achievement. He might come across
as vulgar and rude, but for the last 20 years he's been
delivering results both for himself and for his mentees.
And that's about all for now.
Remember this.
Results come from doing, not from learning alone.
And that's what you should focus on. The execution
of your plans, not the plans themselves.