Productivity Made Simple - Course Notes

1. Introduction
- Remember to join our Facebook group!
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- The power of the “Daily To-Do List”
- You only have control over what you do TODAY!
- The daily to-do list allows you to be productive immediately.
- 1) Brainstorm the tasks you need to do.
- 2) Arrange them by order of priority.
- 3) Try to limit your list to a reasonable amount of items (usually 8
items is a good number).
- The Workout Time Management Method
- Remember the importance of REGULARITY.
- Create your “workout”. This is, the list of high value activities you will
do over and over again (regularity).
- Change up the items in your “workouts” once you have “adapted” to
them.
2. Time Management Principles
- Time Management Principles
- 1. Know Yourself
- Observe yourself, get to know yourself.
- What is your time management preference? How do you work
best? How do you feel balanced and fulfilled?
- 2. Keep it Simple!
- Less is more.
- Keep your time management system simple.
- 3. Know What you Want
- The first step in getting the things you want is: KNOW WHAT
YOU WANT!
- Always begin with the end in mind: What do I want to achieve?
What is the result I am looking for?

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 - 4. Be Effective Before Being Efficient
- To be effective: Work on the right thing.
- To be efficient: Do whatever you do as fast as possible.
- First make sure you are working on the right thing (effective)
and then switch to doing it fast (efficient).
- 5. Prioritization
- Make sure you work on the right things FIRST.
- Work on your big rocks first.
- 6. Balance
- With producivity, you can squeeze more work in your days, but
remember that resting, having fun, and enjoying your life is also
very important too.
- If you only work, work and work you will BURN OUT. Implement
rest and leisure in your time management system.
- The Goals Method
- 1) List the things you want to achieve by the end of this year
- These become your YEARLY GOALS
- Try to limit your yearly goals to just a few, very important goals.
- PRIORITIZE these goals by order of importance
- 2) List the monthly goals that will move you towards your yearly
goals
- These become your MONTHLY goals
- Prioritize them by order of importance
- 3) List the weekly goals that will move you towards your monthly
goals
- These become your WEEKLY goals
- Prioritize them by order of importance
- 4) List the daily goals that will move you towards you weekly goals
- These become your DAILY goals
- These are super important! Remember: You can only control
what you do ONE DAY A TIME.
- As long as you do something to move you closer to your goals
EACH DAY, you are moving in the right direction.

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 - Make sure to do something that moves you towards the completion
of your goals every day.
- You can try different variations of this technique to fit your needs:
- Yearly - Monthly- Daily
- Yearly - Weekly - Daily
- Monthly - Daily
- Weekly - Daily
- Etc.
3. Techniques To Beat Overwhelm
- Beat Overwhelm with Brainstorming and Organization
- Feeling overwhelmed is the result of having too many things in our
mind and not knowing where to start.
- To overcome overwhelm, you need to “dump” all the to-doʼs or tasks
on paper and empty your mind.
- It is much easier to organize your to-doʼs on paper.
- 1) Dump on paper all the tasks or to-doʼs you need complete.
- This is the brainstorming phase
- You can set a timer for this dumping or brainstorming phase
- 2) Organize, categorize and prioritize the brainstorm items.
- You can also set a timer for this organization phase.
- Organize the items you have brainstormed in a logical
sequence.
- To further organize these items you can create categories and
sub-categories.
- 3) Revise your plan. Make adjustements as needed
- Make sure your plan is well organized and it clearly tells you
what you need to do and in what order
- 4) Execute your plan
- Now that you have taken the time to empty your mind and organize
all the items and to-doʼs you need to get done in a logical, organized
plan of action, you have fully crushed all feelings of overwhelm!
4. The Importance of Planning
- Proper Planning Prevents Poor Performance

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 - In life you need 2 things: A plan and execution of the plan
- The quality of your plan and the quality of your execution results in
the quality of your life.
- The Simplest Yet Most Powerful Way To Plan Anything
- 1. Start With The End In Mind
- What is the end result you want to achieve?
- Knowing the END RESULT you want to create will help you more
easily know and plan the things that will get you there.
- 2. List The Major Steps That Will Help You Achieve Your End Result
- List the major steps that you need to accomplish in order to
achieve your desired goal
- Donʼt worry about listing these steps in order, simply get them
out of your head on paper
- 3. List The Sub-steps That You Need to Complete To Achieve Each
Major Step
- For each major steps you listed, plan the sub-steps that are
needed to accomplish them
- Donʼt worry about ordering the sub-steps in a sequential order
yet, simply put them in your plan
- 4. Organize The Major Steps And Sub-steps in Sequential Order
- Make sure each major step is in the right chronological order
- Make sure each of the sub-steps is in the right sequential order
- 5. Revise Your Plan And Make Sure It Is Ready For Execution
- Quickly review each major step and all the sub-steps and make
sure your plan makes sense and is ready to be executed.
5. The Power Of Prioritization
- Work on your big rocks first!
- Many “individual” tasks are made up of the main task and the sub-tasks
related to the main task.
- Make sure the MAIN TASKS are well prioritized but also make sure each of
the SUB-TASKS are well organized by order or priority.
- Define Your Life Values
- 1. Brainstorm The Activities In Your Life That You Value The Most and

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 Should Therefore Make Time For
- On a piece of paper, at the top, write the following title: “It is
extremely important that I make time for”
- Brainstorm the activities you value most and should make time
for in your life
- Donʼt worry about the order, just put them on paper
- 2. Organize these important activities by order of priority
- What should go first? Then second? etc.
- 3. Use these important activites to set daily plans and goals
- Now that you know what your “big rocks” are, you can make
sure your daily actions are aligned to this high value activities
you have listed.
6. The Power Of Making Lists For Time Management
- Most time management methods use LISTS.
- These tools allow to easily drag and drop the items in your lists to easily
rearrange or reorder.
- Use Quire.io to create powerful lists.
- Use Xmind to create awesome mindmaps.
- Create lists for different areas of your life to stay organized and on top of
things.
7. Work in intervals of work and rest
- Work in intervals of work and rest.
- When you work, be completely focused and avoid all distractions.
- When you rest, do something refreshing or fun that allows you to go back
to work fully refreshed.
- You decide how long your work and rest periods will be:
- Example: Work 45 min. & Rest 10 min.
- Example: Work 20 min & Rest 5 min.
- You decide the length of your work and rest periods.
- You can also use The Pomodoro Technique:
- Work for 25 minutes and rest for 5 minutes
- After completing four 25 minute work intervals, you can take a longer
15-20 minute break.

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 - Then start this cycle again.
- Have quality work periods and quality rest periods.
8. Habits & Routines
- Habits and routines allow you to put your success and productivity on
autopilot.
- On autopilot, because habits and routines are usually done
unconsciously without having to pay much attention to them.
- Your habits can destroy you or build you up.
- Create a list of the habits you want to create.
- Try to focus on 1 to 3 habits at a time.
- Do your desired habit for a total of 60 to 90 consecutive days to truly build
a habit
- Make sure you find a way to keep track the days when you complete your
desired behavior
- This will help you stay motivated to reach 60-90 consecutive days of
daily habit completion.
- Create a habits journal
- Reflect on your journey as you create new habits and write down
lessons, challenges or insights you get as you work on developing
good habits in your life.
- How to eliminate bad habits:
- 1. Have a REAL desire to change
- Make sure you truly want to change and are willing to do
whatever it takes to eliminate bad habits.
- 2. Understand HOW habits work
- A habit is made up of 1) A trigger 2) A behavior 3) A reward
- You need to tweak the behavior and reward when you feel
triggered to act on the bad habit
- If getting angry (The trigger) makes you yell (The behavior) and
helps you release your anger (The reward), Think about how
you can change the behavior and reward when you feel angry.
- Instead of yelling, you can do challenging physical
exercise (New behavior) to release you anger and get

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 health benefits (New and better reward)
- 3. Focus on REPLACING bad habits for good habits
- The more good habits you create in your life the harder itʼll be
for bad habits to come back.
- Create Routines:
- Your most important routines are: Your MORNING routine and your
NIGHT routine
- Create a list where you brainstorm ideas for your morning and night
routine
- Arrange this list of ideas in the sequential order you will follow for
your morning and night routine.
- Remember you can create and plan routines for anything you want!
- How to stick to your routines:
- Keep it simple!
- Remember, less is more.
- Keep a journal
- Reflect on your journey as you work on your daily routines
9. The importance of being organized
- Being organized allows you to take your productivity to the next level
- Have a system of INBOX and HOMES to keep your physical and digital
stuff organized
- The Inbox, to keep scattered items in one place
- Homes, to properly assign a place for every item and easily find what
you need when you need it.
- Use Categories and Sub-categories to stay organized
- Where in your life can you implement a system of categories and
sub-categories to stay organized?
10. Additional ideas to take your productivity to the next level
- Create a NOT to do list
- If you stop doing things that are a waste of your time, you will free up
more time to do the things that are actually important.
- Use the power of BATCHING
- Group similar tasks together and do them all at once instead of one

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 by one
- Stay WELL-HYDRATED throughout the day!