Muscle for Life with Mike Matthews - Motivation Monday: Why Managing Time Isn’t the Ultimate Key to Productivity

Episode Date: February 5, 2018

This episode is part of a weekly series that I have dubbed “Motivation Monday.” (Yes, I know, very creative of me. What can I say, I’m a genius…) Seriously though, the idea here is simple: Every Monday morning, I’m going to post a short and punchy episode that I hope gets you fired up to tackle the workouts, work, and everything else that you have planned for the week ahead. As we all know, it’s one thing to know what you want to do, but it’s something else altogether to actually make yourself do it, and I hope that this series gives you a jolt of inspiration, energy, and encouragement to get at it. So, if you like what you hear, then make sure to check back every Monday morning for the latest and greatest installment. Want to get my best advice on how to gain muscle and strength and lose fat faster? Sign up for my free newsletter! Click here: www.muscleforlife.com/signup/

This episode is brought to you by me. Seriously, though, I'm not big on promoting stuff that I don't personally use and believe in. So instead, I'm going to just quickly tell you about something of mine. Specifically, my high-quality sports multivitamin, Triumph. Now, Triumph was designed for athletes and physically active people who want to optimize their health and fight off stress, fatigue and overtraining. It contains 21 vitamins and minerals, as well as 14 additional ingredients that improve overall health and well-being, enhance physical and mental performance, and help protect against disease. All that is why Triumph has over 500 reviews on Amazon with a four and a half star average and another 180 plus on my website with a five star average. So if you want to plug any nutritional

holes in your diet, improve your mood and mental and physical performance, and boost your resistance to stress, sickness, and disease, then you want to head over to www.legionathletics.com and pick up a bottle of Triumph today. And just to show how much I appreciate my podcast peeps, use the coupon code podcast to check out and you will save 10% on your entire order. And lastly, you should also know that I have a very simple 100% money back guarantee that works like this. You either love my stuff or you get your money back, period. You don't have to return the products. You don't have to fill out forms. You don't have to jump through any other hoops or go through any other shenanigans. So you really can't lose here. Head over to www.legionathletics.com now,

place your order and see for yourself why my supplements have thousands of rave reviews all over the internet. And if for whatever reason, they're just not for you, contact us and we will give you a full refund on the spot. All righty, that is enough shameless plugging for now at least. Let's get to the show. Welcome to another installment of Motivation Monday. As always, let's start with a quote. This one comes from Seneca and he said, quote, so what you need is confidence in yourself

and the belief that you are on the right path and not led astray by the many tracks which cross yours of people who are hopelessly lost, though some are wandering not far from the true path. So what do you think is your most precious productivity resource? What resource, if left unmanaged, will kill your productivity more than anything else? Now, most people would answer time, and it's a good guess, but I think that it is wrong. I think that the most important commodity you have and the most important resource that you must manage in order to maintain high productivity is energy, not time. Now, why? Why energy over time? Well, let's think about it for a second. Let's say that you managed your schedule meticulously and you planned every second of every day and you

stuck to that plan. But when it came time to do something, you had low physical energy, you were anxious and stressed, and you couldn't focus on your work or focus on the tasks at hand and you felt unmotivated. How much do you think you would actually get done with the time that you have? Not very much, right? Well, this is the situation that many people find themselves in. They think that buying a time planner and working out a rigorous schedule is the key to unlocking sky-high productivity levels. And while I am definitely a big believer in rigorous scheduling, it's just not that simple. Instead, what you want to focus on first is properly managing your energy levels, and then you can start working on managing your time.

Now, this subject is too vast and too subtle, too nuanced to cover in one short podcast, but I want to briefly look at four distinct areas of energy that you must control to achieve quote-unquote superhuman levels of productivity. So the first one is physical energy, physical energy and productivity. Now, not taking care of our bodies affects our work a lot more than most of us think. When we eat poorly, when we sleep too little, when we assault our adrenal glands with too many stimulants, when we rely on sugar highs to feel energized and so forth, we are contributing to the long-term degradation of our physical capacities. The fact is, when we feel lethargic, when we feel tired, whether physically or emotionally, or even just when we feel uncomfortable, these things have huge effects on our productivity

levels, on our capacity for output. It's very distracting and it's very hard to just mentally push through all of that. And on the flip side, when your body feels healthy, when you feel rested, when you feel naturally energetic and refreshed, it makes production a breeze. Comparatively speaking, it is so much easier to do the things you need to do, especially the things that you need to do that you don't want to do. And those are the really important ones when your body is not an obstacle, when it is contributing to the motion. So when we're talking physical energy, when we're talking our physical energy capacity, we're talking about quantity, right? So it's measured in those terms. It's measured in terms of high to low. The next dimension of energy worth discussing is mental energy. How does mental energy affect productivity? And this is where our ability to focus on what we are doing when you're doing it and nothing else, and to think

about what you're doing when you're doing it and nothing else, is paramount in our quest to become effective workers. If our minds are cloudy, if our thoughts are distracted, if we are mentally weighed down and we're unable to really focus in that moment, our productivity levels suffer immensely. When our attention is fixed on problems, on internal struggles, it just becomes very hard to stick to the task at hand, to keep our thoughts on target and to keep them from straying to social media, to entertainment, to all the many shiny, noisy distractions that are around us at all times. The bottom line is noise in our heads,

head trash, as they say, can waste huge amounts of time. Now, mental energy is measured a little differently than physical energy. Our mental energy capacity is defined by focus. So it's measured in accuracy, how specific or scattered our focus is. So dimension number three is emotional energy. So how does emotional energy affect productivity? Well, our feelings of positive or negative emotions affects how we view everything around us and therefore also affects our ability to work and our ability to produce. We will not be as effective as we are when we feel uplifted or challenged and optimistic in our outlooks. And this is why being cognizant of and taking actions to improve our emotional health can not only make our lives generally more pleasant, but also markedly increase our productivity. Now, our emotional energy is defined by quality. So it's measured in terms of pleasantness, positivity to unpleasantness or negativity. And the fourth and final dimension worth discussing here is spiritual energy. So how does spiritual

energy affect productivity? Now, I know this sounds kind of new agey, but it's actually pretty simple. So the spiritual energy that you bring to a project is simply your sense of purpose and your motivation for completing the project, for doing whatever it is that you're doing. If you could care less about it, then you obviously haven't connected it to any strong purpose of yours. And you're going to bring little internal motivation to it and you're going to bring little internal motivation to it. You're going to bring little spiritual energy to it. And this can be a huge barrier when you're trying to push through obstacles and get things done. It's all well and good to think big thoughts and dream big dreams. But when it comes down to the nitty gritty,

when it comes down to the daily grind, the amount of sheer effort and suffering you have to go through to make those dreams a reality. If you don't have a deep reservoir of spiritual energy that you can tap into while you're down in the trenches, you're probably not going to make it. So there we have a basic description of the four dimensions of energy and how they relate to productivity. And now let's talk about how we can quickly and easily use that information to improve our productivity. Now, entire books have been written on correctly aligning these vectors. The power of full engagement is one that I recommend if you want to check it out, but it's actually pretty easy

to get these wheels turning and see immediate results. So first, what I recommend is work out how you can raise your physical energy levels. What can you do to raise your physical energy levels? So for example, what works best for me is eating a lot of nutritious foods, exercising regularly, and also exercising first thing in the morning. This is a great way to start your day. And research shows that the mood that you're in in the morning colors the rest of your day. So if you can put yourself into a good mood in the morning, there's a good chance that you are just going to have a good rest of the day, regardless of what does or doesn't happen. And one of the easiest ways to put yourself in a good mood is to simply do a workout. And another important part of maintaining high energy levels, of course,

is getting enough sleep. Sleep hygiene is hugely important for physical energy. Another practical tip is work out how you can remove distractions in order to better focus on the task at hand. This is something that I myself am very strict about. When I'm doing something, I do just that and nothing else. So that means when I am working on something, my email is closed. I'm not available on any instant messengers. I ignore my cell phone. I don't have anything going on in the background that pulls my attention away like TV or a podcast or a radio show. And if I'm listening to music, it's music that helps me focus, which almost always means music without lyrics. So I like classical music. I like soundtracks. There are some lyrical songs I can listen to because I've

heard them so many times. I actually don't even hear the are some lyrical songs I can listen to because I've heard them so many times. I actually don't even hear the lyrics anymore, but for the most part, I am listening to non-lyrical music that helps me focus. Furthermore, if I have any personal issues that are giving me trouble at that time, I simply shove them aside and I refuse to dwell on them. They will get their own time later and they can be addressed then, but sitting there and stewing over them accomplishes nothing. It doesn't help me resolve the issue and it doesn't help me get my work done faster. So I might as well just focus solely on my work when I'm doing it and then focus solely on the personal issues when I'm

going to deal with them. And if you really struggle with this, if you find it hard to concentrate on work or any single thing for an extended period of time, check out the Pomodoro technique, P-O-M-O-D-O-R-O, because it will help you train that ability and build that skill, which is how you should look at it, by the way. If you have trouble focusing on work, let's say, for more than 10 or 15 minutes at a time, it's not that something is inherently wrong with you. It's just a skill that you haven't developed and the Pomodoro technique can help you develop it. Another tip that has helped me is work out how you can lower your stress levels and be more positive in your work. And two very easy ways to

do this allow you to double dip because if you're exercising regularly and you are getting enough sleep, then not only is your physical energy going to benefit, it is also going to help lower stress levels. Listening to music can help as well. And sometimes simply deciding to be in a better mood despite reasons otherwise works. Sometimes viewing the things that are stressing you out as challenges to be overcome as opposed to millstones around your neck can make all the difference. Hey there, it is Mike again. I hope you enjoyed this episode and found it interesting and helpful. And if you did, and don't mind doing me a favor and want to help me make this the most popular

health and fitness podcast on the internet, then please leave a quick review of it on iTunes or wherever you're listening from. This not only convinces people that they should check the show out, it also increases its search visibility and thus helps more people find their way to me and learn how to build their best bodies ever too. And of course, if you want to be notified when the next episode goes live, then just subscribe to the podcast and you won't miss out on any of the new goodies. Lastly, if you didn't like something about the show, then definitely shoot me an email at mike at muscleforlife.com and share your thoughts on how you think it could be better by me. Seriously though, I'm not big on promoting stuff that I don't personally use and believe in. So instead I'm going to just quickly tell you

about something of mine, specifically my high quality sports multivitamin Triumph. Now Triumph was designed for athletes and physically active people who want to optimize their health and fight off stress, fatigue, and overtraining. It contains 21 vitamins and minerals, as well as 14 additional ingredients that improve overall health and wellbeing, enhance physical and mental performance, and help protect against disease. All that is why Triumph has over 500 reviews on Amazon with a four and a half star average and another 180 plus on my website with a five star average. So if you want to plug any nutritional holes in your diet, improve your mood and mental and physical performance and boost your resistance to stress, sickness and disease, then you

want to head over to www.legionathletics.com and pick up a bottle of Triumph today. And just to show how much I appreciate my podcast peeps, use the coupon code podcast to check out and you will save 10% on your entire order. And lastly, you should also know that I have a very simple 100% money back guarantee that works like this. You either love my stuff or you get your money back, period. You don't have to return the products. You don't have to fill out forms. You don't have to jump through any other hoops or go through any other shenanigans. So you really can't lose here. Head over to www.lesionathletics.com now, place your order,

and see for yourself why my supplements have thousands of rave reviews all over the internet. And if for whatever reason they're just not for you, contact us and we will give you a full refund on the spot.