Audio Transcript Auto-generated
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Okay, welcome back to volume three. Sorry, I got to try to make a clean break.
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Typically
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in between slides or a good spot melon was right in the middle of a thought.
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So we were talking about time management techniques,
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we're talking about step to how you should try
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to do a better job of planning your activities.
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And the first thing we said is
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where should you put your to do list? Right.
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Any place that's convenient really.
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But where are you going to like where you're gonna see it the most? Um
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another part of this part is just priority setting.
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In fact,
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I've been talking about this with my nine year
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old while lately where it's like you got to recognize
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which tasks are critical or important and make sure to
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put them on the top of the priority list,
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right?
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She'll come home and she does four hours of gymnastics on Tuesday
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and four hours of gymnastics on thursday night and she will come home
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and instead of eating she'll go do her homework.
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Which like, oh my gosh, what a terrible child. Right? But no, it's like wait
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you need to prioritize, you need to eat first. Okay.
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And then let's talk about what you need to do
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after that you need to um start getting ready for bed
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and then let's put the the homework thing like three or
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four because here's the things that you have to do,
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right?
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It's kind of like Maslow's hierarchy of needs,
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where it's like you got to do the things first that you need to
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do to survive and then just step down the priority list from there,
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right?
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Um
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so that's how, you know,
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you've got to make sure that you're setting priorities
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and within this same step is scheduling follow through,
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right?
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You're planning your activities plan, follow through,
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Check off items on your schedule as you go through it, right?
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That there's, they say there's a huge
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rush somewhere in our chemical.
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Internal chemical will release some when you check off like to do list, right?
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So putting together a time chart or an activity
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chart and checking things off as you go right
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can be really, really helpful.
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And, and so just following through to make sure that, you know that you did finish it
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three is boost your energy. Okay?
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Um figure out ways to where you can boost your energy to help you get more done
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faster
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and better. Right? So again,
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the better part is the quality and the faster part is the time, right?
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And if you can so figure out ways to boost your energy.
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Um and no, don't just drink like six red bulls,
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that's a really bad idea or monsters or whatever,
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like figure out like are there breathing
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techniques that can help boost your energy?
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Do you just need to do a lap around the office?
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Um I used to just like I used to just when I was filling out of it,
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I would just shut everything down, stand up from my desk,
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walk outside and do two laps around the building and I come
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back and I would feel at least a little bit more energized.
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Um
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those are called micro breaks.
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Um In fact they used to call him smoking breaks, right?
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And then a lot of people when you know less,
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less and less people are smoking and so people who
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don't get the smoking break complained and said, well, hey, I want to break too,
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I shouldn't,
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you shouldn't let that guy get a break for smoking if I'm healthy and don't smoke,
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I should get some kind of break too, right?
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So people started getting up and walking and just taking micro breaks,
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even if it's like 30 seconds, it can help, right?
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Um
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the book actually is a little bit controversial to
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the book will actually tell you that micro breaks
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do not help performance and do not boost energy.
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So you got to kind of see from both sides and see what works
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for you. Um
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You also have to make sure that you're alternating between
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like intense focus tasks and then rests, right?
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Like you can't just go from one intense task to the next.
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You've got to space them out and have something in between that's
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restful or mindless that you can just do to kind of regain
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uh your energy, right? I used to that he had a lot of like
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I work out a lot like uh endurance training and stuff.
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And so I eat a lot,
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but I eat in small doses and I just when I start to work on
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intense projects where I'm getting like in the
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flow state and I'm working really hard.
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I have to take like a food break okay And and that's just that
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rest that pause
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um
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Let's see
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sometimes even just like going back boosting your
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energy sometimes just creating a to do list
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can get you kind of more motivated and fired up to keep charging forward and to show
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your progress as you go.
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Number four is productivity tools,
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making good use of the digital technology that's out there.
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Um Adam Diaz and I have talked a lot about using he uses to do list is a good app.
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I use the reminders app on my iphone, plus the calendar app, plus the notes app,
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all those if they're used properly, it can be really really helpful.
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Okay,
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can really boost your productivity.
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Um
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You gotta also though be wary that you want to avoid
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some of the technical aspects that could drain your productivity right?
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Uh Like Adam and I both
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we we are phones will beep if we have a text
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message um and it'll ring if we have a phone call
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but those are the only alerts that we have on there,
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we don't want it buzzing or beeping or doing anything else for any other
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um thing that comes through our phone
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and so that can that can really help because
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you hear the buzz, you go check the phone and then you get lost in it right. Um
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What else? Um
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mono tasking
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okay.
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Mono tasking is just a fancy way of saying concentrate on one key task at a
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time and it's kind of funny because in
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the next one we're gonna talk about multitasking
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But concentrating on one key task at a time,
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human beings are not good at multitasking.
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You think you are but you're not OK,
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it's like less than 2% of the population is actually good at multitasking.
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Obama's most of us is
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uh we split our attention to two different things that we don't do either one. Well,
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okay,
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so mono tasking is being effective by concentrating on just the problem at hand.
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This is where you can find the flow state.
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I think I've I've said the word flow or flow
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state a couple of times in this lecture series already,
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something that I find fascinating right?
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Where you're just completely
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entrance and what you're doing
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right?
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You're ignoring everything else in the outside world because
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you are so laser focused on this thing.
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I do believe in the
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No, it was your podcast quiz for this week is from Adam Grant again from work life.
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He has a great video out there about flow state and
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how he found the flow state during the pandemic playing Mario Kart
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and how that changed his whole outlook on
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productivity is really good ted talk if you have the chance
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um
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when you're mono tasking, you gotta have some self discipline right?
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You've got to be able to say no, I'm just gonna do this.
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Um This is where the two don't list can come into play, right, is to say,
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okay here's my to do list,
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here's all the things that I need to do and while I'm focusing on these things,
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here are the things that I absolutely cannot do
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that's and then you got to have the self discipline to stay away from those things
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that you might do.
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I think it was Adam Grant that said something like I
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am not allowed to turn the tv on unless there's something specific
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that I want to work on. This was like whenever he's working on a blog post
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he knows he
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has a couple to dance,
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like you cannot turn the tv on unless
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there's something specific that you wanted to watch
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and you cannot open social media unless he
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was looking for something specific as well.
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So
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I thought that was really interesting.
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Yeah,
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step six through 10
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streamlining your work,
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um
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Getting rid of unproductive work
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helps you improve your productivity, right?
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Looking at your like looking at your list and figuring out you
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know what some of this stuff I don't need to do,
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I can give it to somebody else and that will help you
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know this fit somebody else's area better or their skill set better.
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I'm gonna get rid of some of this,
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I'm gonna delegate some of this and that's gonna help me be more productive, right?
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Or you just say, you know what this,
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this project I'm supposed to be working on this task that I'm
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supposed to be doing doesn't really add any value to the customers.
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Why am I doing it anyways? Right, So just asking yourself some of these questions,
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um,
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because if you can just,
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so if you can be more productive by producing quality work and
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less time and you only do it on value contributing tasks,
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oh my gosh, you're going to have the biggest impact out of anybody in the company.
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Okay, So that was why that one is so important.
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Step Number seven is working just at a steady pace. Okay.
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Um, working at a steady clip, it's proven that it's gonna make you more productive.
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Okay. It approves your efficiency. Um,
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you might need an energy boost every so often to
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keep from slowing down towards the end of the workday,
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but it just means like avoiding those peaks and valleys, right?
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Not going, you know, too deep into anything. Uh, not,
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you know, working too late on things,
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just staying as even kill as you can and working steady
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Number eight is finding some quiet, uh, uninterrupted time.
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It's amazing how many people
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can do good work in like a crazy environment,
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but if you can just carve out a little bit of time each day or maybe it's even just,
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maybe you can only do a little bit of time each week,
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but just to say intentionally set some time aside and say, you know what,
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I'm just gonna do a little bit of thinking on this,
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on this task or planning or just going to analyze it a little bit further or
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especially like if it's something that you need
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to work on that takes some creativity,
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just um
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find some time,
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find some quiet uninterrupted time, right?
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I tell you guys to do that when you watch these videos fine,
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make sure that it's quiet uninterrupted time because that's
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where you're really going to focus and absorb things,
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right?
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And that's where you can really do a lot of your deepest, most important thinking
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so many times in work, right?
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I talked about a little bit earlier,
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people who are really good at the technical aspects of their job,
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they don't ever carve out any uninterrupted time because they're just working,
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working, working
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and what ends up happening is they become nearsighted shortsighted, right?
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They're only looking at the fire that's right in front
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of them and they're trying to put out that fire.
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And unfortunately what businesses need is people who can see what's
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going to happen next and and predict what's going to happen
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and that takes some quiet time to be creative and to think ahead,
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Uh # nine is finding just the little slices of time.
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so making use of the tidbits of time that pop up in your day. Um
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and even sometimes, like I said, multitasking some just routine stuff, right?
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Like I said, mono tasking is, is better,
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but if it's just routine work and it's stuff that like,
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it really doesn't take a whole lot of thought,
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you can multitask a few things to just get through more.
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Um
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But if you just, if this is where like if you did a time log, you'd be
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blown away right by like how much time is just those
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slices of time that are out there that just get wasted.
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And so just like trying to like figure out ways to use those slices of time better.
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Um
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I think that's where the student list really would come up handy.
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You'd be like, oh my gosh, I spent
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uh this is, this is always my saddest day,
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sunday and I'm gonna get my screen time report today from Apple and I'm gonna find out
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how many slices of time did I waste right
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doing things that I probably didn't need to be doing
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right.
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And so if I put together to don't list and said,
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don't get on your phone for during these
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hours or while you're working on these projects,
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you start to find those slices of time and you start to put
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them to better use and you become more productive just for that reason,
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Number 10 is just controlling the busywork, right?
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You're in your work, your there's still a lot of paperwork even in this digital age,
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Okay?
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So it's just staying in control and on top of paperwork,
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your inbox and you're you know in the in your office inbox and your emails
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just staying on top of that stuff and that's the
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place that I have to really improve on as well.
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Just um you know responding right when you get emails um just
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just getting things off your plate as they come in instead of waiting,
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okay?
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Because if you don't handle it efficiently,
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you you just can't take over man like all of a sudden
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you just I'll find out you're just getting behind at your stress level
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and it just becomes too much and you just can't catch up.
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You just want to get in that position where you can't catch up.
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Yeah.
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Okay I'm gonna pause it here and we'll come back with volume four.
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We're gonna finish this uh lecture series out