EP. 003: Greatest Productivity Hacks? Not so fast! - Part 2

0:00 Welcome back to Second Opinion with Dr.

0:03 D. I am Dr. Dwayne Layman. I'm a doctor

0:04 of business administration with a focus

0:07 in public policy. And this is part two.

0:10 Uh go see yesterday's video.

0:13 Technically, I'm just recording straight

0:15 through, but we hit an hour and a half

0:17 uh on the last video. So, I'm making

0:19 this a two-parter. We are currently

0:22 burning through this video right here,

0:25 which are the best productivity hacks of

0:27 all time. And I had quite a bit to say

0:31 about the best productivity hacks of all

0:33 time. It's a video from four years ago

0:35 from Ali Abdal. Uh also a wonderful

0:39 content creator and doctor in his own

0:42 right. Uh but we have a differing uh set

0:45 of opinions which is why we are uh

0:48 having uh some disputes. But again, as I

0:52 pointed out in the first video, these

0:54 are his tier list rankings for him

0:57 personally, and I'm taking more of a of

1:00 an approach of you figuring out whether

1:02 something is right for you or not. So,

1:04 we are coming up on

1:07 move ahead a little bit here. Let's move

1:10 to the twominut rule. Uh, so here's how

1:14 the format's going to go if you're new.

1:17 Uh, we're playing his video. But yes,

1:19 it's playing at 1.5 speed. Um, we spent

1:22 an hour and a half getting 2 minutes and

1:26 17 seconds into his video.

1:29 My god. Um, so I'm going to try to speed

1:33 up video three. Um, as I explained at

1:35 the very end, if you made it to the end

1:37 of all my talking of video two, um, I'm

1:40 udal looping these, so mistakes and

1:43 warts and all. I don't edit these. Um,

1:46 I'll just stop recording or pause

1:48 recording and start over. Um, but I

1:51 usually oneshot these. Um, and what

1:53 we're going to do is we're going to play

1:54 what he has. I've got AI notes. So,

1:57 we're going to read out through here.

1:58 And then once we get through all the

2:00 notes, which I'll show you over here,

2:02 we've got the two-minute rule. We're

2:04 going to go through the notes. And then

2:06 we're going to get down to my thoughts

2:07 and things in which I will read them

2:09 out. And then what I'm going to try to

2:12 do, and I apologize cuz this is going to

2:14 be a little bit different. One of the

2:16 things I'm going to try to do is not add

2:19 my two cents until the end. I don't know

2:22 if we're going to get through the rest

2:23 of these. We've got quite a few of

2:25 these. Um, so we might burn through some

2:27 of these. I really think that this is a

2:30 good addendum to to video one. And what

2:33 I said throughout video one is really

2:35 going to apply here. Um, but we're going

2:37 to get to a portion where I didn't even

2:38 write notes. Um, again, I was spending

2:41 so much time writing notes, I'm like, I

2:42 I actually can just riff this. I was

2:44 riffing the notes, so I can probably

2:46 just riff this live. Um, that's sort of

2:48 my superpower is just riffing live and I

2:50 can speak forever. I've got a water

2:52 bottle here, uh, to keep me going. I've

2:55 got a pause button to refill it. So, um,

2:58 I will have a few breaks where I just

2:59 hit pause and reset things uh on my

3:02 screens, but there's not going to be any

3:03 editing and probably never any editing

3:05 going forward. And it's the only only

3:08 way I can keep up ahead of the AI slop

3:11 stories that uh we covered in the first

3:14 video. If you want to go back and watch

3:16 that one, um I can almost outproduce AI.

3:20 Uh but the only way that I can do that

3:22 is um I do one takes. I do a lot of

3:25 talking. This is kind of very raw. So uh

3:28 why don't we get to back to the video

3:30 and again we're going to do his video.

3:33 We're going to do the notes and then uh

3:35 I'm going to go through some of my takes

3:37 on it. So, I apologize for a little bit

3:39 of a lower quality, but it took an hour

3:40 and a half to go two minutes and we've

3:42 got a full My god, what have we got to

3:44 go here?

3:46 We've got 12 minutes. That That could be

3:50 days worth of video with as much as I'm

3:52 rifing. So, we're going to try to get

3:54 through this just a little bit faster.

3:56 And I don't know how, but I completely

3:59 borked that window. My apologies. All

4:02 right, let's jump into it.

4:04 >> Two-minute rule. Now, this was

4:05 popularized by David Allen in the book,

4:06 Getting Things Done. And the idea behind

4:07 the two-minute rule is that if there is

4:08 something that you need to do and that

4:09 something is going to take less than 2

4:10 minutes, then you should do it right now

4:12 rather than add it to your to-do list.

4:13 Now, the two-minute rule is actually

4:14 like really, really, really, really

4:15 useful. Uh, I just don't do it very much

4:16 because I'm a bit of a waste man. And

4:17 so, I've got to give it a rating of a D

4:18 because normally if I have something

4:19 like replying to an email or replying to

4:20 a WhatsApp message, that actually would

4:21 take less than 2 minutes. I would love

4:22 to actually do it there and then, but

4:23 generally I just think, oh, I'll get to

4:24 this another time and then it just ends

4:25 up, you know, people following up,

4:27 following up, following up, hundreds of

4:28 hundred messages on WhatsApp. Apologies

4:29 to anyone who's tried to email message

4:30 me in the last like two years, but I

4:31 really do suck at replying to messages

4:32 because I don't apply the two-minute

4:33 rule.

4:34 >> Okay. Uh I'm going to mostly agree with

4:37 him here, but let's go over to our notes

4:40 on this one. We have the two-minute

4:42 rule, and uh I'm going to let AI talk

4:45 about what it thought about those things

4:47 and kind of break down what we just saw.

4:52 The twominut rule tier ranking Den

5:02 to-do list

5:05 but personally doesn't apply it

5:07 consistently admits to being bad at

5:09 replying to messages because he doesn't

5:11 follow this rule analysis. GTD's classic

5:15 twoinut rule is another reduce friction

5:17 move. If it's truly tiny, do it now

5:19 because it costs more than it researched

5:23 an

5:24 offload

5:26 plan.

5:31 The two minutes is arbitrary. Use it as

5:34 triage. Dole defer with a time or

5:38 delete.

5:40 >> And that's uh I believe that those are

5:42 from the the GTD method, the get things

5:44 done method, which is the the book that

5:46 he talked about. Uh again, not a bad

5:49 method. Um it's if you have no method,

5:53 you know, at least something as a

5:54 placeholder might not be too bad. But

5:56 let me go into some my thoughts about

5:57 this. Um,

6:00 again, I'm going to try to read as much

6:02 as possible, uh, because we're just

6:04 we're going to be a little short on

6:05 trying to get through 12 whole minutes,

6:07 which might expand to 12 whole hours

6:09 into my takes. So, my thoughts, um, it's

6:12 good if you're just completely done with

6:15 your priorities. Um, make the main thing

6:18 the main thing, and the two-minute tasks

6:20 are just the tick- tock of productivity.

6:22 You aren't getting anything important

6:23 done, and you feel more productive than

6:25 you are. So, I'm going to let you just

6:28 kind of read this. I am going to riff a

6:29 little bit. I can't help myself. I'm

6:31 like an addict. I just I just can't help

6:34 myself. I wrote this, but um

6:38 when you are

6:41 working, you have things you need to get

6:43 done. And a lot of people use the

6:46 two-minute rule as you don't know where

6:47 to start. You don't know where to get

6:49 things at. But I if you're doing

6:52 two-minute rules, you're not getting

6:54 anything important done. And you might

6:56 say, well, I've got a very important

6:57 email. Um, it's not that important if

7:01 you're able to do it in two minutes. And

7:03 I kind of go into that here, which is

7:04 again why I should just read what I

7:05 have. Um, so for instance, I, you know,

7:08 my thoughts are you need to think about

7:11 what is being asked in the email. You

7:13 need to think about, uh, how you want to

7:15 reply, the responses that could come,

7:16 and if you could include, uh, some of

7:19 that extra information to avoid the back

7:20 and forth. Uh, if you can save time by

7:23 answering questions and emails without

7:25 having back forth, back forth, back

7:27 forth, just write it all. I know people

7:29 don't like long emails. Just write the

7:31 whole damn thing. It It saves everyone

7:34 time. The thousand email threads are

7:37 wasting everyone's time. If you're

7:39 really that back and forth, just do a

7:41 quick call. Stop the paper trail. Maybe

7:45 you might need the paper towel,

7:46 especially if people are sort of busy

7:48 and you're working across different

7:50 departments or different agencies or

7:52 you're doing that sort of thing. Um,

7:54 yeah, maybe that's the way. But other

7:57 than running to the bathroom because you

7:59 are laugh you laugh so hard to joke that

8:01 you're about to piss yourself or you're

8:03 calling 911 and performing CPR, there's

8:06 absolutely no productivity to be gained

8:08 in the two-minute rule until you are

8:10 completely done with your main tasks.

8:12 You've gotten a good break. You've

8:13 gotten hydration. You've gotten food.

8:15 You have absolutely no priority ahead of

8:17 you. In other words, you've accomplished

8:20 your day, but you still have things that

8:23 need to get done. Sure, do your

8:25 two-minute rule then. Um but just do all

8:28 the things and uh you know, look for

8:31 those things that need to be done. Um

8:32 but don't put the minutes on it. Um, you

8:35 should just go through things either as

8:37 they come up or you should uh organize

8:40 them in a in a different way. I put this

8:42 in crap tier. Um, I don't see a purpose

8:46 in the two-minute rule unless you're

8:48 just completely clueless and you're

8:50 like, "Oh, I've got a whole list of

8:52 honeydew items and I'm at home and

8:54 there's no real priority. I've got to

8:56 fix a sink and unclog the toilet and I

8:59 need to vacuum and I need to do this."

9:02 You could just organize things. The

9:04 two-minute rule is like, ah, which of

9:06 those things can I just do in two

9:08 minutes? Like, could I just call my

9:10 insurance? Could I just do this? Those

9:11 things will wind up being time sucks

9:13 that absolutely just just suck every bit

9:16 of time. Um, and what's funny is he

9:19 talks about this later, but just do a

9:21 good Eisenhower matrix. And I do mine a

9:23 bit different. It's make a square, you

9:25 know, make a a square, cut that square

9:28 into into four smaller squares. Top row

9:32 are your important lose my job and wife

9:35 types yet. Your bottom row is if I don't

9:38 do it, nobody will really give a damn.

9:40 And your left column is I can do this in

9:43 a single coffee or less. And your other

9:45 column is I need a full pot of coffee

9:46 for this. If it's anything longer than

9:48 that, you're actually looking at a

9:49 project. If you can't do something in a

9:51 single pot of coffee, which you know,

9:53 two or four hours, like it's a project.

9:56 uh unless you are in the middle of that

9:59 project and you're wondering where to

10:00 start in that that's a that's also a

10:02 completely separate question because

10:03 that requires real planning. Um

10:08 if it's too hard just use basic

10:10 logistics that have run the world since

10:12 the time of Napoleon. And my god did I

10:15 spell Napoleon that horribly wrong. We

10:18 just

10:20 bad doctor do

10:24 can't spell

10:30 can't spell I just misspelled you. Ah it

10:34 is late. Yeah

10:36 thank you. Anywh who

10:41 easier way to do this is just rank

10:42 everything from most to least important

10:44 and move through that one at a time. and

10:46 get your more most important stuff done

10:48 first and work your way down. Or if you

10:50 want to get more things done, list them

10:53 by the time required and work them from

10:55 the short tasks through the last.

10:57 There's a couple other ways you could do

10:58 this. You could use other old logistical

11:00 methods like first in first first out or

11:02 last in first out. So, uh, if you're

11:05 doing something like a memory retrieval,

11:07 you've got a stack of papers. Um, what's

11:10 a good what's a good quick no BS way to

11:12 organize them? It would be last in first

11:15 out. you put papers down in a stack in

11:18 the order that they arrive. And if

11:19 you're looking for something, uh, it's

11:21 more than likely that the most recent

11:23 thing you got is probably going to be

11:24 related to the task you need to do. So,

11:26 it's probably going to be on top. And

11:28 it's le less likely the further down you

11:31 go. So, automatically, the things that

11:33 are right at the top that you're going

11:34 to get to very quickly are going to be

11:35 very easy to find. And so, unless

11:37 something is wildly out there, it's not

11:39 going to be at the bottom. So, that's a

11:40 last and first out. First in first out

11:42 is the opposite where you set things

11:45 where uh uh the the very first thing

11:48 gets at the top and everything else goes

11:50 under and it gets stacked up in a row

11:52 and you get this sort of train of of

11:54 tasks to do. And so first in first out

11:57 is is what's used by a lot of

11:58 manufacturing. Um you know so you don't

12:01 keep old stock around. You don't get uh

12:04 uh coffee and stale food. You want your

12:06 food to arrive at the grocery store in

12:08 first in first out. You want the stuff,

12:10 you want the oldest stuff to move first

12:13 out of the warehouse to the grocery

12:15 store. You want the oldest stuff to move

12:17 quickly out of the grocery store.

12:18 Otherwise, you're going to have a ton of

12:20 waste. If you do that for your tasks,

12:22 you would take your oldest task and do

12:24 it first. Um, until you catch up. Um,

12:28 people, if you do this in your email,

12:29 you're going to your oldest emails first

12:31 and reading up towards your newest

12:33 emails. Um, so that's how first in. Now,

12:37 last in first out email would be read

12:39 the most recent email and work your way

12:41 to the oldest email. First in, first out

12:44 is doing the the opposite. Go to the

12:45 oldest emails and work to the newest.

12:47 Eisenhower matrix if you were looking at

12:49 that is um sort your emails by which

12:53 ones are flagged or name you or you're

12:55 in the two line or they have a keyword

12:58 for uh something that's important.

13:00 That's going to be do those first and as

13:02 you look through them, you could sort

13:04 your tasks by what's the most important

13:06 to the least important. And then you're

13:07 going to have emails that yeah, you

13:08 could read and catch up on, but you

13:10 don't need to reply or you could

13:12 probably just ignore. You eventually get

13:14 around to reading it. If you want to get

13:15 to that whole that holy grail of inbox

13:17 zero, um, focus on making a list of your

13:22 important stuff and then, uh, sort that

13:26 by by recency. people are most

13:28 interested in what they most recently

13:29 their most recent request is their old

13:31 request may have already expired. Start

13:33 there, work your way down. If it if you

13:36 quickly scan it doesn't apply to you,

13:37 just mark them red and move on about

13:39 your day. Um,

13:42 yeah, that's basically it. Um,

13:47 where did I add? I I I thought I had a

13:50 um some things some of this could cause

13:52 you problems where when you're looking

13:55 at a two-minute rule, um if you do this,

13:58 and that's how you're going to get ahead

13:59 at work. Um that's basically quiet

14:01 quitting. You're doing the easiest,

14:03 shortest task, and you're never tackling

14:05 the big task. And uh if you don't skip

14:08 it, you're probably going to lose your

14:09 job. Um that's, you know, you can grab

14:13 it here. I I thought I had a nice little

14:15 uh anecdote here. Um, you can either

14:18 actually get your stuff done or you can

14:20 vibe farm on small [ __ ] tasks and

14:23 think you've conquered the world like

14:24 Jack on the Titanic and spoiler, you'll

14:26 die at the end of the movie or just lose

14:28 your job. I think that's not a hot take.

14:30 I think that's pretty pretty solid. Um,

14:33 it's it's like if you do the most

14:35 menial, meaningless tasks, it's not

14:37 really going to to help you a whole lot

14:40 through through pretty much any of that.

14:43 So, let's move back over and get to the

14:46 two-day rule. This is a a little more

14:48 interesting.

14:50 >> Message me in the last like two years,

14:51 but I really do start replying to

14:52 messages because I don't apply the

14:53 two-minute rule. Next on the list, we

14:54 have the two-day rule. And this is

14:55 something from my friend and fellow

14:56 productivity YouTuber, Matthew,

14:58 >> which by the way, um, good YouTuber. Um,

15:01 if I'm not mistaken, let me

15:04 >> Next on the list, we have the two-day

15:05 rule. And this is something from my

15:06 friend and fellow productivity.

15:09 >> I'm trying to remember if I've watched

15:11 some of those videos. is I think he had

15:12 some over note takingaking app. So um he

15:15 also is if I'm not mistaken he is a

15:18 minimalist. So if you're interested in

15:19 minimalist context uh Matt's a good

15:21 channel to watch as well.

15:24 >> After 8 years of attempting to put

15:25 weight on ever since high school and

15:26 failing miserably I implemented the

15:28 two-day rule. It's very simple. I would

15:30 not allow myself to take off more than

15:31 one day in a row for some kind of

15:32 workout. Be it at the gym, a jog, or a

15:34 hike. I had to do some kind of physical

15:35 activity at least every other day. This

15:37 allowed me the time to take days off as

15:38 I needed it, often multiple days a week.

15:40 but it also kept me committed to my goal

15:41 and most importantly it prevented me

15:42 from falling into a slump and neglecting

15:44 my health for weeks or even months at a

15:45 time.

15:45 >> And I really like the 2-day rule because

15:46 it's an alternative approach to sticking

15:47 to your schedule that offers a little

15:48 bit more leeway. Now, I tried using the

15:50 2-day rule at one point back when I was

15:51 working out in the gym fairly regularly.

15:52 And I found it didn't quite work for me

15:53 because I'm not as uh on the workout

15:55 hype as Matt is. And so instead, what I

15:56 found was useful for me was having an

15:57 accountability buddy in a personal

15:58 trainer. And so I'd end up working out

16:00 two or three times a week. And so the

16:00 two-day rule is awesome and I know a lot

16:01 of people use it. But because I don't

16:03 personally use it at all, it's going to

16:04 have to go on the D ranking on our tier

16:05 list. Next we have the concept of time.

16:07 Okay, so let's cover this real quick

16:10 here. Let's review what we just saw.

16:17 >> Oh, AI. Oh, you silly AI.

16:29 >> Prevents falling into slumps and

16:31 neglecting goals for weeks, months.

16:34 Personal note, didn't work for him.

16:37 prefers accountability buddy personal

16:40 trainer instead

16:45 and variable lapses happen what matters

16:49 is returning

16:51 online

16:57 spiral

17:00 >> okay my thoughts um not bad most

17:03 productivity and habits and such is a

17:06 system method. We we covered this whole

17:09 it's not a real these are not real

17:11 systems of kicking yourself in the ass

17:13 over a long period of time unless you

17:15 just sleepwalk through the h until you

17:17 just sleepwalk through the habit. My

17:20 bucket uh I put it in the can of

17:22 whoopass tier. Um recommendation stop

17:26 first. Just stop. You get to do one

17:30 priority one thing to kick your own ass

17:33 over. This isn't about you taking your

17:36 next top 20 New Year's resolutions and

17:39 making up a calendar where you space

17:41 them all out and you maximize the breaks

17:43 with your brand new shiny 2-day rule and

17:46 decide that you're and decide you're

17:48 going to be Einstein and brains or the

17:50 rock and body because uh you can make

17:54 doodles on a calendar. This is going to

17:55 show up later. I'm not reading it now.

17:57 This is not going to show up. This is

17:58 going to show up a little bit later with

17:59 the color coding. Um, but with this

18:03 method, pick one thing, the best thing,

18:06 the only thing, the thing you need to

18:07 learn a habit for, and relentlessly kick

18:10 yourself in the ass until it's a habit.

18:13 Um, research is going to show that you

18:15 can't just constantly kick yourself in

18:17 your own ass. Put some real, you know,

18:19 be BF Skinner behavioralism, you know,

18:22 uh, do some sort of the Pavlovian, you

18:24 know, bell rings your your mouth

18:26 salivas. Uh, Skinner was able to train

18:29 animals. Uh there's sort of the the

18:30 birth of behaviorism. Um you know,

18:33 throwing in my my extensive doctoral

18:35 knowledge in there. Um most of you are

18:37 probably familiar with with Skinner uh

18:39 the Skinner experiments. Uh interesting

18:41 stuff making birds peck for food and

18:44 making them peck out patterns and things

18:46 like that. Um and you can do that, but

18:48 you have to reward yourself for

18:50 accomplishing milestones. Um, negative

18:52 behaviorism all on its own is not going

18:54 to be positive or mentally healthy uh

18:57 for you or an animal. Um, but I'm, you

19:01 know, I personally

19:03 I threw this in here. I don't know.

19:05 Maybe I was tired. Maybe I may maybe I

19:08 had a little extra wine cooler with the

19:11 uh dinner tonight. I don't remember

19:13 having it. But um, personally recommend

19:16 eating an entire box of jelly donuts

19:18 after your 30-day workout. But really,

19:21 not joking, if you get to 30 workouts,

19:24 you've already got your lifelong habit.

19:25 Like, you've pretty you've pretty well

19:27 done it at that point. And I'm probably

19:29 assuming you didn't do those in 30

19:31 straight days. So, you probably been

19:32 doing uh three days a week for 10 weeks.

19:35 You're really into this already. and a

19:37 single box of donuts uh is just you

19:40 being your happy gluttonous sloth self

19:44 uh and taking a bacon uh a baker's dozen

19:46 like a champ and wash it down with a

19:48 milkshake and take all of your Instagram

19:50 photos of you at the gym and working out

19:52 and sneak in a photo of you with your

19:54 face covered in powdered sugar and jelly

19:55 and the empty box and if you're into the

19:57 captioning record it with the workout

20:00 with your new best score 38 minutes 13

20:02 donuts # do you even gains bro # don't

20:06 skip donuts that day. But I'm not kind

20:08 of I'm really not joking. Set up an

20:11 audacious reward. Make it silly. Make it

20:14 memorable. Uh make it something that's

20:17 kind of a struggle to enjoy even uh if

20:20 if your habit is being struggling. Um

20:24 the donuts and plus you're diabetic.

20:26 Dear God, don't do that. Um but you can

20:29 kick your own ass, but you got to you

20:31 you got to have fun. You got to show

20:33 other people you're having fun. No one

20:35 just sees you suffering and like, "Oh, I

20:37 killed my legs again. I can't walk up my

20:39 stairs. I had to pull myself up to the

20:42 bedroom with my massive new forearms."

20:45 Um, and I kind of point out like if if

20:47 you're if you make a habit to eat tree

20:49 bark, you're going to quit in a day like

20:52 everyone else. Actually, it's I'm

20:54 recording this on January 4th. Uh, it's

20:58 going to post on January 5th. 99.999%

21:03 of you are going to quit your New Year's

21:04 resolutions. I believe by they say by

21:06 day six. So, uh if you for you to get to

21:12 your 30th workout, yeah, enjoy a box of

21:15 jelly donuts. Um have something of

21:18 reward after it. And if you fail, well,

21:21 if you're someone who does enjoy like a

21:23 donut once a month, you grab a donut

21:25 with your coffee and it's just it's what

21:27 you like to do on the first of the

21:28 month, start the the month off, right?

21:30 tell yourself you're going to punish

21:31 yourself, too. I I didn't do it. So, um

21:35 yeah, I I kicked myself in the ass and

21:37 um now I just can't have a donut for a

21:39 couple months. I'm just cuz I'm every

21:41 time I think about having my my single

21:43 doughnut on the first of the month, I'm

21:45 going to realize I couldn't keep my

21:46 habit. And maybe you can get yourself

21:48 back to it. Um but do do you think you

21:52 can just kick your own ass all the way

21:54 to winning? Um well, of course you do

21:56 because you're built different. Um news

21:58 flash you are not I guarantee you are

22:02 not built different. Um so let's go to

22:06 our next one which will be time blocking

22:12 blocking. Now this is basically where

22:13 you block out a certain amount of time

22:14 for a particular task or project and

22:16 ideally you stick it in the calendar and

22:17 so when that time comes around you

22:18 actually end up doing the thing. Now

22:19 this is going to get an A rating from

22:20 me. I think this is an absolutely

22:20 essential tip. The day I started using a

22:22 calendar was the day that my

22:23 productivity basically 2xed overnight

22:24 because I was now using a calendar. Cuz

22:25 normally like I find for me I don't know

22:26 about you but like for me when I have an

22:27 empty gap on my calendar at that point I

22:29 think oh I could do all these different

22:30 things and I end up kind of paralyzed by

22:31 the amount of different things I could

22:32 be doing. Whereas when I have a slot in

22:33 my calendar where a in which there is a

22:35 defined task at that point I know what I

22:37 should be doing in that time and if I

22:38 want to do something else I can choose

22:38 to do it but at least I've got my

22:39 default option and this has been an

22:40 absolute game changer of my

22:41 productivity. It's not just me that's

22:42 why time blocking people like Elon Musk

22:43 and Bill Gates and author Cal Newport

22:44 also use time blocking quite a lot and

22:45 they've written and talked extensively

22:46 about how it's the best thing.

22:49 Okay, I'm just gonna because I'm gonna

22:51 point this out later if I also think I

22:53 pointed this out in the last video. Um,

22:57 I don't give I don't give two shits what

22:59 Elon Musk or Bill Gates do. That does

23:02 not make a system well. And if you go

23:04 back to video one, uh, you're going to

23:06 see where I talk about the qualitative.

23:08 The problem with a lot of qualitative

23:10 and then lower than that are the book

23:12 authors and lower than that are the pure

23:14 influencers. Um, the lower you get away

23:17 from data, the more people people will

23:19 care what Elon Musk, Bill Gates or

23:21 Warren Buffett do, like time blocking.

23:24 If you want to know about uh high-tech

23:27 startups, Elon Musk and Bill Gates are

23:29 probably the If you want to know about

23:30 investing, uh, Warren Buffett is

23:32 probably who to talk to. If you want to

23:33 know time block, do not [ __ ] talk to

23:35 those people. They do not live lives

23:37 that reflect your life. U, that is just

23:42 horrible logic. Um, and as I pointed

23:46 out, I believe in the last video, it's

23:47 like believing you're going to be in the

23:48 NBA because you bring Sprite. You drink

23:51 Sprite just like Kobe Ryan. That's not

23:53 going to effic. So, let's cover some of

23:57 this and I'll go into um, you know,

24:01 let's see where we started and and get

24:04 there.

24:08 >> When that time comes, you do the thing.

24:12 Productivity basically doubled overnight

24:14 when started using a calendar

24:17 paralysis by options

24:21 slots provide default actions used by

24:23 Elon Musk and author

24:28 reinforces my system

24:31 authority names.

24:35 >> I didn't tell AI that I wrote my notes

24:39 without really reading. Yeah, I was

24:40 like, well, what's interesting is if AI

24:42 is wrong, I get to critique the AI then.

24:45 Um, because I get to show like, ahaha,

24:48 human human intelligence and education

24:50 has triumphed over the machine. Um, I'll

24:54 throw on some Tom Mel and Rage Against

24:56 the Machine. We'll freaking rock out to

24:58 to kicking the machine's ass.

25:01 Unfortunately, it's so right here. It's

25:03 like the name dropping. I'm gonna let

25:05 this continue a second, but um yeah, who

25:09 gives a [ __ ] what a famous person does?

25:11 I'm just like I'm not trying to dog on

25:13 on the creators. Like this is just a

25:15 thing they do. They everyone does this.

25:17 It's a it's a psychological hack. It

25:21 works. The average they're going to hear

25:24 like

25:25 I want to use something that works.

25:28 Okay.

25:29 I I think I I think I qualify. I just

25:32 dedicated like the last

25:35 depending on how you count the time 13

25:37 to 15 years of my life going from no

25:40 education as an adult and all the way

25:43 through a doctorate. I think I'm pretty

25:45 good at time blocking because I held a

25:47 career down and raised a child in that

25:49 period did uh as well as well as living

25:52 in

25:53 four different states over that period

25:55 of time uh and also career changes and

25:58 education changes and all that. So, um,

26:03 honestly, I think I could have ran Tesla

26:05 better than Elon had I had I put all of

26:08 that time into that task. And I I

26:11 actually I No, I think he could he

26:14 probably could have done my task as

26:15 well. Like, we could have traded Task. I

26:17 just I feel like I could have done

26:18 better at Tesla. I couldn't have hyped

26:20 it better. Like, you got to have the

26:22 brand. Like, you got to be the

26:23 charismatic, culty, weird, nerdish type

26:27 thing to do what he did. like uh I'm not

26:30 going to give him a lot of credit, but

26:31 I'll give him credit for that. Um same

26:34 with now Bill Gates.

26:36 Bill Gates has some hardcore management.

26:40 Um I I would question if I could have

26:46 tackled

26:47 half of what Bill Gates tackled. Uh that

26:50 he truly is on another level. Uh not

26:53 everyone thinks he's he's a smart nerd

26:56 kind of. Um, I think I'm probably more

26:59 of a nerd in in some areas. He certainly

27:01 is a nerd in other areas, but in

27:02 management terms, I'm a doctor of

27:05 management. Uh, Gates, Gates blows so

27:11 many people out of the water. Looking at

27:14 like a Jack Welch, uh, looking at GE,

27:17 looking at looking at IBM, looking at

27:20 Intel starting off, looking at sort of

27:22 the Huelet Packard Compact, real, you

27:24 know, the real growth days. Bill Gates

27:26 just stood head and shoulders far and

27:29 above everyone. Um he also later

27:32 admitted he was he didn't need to be so

27:33 much of an [ __ ] Um he very admits it

27:37 but um ju a mind people think of mind

27:41 for technology. I I think a mind for

27:43 business. Um Musk

27:47 Musk thinks ma money is magic. Um and

27:50 that happens when you get all your money

27:51 from government grants. I don't remember

27:53 the last time that Microsoft uh started

27:55 an entire new section. I didn't remember

27:57 that the Xbox was started by government

27:59 defense grants from NASA or uh energy

28:03 bills. So

28:05 I I give each they may both be famous. I

28:07 give them different credibilities and I

28:09 don't give a [ __ ] what their net worth

28:10 is. Um you know, different time,

28:12 different space. Um so there's this

28:15 thing. I'm getting a little too excited.

28:16 I'm getting a little too fired up over

28:18 this. Let's let's continue with the

28:20 pressure test.

28:22 Pressure test AB test completion stress

28:24 would be challenged if

28:30 lower rates than a looser task based

28:32 approach. Not likely, but

28:35 >> not depends on

28:42 days unblocked. Measure

28:45 >> fairly easy to do.

28:47 >> Yep. Check your stress

28:50 >> implementions

28:52 when

28:53 plans have support.

28:55 >> Yep.

28:56 >> Attention switching has costs. Cancer

28:58 control population sciences.

29:01 Don't time block your entire existence.

29:02 Block one, two high impact tasks. Leave

29:05 Slack and defend those blocks like

29:06 meetings.

29:08 >> Slack, Slack, Slack, Slack, Slack. And I

29:11 don't mean the damn messaging platform.

29:12 Slack. Um, if you have people that block

29:16 their entire days with meetings and

29:18 such, you are 120,000%

29:23 uh going to run into the issue of of

29:25 overlap. And you you see people have

29:27 meetings all day long. They're late to

29:28 every single one.

29:31 So, let me go

29:33 to thoughts. I think I think time blocks

29:36 are good. And as I point there, um,

29:38 don't do the block block block block

29:40 block block block block block block

29:41 block block block block. People do this

29:42 with meetings and they're always late to

29:43 every meeting. My gosh, it's almost like

29:45 I it's almost like I wrote these notes.

29:47 Um, and your work does not give a [ __ ]

29:51 what time you set for work. It will not

29:53 obey your boundaries for getting things

29:56 done. Uh so when you set these up uh you

29:59 need to ensure that you turn on your do

30:01 not disturb, you put everything away and

30:02 you focus on one thing. A time block is

30:05 for one set of things or one thing. It

30:09 is all together. You don't time block

30:11 and say I'm going to do work

30:14 or I'm going to do home. You you need to

30:18 be very specific. Are you cleaning the

30:21 house, the downstairs? Are you cooking?

30:24 Are you meal prepping? which I'm not a

30:26 fan of. I think I think meal prepping is

30:29 a is a human destroying task. Um it's

30:32 just sucking the joy out of life, which

30:34 is uh meal time with people. And I'm

30:36 going to keep saying that. Um but if

30:38 you're going to do that, you create a

30:40 block. Um but realize that um you need

30:43 the end of a time block to be

30:45 open-ended. When you do a time block, we

30:48 just we talked about, you know, like the

30:50 whole twominut task things and what

30:51 you're supposed to do. If you have free

30:53 time and energy and you want to do that,

30:54 I s, you know, if you're really done, go

30:56 take a break. If you got a real good

30:58 time block done, recharge. That's the

31:01 time to recharge. But if you're truly uh

31:04 uh g getting into the work and you set

31:07 aside an hour, it might take two and you

31:10 might be on a roll and you don't want to

31:11 stop. It's like, well, I got another

31:12 time block. When you hit deep work, do

31:15 not interrupt your deep work. That is

31:16 the worst thing you could do. Um, and

31:19 that's why I call this the deep work

31:21 tier. If you time block correctly and

31:23 you get used to what your deep work is

31:24 like when you really hit your stride um

31:26 or what we'll cover later your flow

31:30 you're you're winning. Um it's nothing

31:33 at all with time blocks. The only

31:34 problem with time blocks is people are

31:36 doing they want to time block their

31:37 entire damn week entire damn day. Be

31:39 very judicious with time blocks. Um I

31:42 say that as somebody who has completed a

31:46 dissertation on time. I say that as

31:48 somebody who has go gone through three

31:51 degree stages and has had every mo

31:54 waking moment of my time sucked up by

31:56 studying, reading, research papers,

31:59 writing, conducting an actual

32:01 experiment, a nationwide US experiment.

32:06 Yes, time blocking works. Um, he puts

32:10 it, I believe, at a tier. This is S tier

32:13 if you do it right. It's not it's not

32:16 some super complicated method. It's just

32:18 make the time that Saturday at from 11

32:25 a.m. until 300 p.m. you're just going to

32:28 do a thing. You're going to grab your

32:29 snacks. You're going to put them in

32:30 there. You're going to get plenty of

32:31 water. When you take a break, you're

32:33 going to put your headphones on. You're

32:35 not going to talk to anybody. You're

32:36 going to walk outside. Your mind's going

32:38 to be going. What I like to do during my

32:40 time block breaks because you can do a

32:42 time block and still take a break in the

32:43 time block. Put the headphones on or you

32:46 know if you got little headphones on

32:48 actually brought this out just like I

32:49 show you. Put on put on a hat and just

32:52 just go all school fat Albert on it and

32:55 just just head down and when you do that

32:59 oh boy I'm popping things out now. When

33:01 you do that, you will find the most

33:03 amazing gains because what you're really

33:05 accomplishing

33:07 um is deep work. You're allowing

33:09 yourself to fully engage

33:13 mentally, physically. The the rest of

33:15 the world does not exist outside of that

33:18 time block. And what I recommend when

33:22 you use your time blocks is um your time

33:25 block is the minimum amount of time you

33:27 will work, not the maximum amount of

33:29 time. And a good time block is you

33:31 setting up a start and a minimum time to

33:34 work. And if you're working slow and it

33:38 seems like time is is is got to be going

33:41 much faster and you need to be done, um

33:43 you have a clock. Like don't don't put

33:45 yourself in a a a a chamber uh for your

33:50 senses. Have a clock. Look at the time.

33:53 If you're glancing at I have a clock

33:56 behind me. If I look at the clock and

33:57 I'm like, "Okay,

34:00 I've got the next hour and a half. I

34:02 need to get a handle on my uh trans my

34:05 paragraph transitions uh for section 3.9

34:10 of chapter 3. I'm going to just I'm

34:12 going to spend an hour and a half just

34:14 going over those, making sure that

34:15 they're good and not repetitive, and I'm

34:16 going to do this." And I go through

34:18 there and I'm like,

34:20 "This is hard. This is hard. God, how

34:23 long have I been at this?" You know,

34:24 you're not in deep. If you're looking at

34:25 the clock, you are not in deep work. You

34:29 look at the clock and you see 20 minutes

34:30 past,

34:32 you'd better put on some background. You

34:34 better you whatever is on your mind that

34:36 is distracting you, you need you're not

34:39 hitting flow at all. Um, close your

34:42 browser. You're you're going down some

34:44 kind of rabbit hole. You're looking at

34:45 something else. you need to refocus

34:47 yourself because you're not being

34:48 focused and you're being overwhelmed and

34:50 your brain is trying to escape like like

34:53 the task is an escape room and it's

34:55 trying to find any way out. Um, and as I

34:58 right here um you know maybe you decided

35:01 that do not disturb wasn't possible and

35:03 you keep getting a text message from a

35:05 loved one or someone else and you need

35:07 to let people know when you have these

35:08 time blocks like you are not reachable.

35:10 You may as well be on the moon when

35:12 these time blocks happen unless it

35:14 involves them. So when you hit these

35:16 time blocks, you are unreachable. Um you

35:19 go back to the 1800s where you are

35:22 somewhere in the country and there are

35:23 no phones, telegraphs, telegrams or

35:26 carrier pigeons. Um and if you decide

35:29 not to turn on your do not disturb, you

35:31 will have essentially [ __ ] yourself

35:33 out of two hours of time that you have

35:35 now wasted. You may as well have watched

35:37 a movie. Like that's the that's the poor

35:40 situation you have put yourself in. Um,

35:43 and now you're just stuck in that room

35:44 for another hour and 40 minutes and you

35:46 aren't leaving because once you set a

35:48 time block, you need the habit of

35:50 sticking it out. If you've got to sit

35:52 there and stare at the wall and watch

35:55 the paint age for another hour and 40

35:57 minutes, you do it because you're there.

36:00 If you need to

36:02 put the headphones on, not because

36:04 you're listening to the music, and walk

36:06 and think, work through the issues of

36:09 why you're not able to engage. If you've

36:11 got to wa go into your back and I do

36:13 this, you got to go into your backyard

36:15 and walk circles for two hours. Then you

36:17 go into your back back uh yard and you

36:20 walked circles for two hours.

36:24 The reason you set a time block is it's

36:26 important to you. It's a priority. It is

36:28 the main thing and keeping the main

36:31 thing the main thing is important enough

36:33 for to you that you have. This is why

36:35 you don't block your like I'm a time

36:37 block my workout. I'm a time block.

36:39 Those are not all priorities. They're

36:41 things you do. They may be habits. They

36:43 shouldn't be time blocks. Time blocks

36:45 are enough that you are closing the

36:47 world out. This is important enough to

36:49 you to shut off people that unless

36:52 something is on fire, unless unless

36:54 someone is dying, no one reaches you.

36:57 You are you are shutting out the world.

36:59 It's that important. That's where time

37:01 blocking if you if you're someone who

37:03 needs that deep work, time blocking is

37:05 great. It's judicious. It's for one

37:09 thing and when it works right, you will

37:12 blow the doors off time blocks. I like

37:15 to put time blocks on days with things

37:18 afterwards like dinner

37:21 or something else. I mean, you don't

37:23 necessarily want to lose all your family

37:24 time, but when you're doing a doctorate,

37:26 there's not a lot of family time. Like,

37:27 you're just you're getting a distration

37:29 done. You're not sitting BSing around

37:31 the dinner table. Um, and so a lot of

37:34 times once you get into that habit,

37:37 you're not in the time block and you're

37:39 the work is still in your mind. You're

37:40 like, I can't, yeah, I'm going to do

37:43 this. I'm going to do this. I'm going to

37:44 do this. I got a time block coming up

37:45 tomorrow. Yeah, I know. I was thinking

37:47 about this. And you just you kind of a

37:49 little consumed with it. You're a little

37:50 obsessed with it. And when you hit that

37:52 and you've got your hour time or your

37:54 hour or two hour, three hour time block

37:56 and you've got three hours after that of

37:59 just like, ah, you know what? If I do my

38:01 time block, I've earned myself just

38:04 laying on the couch staring at the

38:06 ceiling, right?

38:08 But a lot of times you get so into it

38:10 that by the time you look up, it's like,

38:13 "Oh my god, it's night out. it's it's

38:16 8:00 and then you emerge from your home

38:19 office or wherever it is you're doing

38:21 your work and suddenly you have a spouse

38:22 going hey I didn't want to disturb you

38:25 you know cuz we talked about this is not

38:27 servant but I I figured you'd be close

38:31 to done but dinner might be a little

38:33 cold do you or they may have already

38:35 eaten I ate at 6 but I have plenty I'm

38:38 ready to heat it up are you good and you

38:41 emerge and you're going to have to after

38:43 a really good deep work session, you're

38:45 probably have to decompress and just

38:47 kind of come back to the world. It's

38:49 kind of like it's kind of like shaking

38:50 off anesthesia and you got to just come

38:53 back into the real world. Um that

38:57 there are few things better than and

38:59 this isn't even a method. It's just like

39:01 if you really care about something,

39:02 you're going to set the time to do it

39:03 and you're just going to effing do it.

39:06 Um, if you care about your children,

39:08 you're going to go to their play. And

39:11 short of you being an ER doctor or you

39:14 being in charge of uh something

39:16 missionritical

39:18 for public safety or something else, I

39:21 don't think you need to

39:24 necessarily uh abandon work. Um, but you

39:28 should have special times. If your child

39:30 is putting on a Christmas play and they

39:34 are a pre-teen or if they're a teen

39:38 and they're they have a very, you know,

39:40 critical match or game or whatever and

39:44 even if you can't make them all, you

39:45 need to make special ones that you're

39:47 going to make a big deal that's a big

39:48 deal to them and you show up and you

39:51 just like the time like other you know,

39:53 you could time block those especially

39:55 and it is one of the situations and I I

39:58 you know again language warning But I

40:00 want to be very very blunt here. When it

40:02 comes to a time block, anyone that tries

40:04 to interrupt your time block without a

40:06 damn good reason, and I do mean like a

40:08 fire or someone is dying, not because

40:11 like, hey, I or if your spouse is trying

40:14 to get to work and they cannot find

40:15 their keys, yeah, that qualifies. But

40:19 for everything else, a time block is

40:22 your chance to tell the entire rest of

40:24 the world to go to hell. If you're going

40:27 to your children's sports, you are at

40:29 your children's sports. That is what

40:31 you've decided is the number one

40:32 priority and nothing will screw with it.

40:33 A time block is a force field of telling

40:36 everyone to piss off. That's what a time

40:40 block is.

40:42 We normally treat it with the

40:43 productivity, but it doesn't have to be.

40:45 Doesn't have to be at all. So,

40:48 let's get to the five minute rule.

40:54 Okay, let's go.

40:58 and author Cal Newport also use

40:59 unblocking pot a lot and they've written

41:00 and talked extensively about how it's

41:01 the best thing ever. Next on list we

41:02 have the five-minute rule. Now the

41:03 five-minute rule is that if we are

41:04 struggling with procrastinating on a big

41:05 task or a project, we just tell

41:06 ourselves we're just going to do it for

41:07 5 minutes. And actually I have a 5minute

41:09 hourglass on my desk back in Cambridge

41:10 that if I'm struggling to do something,

41:11 I'll just turn the hourglass over and I

41:12 will genuinely convince myself that I'm

41:13 only going to All right, we're going to

41:14 speed this up a little bit. Um I'm even

41:17 going to skip the the little bit of AI

41:19 on this one. um what this really is. I I

41:23 will get the research uh portion of

41:25 this. I think that's probably the only

41:27 port portion that we we really need. Um

41:30 let's do the let's do the full AI from

41:33 second opinion uh lens right here

41:46 in pressure test if it doesn't increase

41:48 task start rate. Yeah, sort of a

41:52 >> very anecdotal method.

41:57 Procrastination is tied to

41:58 self-regulation and short-term mood

42:01 repair. Making starting easier helps.

42:05 It's a starter motor, not the engine.

42:07 >> Okay. So, basically, this is a take on

42:10 another type of productivity hack. That

42:12 productivity hack is that you're you're

42:16 you you don't how to get started to get

42:19 to the gym and work out. So, what you're

42:20 just going to do is put on your workout

42:22 shoes. I'm just going to put on my

42:24 workout shoes. That's all I'm I will if

42:26 I still don't go. At least I put on my

42:28 workout shoes. Then you put on your

42:30 workout shoes. Like, well, I already put

42:32 my shoes on. What if I just get my bag

42:34 and I go sit in the car and I put the I

42:38 put I get ready like I'm going to drive.

42:40 I'm just gonna get in the car and start

42:41 it and I'm just gonna sit there and

42:43 like, well, I'm already in the car and

42:45 you're just sort of hacking your way

42:46 through this. Um, and this is you're

42:50 your own fool. So, you are just trying

42:53 to fool yourself into taking one little

42:57 step and another step, another step. And

42:59 I have a big breakdown here which you

43:01 are free to read. Um, but basically it

43:06 it

43:07 if you're having serious issues with

43:10 this, you might not need a productivity

43:11 hack. You might need to talk to a

43:13 professional. You may have OCD. You have

43:15 may have ADHD. You may have something

43:18 where

43:19 you're feeling

43:21 much more unmotivated. If you want to do

43:24 this every once in a while and you just

43:26 have this little trick in your head,

43:28 you're like, you know, some days it's

43:29 really hard to get to the gym and I'll

43:31 just sit on the couch. Then you can say,

43:33 "Okay, on those days when it gets really

43:34 hard, I'm going to put my my shoes on."

43:36 You're not going to do the, "Well, I'll

43:38 just do it for five minutes." Well, I'll

43:40 just do it for five minutes does not

43:41 work for most tasks. In fact, that's why

43:44 I actually hate this. I hate the just do

43:46 it for five minutes thing. And the

43:48 reason I absolutely hate it is there's

43:49 no just doing five minutes of working

43:51 out because it's going to take far

43:53 longer than that, even if the workout

43:54 equipment is in your home to actually do

43:57 that. So, doing the the micro steps um

43:59 is the same basic thing. But if you're

44:01 really struggling with this, this might

44:03 be more of a motiv motivation issue. It

44:05 could be a neurochemical issue where um

44:08 you know, you may just want to double

44:10 check um you know, are you experiencing

44:13 depression? Are you having real

44:14 motivation problems in this and other

44:16 things or is it really just this? Is it

44:18 just this one? If it's just this one

44:19 issue, it's probably not. Uh but always

44:23 helps to talk to a a medical health

44:25 professional or your doctor and just

44:27 say, you know, I'm having problems

44:29 getting motivated. Um, I'm not really

44:31 sure. Here are the various issues I

44:33 have. And talk to a professional. Like,

44:35 it's uh don't don't screw around in

44:37 productivity hack your way out of ADHD.

44:40 Like, yeah, you're you're likely going

44:42 to be um uh on a therapy path. And that

44:45 could be something like cognitive

44:46 behavioral therapy or neural linguistic

44:49 programming. These are very old

44:50 concepts. A lot of people don't like

44:52 them. Um but and as I point out here,

44:56 that's what this is. Um, this is the if

45:01 you don't like cognitive behavioral

45:03 therapy or you don't like neural

45:04 linguistic programming, you're not going

45:06 to like the five-minute rule or the just

45:08 put your shoes on uh hacks because it's

45:11 like saying, "I don't want to drink

45:13 alcohol, but I'm willing to do shots."

45:16 It's the same thing. It's the same

45:19 method. Um, and th you know those will

45:22 set up

45:24 complex methods borderlining on actual

45:27 systems to deal with that if you're

45:28 doing that in a therapeutic setting to

45:31 actually get your motivations and you're

45:32 setting some very extensive guard rails

45:36 that will lead you down certain paths.

45:38 So, um I don't mental health and things

45:42 like that are not a topic. Uh again, I I

45:46 I'm I'm in the I'm on more on the PhD

45:48 side of things, not the MD side of

45:50 things. I'm on the research side of

45:52 things, the practical, but definitely

45:53 not the medical side of things. Um I am

45:56 not going to speak to productivity hacks

45:59 if that's your actual problem. And so,

46:00 explore that if if that's what you

46:02 think's actually going on. Um, I think

46:05 we're going to just go and speed right

46:07 on to the next. And I think after after

46:09 this point, um, I have a few more where

46:12 I I highlight and then we're going to

46:14 kind of go even quicker cuz it's we're

46:17 really getting getting down to some of

46:19 the bottom of the barrel, but we have a

46:20 few more uh things that I think he has

46:23 in his S tier. So, the next one up is

46:25 going to be systems.

46:28 Going to do it for 5 minutes. And this

46:29 works really well. You've got to give

46:30 this probably a B. It's not like

46:31 absolutely essential, but it works

46:32 really, really nicely because the way

46:33 procrastination works is that

46:34 procrastination is generally a failure

46:35 in getting

46:36 >> Oh god, we're still stuck on this

46:37 5minute rule. Let's get up to systems.

46:40 >> Procrastination. Next on the list, we've

46:41 got systems. Now, this is something that

46:42 James Clear, the author of Atomic

46:43 Habits, talks about quite a lot. And the

46:44 distinction here is between goals and

46:45 systems. So goals are that, you know,

46:46 the goal that we want to achieve. But

46:47 systems are the process and the thing

46:48 that we do to get to the goal. And

46:50 focusing on systems is actually an

46:51 amazingly useful productivity. And in

46:52 fact, this is going to get the S

46:53 life-changing ranking for me because I

46:54 often find that if I'm trying to get

46:55 anything done, if I focus on the goal

46:56 and I fixate on the goal, generally the

46:57 thing won't get done. But if I think

46:58 about what what system can I build, what

46:59 can I do right now? what's the process I

47:00 can follow to do the thing then the

47:01 thing will get done and if you hear

47:02 interviews with anyone who's like super

47:03 productive like you know world class

47:04 athletes and authors and stuff the thing

47:05 they always

47:06 >> this is worth listening to so to I know

47:09 it's going fast but just let's pay a

47:11 little extra attention here we're going

47:13 to cover this a lot more and I will have

47:15 the the the discussion of how this is

47:17 not a system but this is important to

47:19 listen to

47:20 >> swear by right now what's the process I

47:22 can follow to do the thing then the

47:23 thing will get done and if you hear

47:24 interviews with anyone who's like

47:25 productive like you know world class

47:26 athletes and authors and stuff the thing

47:27 they always swear by is the system of

47:28 training or the system of practice that

47:30 they follow rather than having a goal.

47:31 Like everyone who does any kind of sport

47:32 wants to do really well on it and

47:33 everyone who's in the Olympics wants to

47:34 win gold. But so and so just having the

47:35 goal is not enough. It's actually more

47:36 about what is the system that gets you

47:37 there. Next up we have the daily

47:38 highlight. Now this is another thing.

47:39 >> Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Too fast.

47:42 Um I'm going to disagree with on the

47:44 goal thing. I think that's absolutely

47:46 ridiculous. Um you don't you won't

47:48 create a we'll use the term system. I I

47:50 I would prefer method, but you don't

47:53 create a system or method because you

47:56 don't have a goal. Of course you have a

47:57 goal. If you don't have a goal, like I

47:59 intentionally became a doctor. It's like

48:01 I don't like setting goals. I just want

48:03 a system for going to university. There

48:06 are stopping points. Um in product, and

48:08 this is where my expertise is coming

48:10 back in project management or goal

48:12 setting, you need a definition of done.

48:16 I would consider a gold medal a pretty

48:19 damn good definition of done. You may

48:22 not win it, but completing it with your

48:25 best effort type of thing. you know, you

48:27 may not want to say gold medal, but if

48:29 you want a gold medal, yeah, you're

48:30 done. Now, I think what they're really

48:33 talking about here is you don't make a

48:34 goal and then it's like, well, I have a

48:37 goal and then I'm just going to randomly

48:39 like, yeah, when you make a goal, you

48:41 make a plan. Like, I I've read Atomic

48:43 Habits. It's it's not bad. But I think

48:46 what it's basically the my two takeaways

48:48 from the books is goals are not enough

48:51 which you know I you know the AI points

48:54 out very clearly here. Um that is true.

48:59 Um and do you need to break down the

49:00 steps and then break down you know how

49:02 do you eat an elephant one bite at a

49:04 time. That's the takeaway. That's it.

49:06 That's all you need to know about this.

49:08 Um but it you know a lot of people treat

49:10 this there's a there's a real debate

49:12 between goals and systems. No there

49:14 isn't. Um, a system of fitness will not

49:18 get you to an Olympic gold. Period. Full

49:20 stop. It's like, well, to get a gold, I

49:22 need to be fit. So, I'm going to start

49:23 weightlifting and I'm gonna do that. Um,

49:26 well, you need to practice whatever the

49:27 health sport is, unless it's just

49:29 weightlifting. Um, the goal is going to

49:32 tell you what system you're going to

49:34 choose. Um, it's a map system. When I

49:39 set a destination will tell me the turn

49:42 by turns. Knowing what city I want to go

49:44 to at least points me in the right

49:45 direction and then I get the steps and

49:47 the turn by turn. But if you don't have

49:49 a goal, there's no there's no system of

49:53 driving that will get you to good

49:55 places. And I think that's where the the

49:57 woo woo [ __ ] around this goes. I'm

49:59 not pointing out either the influencer

50:00 or the author, but I think where this

50:02 method gets twisted and turned and just

50:06 nipple pinched to death on is this idea

50:09 that well, you know, you want to be

50:11 healthy, why don't you just make a

50:13 system of of eating and cooking? Why

50:15 don't you just make a system and then as

50:17 your needs change, you can tweak that

50:19 and it will always guide you to things

50:21 that are not just goals, but you will

50:23 get further. You may not get to the goal

50:25 or you may go blow past the goal and you

50:27 don't need to stop. you can keep going

50:28 down this sort of good path of of good

50:30 things and good vibes. Um, don't vibe

50:34 yourself into into life systems goals,

50:37 however you want to call them. That's

50:38 [ __ ] Um, h have real goals, have

50:41 realistic goals, have even I I know it's

50:44 kind of buzzwordy, but you can have

50:46 stretch goals, which is, you know, you

50:47 want to do a little better than LA,

50:49 sorry, a little better than last year, a

50:51 little better than last year. Um, but to

50:53 not have goals is is is awful [ __ ]

50:55 Um, maps work with both map. You need a

50:58 plan

51:00 and goals. You need a goal to know where

51:02 the hell you're going and you need a

51:04 plan on how to get there. They do not

51:06 work without the the other. You don't

51:08 teleport to uh from the east coast to

51:11 the west coast and you don't get there

51:12 without turnbyturn directions. Neither

51:14 of those work that way. Uh you can vibes

51:17 your way through um and and wind up in

51:20 interesting places. Uh but this is not a

51:22 debate. Um, and I think this is just u,

51:26 I'll be honest, kind of idiocy. Um, but

51:30 I think what the lens is saying here is

51:31 that fitting for them, they don't

51:35 they're talking about things that can't

51:37 have goals, but the goal if they're

51:42 thinking in terms of I hit goal and I am

51:45 done. All done forever and good. Um, if

51:48 you're running a company, you you have

51:51 yearly goals. you have uh fiveyear goals

51:55 or 10 year goals, you have stretch

51:57 goals, you have department goals, um you

51:59 have quality goals, you have profit

52:01 goals. Um and you have you make those

52:04 every year. You it's what you're you're

52:06 going towards. Um but research is going

52:08 to be mixed on that because setting the

52:11 goal for a company, it's very different

52:13 than goal setting for a person. Um, but

52:16 I wouldn't have become a doctor without

52:17 setting the goal to become a doctor. And

52:19 I wouldn't become a doctor without

52:20 having a plan on how to get there and

52:22 working with a committee and experts to

52:24 get there. I wouldn't have been I

52:26 wouldn't be a published researcher

52:28 without a freaking goal. Like that was a

52:30 goal to publish. Uh, this was I'm just

52:33 like I'm just going to have a system of

52:35 really good writing. Okay, you you'll be

52:38 a really good writer with and you'll

52:40 never have accomplished that because you

52:41 got to know where to apply the system,

52:44 when to apply a system, and you need to

52:45 know what priority has in your life. If

52:47 you don't have a goal, you can't

52:49 prioritize that goal. And so, you just

52:52 you just you're just a bunch of uncooked

52:54 spaghetti at that point. Um, it's not

52:56 actually forming to to what you actually

52:59 want. And it's you're gonna have your

53:01 life's gonna be best tasteless. you're

53:02 going to be a you're going to be a

53:04 collection of cool methods with with no

53:06 real direction. And uh I'll call out

53:08 again like it's like a start with why.

53:10 You know, you could call a why a goal.

53:13 If you want to be a certain type of

53:14 person, you want to be someone who has a

53:17 certain percentage of body fat. You want

53:19 to be a person who is kind or or spends

53:22 holidays with family. That's a goal.

53:26 Yeah, a goal by any other name uh still

53:29 smells as sweet as Romeo would say.

53:32 Probably not. But I don't think I don't

53:33 think Romeo was very good at

53:34 productivity goals. He did not end well

53:37 um you know if Romeo and Juliet add

53:41 goals

53:42 and methods, neither of which they had.

53:45 That's what happens to people with

53:47 neither goals nor methods. You get Romeo

53:49 and Juliet. They could have just run off

53:52 and got married and not played this

53:54 little game. But A, they're children.

53:57 Uh, which is its own weird issue. But B,

54:00 it's just it's it's not a tale as old as

54:03 time. Um, it's not Starcross lovers.

54:07 It's people who don't know how to set a

54:08 freaking just set a goal and go about

54:11 it. Um, the if you got that's Romeo and

54:15 Juliet is what happens when you just

54:17 vibe your life. They just vibe their way

54:20 to

54:21 double suicide. Bad, bad thing. And I

54:24 don't care about the monetization. I

54:25 don't use the the unal alive [ __ ]

54:27 Um, sorry.

54:29 In a no [ __ ] zone. I'm not doing

54:31 those. Oh, Romeo and Julia unal alive

54:33 themselves. No, they didn't. I the

54:36 [ __ ] play myself. That's not what

54:37 they did. Um,

54:40 but this is this is always done. And

54:42 when I say this, you know, I put in here

54:43 it's it's it's always done wrong. Um,

54:46 you know, these are these are always

54:50 done wrong. And my biggest takeaway here

54:52 is they keep calling it a system. Um I

54:55 really and and this might be a

54:58 misinterpretation of my remembering and

55:01 AI of systems.

55:04 Systems being processes and actions.

55:07 Processes and actions. They're just

55:09 methods. Um people people are not

55:11 creating complex enough to be to be real

55:13 systems. Systems are things that

55:15 integrate with other systems. Systems go

55:17 on forever. Systems create spheres of

55:19 influence. Um, we're talking about like

55:23 here's the four steps I take to to go to

55:26 the gym. Uh, there might actually be a

55:29 workout system and you could talk about

55:30 something like CrossFits a system or or

55:33 the I don't I don't know working out

55:36 things. U, but I'm sure the the bike

55:38 riding. Um, I did do the what's the one

55:41 that there's the dance one. I tried

55:42 that. Oh my god, that just hurts the leg

55:45 so much. Um, some of those are systems.

55:47 Some of those have are very intricate

55:49 and you fill out papers and you do all

55:51 sorts of things. Those would be systems.

55:54 Um you becoming a better cook is not a

55:57 system. It's just a method. Every day

55:58 I'm going to try I'm going to stretch

56:00 and try a new ingredient every week or

56:02 something like that. That's just a

56:03 method. It's not a system. U but you

56:05 could have a goal that I you want to be

56:07 able to cook 10 new dishes by the end of

56:09 the year using uh and have used 20

56:13 ingredients that you've never considered

56:15 you could cook with before. You could do

56:16 that with a every week I'm going to pick

56:18 an ingredient. I'm going to load up a a

56:21 recipe from the internet and I'm going

56:22 to try it and fail or not. I'm going to

56:25 try it and then if it does fail, I'm

56:27 going to I'm going to take the recipe,

56:29 throw it into chat GPT. I'm going to put

56:31 my results on what I thought and I'm

56:32 going to get feedback. I'm like, "Oh,

56:34 okay. I I did put the salt in before

56:39 instead of after." And that's why it I

56:41 because then I rinsed and of course the

56:43 salt's gone and it didn't really absorb

56:44 it. Okay, I totally get why it tasted

56:46 bland. That's a method. That is not a

56:49 system. That's just like I'm going to do

56:51 these three things. And I So I hate the

56:53 word the use of the word systems in that

56:56 context when it's it's not it's not a

56:58 system. Like I'm somebody who's worked

57:00 with systems my entire life.

57:04 Soup to nuts. Uh go, you know, where

57:06 where I work now is is so much

57:08 interconnected systems. Um

57:12 think of it even from a programming

57:13 sense. A system is something like an

57:16 integrated piece of software. Whereas a

57:19 simple piece of software or a simple

57:20 piece of programming is a method. It's a

57:22 function. It does a thing. It does one

57:25 thing. Might have a couple variables,

57:27 but it just does a thing. That's a

57:28 method or a function. A system is an

57:32 interconnectedness.

57:34 Um, and so systems are not the process

57:38 and actions together uh in that sense,

57:41 in the professional sense. And I believe

57:44 that productivity systems kind of fall

57:46 under business. When we think of

57:48 business systems, we don't think of

57:52 first in first out. Okay, we talked

57:54 earlier about first in first out. First

57:55 in, first out is a way that you do your

57:58 inventory so that you don't have a bunch

57:59 of old stock laying around. You don't

58:01 have metal parts that are sitting on

58:02 shelves rusting because you make sure

58:03 they get out the door first. And the the

58:05 newest parts get, you know, they they

58:07 work their way out. the the first one

58:10 that got done is a is the next one out

58:12 the door and the 10 that that got done

58:14 after are waiting in line to go out.

58:15 First in, first out. That's not a

58:18 system. That's a method. A system uh a

58:23 business system would be an inventory

58:25 system that uses multiple methods for

58:28 planning work, planning jobs that are

58:30 going to come into the factory and do

58:32 those things. And it's going to be

58:34 multiple methods interconnected.

58:37 It's it's Those are the actions. And the

58:41 reason it's not a system for a person is

58:43 people don't have the same separation

58:44 that that a system would have where it's

58:46 something like um you know where we're

58:48 talking on on the level of of do moving

58:51 like we're not interconnected with our

58:55 our hands and feet putting the workout

58:57 shoes on. That's why it's not it's not a

58:59 system. Um, a lot of times we try to

59:02 take these big professional things, the

59:04 Fortune 500s, um, large manufacturing,

59:07 uh, large data centers and and

59:10 technology companies, and we try to take

59:11 these big systems like what can this

59:13 teach us about how we live our lives.

59:15 Actually, not as much as you think.

59:19 People do not operate the same way as

59:22 corporations.

59:24 I just wish me I I wish we would stop

59:26 trying to fit this massive square peg

59:29 into our our that was going to come out

59:32 wrong. Don't put a square peg in a round

59:34 hole. Let's just go that

59:39 Oh, that almost came out really wrong.

59:42 Um but you see what I mean? Like you're

59:43 you're not going to fit a Fortune by

59:46 God. You're not going to fit Fortune 500

59:48 methods into personal productivity. So

59:50 we we need to stop calling things

59:51 systems uh and things like if you're if

59:54 you're going with a sangi systems

59:56 thinking uh uh uh five methods that does

1:00:00 that applies to GM that applies to

1:00:02 Chrysler if you're if you're reading a

1:00:04 book like Sangi it's not applying to to

1:00:07 to you having a better workout schedule

1:00:11 for your week that that doesn't

1:00:14 coincide with your daughter going to

1:00:16 ballet class. That's not what that's not

1:00:18 a system. So that was my only other big

1:00:21 thing about that. Um and yeah, I had So

1:00:24 the other thing, you know, I I'll cover

1:00:27 just the top portion at least. Um who

1:00:30 have systems? Employers have systems,

1:00:31 MLMs have systems, cults have systems,

1:00:34 CrossFit has systems. Um what people

1:00:37 have are heruristics and habits and

1:00:40 methods. That's that's a little more

1:00:42 exact I think that I came up with after

1:00:45 writing my notes was to was that they're

1:00:47 really methods.

1:00:49 Um,

1:00:51 one of the things that I also say is

1:00:54 that a lot of this is a bunch of crap.

1:00:56 It's like, um, my other take on this,

1:00:59 this is a bunch of bull. Um, saying, you

1:01:03 know, it's better to have a what they're

1:01:06 saying, it's better to have a system

1:01:08 than a goal. That's like saying it's

1:01:10 better to have a juicer before you get

1:01:13 into juicing things. You can juice if

1:01:16 you got a basic blender and you kind of

1:01:18 juice, you start making orange juice and

1:01:20 stuff, you can just squeeze the juice

1:01:22 like it's not this isn't magic. You

1:01:25 going and buying a $200 juicing system

1:01:28 when you're not even doing it yet um is

1:01:31 dumb. It's just really dumb and wasteful

1:01:34 and expensive. So, if you're following

1:01:37 this uh systems are more important than

1:01:39 goals, you're going to waste a lot of

1:01:41 money. You're going to be a wonderful

1:01:43 consumer. businesses are going to love

1:01:45 you because you're going to buy all the

1:01:46 stuff because that that's what feeds the

1:01:49 system. You know that's oh you can't

1:01:52 juice. You don't have a system for

1:01:54 juicing. How are you going to say that

1:01:56 you're going to drink more juice? You

1:01:57 don't even have a juicer.

1:02:00 What you should do instead have the

1:02:01 goal. Take the steps that you can for

1:02:04 things like that. Like you can squeeze

1:02:06 your own damn oranges with a spoon and

1:02:09 your hands. Start doing that. realize

1:02:12 what's hard. If if you once you start

1:02:15 getting into the habit and you start

1:02:16 really wanting to add things, then

1:02:18 consider a juicer. When you are a

1:02:20 juicer,

1:02:22 children start with a goal of being an

1:02:24 Olympian way before they have a damn

1:02:27 system of like they dream of being a

1:02:30 gold medalist before they have a [ __ ]

1:02:32 workout routine. Like I I I swear like

1:02:35 it's it's very hard for me because I'm

1:02:36 not I'm not we're we're taking extracts

1:02:40 from the YouTuber and extracts from the

1:02:43 book and this is not they are more

1:02:45 nuanced but the idea that people take

1:02:48 have taken away from this that um uh it

1:02:52 doesn't matter what your goals are uh

1:02:54 the systems are what get you there. Well

1:02:55 of course they are but the goals will

1:02:57 come first. Um, yeah, you could happen

1:03:01 into something you find out you're

1:03:03 really good at and you just happen to be

1:03:05 uh skating on ponds as a youth your

1:03:08 entire life and you just happen to be

1:03:10 good at hockey. That's actually not

1:03:11 really how hockey players work. Um, I

1:03:13 have books to recommend on that. Just

1:03:16 random.

1:03:18 But you have a damn goal first. like

1:03:20 your kid wants to maybe be a a

1:03:23 full-blown ballerina, so she goes to so

1:03:25 she goes to class, but her dream of

1:03:27 doing that came first. She probably

1:03:29 watched Frozen or something like that.

1:03:31 It's like, "Oh, I'd love I want to dance

1:03:32 like that." Mom's like, "Well, I have a

1:03:35 way you can do that." The goal comes

1:03:37 first. Like you could there are

1:03:39 exceptions,

1:03:41 rare exceptions. um becoming a doctor,

1:03:46 wanting to become a doctor to have the

1:03:48 goal came before I enrolled in a

1:03:51 doctoral program and I had to come up

1:03:53 and write an essay of reasons and my

1:03:57 educational background before I was even

1:03:59 considered having a system of of well to

1:04:03 get there I need steps so I'm going to

1:04:06 need a system for writing a dissertation

1:04:08 that comes later and if you don't

1:04:11 understand that Um, you can read these

1:04:14 books to help you

1:04:16 work on, you know, how you're defining

1:04:19 your steps maybe. Um, that could be your

1:04:21 takeaway for these things. But you're

1:04:23 going to have the goal first. And I

1:04:24 don't care how prominent anyone is. It's

1:04:27 one of those it's one of those things I

1:04:28 actually like doing when when you learn

1:04:29 enough about things, you can actually

1:04:30 say what you what no real expert will

1:04:32 ever say. No real expert will say that

1:04:34 you just wander your ass into big

1:04:37 accomplishments. Um, yeah, there's a lot

1:04:39 of lux and and there's a lot of things

1:04:40 that do happen by chance, but when we're

1:04:42 talking at a certain scale, people are

1:04:45 not accidentally Olympians because they

1:04:47 just happen to do a bunch of skiing and

1:04:50 a gold medal fell in their lap. No, they

1:04:52 had the [ __ ] goal. Like, I can't

1:04:55 soften that language. Like, it's just

1:04:57 idiotic uh that there are some out there

1:05:00 that are spewing this crap that um uh

1:05:04 magic suddenly appears. It's like it's

1:05:06 like that book, The Secret, except for

1:05:08 we're going to system our way to good

1:05:10 things. If I just have the right

1:05:12 systems, then good things will come my

1:05:14 way. That's not how any of this works at

1:05:17 all. This is how none of this works. So,

1:05:21 let's go on to another that I also have.

1:05:23 I love the the little more

1:05:25 confrontational. I love Ali, but I I

1:05:27 just I love having a little more

1:05:28 confrontation because I think it it it

1:05:32 shows that you you can't strip away a

1:05:34 lot of the BS. Like these are

1:05:36 interesting books. These are good books.

1:05:37 These are not people who don't know what

1:05:39 some of the things they're talking

1:05:40 about. But when we're going to clarify

1:05:41 things, we're going to clarify that in

1:05:44 no world ever, no matter what argument

1:05:46 is ever made by any professional or

1:05:48 anyone with a a PhD after their name,

1:05:50 whatever claim they make that that

1:05:53 somehow magical results are going to

1:05:55 exist in systems alone. Um, and we're

1:05:59 going to go into goals. They're full of

1:06:01 [ __ ] They wouldn't have their PhD

1:06:04 without the goal to be there preeding

1:06:07 everything. That's not how cause and

1:06:09 effects works at all at any level ever.

1:06:13 So from there, let us proceed

1:06:20 to do really well on it. And everyone

1:06:21 who's in the Olympics wants to win gold,

1:06:22 but and so just having the goal is not

1:06:24 enough. It's actually more about what is

1:06:25 the system that gets you there. Next up,

1:06:26 we have the daily highlight. Now, this

1:06:27 is another thing that's going to get the

1:06:27 S lifechanging ranking. And this is

1:06:29 probably the single most useful single

1:06:30 productivity tip I've ever come across

1:06:31 in my life. And the idea behind the

1:06:32 daily highlight is just every single

1:06:33 day, we decide what is the one thing I

1:06:34 want to get done today and then we just

1:06:36 make sure we do that thing. And this can

1:06:37 be something productive like completely.

1:06:46 Dear audience,

1:06:50 I'm going I'm just I'm going to be a

1:06:52 nice person. Dear Ali, I love you. You

1:06:55 have such you have such good stuff. I've

1:06:57 gotten such good good tips for for for

1:07:00 honing some of the things that I do into

1:07:03 to sharper tools. So, I really love your

1:07:05 input, but are we really go like were

1:07:09 you I I do know where this sort of also

1:07:12 comes from. Like, it's not it's not just

1:07:13 him, but were we really just were we

1:07:17 just trying to pull things in to fill

1:07:18 the S tier because I get that some of

1:07:20 the name stuff is crap. Um, and it's

1:07:23 very niche. It's it's like the Apple

1:07:26 note, like I've said before, the Apple

1:07:27 Notes versus Notion versus Obsidian

1:07:29 debate. And by the way, if you haven't

1:07:31 noticed, I've been using Obsidian over

1:07:32 here. Am I a big note taker? No, not

1:07:34 really. I use what I I I use a lot of

1:07:36 markdown. This is not Obsidian is not

1:07:38 actually my normal notes. Uh it just

1:07:40 looks nice when I'm presenting to you

1:07:42 guys. Um I actually use an IDE uh

1:07:44 cursor. So I use software development

1:07:47 because it's actually the better place

1:07:49 to do notes. I don't use notes like any

1:07:52 other regular human on on planet Earth.

1:07:54 I actually use a programming engine

1:07:56 because it actually

1:07:59 is is fire when it comes to doing notes.

1:08:01 And I find notion and obsidian have

1:08:04 their places, but

1:08:08 but

1:08:10 that same kind of debate like I see

1:08:13 where Ali didn't want to get into a lot

1:08:16 of productivity tools that are

1:08:19 questionable. He didn't I notice he

1:08:22 didn't really get into getting things

1:08:23 done so much. He is he got into the

1:08:25 little hacks. He's not trying to go into

1:08:27 the big systems. Um,

1:08:30 but audience,

1:08:33 can you tell what my problem here is? I

1:08:35 I I just I want to I'm going to slow

1:08:38 this down. I got this nice little I tell

1:08:40 you this. Let's take it down to 1.2.

1:08:43 Let's do this one over again

1:08:48 to achieve. But since are the chapters

1:08:50 broken here?

1:08:54 >> I think daily highlight is just every

1:08:55 single day we decide thing that's going

1:08:57 to get the S By the way, I don't know

1:08:59 what's happening if the sun is rising,

1:09:00 but you will notice his video is blown

1:09:02 out, but this does not reflect on

1:09:04 >> changing ranking. And this is probably

1:09:06 the single most useful single

1:09:07 productivity tip I've ever come across

1:09:08 in my life. And the idea behind the

1:09:10 daily highlight is just every single day

1:09:11 we decide what is the one thing I want

1:09:13 to get done today and then we just make

1:09:14 sure we do that thing.

1:09:19 >> You know,

1:09:21 when I started this channel, I was

1:09:24 talking to my wife and I said, you know,

1:09:26 it really does fit in. There's almost

1:09:28 nothing I watch that I don't have I

1:09:31 don't have a real comment on, especially

1:09:34 with something that is just so

1:09:36 completely

1:09:44 I I get a whisper so I don't scream.

1:09:47 It's called a [ __ ] priority. It's not

1:09:50 called a daily. That's literally the

1:09:52 definition of a priority. It's just a

1:09:55 daily just daily priority.

1:09:59 So I have to I have to I have to whisper

1:10:03 just scream and and I would probably

1:10:07 wake everyone up.

1:10:10 Let us power through again.

1:10:13 I'm sending love. I'm sending love.

1:10:17 Jesus.

1:10:19 I'm sending love. So

1:10:20 >> and this can be something productive

1:10:21 like complete chapter of my book

1:10:23 proposal or

1:10:25 Yeah, I've done that. You know what else

1:10:27 they're called?

1:10:32 Called goals.

1:10:34 I think we just talked about that.

1:10:37 They're called goals.

1:10:47 Sometimes I think it's only me and that

1:10:50 scares me when I see and I I'm like, am

1:10:54 I the only one? I'm tempted to go into

1:10:56 the comments, but I don't even like

1:10:57 comments on my videos. Like, love you

1:11:00 guys, but I'm not putting up with the

1:11:01 bots and spam all the crap. I just, you

1:11:02 know, if if if you like it, you like it.

1:11:06 Like, hey, you know, you have your own

1:11:08 thoughts. That's why I'm not in the

1:11:09 comments of these videos. and made a

1:11:11 YouTube channel.

1:11:14 But dear God, tell me it's not just me.

1:11:17 >> It can be something completely

1:11:18 unproductive, i.e. not work, like hang

1:11:20 out with friends or like call my

1:11:21 grandma. It could be anything like that.

1:11:22 But the idea here is that if for every

1:11:24 single day of the year, we could

1:11:25 actually just do the single most

1:11:26 important thing that we want to get done

1:11:27 that day that genuinely would change the

1:11:29 needle for our productivity and also for

1:11:30 our life. And so we're going to give the

1:11:32 daily highlight an S ranking on the tier

1:11:33 list. Next up, we've got the T.

1:11:37 >> I think chapters did get messed up

1:11:39 because I didn't he didn't actually get

1:11:40 that up on the S and I maybe didn't have

1:11:42 an icon for it, but um

1:11:46 to the notes.

1:11:50 Um

1:11:52 I don't even want to do I don't even

1:11:54 want to do my thoughts.

1:11:59 Um the research is interesting. Um and

1:12:03 it's about okay this is basically

1:12:07 is just planning that you know not

1:12:09 leaving everything up to whim that

1:12:10 urgency bias is real planning helps but

1:12:14 one thing is most and I kind of I put

1:12:17 this here

1:12:24 read if you want this is my what the

1:12:26 tier I see I stopped myself one of my

1:12:29 goals this year was I was going to have

1:12:31 a swear jar

1:12:32 Cuss less

1:12:34 WTF tier.

1:12:36 This should be like are you serious bro?

1:12:40 Like are you being serious right now?

1:12:44 Your productivity hack is to set

1:12:48 priorities or could also say set goals.

1:12:52 And I I am a believer yes there you can

1:12:54 only have one priority not multiple. But

1:12:55 when I say priorities I mean like days

1:12:58 where each day has a priority of its

1:13:00 own.

1:13:01 um that's actually going to feed into

1:13:05 um later on our to-do lists. And if you

1:13:11 and I will spoiler, he doesn't like

1:13:13 to-do lists, but if you have a what

1:13:16 what's the [ __ ] rapper on this one?

1:13:18 If you have a daily highlight, you have

1:13:20 a to-do list of at least one.

1:13:24 You just do. My actual problem with

1:13:26 to-do lists and and why I disagree is

1:13:28 not because I think to-do lists are

1:13:29 great. I think that's actually an

1:13:30 interesting discussion. But man, this

1:13:32 feels like so much filler. So much

1:13:33 filler that there wasn't even a there

1:13:35 wasn't even a tear icon. Like man, I I

1:13:40 get you like do the long form, my dude.

1:13:42 Do the long form like I am. Like just

1:13:44 just kind of riff on a couple of the

1:13:46 things longer. You can still hit near

1:13:47 the 15-minute mark. Like don't

1:13:51 Why are we renaming priorities? Why are

1:13:53 we renaming goals? Like why are we

1:13:55 inventing language to to fluff it up?

1:13:58 It's like I'm a

1:14:01 I'm in the I What was the old joke? I'm

1:14:04 in the U news delivery service for the

1:14:07 paper boy. Now you're a paper boy. It's

1:14:09 like it's just priorities. It's just

1:14:12 goals. What the hell? Um where are we at

1:14:17 now? Okay, we're going we're going into

1:14:18 batching.

1:14:21 Let's move on to something that's

1:14:22 actually

1:14:25 productive.

1:14:28 and also for our life. And so we're

1:14:29 going to give the daily highlight an S

1:14:31 ranking on the tier list. Next up, we've

1:14:32 got the technique of batching. Again,

1:14:33 something that Tim Ferris talks a lot

1:14:34 about in the 4-hour work week. The idea

1:14:35 being that if you have tons and tons of

1:14:36 emails, instead of checking email

1:14:38 throughout the day at different times,

1:14:39 you check email all at once, all at the

1:14:40 same time. Or, for example, like I'm

1:14:42 doing today, instead of filming a

1:14:43 YouTube video every day, I film four

1:14:44 videos in a single day, and then I have

1:14:46 the other three days off. This is

1:14:47 batching. It's pretty good. It works in

1:14:48 a lot of things. It's not like massively

1:14:50 life-changing, and therefore,

1:14:52 >> okay.

1:14:54 Um,

1:14:58 it's not massively life-changing.

1:15:00 Actually, it is. The entire reason that

1:15:04 the world works the way it is is

1:15:07 batching. Um,

1:15:10 batching is

1:15:14 is changing a little bit with

1:15:15 manufacturing with just in time. It's

1:15:18 changing a little bit with AI. It's

1:15:21 changing a little bit with with certain

1:15:23 things but we often batch things.

1:15:26 Meetings are batching

1:15:29 topics of discussion with a particular

1:15:32 group of people. If you are if your

1:15:35 company or agency or organization has a

1:15:40 change management meeting, you're

1:15:43 batching all of your change management

1:15:44 discussions. If you're having a uh board

1:15:49 meeting, you're batching all of your

1:15:51 board member discussions and votes.

1:15:53 Meetings are batches. Time blocking is a

1:15:58 batch. That's that's exactly what those

1:16:01 are. Um is the world changing? It

1:16:05 absolutely is. Now,

1:16:07 let me put a a steelman into this. what

1:16:11 he's also talking about is those tasks

1:16:14 that you that that that

1:16:18 poke at you. Um, this actually is going

1:16:21 to matter a little bit like this

1:16:23 actually is this is a serious

1:16:25 disagreement that that he and I have. Um

1:16:28 if you are a certain kind of individual

1:16:31 where you're very focused on a singular

1:16:33 task you may not never think of as

1:16:35 batching such as a writer um or YouTube

1:16:40 where things are not necessarily on a

1:16:42 big assembly on on a a batched up so you

1:16:45 don't make 10 videos and then you edit

1:16:47 all 10 videos at once. So that workflow

1:16:50 may not work in all situations. Batching

1:16:53 doesn't solve everything, but without

1:16:55 batching, the world collapses. And I

1:16:59 literally mean the world collapses.

1:17:03 Shipping containers is batching. Um,

1:17:09 internet traffic is often batching. Uh,

1:17:13 that's kind of the whole point of a CDN.

1:17:16 Um,

1:17:19 batching as a whole. um that's how you

1:17:23 think that your computer is

1:17:25 multitasking. Um today it actually can

1:17:28 there's actually like multiple processes

1:17:30 that can run but in the old days they

1:17:32 they introduced multitasking and again

1:17:34 you'll get this this story anecdote from

1:17:37 many of the books. Um, it's batching

1:17:40 things up so that you know certain

1:17:42 things are are being held back in a

1:17:44 batch that don't need to be immediate.

1:17:45 But all the immediate things they seem

1:17:47 to work like the mouse seems to move

1:17:49 while the video is still playing and yet

1:17:50 the computer must think separately with

1:17:52 one processor. The mouse moves need to

1:17:55 redraw. Also the video is playing

1:17:57 completely separate workflow but it

1:17:59 looks like it's multitasking because

1:18:01 it's dealing with batching and

1:18:03 unbatching. If it you can't have that,

1:18:05 the world would collapse. The modern

1:18:08 world would not be possible if you take

1:18:11 away batching. You can't even have

1:18:13 agriculture.

1:18:15 Agriculture is batching tasks of animal

1:18:20 husbandry together in the morning and

1:18:23 batching. This is the the work time. And

1:18:25 so we're now going to do all the seeding

1:18:28 and now we're going to do all the

1:18:29 harvesting and we're going to put the

1:18:30 we're not going to put one before the

1:18:32 other or have you know we're not going

1:18:34 to focus on a single plant. We're going

1:18:35 to plant all the plants at once.

1:18:38 Batching is how any of this works.

1:18:42 Without batching, we're no better than

1:18:44 bonobos.

1:18:46 Um, I cannot strongly enough talk about

1:18:50 batching. And that's just logistically.

1:18:52 Let's talk mentally. Um, let's go into

1:18:56 the notes. And man, AI nailed the exact

1:19:01 problem uh with the thinking. I to be

1:19:05 fair, I don't think Ali thought about it

1:19:07 in this way. I think he thought about

1:19:08 like, is it really life-changing if I do

1:19:12 all of my emails at 2:00 rather than

1:19:15 every half hour? Is it really is that

1:19:17 really going to change my life? I think

1:19:19 what he understood that is properly in

1:19:22 the batching basket is wrong. I just

1:19:26 think he had the wrong frame of

1:19:28 reference for thinking about this issue.

1:19:30 And I think in I think he would agree

1:19:32 with me in this larger one as I would I

1:19:35 would hope so. He's he's probably

1:19:37 smarter than I am. I think he was being

1:19:39 very specific in is there anything that

1:19:42 he's actively extra batching that he

1:19:46 thinks of as batching? He is batching. I

1:19:48 guarantee you he is 100% batching all

1:19:51 the time. He just doesn't realize it.

1:19:54 Um, and I'll go to my notes to just how

1:19:56 pedantic I can get with it really does

1:19:59 affect everything you do. So, here we

1:20:02 go.

1:20:07 >> Concept from Tim Ferris.

1:20:10 >> No, it doesn't.

1:20:14 >> Another It's not another yet another

1:20:16 concept from Tim Ferrris. It's just how

1:20:18 civilization works. It's it's how entire

1:20:21 communities works. It's how society

1:20:22 works. It's how government works. It's

1:20:24 how accounting works. It's how

1:20:25 everything works. Everything works by

1:20:26 batching everything.

1:20:32 >> YouTube videos in one day have three

1:20:34 days off. Pretty good. Works on many

1:20:37 things, but

1:20:40 that would be batching without chunking.

1:20:43 So chunking is required for batching. To

1:20:46 batch properly, you need to be able to

1:20:49 chunk things properly. I'm filming a a

1:20:52 very very long video. I'm almost up to

1:20:54 my third hour filming today, part two.

1:20:56 It's the same video though. I'm still

1:20:58 doing the same series and I'm going to

1:20:59 get through the rest of this. I know we

1:21:01 have quite a few to go, but we're going

1:21:03 to fly through the rest. Trust me on

1:21:04 this, but this this one's important.

1:21:09 >> It's the only thing that makes life

1:21:10 possible. um

1:21:13 batching

1:21:15 like biology batches like we have we

1:21:20 have gestational stages certain a bunch

1:21:24 of certain things have to happen in this

1:21:26 batch before the before we can start on

1:21:28 the entire we can't have like one cell

1:21:30 at a time go from zygote to born baby

1:21:34 and just string this along with it's

1:21:37 life is batches

1:21:40 >> research based analysis And I know it

1:21:41 sounds pedantic, but it's the the reason

1:21:44 I mean pedantic is it is a it is a

1:21:47 batching is is one of those things

1:21:49 that's close to a complete abstraction.

1:21:50 When I'm say a complete abstraction, I

1:21:52 mean it matters at the universal scale

1:21:55 down to the quantum scale. Batching

1:21:57 matters. Batching is is one of those

1:21:59 things that that could almost be its own

1:22:02 fundamental aspect of reality. Like it

1:22:05 really does matter. There's nothing. The

1:22:08 reason it sounds pedantic is it is

1:22:10 everything. Like everything winds up

1:22:11 being batches and when you fight against

1:22:13 batches and you don't go with the flow

1:22:16 of that you you are will be a train

1:22:19 wreck.

1:22:22 Switching cost and attention residue are

1:22:24 real batching.

1:22:26 >> So what's a switching cost? Switching

1:22:28 cost is you just got down to analyzing a

1:22:31 spreadsheet and your phone rings and

1:22:33 it's someone from another department and

1:22:35 they have a question and you hang up and

1:22:36 you're like okay I'm I'm back I'm back

1:22:38 on this and then you get an email

1:22:40 notification from the boss and they need

1:22:42 to ask about the quarterly results of

1:22:44 something else and so you go over there

1:22:46 and but you you keep sitting down to the

1:22:49 spreadsheet but you're switching costs

1:22:51 you cannot keep attention and every time

1:22:53 you switch it is take taking upwards of

1:22:56 15 minutes to get back on track because

1:22:58 you're allowing yourself to be

1:22:59 interrupted. Switching cost is the

1:23:01 reason that time blocking works because

1:23:03 you're eliminating switching cost by

1:23:05 telling basically the entire universe to

1:23:07 piss off while you do this one thing or

1:23:09 this one set of things, this one batch

1:23:12 of things.

1:23:19 >> Again, there's this focus on comms.

1:23:21 There's this real focus on batching is

1:23:23 just the example Tim Ferrris used. I

1:23:25 think that's myopic. It's just just just

1:23:28 tunnel vision. Um batching works great.

1:23:33 I wouldn't say that um uh you know the

1:23:37 people that do the the the the the

1:23:40 prepping for cook, you know, and and

1:23:41 they do they do you know they're going

1:23:43 to sit in their kitchen for 10 hours um

1:23:46 doing all this this meal prep stuff. I I

1:23:50 is that life-changing? Probably not. Um,

1:23:53 but most of us would sit down if we're,

1:23:55 let's say if you do holiday cards, try

1:23:56 not to batch your holiday cards.

1:23:58 Instead, hide them around your house and

1:24:01 randomly sign and fill out your holiday

1:24:03 cards and only mail them one at a time.

1:24:07 Now, compare that to batching them.

1:24:10 Is there a context switching difference?

1:24:11 Are you going to miss some people versus

1:24:12 not missing? Like, batching matters.

1:24:14 Like, and there are big things, but it's

1:24:17 just so easy to make these these for the

1:24:18 small.

1:24:19 >> Apply it to urgent ops or relationships.

1:24:22 expectations.

1:24:24 >> No, apply it to relationships. When you

1:24:26 have a date, batch all the things you'd

1:24:28 like to do with somebody. If you'd like

1:24:29 to watch a movie and go to the zoo, go

1:24:31 to zoo in the morning and then go. Don't

1:24:33 start spreading that out all over the

1:24:35 place. There's no reason to to start

1:24:37 doing that. Like, you can do that in

1:24:39 relationships. Like, I I have a group of

1:24:42 friends at work and we sometimes text

1:24:44 back and forth. Um, but we save up the

1:24:47 big conversations for when we meet. We

1:24:49 we save them up for a batch.

1:24:55 >> Okay, that's the color. That's the color

1:24:56 coding. Um,

1:24:59 so I'm going to read this because I

1:25:02 think it's just I think it's just

1:25:03 batching lowers context switching tasks.

1:25:05 Period. Full stop. It And it lowers them

1:25:07 all the way down to the freaking quantum

1:25:09 level. Um, yeah, nature batches. That's

1:25:12 what an atom is. Things group. Uh, like

1:25:16 things group, opposite things group.

1:25:18 things that attract things that

1:25:19 magnetize. Um

1:25:22 the weak force, the strong force, it's

1:25:24 all batching. It's all organization. Um

1:25:27 it's all batching. And Ali says he

1:25:30 doesn't do this. Um and once you think

1:25:32 about it, this is just the obvious here.

1:25:34 Um

1:25:37 the only time I'm going to call like I

1:25:39 just I am I'm going to call [ __ ]

1:25:40 He's he's I'm going to call [ __ ]

1:25:42 because I don't think he thought about

1:25:43 it. I think this was a video he didn't

1:25:45 really put that much into and I think he

1:25:47 was really talking about emails. Um, but

1:25:50 I'm pretty sure that he doesn't take one

1:25:52 shower to wash his hair and a separate

1:25:54 shower to wash his ass that he he

1:25:57 batches his body washing at a particular

1:26:00 moment. Those are not they are separate

1:26:02 tasks. Like if you go to the bathroom

1:26:04 and you wash your hands, you're not

1:26:06 taking a full shower. There are separate

1:26:07 tasks or you can wash your face or you

1:26:09 can brush your teeth or you can batch

1:26:11 them. You have a time when you shower

1:26:12 and brush your teeth. Like that's if you

1:26:17 if you're going to mow your your lawn

1:26:20 and you've got a fence and you got to

1:26:21 take care of the weeds, you're either

1:26:23 going to probably weed just before or

1:26:24 just after mowing your lawn. You're

1:26:26 going to batch them. You're not going to

1:26:27 like, you know, I'm going to weed in the

1:26:28 morning and I'm going to mow at night

1:26:30 unless there's some other weird reason

1:26:32 that you need to do that. When you're in

1:26:34 your kitchen, you're going to clean your

1:26:36 kitchen counters in the same time frame

1:26:37 you do your dishes. If you don't, you're

1:26:39 weird. Why would you why would you leave

1:26:41 your stove and everything uncleaned

1:26:42 after dinner and cooking and whatever

1:26:45 and the stuff and put stuff away after

1:26:47 you're done? You're batching these as

1:26:49 they're complete sets of tasks. That is

1:26:51 batching. What Tim Ferrris is pointing

1:26:53 out is that we shouldn't treat anything

1:26:55 else not as a batch such as taking

1:26:58 emails as they come like raindrops

1:27:00 falling from the sky. And he says,

1:27:03 "Well, that's not life-changing." It

1:27:05 actually is because we batch.

1:27:08 The only argument is don't let things

1:27:10 unbatch.

1:27:11 Look at it in the reverse. You don't let

1:27:13 things unbatch. So, I disagree. It's not

1:27:16 only the S tier. It's the only thing

1:27:17 that makes the tier list even possible.

1:27:19 You know why? He's batching all of these

1:27:22 reviews. His video is a batch. Like,

1:27:26 maybe it's the IT guy and me, but

1:27:28 everything he knows is a batch. It's all

1:27:31 a batch all the way down. It's like

1:27:33 turtles all the way down. It's batching

1:27:35 all the way down. Um, let's go on to the

1:27:38 color. And I'm pretty sure here I am

1:27:42 definitely not Yep. Nope. We're going to

1:27:45 we're going to start rapid firing

1:27:46 because we're coming up in the next hour

1:27:47 and a half. And I really don't want to

1:27:49 actually do um if I can avoid it a third

1:27:53 video. We might get there, but I'm going

1:27:54 to try not to. We're going to fly

1:27:55 through these. I might not even need the

1:27:57 notes. Let's see how fast we can go.

1:28:00 We're so close. So close.

1:28:03 >> I'm going to give it a C ranking on our

1:28:04 tier list. All right, let's speed up

1:28:05 through these a little bit more. Next on

1:28:06 the list, we have color coding. Uh,

1:28:07 which my friend Noah Kagan uses quite a

1:28:09 lot. The idea here is that you color

1:28:10 code your calendar depending on what

1:28:12 category the task is in. So, self

1:28:14 >> don't do this. Like, have fun with your

1:28:16 calendar. This is not a product. This is

1:28:18 a categorization. Um, you can use

1:28:21 colors. Your phone does this. You can

1:28:23 categorize your uh folders. Now, in Mac,

1:28:26 you can color code your emails and

1:28:28 topics. Color coding is fine. Uh, it's

1:28:31 somewhat of a quick reference. I usually

1:28:33 use things like um I would use blue for

1:28:38 school, I would use red for personal, I

1:28:40 would use green for work, and yellow for

1:28:42 just my projects or or something like

1:28:45 that. And it's like, well, where would

1:28:46 you put your home stuff? I consider it

1:28:48 personal. So, I have those everywhere.

1:28:50 So, if I see something of those colors,

1:28:51 it kind of gives me a quick little thing

1:28:53 of where to do. And, you know, I I have

1:28:56 an odd, not quite ever finished folder

1:28:59 organization method. That's a whole

1:29:00 other discussion. Um, that is that is a

1:29:04 quagmire. Um, but yeah, I throw colors

1:29:07 around. Have fun. It's not a hack.

1:29:08 Doesn't matter. You do it, don't do it,

1:29:11 doesn't matter. But, you know, some

1:29:13 people are artsy. Some people some

1:29:15 people love it. There's a whole YouTube

1:29:17 deep dives where people are just like

1:29:18 making these intricate personal uh

1:29:21 calendars and they sell stickers and

1:29:23 stuff like that and they're like a

1:29:24 coloring book for adults. They look

1:29:27 cool. I'm not like ragging on them. They

1:29:28 look cool, but it's not productivity.

1:29:32 Like, it's like, should you organize

1:29:34 things and categorize? Yeah, you can use

1:29:36 colors. You could you could technically

1:29:38 organized by sound. I'm sure that if

1:29:40 more of us um uh paid attention to the

1:29:43 the uh um the the hearing disabled or

1:29:46 sorry, the visually disabled and we had

1:29:48 to have more visual or audio cues. We

1:29:51 could actually have like, you know,

1:29:52 they're now making like I think it's the

1:29:54 new M MXM from Logitech. the mouse will

1:29:57 have uh audio or like uh u rumble

1:30:00 feedback so you can actually sort of

1:30:02 feel the screen. There's a lot of

1:30:04 different ways you could do things. Uh

1:30:06 it's not it's not groundbreaking. I

1:30:07 agree with

1:30:08 >> okay stuff gets a different color and

1:30:09 stuff gets a different color and life

1:30:10 stuff gets a different color. I don't

1:30:12 personally use it myself. So this is

1:30:13 >> I do that with uh some things I've got.

1:30:15 My whiteboards are currently thin. Uh

1:30:18 two of my entire office walls are

1:30:19 whiteboards. I like to color code stuff

1:30:21 just to give it contrast. I sometimes

1:30:24 will pick a color for certain topics. um

1:30:26 they don't mean anything. I just it

1:30:28 looks like if it's all black and white,

1:30:30 then I I it just blurs together for me.

1:30:32 So, I want things to pop out different

1:30:34 ways. So, if I look at a yellow thing, I

1:30:36 see all the other yellow things on the

1:30:37 board. If I look at a blue thing, all

1:30:38 the other blue things are popping out

1:30:40 because I just know, hey, oh, those are

1:30:42 related. It It's just markdown. It's

1:30:44 just it's just more real world

1:30:47 heristics.

1:30:48 >> It's going to get a D ranking. Next on

1:30:49 the list, we have to-do lists. Nothing

1:30:51 much needs to be said there.

1:30:53 >> Wrong.

1:30:55 So, oh, I did actually write notes. Um,

1:30:58 yeah, highlighters neat. Use them.

1:30:59 What's the last one? Uh, the to-do list.

1:31:02 Uh, we're going to have

1:31:05 we're going to we're going to

1:31:06 >> I don't really like the idea of to-do

1:31:07 lists. Instead, I

1:31:08 >> sure you do. Everything you do is a

1:31:10 to-do list. Everything is a basic to-do

1:31:14 list in the most basic sense of the

1:31:16 word. The very first recorded human

1:31:19 writing is a list. Whether to do or not,

1:31:23 people like lists. People get mad that

1:31:26 Chad GBT keeps making bullet lists. And

1:31:29 I hate bulletoint lists as well. That's

1:31:31 just people it's just speaking a bullet

1:31:33 point list. It gets frustrating and

1:31:35 annoying, but no, they're great. Um I'm

1:31:39 I'm going to go through this one real

1:31:40 quick. I I know the research on this one

1:31:43 basically said that, you know, it's

1:31:44 offloading planning to reduce. Yeah,

1:31:47 it's it's your external memory. It's

1:31:49 called a piece of paper or a tablet or a

1:31:52 mud and clay. Um, that's what

1:31:54 civilization is based on. Writing is

1:31:57 fundamental. And a to-do list is just,

1:31:59 hey, I have a bunch of stuff I need to

1:32:01 get done. I don't want to forget them.

1:32:03 So, let me write them down somewhere. A

1:32:06 to-do list could even be an inbox. But

1:32:08 the idea of writing something down to

1:32:10 not forget it because you need to get it

1:32:12 done rather than holding your memory is

1:32:15 S tier because again like batching

1:32:18 civilization is built on it. Um if you

1:32:22 want it's like the whole should we take

1:32:24 notes based on books?

1:32:29 Well no there there is a piece of paper

1:32:30 that already contains those notes. It's

1:32:33 called the book.

1:32:35 It's called writing. It is written down.

1:32:37 It's the book. Now, maybe maybe take

1:32:40 those highlighters and highlight in the

1:32:41 book. Just some ideas, but I'm gonna I'm

1:32:44 gonna let him fly through here because

1:32:46 >> I call like my to-do list a my to-do

1:32:48 list. And so, when I figure out what I'm

1:32:49 doing for the day, yes, I do the daily

1:32:50 highlight. That's the one thing that I

1:32:51 swear by because that's the one thing I

1:32:53 absolutely have to get done. But then

1:32:54 everything else falls under the might-do

1:32:56 list. This is stuff that I

1:32:58 >> I don't know who his if he has or who

1:33:01 his partner might be. Um, it's like,

1:33:03 "Hey, can you go can you pick up stuff

1:33:06 at the store tonight? I'm going to be

1:33:08 making this recipe and so I need these

1:33:10 four items." You just got a to-do list

1:33:12 with four items on it and it's batched

1:33:15 in a single trip. But yeah, that's just

1:33:18 how the world works. It doesn't have to

1:33:19 be a specific to-do list. So, I'm I'm

1:33:21 I'm kind of being a little pedantic, but

1:33:25 not like a to-do list is basic entry

1:33:27 level. You're not eliminating them.

1:33:29 they're just going to exist in your life

1:33:31 whether you actively sit down and say

1:33:33 todo list and you start making like

1:33:36 check boxes where you're going to check

1:33:38 off each one and I think going to that

1:33:40 yeah do you need them no should you have

1:33:43 the list do you need to check them off

1:33:45 no but you need the list um one of my

1:33:47 suggestions that I have within my um is

1:33:51 you know and my bucket is externalized

1:33:54 memory tier yeah that's a thing it's

1:33:56 just it's just a thing um back Back in

1:33:59 the day,

1:34:01 we used to have

1:34:04 little notepads. These tiny little

1:34:05 notepads that were like gay big that

1:34:08 were like the tiniest little wirebound

1:34:10 notepads and used to have a pen or you

1:34:12 can even get a small pen. You just kept

1:34:13 them in your pocket. If you had

1:34:14 something that came up, you flipped it

1:34:16 open. You wrote on a page. The next

1:34:17 thing you remember if you remember where

1:34:19 you left off, you just flip to the last

1:34:20 written on page and usually your your

1:34:22 most recent to-do list. And when you

1:34:24 were done, you flip it over. You could

1:34:25 use the other side. it would just the

1:34:27 pages would flip from one side to the

1:34:28 other with the spiral bound and if you

1:34:30 wanted to get rid of it you done or if

1:34:31 you need to give someone your phone

1:34:32 number you wrote it down you ripped the

1:34:34 paper off you handed it to them like

1:34:36 that's how the world worked before

1:34:38 phones uh and so I think a lot of people

1:34:40 today might not think they have a to-do

1:34:41 list um because back then yeah maybe not

1:34:44 everyone had one but the person who had

1:34:45 one had like a superpower um then of

1:34:47 course you know you got into the whole

1:34:48 rolodex thing which I was never a

1:34:50 rolodex kind of kind of guy um but now

1:34:53 we all have phones therefore we all have

1:34:54 lists and we're doing we're doing list

1:34:56 things all the time. It just we treat

1:34:58 them as text messages or or or some

1:35:01 other type of DM or shared Apple notes

1:35:04 or reminders, but they're all to-do

1:35:07 list. Like at at their base core,

1:35:09 they're all to-do list of uh that's that

1:35:11 is my only, you know, it's just is it S

1:35:15 tier? Yeah, it's S tier because for us

1:35:17 all because yeah, humans got way more

1:35:20 advanced when we started writing [ __ ]

1:35:21 down. Full stop. like S tier, like the

1:35:26 reason we have civilization. So

1:35:31 on we go.

1:35:37 If I feel like it, if I if I want to be

1:35:39 bothered to do the thing, then I will

1:35:40 just check things off. Important things

1:35:42 are being done each day thanks to the

1:35:43 daily highlight. I don't really need to

1:35:44 overly worry about these little things

1:35:45 on my to-do list. Therefore,

1:35:47 >> that makes and I just want to add there

1:35:49 that makes zero sense. It's just because

1:35:51 you have a daily priority. Why the hell

1:35:52 wouldn't you have a a daily list if you

1:35:54 had an idea for dinner and you need to

1:35:56 get the the chicken out to thaw if you

1:35:58 had something else to do? Like there are

1:36:00 more things to do in your freaking day

1:36:02 than a to-do list. Maybe he's just

1:36:04 focusing on work, but um even having

1:36:07 that you still have to atomize going to

1:36:10 your the atomic habits. You still need

1:36:11 your methods and systems. So if you need

1:36:14 to do a new things like for instance

1:36:15 file your taxes and it's the first time

1:36:17 you probably better have a checklist

1:36:19 it's like yeah but I made my daily

1:36:21 highlight I mean priority I mean goal of

1:36:24 the day uh that

1:36:27 you might actually still might want to

1:36:29 like mark things down of like well you

1:36:31 know tomorrow's daily highlight like you

1:36:34 don't just wake up one day like no I

1:36:36 think I'll do taxes today I write my

1:36:38 daily highlight of do taxes probably

1:36:41 should be something you plan weeks ahead

1:36:42 head. And therefore, it's going to be

1:36:44 something. It's like, what am I going to

1:36:46 need? What are you going to write? A

1:36:48 to-do list. I'm going to get this

1:36:50 document and this document and this

1:36:51 document and this document. I'm going to

1:36:53 talk to this person. I'm going to set

1:36:54 this aside and I'm going to check this

1:36:56 account, this account, and this account.

1:36:57 Yeah, you do it all the time. It's I

1:36:59 could just pull those examples out. Like

1:37:01 I I kind of feel like Alli's not not

1:37:04 even really thinking hard in this. It's

1:37:05 like he's like he's saying like, uh,

1:37:08 would I recommend to-d doist to people?

1:37:09 Is that a good productivity app? It's

1:37:11 like, no, you live in a society that's

1:37:13 based on list. Regardless of whether or

1:37:15 not you get to-doist or whatever you

1:37:17 want, you want to do everything. Like my

1:37:19 system of productivity is all to-do

1:37:21 listbased. Like, okay, easy. But no,

1:37:24 it's it's it's like batches. Like, you

1:37:27 don't exist without it. Like, you don't

1:37:29 work without it. You It's everywhere.

1:37:32 I re I mean, doing this video for me,

1:37:35 like my dude, your chapters are my to-do

1:37:38 list right now. No, I didn't I didn't

1:37:39 have to write it down. There. It's

1:37:41 there. So,

1:37:42 >> we're going to give this a ranking of C,

1:37:44 which is pretty good in some contexts,

1:37:46 but not in all contexts. It's all right.

1:37:47 They're pretty good. Next up, we have

1:37:48 the idea of listening to things or

1:37:50 watching things at speed multiples.

1:37:53 >> I think this is sponsored, but I think

1:37:56 in honor of this, just going to sit here

1:37:58 and

1:38:02 we're gonna show that sometimes it's

1:38:04 good

1:38:06 and sometimes not. So let's just do a

1:38:08 2x. We'll do this section as a 2x.

1:38:11 >> This is absolutely yes. This is 100%

1:38:12 life changing. One of the most exciting

1:38:13 things you can do which is like when

1:38:14 when I'm listening to audio books on

1:38:15 Audible generally I'm listening to them

1:38:16 at double speed. Sometimes even when I'm

1:38:17 watching TV shows if I'm watching on my

1:38:18 own I always watch them at double speed

1:38:19 or triple speed and slow down for the

1:38:20 more interesting bits. I know people

1:38:20 like people lose their minds over this

1:38:21 stuff but genuinely I enjoy TV shows and

1:38:23 books more when they're faster pace at

1:38:24 2x speed. Then I do it on X like I'm

1:38:25 sorry it's just the way the way it's

1:38:26 more fun when something quickly you

1:38:27 haven't got

1:38:29 about let's talk about deadlines next.

1:38:30 Now I'm not really a huge fan of

1:38:31 deadlines. Deadlines work for a lot of

1:38:32 people because that's the only thing it

1:38:33 takes to get ourselves

1:38:34 >> Wow, that popup was just painful. Um, I

1:38:38 kid, but I actually agree with him here.

1:38:40 Uh, if you can learn to consume content

1:38:43 like audiobook readers are slow.

1:38:47 Audiobook readers,

1:38:51 this is audible. So, yeah, speeding it

1:38:54 up, it's going to sound more like normal

1:38:56 conversation. Speed it way up, it'll

1:38:58 almost sound like me. Uh, I don't need

1:39:00 to do that. I have a shortcut. Um, and

1:39:02 man, he is getting so blown out. I think

1:39:04 his time is burning as much as I am. I

1:39:07 So he must have spent hours making the

1:39:08 15 minutes whereas I'm taking his 15

1:39:11 minutes and making it into hours. Um

1:39:14 yeah, no nothing wrong with that. Um now

1:39:17 he does something I don't do and one of

1:39:19 the things uh uh he and again the if you

1:39:22 go if I go into the notes here like oh

1:39:24 big sponsor alert this is all about the

1:39:26 sponsor. Um not really comprehension

1:39:30 does start breaking down at 2x. Um,

1:39:34 I don't know if that's with or without

1:39:35 training. My comprehension starts

1:39:37 breaking down at three, but it really

1:39:39 depends on the original

1:39:41 uh speed. It's better to to judge that

1:39:43 by words per minute um if you know it's

1:39:45 study-wise. But um I generally agree. Uh

1:39:48 I try to I baseline 1.2 because people

1:39:52 tend to speak slower in any kind of

1:39:53 presentation. So it just brings them up

1:39:55 to a at least a a normal slow speed. Um

1:39:58 or all normal at 1.5. And if I'm

1:40:00 listening to long long form content or

1:40:03 podcast, I'll often fire it up to 2x. If

1:40:06 it's high content dense, like for

1:40:08 instance, if I listen to an NPR news and

1:40:10 they're doing like seven minutes and

1:40:11 they're just going over the news, it's

1:40:13 usually high highly packed in dense

1:40:16 content without a lot of filler. Um,

1:40:18 I'll actually do that at like a one

1:40:20 because or one or 1.2. Uh, because

1:40:22 you're just it's it's cramming so much

1:40:25 it's hard for the the the person to

1:40:27 absorb. Whereas like this normal

1:40:28 speaking like this like you can listen

1:40:30 to me fairly well at three even with my

1:40:33 rapid speaking because there's a lot of

1:40:37 nuance filler conversational style. I'm

1:40:39 not just giving you like like two hours

1:40:42 of facts. So there's a little difference

1:40:45 there. Where are we at now?

1:40:47 >> Delve into gear because now we have a

1:40:48 deadline and there are consequences. Now

1:40:50 I'm not really a huge fan of deadlines.

1:40:52 Deadlines. Well, none of us are, but um

1:40:56 I think what he's talking about here are

1:40:58 self-imposed deadlines. Um

1:41:02 research that that the pulled up says

1:41:04 that self-imposed deadlines are set

1:41:07 suboptimally. I think that's usually due

1:41:09 to a lack of milestones. I think this is

1:41:11 something setting deadlines

1:41:14 I think most people are pretty poor at

1:41:16 this task naturally. I don't think

1:41:18 setting deadlines is something people

1:41:19 are very good at. and project management

1:41:21 whether it's waterfall method or

1:41:23 something else is very very good of um

1:41:29 giving people the false impression of

1:41:31 timelines. People are piss poor at

1:41:33 timelines. Um, if you've ever played

1:41:35 project management poker, um, you know

1:41:38 how pissed poor people are at managing

1:41:39 timelines because even after you do the

1:41:41 project management poker, you got to

1:41:43 take that timeline and multiply it by

1:41:44 like 1.5. Like is the project timelines,

1:41:49 things being uh uh over budget and over

1:41:53 time are just like it's a truism. It's

1:41:56 it's not like it's not like, oh yeah,

1:41:58 that happens a lot. No, it always h like

1:42:00 it always happens. It's it is shocking

1:42:02 if something is is actually on time and

1:42:04 on budget. Um or even one of those.

1:42:08 Um

1:42:10 he's not a fan of deadlines,

1:42:13 self-imposed deadlines.

1:42:17 You know, if you're very

1:42:21 binary on this um and you have the

1:42:23 things that have like there are not

1:42:25 self-imposed deadlines, they're just

1:42:26 deadlines. like doing your taxes is just

1:42:29 a deadline versus a self-imposed

1:42:31 deadlines. I I'm a forgiving person as

1:42:34 well. I think on this I think we can

1:42:38 agree. I think what really helps is you

1:42:40 have to get down to the essentials. Um

1:42:45 you know you have to you know and where

1:42:47 who's this matter for most? Uh managers.

1:42:50 Managers have to self-impose deadlines.

1:42:52 Um so again this is one of those manager

1:42:55 only tiers. If I if you're not a

1:42:59 manager, I don't think I don't think you

1:43:01 need to worry about, oh, I actually just

1:43:03 had a badly copy. No, you don't have to

1:43:06 worry about deadlines so much. But if

1:43:07 you're in a management, um, you do have

1:43:10 to worry about deadlines. I think one of

1:43:12 the things that I would disagree with

1:43:14 him here is um

1:43:18 what

1:43:20 kinds of deadlines he's talking about

1:43:22 because I think if we're talking about

1:43:25 actual like deadlines that he would give

1:43:27 staff um I think he very much is in

1:43:31 favor of them because I don't think he

1:43:32 would give infinite time to editors. But

1:43:34 you know whether that's a deadline or

1:43:38 you know there's a lot of ways to frame

1:43:40 that. I I don't really I don't really

1:43:43 disagree because I think what he and I

1:43:46 probably both would struggle with is

1:43:48 what does a deadline mean? Um you know

1:43:52 again you have an assignment to do, you

1:43:54 have a job assignment or you're doing

1:43:56 taxes and again that's even what the AI

1:43:58 was like that's the first go-to is like

1:44:00 you're not filing taxes against the

1:44:02 deadline or you're going to go to

1:44:03 prison. Um, but this is more the

1:44:05 self-imposed. Um,

1:44:09 and I don't, you know, it's it's one of

1:44:10 those, uh, come as it may. There there's

1:44:12 a few different ways to do this. You

1:44:14 know, your whole life doesn't have to be

1:44:15 about, um, productivity. You don't need

1:44:18 to hack everything. Sometimes it is okay

1:44:20 to, you know, you don't need a deadline

1:44:22 on how on becoming a good cook, unless

1:44:23 you're doing that as a profession. If

1:44:25 you just want to enjoy it, you know, it

1:44:27 really does go into something he talks

1:44:28 about there, which is just sort of enjoy

1:44:30 the enjoy the ride. So, yeah,

1:44:33 I'm having a hard time on this one

1:44:35 really giving him a second opinion

1:44:37 because this is its its own true deep

1:44:39 dive.

1:44:41 I'm finished up here

1:44:44 work for a lot of people because that's

1:44:46 the only thing that it takes to get

1:44:47 ourselves into gear cuz now we have a

1:44:49 deadline and there are consequences. But

1:44:50 I really like the way Seth Goden

1:44:52 approaches this. He says in one of his

1:44:53 blog posts, deadlines work. They work

1:44:55 because they focus the mind and they

1:44:56 create urgency. They work to get us to

1:44:58 file our taxes or finish an assignment.

1:44:59 They're an external lever of the work

1:45:00 that we have to do. On the other hand,

1:45:02 dessert works, too. You don't need an

1:45:04 external force to encourage you to eat

1:45:05 dessert after you finish all your

1:45:06 vegetables. It's something you get to

1:45:08 do, not something you have to do. And

1:45:09 so, I much prefer to think about stuff

1:45:11 as get to rather than have to. And

1:45:12 that's why I don't really like using

1:45:14 deadlines. Yes, they're effective and

1:45:15 we've got to give them a C on the list

1:45:16 because they're useful in some

1:45:17 circumstances, but I think we do want to

1:45:18 build a life in which we don't have to

1:45:19 rely on deadlines and instead we just do

1:45:21 the stuff that we enjoy doing that we

1:45:22 feel like

1:45:25 >> that I'll slightly disagree on. I think

1:45:27 yes for the enjoyment of life but I

1:45:30 don't believe in building a life of

1:45:31 discernment like I I'm I'm sorry I you

1:45:35 know again that doesn't comport with you

1:45:38 know people with children unless like

1:45:40 you're doing like farm raise you know

1:45:42 cage-free children some kind of you know

1:45:45 turn them loose and uh not taking an

1:45:47 interest in life it's just that's just

1:45:49 not a thing that's it's just not a thing

1:45:52 um it's never going to be a thing um I

1:45:56 don't I think a certain circumstance I

1:45:57 think most circumstances have some sort

1:45:59 of deadline. Um there are the government

1:46:02 requirements, plates, taxes, renewing

1:46:05 your license, passports, all those

1:46:07 things are deadlines. Um but so are many

1:46:10 of our endeavors. I enjoyed school. It

1:46:13 was very stressful. It took all of my

1:46:15 time and I loved every minute because

1:46:16 I'll never get to do it again. Um but

1:46:21 filled with deadlines, deadlines,

1:46:22 deadlines, deadlines. maybe, you know,

1:46:25 maybe his academic experience, like a

1:46:27 lot of people, is is enough stressful

1:46:28 that then you'll never want to deal with

1:46:30 those deadlines again. And you're free

1:46:32 of deadlines and you you run free and

1:46:34 you hold your hands out through the

1:46:36 through the field of flowers and you

1:46:38 live deadline free. Um, but doctor's

1:46:42 appointments have deadlines, especially

1:46:44 if you have a pregnant wife. Um,

1:46:47 life has a deadline. You know, momento

1:46:50 my we will all die. I've been at Door's

1:46:52 Death quite a few times and have gone

1:46:55 into the black abyss not knowing if I'd

1:46:58 ever wake up again. Life is deadlines.

1:47:01 It's not all dessert. Um, it's I don't

1:47:04 know. I I it's not most of the videos I

1:47:07 see from that, but that's a little too

1:47:08 fluffy of a of a mindset, especially

1:47:10 when you know you turn on the news, you

1:47:12 realize that life is preciously short.

1:47:16 So, feel like we get to do that. We feel

1:47:18 like we are blessed to do. Next on the

1:47:20 list, we have the Eisenhower matrix.

1:47:21 Now, the idea here is that we split up

1:47:22 everything we have to do into one of

1:47:24 four quadrants based on whether it

1:47:28 >> I don't believe in the exact method, but

1:47:30 I think it's a um it's the you know uh

1:47:36 the importance level versus the urgency

1:47:38 level. I went with cups of coffee and

1:47:40 such like that, which was funny because

1:47:42 I hadn't looked at his. I just started

1:47:43 going through the list and I pulled out

1:47:45 an Eisenhower matrix as a better

1:47:47 alternative to to one of his uh

1:47:49 >> whether it's important or not important

1:47:51 and based on whether it's on I think the

1:47:53 Eisenhower matrix is absolutely

1:47:54 fantastic. I don't really use it

1:47:56 consciously. I kind of use it.

1:47:58 >> I 100% agree here. Um I point it out as

1:48:03 a good way to train yourself to think

1:48:05 about things. Uh just like a SWAT

1:48:08 analysis. So if you go through your MBA

1:48:10 or do anything where uh ma for some

1:48:12 reason mast's programs love this for

1:48:14 anything doing with uh organizational

1:48:16 management they love SWAT analysis. The

1:48:19 number of times I've been in

1:48:20 organization when the organization

1:48:21 wanted a SWAT analysis. I don't know

1:48:24 what industry they got this from and

1:48:25 it's never left management books but

1:48:27 I've never been in an organization that

1:48:28 really wanted a SWAT analysis. um like

1:48:32 you can if you're doing like small

1:48:34 business like it's helpful to do but

1:48:36 it's also once you do a few you just

1:48:38 know how to think and so you're always

1:48:39 just going to think in those terms so

1:48:40 it's not a thing you do so much as a

1:48:43 thing you understand and it's just a

1:48:45 part of your thinking going into it I

1:48:46 think in Eisenhower's matrix is like

1:48:48 that that you understand that there is

1:48:50 things that are uh uh urgent and

1:48:53 important things are not urgent and not

1:48:56 important and you've got the the but

1:48:57 there's another way to do that too it's

1:48:58 like not necessarily the the urgency

1:49:00 versus the non- urgency. There is the uh

1:49:04 the time to task completion. So, if

1:49:05 you're tying that in with the the that

1:49:07 idea of of twominut uh task, then you

1:49:10 have things you can accomplish uh

1:49:13 quickly and things you can't accomplish.

1:49:14 And it's that doesn't speak to their

1:49:16 urgency. So, if you you could you could

1:49:19 turn this into a Rubik's cube. If you

1:49:21 just keep adding things, you can make a

1:49:23 matrix. Um, however,

1:49:26 I will point out one area because again,

1:49:29 this video

1:49:31 is four years old. Do you know where an

1:49:34 Eisenhower matrix is highly valuable

1:49:36 today?

1:49:38 In AI, if you give AI a list of types of

1:49:42 categories

1:49:43 and

1:49:45 you have any related broken down by how

1:49:48 you feel things are important and how

1:49:50 how urgent you feel things are, you can

1:49:53 then have the AI automatically take

1:49:55 these things. And when it's given big

1:49:57 lists, it can go, "Oh,

1:49:59 well, let me think through the

1:50:00 Eisenhower matrix of what's important to

1:50:02 the user versus what's not important.

1:50:04 We're just going to throw the not

1:50:05 important away. And then we're going to

1:50:07 see the urgent versus non-urgent. We're

1:50:08 going to prioritize by urgent and

1:50:10 non-urgent. So, highly useful for AI

1:50:13 because it's one of those things when

1:50:14 you get a reasoning model that's

1:50:16 thinking,

1:50:18 it can do that there and doing that lets

1:50:22 it bypass and like, oh, gee, I wonder

1:50:24 what this and I wonder what that. It's

1:50:26 going to sort of condense and compress

1:50:28 that information. So if you think of as

1:50:31 a as a um an adultsized child as intern

1:50:37 for a lot of AI thinking and

1:50:38 understanding um Eisenhower matrix is

1:50:42 actually useful inside of a process not

1:50:45 necessarily something you would just sit

1:50:47 down and do. Um, I mean, you could, um,

1:50:51 I would I would probably do it before I

1:50:53 would even sit down and do a todo list.

1:50:56 Um, because at least in my head because

1:50:58 I'm I'm already in my head prioritizing

1:51:01 or looking through my email inbox. I'm

1:51:03 like, these are all not important and

1:51:05 just mark them red and then I'm going

1:51:08 and marking everything that's important.

1:51:10 I'm just looking for everything urgent

1:51:11 and moving it to the top. So, it's an

1:51:13 Eisenhower matrix. You're not just

1:51:14 sitting there drawing the box, though.

1:51:16 Oh, let's let's

1:51:17 >> use it subconsciously, but I don't

1:51:18 really use it as the Eisenhower matrix.

1:51:20 I didn't decide,

1:51:21 >> man. Just didn't even see that. You

1:51:24 know, I didn't actually watch this

1:51:25 video. I really wanted to go through

1:51:26 this uh live. I'm trying to trying to

1:51:28 get that down to just making sure my

1:51:30 workflow is working. But man, me and

1:51:32 Olly, we're on the same page. It's like

1:51:34 the SWAT analysis. You just get it in

1:51:36 your brain. You're like, "No, it makes

1:51:38 sense." It's like the um when you learn

1:51:40 genetics and you learn like the you got

1:51:42 a blue-eyed parent and a browneyed

1:51:43 parent and you got another browneyed

1:51:44 parent another and you try to figure out

1:51:46 like what's the percentage that or you

1:51:49 know what's the what's the the genetic

1:51:51 chance of having a child with this

1:51:53 colorized or something like that like

1:51:54 you get in your head nobody sits down

1:51:56 and and actually draws that out like

1:51:58 it's like geneticists are not sitting

1:52:00 there going I think we need an eye color

1:52:03 chart I think we need to figure out yeah

1:52:06 like the that's as I

1:52:09 everything I need to do. Is this

1:52:10 actually important? And do I actually

1:52:11 need to do it? And generally, if it's

1:52:12 important, I'll find time to do it. So,

1:52:14 we're going to give this a ranking of D

1:52:15 on the list. Like, it's it's use.

1:52:20 >> I don't know about his rankings. I would

1:52:22 put it I' I'd move it up at the C, but I

1:52:25 basically anything be B or lower is just

1:52:27 something you should be aware of. So, um

1:52:30 I I think for most people

1:52:33 I think for a lot of people it's

1:52:34 intuitive. I think where the Eisenhower

1:52:37 and SWAT really come into and SWAT's not

1:52:40 so so much natural. I think where it

1:52:41 comes into is it's where people don't

1:52:44 think that it applies and it should. So

1:52:46 there are situations where people aren't

1:52:48 prioritize like in email people kind of

1:52:51 do that but I I you know because they're

1:52:53 just used to it but I think there's

1:52:54 areas where they don't think about that.

1:52:57 Like for instance would you Eisenhower

1:52:59 matrix uh your shopping list? You could

1:53:02 um especially if money was short or

1:53:04 you're trying to save money. It's like

1:53:06 which of these items are really

1:53:07 important? You know, which of them are

1:53:09 an ingredient we use everywhere. Which

1:53:10 of them do we need now or which do we

1:53:12 already have some left? You know, I

1:53:14 think you could actually sit down and

1:53:16 you would you could consciously do that

1:53:18 in an area when it's very much not

1:53:20 needed. So, I can't argue too hard about

1:53:22 the D tier.

1:53:23 >> It's useful for some people, but I don't

1:53:24 personally use it a lot myself. Next, we

1:53:26 have the technique of setting goals.

1:53:27 Now, this one is a little bit

1:53:28 controversial because

1:53:30 >> Now, I did get a little sneak peek about

1:53:32 what he's going to talk about, and I

1:53:33 have a very interesting take. I just had

1:53:36 a whole thing about goals, right? You're

1:53:39 going to get a take you had probably not

1:53:41 expected at near the 2-hour mark.

1:53:42 >> A lot of people swear by the idea of

1:53:43 setting goals, that your goals should be

1:53:45 smart and specific and measurable,

1:53:46 achievable, and if you set your goals,

1:53:47 then you'll manifest.

1:53:50 >> I just did a study on this.

1:53:53 I I just ran a study and I can tell you

1:53:56 right now um and this is comparing it to

1:53:59 other conceivably better methods from

1:54:02 Harvard Business School nonetheless. And

1:54:05 I compared it directly to

1:54:08 Smart Goals. Um which my hypothesis was

1:54:12 Smart Golds was going to get its ass

1:54:14 kicked. It did not. um things did change

1:54:19 but it had nothing to do with that. So I

1:54:22 actually did a study on this. So I can

1:54:24 actually speak authoritative probably as

1:54:28 the world's like I don't get to say I

1:54:31 don't get to say where I'm like like the

1:54:33 expert on when it comes to productivity

1:54:36 smart goals in um certain business

1:54:40 settings. I am the world's foremost

1:54:42 expert now on smart goals in this

1:54:46 context. I had a limited it was a study

1:54:49 that was limited to a particular

1:54:51 industry within the US. So I'm not uh

1:54:55 but there also as far as I can tell

1:54:56 outside of medicine there are no other

1:54:58 smart goal experts in the world. They

1:55:00 just don't exist. You know why? There

1:55:02 probably don't need to be anymore.

1:55:06 I'll be honest. You're probably fine

1:55:07 without more smart goal experts. I did

1:55:09 not want to be a smart goal expert. And

1:55:11 granted, I was expert about the

1:55:13 outcomes, not working on the actual

1:55:17 aspects of it.

1:55:19 >> Your future and you'll know what you

1:55:20 want to get to. I'm not really a huge

1:55:21 fan of goals. I think they're useful in

1:55:23 some areas of life, but generally I'm

1:55:25 much more about the systems and about

1:55:27 the journey

1:55:28 >> and we just proved sorry all that's

1:55:31 actually wrong. It's in in very limited

1:55:34 context. You can be about the journey,

1:55:36 but you wouldn't be a doctor at all

1:55:38 without the goals. Like your life is is

1:55:40 like the entire foundation of your life

1:55:42 is goals. Smart goals.

1:55:45 Yeah, we can live without smart goals.

1:55:46 Like smart is not a bad way to think

1:55:49 about the things you probably should put

1:55:51 in a goal, but it's it's an interesting

1:55:54 method for making a goal. It's certainly

1:55:56 not the only method. You don't you

1:55:57 wouldn't need to do your daily

1:56:00 affirmative what your priority. You need

1:56:02 to do your daily priority when you're

1:56:04 setting your daily goal of the thing you

1:56:05 need to accomplish to have a day. Again,

1:56:08 you you set one of these daily, my dude.

1:56:10 I don't care what you call it. It's a

1:56:12 goal. It's the one thing you want to

1:56:13 accomplish today. That's a goal. I think

1:56:16 what he specifically means, and he

1:56:18 probably gets better later on,

1:56:19 especially with a lot of feedback with

1:56:21 some of these videos, is what you mean

1:56:22 are long-term goals. Um, like a yearly

1:56:24 goal or lifetime goal or, you know, I

1:56:28 think that's one of the things that that

1:56:29 was lacking in this video. And I think

1:56:31 that's one thing a lot of people need to

1:56:32 look at. Like, but that's the thing.

1:56:33 Like the reason I'm kind of giving Ali a

1:56:35 little crap here is regular people are

1:56:37 going to watch this and he thinks he's

1:56:38 just dogging on goals when what he means

1:56:39 are long-term goals. And for someone

1:56:42 it's going to cause the comments it's

1:56:44 like how do you mean you can't have

1:56:45 goals? Like how do you how do you even

1:56:48 function in life and you don't? He's

1:56:49 talking about whether or not you're

1:56:50 going to set long-term goals of where do

1:56:52 you see yourself in 5 years? Can you

1:56:55 live without those? Thousand% I'm a I'm

1:56:58 a thousand% on board with Ali. He's 100%

1:57:01 correct. The language is just so inexact

1:57:04 here. Um I get that he's kind of

1:57:06 bringing it down, but

1:57:08 I I I don't think we you shouldn't just

1:57:10 be like goals. like you you don't have

1:57:13 to go into too deep of a detail, but you

1:57:16 went into smart goals and that's not

1:57:18 smart goals aren't even really related

1:57:20 unless you're talking about performance

1:57:21 management systems used by employers uh

1:57:24 during their performance reviews of

1:57:26 employees and they ask the employees to

1:57:27 set smart goals for yearly when they're

1:57:30 working on things like stretch goals.

1:57:31 Like then the smart goals come into that

1:57:32 context, but doesn't sound like the

1:57:34 context you're working on. I'm I'm not

1:57:37 sure

1:57:39 where your head's at. Like I I'm

1:57:41 splitting it apart for you, which is

1:57:43 like you 100% have goals. Atomic habits

1:57:46 as interpreted through systems are more

1:57:48 important than goals is absolute

1:57:50 complete [ __ ] But you might be

1:57:53 talking about long-term goals, but

1:57:54 you're not specifying it. And yet you're

1:57:56 bringing smart goals. And that really

1:57:57 doesn't have anything to do that that is

1:57:59 a method for making goals. That is not a

1:58:01 a a complete system in and of itself.

1:58:04 And I hate to tell you this, but smart

1:58:07 goals does have one piece where it's

1:58:10 very it has been shown to be valuable

1:58:12 and that's in patient outcomes that when

1:58:14 smart goals are made for health reasons,

1:58:16 for treatment reasons for whether it's

1:58:19 paliotative care or other types of care,

1:58:21 smart goals actually do show um to be

1:58:26 better than general goal setting. So,

1:58:29 as a as one of them doctors, you you

1:58:32 might not want to say the smart thing

1:58:34 because the research went the other way.

1:58:36 just just a

1:58:39 just just take it take it from somebody

1:58:41 who read all that research because I had

1:58:43 to because there is no other research on

1:58:44 smart goals except for the medical like

1:58:46 don't don't go in that direction my dude

1:58:48 like

1:58:50 >> es even in your life you you bust your

1:58:52 knee you might get put on smart goals

1:58:54 during your re during your physical

1:58:55 therapy and rehab so it it'll matter a

1:58:57 whole lot to you then like I get he's

1:58:58 like do I set them set long-term goals

1:59:01 now no

1:59:03 however one of the things that you

1:59:05 should always do which um we're going to

1:59:08 we're going to go into in other videos

1:59:09 here you the the second letter in smart

1:59:13 is measurable and as we pointed out here

1:59:17 a real system has measurement if you

1:59:19 look at the last video because there's

1:59:20 no measurement in any of these I defy

1:59:23 that any of these are productivity

1:59:25 systems if there is no method of

1:59:28 measuring outcomes um I I think you

1:59:32 could validate a lot more of these

1:59:33 systems with proper management ment or

1:59:36 sorry proper measurement. Um what gets

1:59:39 measured gets managed but also got to be

1:59:41 careful if you start um uh performing to

1:59:45 the measure which is a complete separate

1:59:47 problem. But if you're not measuring

1:59:48 anything um you know even your own

1:59:51 satisfaction

1:59:52 um yeah you might want to look at the

1:59:54 smart goals like you you literally just

1:59:56 let's go back here and your future and

1:59:58 you'll know what you want to get to. I'm

1:59:59 not really a huge fan of goals. I think

2:00:01 they're useful in some areas of life but

2:00:03 generally I'm much more about the

2:00:05 systems and about the journey rather

2:00:06 than about

2:00:09 >> but uh is it the journey you want? are

2:00:12 you measuring, you know, what what was

2:00:14 the happiness things? They don't have to

2:00:15 be that official of a measure, but you

2:00:18 need to have some type of measure and

2:00:19 accountability. And of course, you might

2:00:20 you might be using journaling to that.

2:00:22 You as a viewer might be using

2:00:23 journaling for that. Um, and that's

2:00:25 fine, but you you all of this lacks

2:00:28 measurement. And the only thing that

2:00:30 came close to bringing in some form of

2:00:32 measurement was the smart goals. Um, and

2:00:35 so I would I would argue none of these

2:00:37 are systems. So to say I'm focusing on

2:00:39 the systems, none of these were I don't

2:00:42 think that was the point, but um it it I

2:00:44 don't hear a system message. I think

2:00:48 possibly

2:00:50 I don't know. I I don't I honestly, you

2:00:53 know, this is one of the first ones that

2:00:54 came up. It's sort of a lower one, but

2:00:56 it's the number one. If you put in uh

2:00:58 best productivity hacks, this is the

2:01:01 number one video. So I'm not really

2:01:02 sure.

2:01:05 >> Yeah, I'm not really sure. Not sure if

2:01:06 this And so to me, goals h I keep

2:01:09 changing my mind about goals. These days

2:01:11 I'm rating goals as a C on the list. I

2:01:12 think they're kind of useful.

2:01:14 >> Yeah, it's one of those things like I

2:01:17 want to be an actor, but I don't know

2:01:18 what kind of movies I want to do. Like

2:01:21 still finding myself. I know what I want

2:01:23 to do type of thing. It's like I think

2:01:26 in this point in his career, he's

2:01:27 basically like the college student who

2:01:29 who knows he wants to go to college, but

2:01:30 he doesn't want to know know what he he

2:01:33 doesn't know. It's like at this point in

2:01:34 his life, Ali doesn't know what he wants

2:01:36 to actually do with his life uh in the

2:01:38 YouTube space or the business space or

2:01:39 things like that. So, I can see where he

2:01:42 doesn't think he has goals. Um but he's

2:01:44 doing videos with metrics. He's looking

2:01:46 a lot at his metrics. He's got shorter

2:01:48 term goals. Um he has things metrics he

2:01:52 wants to hit and I think he's focusing

2:01:54 too much on his aspirations. And I think

2:01:57 he's he's doing a productivity video

2:02:00 when what he really wants to do is um uh

2:02:04 h how do I how do I expand my horizon?

2:02:07 How do I focus it? He really wants to

2:02:09 and I think that's why I keep coming

2:02:10 back to I think he wants a start with

2:02:12 why. I think he really is searching for

2:02:14 his why. He's really going down the

2:02:16 Simon uh cynic road and that's a very

2:02:19 particular place where you might not

2:02:21 have goals where you're so in

2:02:23 productivity this is called explore

2:02:25 versus exploit um when you're doing

2:02:29 explore um you are trying think of it a

2:02:34 common analogy of this is restaurants

2:02:37 explore is just try all new restaurants

2:02:39 every every time you try a restaurant

2:02:41 try a completely separate restaurant and

2:02:43 you're going to do that for a time and

2:02:44 you some that were really good, some

2:02:46 that were really bad, some that were

2:02:47 okay. Once you have an idea once, you

2:02:50 know, of all the restaurants in the

2:02:51 area, now you're going to switch to

2:02:53 exploit where when you want to go out

2:02:55 and have a good dinner or a particular

2:02:56 dinner, you're going to go through the

2:02:58 catalog of restaurants, you know,

2:03:01 and and make a selection. You're not

2:03:02 going to try a new one.

2:03:05 And generally, in a lot of cases, you

2:03:07 want to maintain some level of explore,

2:03:10 some level of exploit. And the level of

2:03:12 exploit will always be higher except for

2:03:14 when you're starting off. And when

2:03:17 you're highly starting off, like my guy

2:03:20 Ali is here, he's going to just be in

2:03:23 explore mode. He really he he's the kid

2:03:26 who it's not like the little girl who

2:03:28 likes I want to be a ballerina or she

2:03:30 says, I want to I want to be an Olympic

2:03:33 skier when I grow up. Um they're not

2:03:36 exploring. I mean, they're they're

2:03:38 trying. You could say they're trying the

2:03:40 clothes on. Um, but then they'll they'll

2:03:42 go do that. So, they have the goal

2:03:44 first, which is why I give so much crap

2:03:45 for goals. And if you're in explore mode

2:03:48 like that, and you're just like kids,

2:03:49 like they won't settle down. They're in

2:03:51 soccer and then they're in ballet and

2:03:52 then they're in uh kickboxing and then

2:03:55 they're in wrestling and then they're in

2:03:57 track and then they're in football and

2:03:58 then on and on and on. Yeah. They're in

2:04:01 explore mode. Uh they're they're

2:04:03 goalless. And all of these read the more

2:04:08 as a psychological picture of Ali that

2:04:09 Ali is in explore mode and being in

2:04:12 explore mode is not the time really.

2:04:16 I hate to say it. You you are the least

2:04:20 qualified person in that state of mind

2:04:22 to rank productivity tools because you

2:04:24 should not be using productivity tools.

2:04:26 You're in explore mode. um you're not in

2:04:29 exploit mode. And productivity tools are

2:04:31 about exploitation, not exploration. Um

2:04:35 people going through work emails are not

2:04:38 exploring, they're exploiting. Uh people

2:04:41 who are at their day jobs or they're

2:04:44 they're trying to complete a project or

2:04:46 they're they're trying to lose weight or

2:04:47 they're trying they're not nobody nobody

2:04:50 makes a New Year's resolution to go to

2:04:51 the gym because they want to explore the

2:04:53 gym. They want to exploit something

2:04:55 known and take advantage of the uh a

2:05:00 system. They don't want to a gee I

2:05:02 wonder what it would be like to use a a

2:05:05 Swedish workout method. I I want Okay, I

2:05:08 wonder what it would be like to use a

2:05:10 French workout method. Like they're not

2:05:11 doing that. What about the Brazilian

2:05:13 workout method? Like they're not doing

2:05:14 that. They're not explaining. They're

2:05:15 explaining. They want to go they want to

2:05:17 do the things that are the common things

2:05:19 and just they just get it right. Um,

2:05:22 those people have goals. Those people

2:05:24 don't need systems. They need a few

2:05:26 methods. Um, and they're in a very

2:05:29 different place than where you're

2:05:30 coming. You're you're in a very

2:05:31 aspirational

2:05:33 type of thing here. Um, and you're like

2:05:36 in freeing up time. You're sort of in

2:05:39 green field blue sky territory of

2:05:41 discovering where your life is going.

2:05:43 And I think that really finally comes

2:05:45 out here. And we just go back to exactly

2:05:47 what he said. It's like same with

2:05:48 deadlines. He I just don't want the

2:05:51 deadlines. I don't want I don't want the

2:05:54 the these things weighing me down.

2:05:56 There's things that I I want to and I

2:05:57 want a life of dessert. And he's you can

2:06:00 really tell the mindset's kind of coming

2:06:01 through here. And I think it's mindset

2:06:03 and your actual subject matter are just

2:06:05 clashing so much. And unfortunately,

2:06:07 like this is the number one YouTube

2:06:09 result. Like again, all all due respect,

2:06:12 and I I love watching his channel. I was

2:06:14 probably I was probably subscribed well

2:06:17 before this time. has this probably came

2:06:19 up at once. Um

2:06:21 >> I keep changing my mind about goals

2:06:22 these days. I'm rating gold.

2:06:23 >> See just just he's in explore mode. Uh

2:06:28 my guy's just in explore mode. Um I I've

2:06:31 seen far better quality. Um and I hate I

2:06:36 know I'm trying trying to make this a

2:06:37 quality and it's more about those

2:06:38 systems, but um there are a series of

2:06:41 very bad takes in here because they're

2:06:43 just very they're too generically

2:06:45 worded. They're not nuanced enough uh

2:06:48 where they need to be. The language is

2:06:50 so not exact. The goals should be

2:06:52 long-term goals. Smart smart goals

2:06:54 should have never even come up. Um you

2:06:57 know, smart goals are for definite achie

2:06:59 you're definitely trying to achieve

2:07:00 something like not dying of liver cancer

2:07:03 or or losing losing weight because

2:07:06 you're pre-diabetic. like you're trying

2:07:08 to get very specific outcomes because

2:07:10 there are definite deadlines that you're

2:07:12 running up against that affect your

2:07:13 mortality and your insurance and your

2:07:15 quality of life. So, I mean it's a lot

2:07:18 of things in here that probably could

2:07:19 have been this this might have been, you

2:07:21 know, I vibe some things, but this might

2:07:22 have been just a little too vibed out.

2:07:25 Um,

2:07:26 >> want to get to I'm not really a huge fan

2:07:27 of goals. I think they're useful in some

2:07:29 areas of life. But generally

2:07:31 >> like just listen for the ex just listen

2:07:34 for the explorer like somebody who's

2:07:36 trying to discover the world versus

2:07:38 somebody who's um really mastered it

2:07:41 kind of already know what they want.

2:07:43 They know where they're going and

2:07:44 measurable achievable and if you set

2:07:46 your goals then you'll manifest your

2:07:47 future and you'll know what you want to

2:07:48 get to. I'm not really a huge fan of

2:07:49 goals. I think they're useful in some

2:07:51 areas of life but generally I'm much

2:07:53 more about the systems and about the

2:07:55 journey rather than about the

2:07:56 destination. And so to me, goals, h I

2:07:58 keep changing my mind about goals. These

2:08:00 days, I'm rating goals as a C on the

2:08:01 list. They're kind of useful in some

2:08:03 circumstances, and I certainly do have

2:08:04 some goals, but I generally prefer to

2:08:06 have input goals rather than output

2:08:07 goals. So, I prefer to Yeah, he's just

2:08:10 he's just a he's just a wild flower

2:08:12 floating on the breeze, enjoying

2:08:16 uh uh uh what's down the the the road,

2:08:19 you know. My my my guy here is a country

2:08:22 song. He's a John Denver song. uh just

2:08:25 one them country roads take me home, you

2:08:29 know, he's just exploring the world.

2:08:31 That's it's it's where it's where my

2:08:33 guy's at. So I I mean I get it, but I

2:08:36 mean this is bad advice for anyone else.

2:08:39 If you have things you you'd like to get

2:08:42 done and and and places you'd like to go

2:08:43 and see. If you're 17 and don't know

2:08:46 what you want to do with your life, this

2:08:47 might be helpful. Um, if you're a if

2:08:51 you're a grown ass adult and you have

2:08:53 responsibilities,

2:08:55 this ain't it. This ain't this ain't the

2:08:57 one. Um, it's going to be one of his

2:08:59 others. This ain't the one. Um, and

2:09:01 that's that is research speaking. That

2:09:05 is that is who gives a [ __ ] what Elon

2:09:08 Musk is saying. Like when real ass

2:09:10 adults need to get things done, like

2:09:11 they want to know what actually works.

2:09:13 Um, they don't want to know what's

2:09:14 hyped. They don't know what what it's

2:09:17 like if if you're clothing shopping

2:09:19 because you need business attire. Um,

2:09:22 you don't need the hype of Yeah, but

2:09:23 what's Kim Kardashian wearing? Who gives

2:09:25 a [ __ ] You need good business attire.

2:09:28 You I need a pants suit. I need I need a

2:09:31 skirt. I need a jacket or I need I need

2:09:33 a tie. I need, you know, sport coat.

2:09:38 Prefer to have goals that are entirely

2:09:39 within my control. And finally, we get

2:09:41 to the ultimate point of all this

2:09:42 productivity stuff, which is enjoying

2:09:44 the journey. And this is going to go at

2:09:45 right at the very top of our tier

2:09:46 ranking. This is an absolutely

2:09:47 life-changing thing because to be

2:09:48 honest,

2:09:49 >> yeah, he's just an explore here. That's

2:09:52 for most This is the point of of his use

2:09:55 of productivity goals. It's not the use

2:09:56 of productivity goals. And I would say

2:09:59 really if you're enjoying the like

2:10:00 productivity goals really shouldn't be

2:10:02 here unless you're just learning because

2:10:04 it's the content you want to cover. Um,

2:10:07 you know, like I said, make a video if

2:10:09 you want to learn about something.

2:10:11 teaching is the best way to actually

2:10:13 learn, you know, a subject. Um, I almost

2:10:16 feel like he's feeling out the audience

2:10:18 and he's in this moment he's teaching. I

2:10:21 wish I knew how many subscribers he had

2:10:22 at this point and what his normal

2:10:24 content was cuz I don't have a a window

2:10:25 of that. But at this point, it's almost

2:10:27 like he's teaching himself because you

2:10:28 don't see depth. Like it's really

2:10:30 interesting that he went to he didn't

2:10:32 actually get into some of the things

2:10:34 like the getting things done or things

2:10:35 like that. Like this is very these are

2:10:38 very generic. They're very undefined.

2:10:43 Um, you know, it's it's it's

2:10:47 not like it was a super hit, you know,

2:10:50 video. So, I don't know. I don't know.

2:10:54 I'm kind of curious where he was in his

2:10:55 journey here. I think some of this has

2:10:57 changed, but I also think, you know,

2:10:59 some people it's a personality. Some

2:11:01 people are an explorer, some people are

2:11:03 an exploit. Uh, ju just naturally. I

2:11:07 find myself generally explore. I've

2:11:09 moved all over. So I I I

2:11:11 feel this um on those things. I carve

2:11:16 out the explore portion though and I

2:11:18 don't bring in productivity tools in at

2:11:20 all. um is if a completely separate

2:11:23 mindset

2:11:24 um from you know I on the on the exploit

2:11:28 side I lock that down and there are

2:11:30 things that definitely work things that

2:11:32 don't work things that work in certain

2:11:33 situations and where these tools come in

2:11:36 like you don't vibes your way through

2:11:38 productivity of a business like you know

2:11:42 you were going to pick a lane you're you

2:11:45 could I mean there are good and bad

2:11:46 lanes depending on this but you could

2:11:48 still legitimately pick waterfall

2:11:51 for large project management. If you're

2:11:52 running a construction company, you're

2:11:54 using project management. If you're

2:11:55 doing software, even if you're vibe

2:11:57 coding, you'd better still have project

2:11:58 management because if you've got

2:12:00 deadlines and you're not just a startup,

2:12:02 um yeah, you've got to and you're

2:12:04 coordinating hundreds of programmers.

2:12:06 You're a large company, you need project

2:12:07 management. Um, and if you're selling

2:12:09 your software to integrate with uh

2:12:12 credit unions or banks or hospitals or

2:12:16 clinics or

2:12:18 anything like that, you're going to need

2:12:21 project management to keep up with them.

2:12:23 Um I myself have had to uh you know

2:12:26 point out when I I have vendors who

2:12:28 don't have good project management. I

2:12:31 expect it because I my my my budget is

2:12:35 is not not conducive to just cowboying

2:12:40 their way through things. So these

2:12:41 things matter. Um let's let him finish

2:12:44 up real quick. Enjoying the journey is

2:12:46 the ultimate productivity hack because

2:12:48 when we're having fun, when we're having

2:12:49 fun doing the stuff that we need to do

2:12:50 or that we want to do, then productivity

2:12:52 just m Oh, my job's not fun. Um, I have

2:12:56 a I I take a lot of pride in my job. Um,

2:13:01 but yeah, we don't all get to do that. I

2:13:03 I'm doing what I'm good at. I enjoy

2:13:06 being good at it. I enjoy accomplishing

2:13:10 what I do, but

2:13:12 there's not a lot of fun in my work. Um,

2:13:16 I do government it. Um,

2:13:20 there's not there's not this wild um I'm

2:13:24 just enjoying the journey of citizens do

2:13:27 not pay their taxes for me to enjoy the

2:13:30 journey. They pay their taxes because um

2:13:33 they want someone confident to, you

2:13:35 know,

2:13:38 make life not terrible when they have to

2:13:40 deal with the government. Um, you know,

2:13:42 I wish the goal was better than that,

2:13:44 but at a minimum, you know, if they

2:13:46 don't they don't give two shits about

2:13:48 me. I don't have the startup business.

2:13:50 I'm not out here vibing on the on the

2:13:52 everything else. Like, and I think

2:13:54 that's probably a different mindset

2:13:55 where my explorers in different areas,

2:13:57 but when it comes to career and things

2:13:58 like that, like I'm definitely hard

2:14:00 hardcore explore exploit where, you

2:14:02 know, a lot of these YouTubers, they're

2:14:04 business people. They're running courses

2:14:05 and they're doing all these things.

2:14:07 They're kind of like the they they try

2:14:09 to be like the cool small small business

2:14:11 running running all these things and and

2:14:13 being an influencer. Um, and I I get

2:14:16 that and I I completely understand. I

2:14:18 think when they're making content, like

2:14:20 we all don't want to be influencers,

2:14:22 like some of us are grown ass adults and

2:14:24 if if those on my side of the fence um

2:14:27 just like, "Yeah, no, we're just going

2:14:29 to go be ski instructors." Like,

2:14:31 civilization collapses. Like, not even

2:14:34 joking. If if the if if everyone who did

2:14:37 my job, you know, in all the in in the

2:14:40 various places just be like, "Yeah,

2:14:41 we're going to be ski instructors. Your

2:14:43 society just burns to the ground." Like,

2:14:45 we're sitting here trying to hold it up

2:14:49 in every direction possible. Like, we

2:14:52 struggle. Like, budgets aren't big. Um,

2:14:56 you know, it's it's harder to recruit

2:14:57 people. We're not out here with with dot

2:15:00 money. You know, we're not out here with

2:15:02 Peter Thiel money. We're not out here

2:15:03 with the Elon Musk money. We're not out

2:15:04 here with Sam Alman money. That's not

2:15:06 what we got out here. Uh we're trying to

2:15:09 keep the damn building from burning to

2:15:11 the ground. We're just trying to keep

2:15:13 the lights on, my dude. Um that's true

2:15:16 in a lot of places. So, you know, when

2:15:20 when people like me see these videos and

2:15:22 we actually know how real project

2:15:24 management works and we actually work

2:15:26 deep in project management, when we see

2:15:27 productivity hacks and we see these

2:15:29 things, like we know a lot of the

2:15:31 [ __ ] too.

2:15:32 I say [ __ ] in in what we work with

2:15:34 and we got to put up with [ __ ] from

2:15:36 from people who can also just pick from

2:15:39 a laundry list of productivity systems

2:15:41 and they often pick ones it's like ah

2:15:43 really really we're doing that we're

2:15:45 doing this now okay I guess we're doing

2:15:47 this now um it's understandable but um I

2:15:51 don't know four years ago this doesn't

2:15:53 hit at all this is probably cool for

2:15:55 vibe coders and ski instructor types in

2:15:58 at this portion of his career but this

2:15:59 is this is [ __ ] haul for for for someone

2:16:03 who's like, "Yeah, well, I'm I'm trying

2:16:06 to I'm trying to look for productivity

2:16:08 apps to help me with my plumbing

2:16:09 company. Like, it's not about having fun

2:16:12 and and loving the journey." Like, I'm

2:16:14 just trying to figure out, you know,

2:16:15 what I can do because, you know, maybe

2:16:17 I'm doing some IT stuff. Maybe I'm my my

2:16:20 my HVAC company has a YouTube channel.

2:16:24 Um, I'd like some productivity hacks,

2:16:25 too. And it's just it's not about the

2:16:27 [ __ ] journey. It's about food on the

2:16:29 table for the people that work for me

2:16:31 and trying to expand my business. And

2:16:33 you know, in an environment where, you

2:16:35 know, people are hurting for jobs, so

2:16:37 we're hurting as well. People aren't

2:16:39 wanting to to pay as much and they're

2:16:40 putting off maintenance longer and

2:16:42 things like that. Like these things

2:16:43 matter to their families. Um, so like

2:16:47 not going to like it's just I I think

2:16:49 that's why I'm getting a difference. I'm

2:16:50 not trying to crap on this particular

2:16:52 video uh at all, but I where he's coming

2:16:55 from and I think where most of us are

2:16:56 coming from when we're trying to cut

2:16:58 through [ __ ] and just get some real

2:16:59 answers on things and we're tired of

2:17:01 being talked down to by the elites and

2:17:03 we're we're we're just like again the

2:17:05 com we're just we're trying to get

2:17:08 something done here. That's why I go

2:17:10 after this just like just like some of

2:17:11 the other topics I'll be going after.

2:17:13 like this is

2:17:17 unfortunately this this is uh this is a

2:17:19 cream this is a cream puff filled you

2:17:22 know there's not a lot here like it is

2:17:25 dessert um but it's not filling you know

2:17:27 and I think a lot of people come to some

2:17:29 of these and they're you know you got to

2:17:32 put out content every day and so maybe

2:17:34 this was just kind of a filler one

2:17:35 because I think a lot of the entries

2:17:36 here like we're renaming priorities and

2:17:38 goals now like come the hell on that's

2:17:41 [ __ ] Um, that seems like filler. So,

2:17:45 I don't know. I I think that that was

2:17:47 the the realization. I would have

2:17:50 preferred to have this way at the

2:17:53 beginning and just be like, here's my

2:17:55 current situation and why I'm going to

2:17:57 be ranking things the way they are. So,

2:17:59 um, rather than here at the end,

2:18:02 >> just magically takes care of itself.

2:18:03 Now, you don't need to motivate yourself

2:18:04 to like sit down and watch Netflix or

2:18:06 hang out with your friends because the

2:18:07 thing is fun and you don't need to like

2:18:08 worry about

2:18:09 >> again

2:18:10 have people out here that are trying to

2:18:13 keep, you know, Cloudflare from

2:18:15 collapsing, that are trying to keep food

2:18:17 on the table for, you know, plumbers

2:18:20 that has school teachers out here trying

2:18:22 to just get through the day. Like,

2:18:25 our lives aren't [ __ ] Netflix, my

2:18:27 man. And I'm, you know, I believe he's

2:18:29 come quite a long ways. I'm kind of I'm

2:18:32 I'm I'm very happy to see that he's not

2:18:36 really here anymore. Um, you know, it's

2:18:39 it's it's solid. It's great to see, but,

2:18:42 you know, that's why that's why I don't

2:18:45 really worry about the language or

2:18:46 things when I go over things because at

2:18:48 the end of the day, like if you're you

2:18:50 might be watching this out of interest,

2:18:52 but I hope you actually get some real

2:18:53 world like I hope you get meat from this

2:18:57 like and what actually matters. And

2:18:58 they're interesting. They're interesting

2:19:00 arguments and it's a little bit of

2:19:02 entertainment, but um I hope when I say

2:19:05 that something is good or bad, it's

2:19:07 because it matters in reality. Uh it

2:19:10 matters in the real world. It matters.

2:19:12 Um you know, if if you're like, "Oh,

2:19:15 well, I guess none of the none of the

2:19:18 cool kids are doing to-do list anymore."

2:19:20 or not. You know, I'm trying to, you

2:19:22 know, I'm I'm a a man woman over the age

2:19:26 of 50 at my workplace and I see all

2:19:28 these kids coming in and they know all

2:19:29 about AI and they know all about vibe

2:19:32 coding and they know all about this and

2:19:34 and that and they're very good. So, let

2:19:37 me let me find someone young. Let me

2:19:39 find someone who's hip and on the edge.

2:19:41 And they come and they might see

2:19:42 something like this, not necessarily

2:19:44 from Molly, but from from any

2:19:45 influencer, and they see this, and this

2:19:47 is something to let you influencers know

2:19:49 about. They show up and like, "Okay, I'm

2:19:51 going to I'm going to get up with it."

2:19:53 And they take away like it's about the

2:19:56 journey. I mean, people are going to

2:19:59 think I go to work with that and I I

2:20:01 don't have to worry about this, but

2:20:02 let's say it was me and I had to go to

2:20:04 work. People are going to think I' I'm

2:20:05 developing early onset dementia.

2:20:08 I mean,

2:20:10 well, I don't believe in goals. Like can

2:20:14 you imagine if I brought this up if I

2:20:17 was and I don't have to worry about this

2:20:18 at my level but imagine I was going

2:20:20 through a performance review and I just

2:20:23 I threw that in there.

2:20:26 Like most people are not in this place

2:20:28 like right here. Most people are not

2:20:30 doing this. Like again most people are

2:20:33 trying to figure out how they can make

2:20:37 their life work with two jobs. Most

2:20:39 people are trying to figure out um how

2:20:42 they're gonna just make it um and which

2:20:45 is wild because this was

2:20:50 I want to say let's see four years ago.

2:20:53 So the yeah that put this just after the

2:20:56 pandemic. So maybe maybe there's a vibe

2:20:58 check. Oh hey look at that. Uh maybe

2:21:01 there's a vibe check here, you know, of

2:21:03 I'm out of the pandemic and I'm going to

2:21:04 it's sort of like the what my generation

2:21:07 remembers this post 911, you know, I'm

2:21:09 not going to be stuck in my job forever

2:21:10 and and you know, the soul is soul

2:21:13 crushing and then uh yeah, we we did we

2:21:15 stayed in our jobs because not too many

2:21:17 years later, the entire financial system

2:21:19 collapsed in 2008. So yeah, we did we

2:21:22 stayed in our jobs. Um, man, if only

2:21:25 people thought, "Oh, thank God the 2020

2:21:29 and 2021 are behind us." And then here

2:21:31 comes along this video and you know,

2:21:34 possibly the beginning of 2022. I'm not

2:21:36 sure. It says four years ago. It might

2:21:37 hit five. It might be sort of partial

2:21:39 pandemic, but maybe maybe the maybe

2:21:41 people wanted aspirational type things

2:21:43 and coming down for the Zoom the Zoom

2:21:46 call generation with um real

2:21:49 productivity haps and telling people

2:21:51 like no, you might actually have to

2:21:53 write a to-do list. Like maybe that's

2:21:54 your problem is you're just not writing

2:21:56 things down and you're forgetting

2:21:57 things. And that wasn't the vibe that

2:21:58 people would like be like h

2:22:02 people say that make me want to quiet

2:22:04 quit. Well, you know what? We ain't

2:22:08 quite quitting now. Um, the world

2:22:10 changes, but you know,

2:22:13 I just was very surprised

2:22:17 at at the at the end of this. I'm just

2:22:21 kind of blown away for from

2:22:23 ju just the take on goals. Um,

2:22:27 I think I've done this justice. Now,

2:22:29 this is now coming up on four hours.

2:22:32 This is a 2 and 1 half hour cuz I was

2:22:33 going to get done. Previous video was an

2:22:35 hour and a half. I'm uploading these

2:22:37 straight. Um

2:22:41 I will find uh more content to hit on

2:22:44 possibly next time. I'm thinking about

2:22:46 again. You're not going to get the same

2:22:48 videos unless I have to break them up.

2:22:50 Uh you're not going to get them one

2:22:52 after the other.

2:22:55 I said 6 a.m. That was close. It's just

2:22:58 after 5:00 a.m. Um I'm going to be

2:23:00 switching these up. So, if you think I'm

2:23:02 going to be doing uh reviews of

2:23:03 productivity videos, no, I'm not really

2:23:06 doing that. We're going to hit a whole

2:23:07 lot of things. I have quite a few topics

2:23:10 that I'd like to to hit on. I'm thinking

2:23:12 about something in the uh nuclear energy

2:23:15 space possibly next. I don't know. I'm

2:23:17 thinking about uh nuclear power, nuclear

2:23:21 um uh energy economy. I'm thinking about

2:23:24 some of the things that might be coming

2:23:25 down the pipe. I I I like to bounce

2:23:27 around. We're going from AI slop to

2:23:30 productivity with one of the the leading

2:23:32 uh productivity people out there. Um,

2:23:35 and I didn't I didn't really mean

2:23:38 towards the end there to just sound like

2:23:40 I'm coming out and just completely

2:23:41 eviscerating them, but I'm sorry, man.

2:23:44 Hey, you I can't I can't undig a grave

2:23:49 if you put yourself in there and just be

2:23:51 like, man, we really am just making up

2:23:53 like it really was downhill from just

2:23:55 making up words for priorities and and

2:23:58 then be like, I don't like goals. I just

2:24:00 set a daily one.

2:24:04 Oh, but I hope he's learned a lot more

2:24:07 about these various things over the

2:24:08 years. And I think I I hope also that

2:24:11 he's learned way more than just like the

2:24:13 4h hour work week or 4H hour body or

2:24:15 4-hour chef. But all three of Tim

2:24:17 Ferrris's books that I read, I hope he's

2:24:20 progressed far past those days. Like

2:24:24 Tim's an interesting guy, but you you're

2:24:27 more going to talk to him about like

2:24:28 amino acids and and and that type of

2:24:31 thing these days, and he kind of does

2:24:33 his own his own thing. I would I would

2:24:35 go with with with his protege. I would I

2:24:37 would kind of go more into Ryan Holiday

2:24:40 if you want to go into like the vibes of

2:24:43 uh of of things. Go a little more into

2:24:45 that because you know it's it's uh he's

2:24:48 found something outside of productivity

2:24:49 tools to sort of talk about and we might

2:24:51 actually talk about that. That actually

2:24:52 might be interesting followup to this

2:24:53 one is kind of move let's move away from

2:24:56 the real tools and maybe we'll I'll

2:24:57 point over to like kind of like I I'll

2:25:01 see if I can find like a Ryan Holiday

2:25:02 super popular uh video on stoicism and

2:25:06 all that and we'll have some comments on

2:25:08 Stoic Bros versus um I certainly

2:25:12 consider myself one. Um but I certainly

2:25:17 I've read I think I've got two books to

2:25:20 catch up on Ryan Holiday. I've caught

2:25:21 all the rest. Um, he's very I I like

2:25:24 when authors do their own readings and

2:25:27 that's one of the things he does. So, I

2:25:28 I do very much enjoy his books. They are

2:25:31 a tad formulaic, but I think he chooses

2:25:34 such good examples when he writes his

2:25:37 books that it really helps solidify some

2:25:40 of the messages. And I feel like he's

2:25:44 making some more foundational books that

2:25:47 that are just interesting. It's it's

2:25:49 always it's the type of content that's

2:25:52 just meant to provoke some thought, not

2:25:54 really meant to try to to push an

2:25:56 agenda, but just like, you know, here

2:25:59 are just things to consider in your

2:26:01 life. Um, and I think that's I always

2:26:04 found that positive. Um

2:26:07 hopefully if if my guy ever returns to

2:26:11 the explore exploit on a hardline

2:26:13 explorer that um like maybe it's as

2:26:17 special maybe you know there is

2:26:19 something like you people want to watch

2:26:20 what they want to be maybe um I'm sure

2:26:23 you know a lot of people are thinking

2:26:24 like hey they're going to take this

2:26:25 course they're going to be academy

2:26:27 they're going to live their best life

2:26:28 ever um but if you're looking for like

2:26:32 productivity

2:26:33 um this ain't

2:26:35 This this ain't it. This ain't it at

2:26:37 all. I'm sure like the Philip DeFranco

2:26:39 of the world are going to watch this and

2:26:40 be like, "Yeah, you know, I'm I'm I'm

2:26:43 been spending too much time trying to do

2:26:45 this and I just need to be a little more

2:26:48 frozen and let it go." You know, maybe

2:26:50 maybe um but audience over here was not

2:26:55 not feeling this four years ago. Um,

2:26:59 anyways, um, I'm not saying I was going

2:27:03 to make a filler, but I was pretty close

2:27:05 to the two and a half hour mark, but,

2:27:07 um, we'll we'll just count it as two and

2:27:09 a half. Um, I really hope, uh, you guys

2:27:13 enjoyed this. Um, massive

2:27:16 4hour freaking beast. I I probably

2:27:18 should have went one more, but I thought

2:27:20 it's like, no, we talked so much during

2:27:23 the first two in the intro that the rest

2:27:26 one is just like, yes, no, yes, no.

2:27:28 We're going to kind of burn through

2:27:29 those and it's going to be just a little

2:27:30 bit. We ended up doing uh almost a big

2:27:32 of a deep dive on this one on multiple

2:27:35 topics. So, I did do better this morning

2:27:38 than my first video suppressing a lot of

2:27:40 my uh my yawns, but talk this much very

2:27:45 very hard at 5:00 a.m. to not yawn. Um

2:27:49 so, thank you for joining me for another

2:27:52 late ass night. Um it is at least quiet

2:27:54 in the big city. I actually haven't got

2:27:56 any um actually did not get any sirens

2:27:59 tonight. So, I'm I'm pretty happy with

2:28:00 that. Um but um this video will probably

2:28:04 get uploaded for Monday and Sunday

2:28:08 proper today. I'll probably get in a

2:28:11 shorter

2:28:12 maybe 45 minute video. Uh that should go

2:28:15 up Tuesday. Um because I'm batching this

2:28:19 weekend. Sorry, I couldn't help. Uh, but

2:28:23 but I am I'm going to do a little

2:28:25 batching. It's it's my goal and I've set

2:28:27 it as a priority.

2:28:29 I'm sorry. I'm going to cut off before I

2:28:32 get myself in trouble. I hope everyone

2:28:34 enjoys their their night or day or

2:28:37 whenever you're watching this. And um I

2:28:40 will see you all later. Take care. Bye.