The Mindset Mentor - 7 Tips to Maximize Your Focus & Productivity

Episode Date: February 10, 2021

Everyone in the world only gets 24 hours each day. What you get done in those 24 hours will dictate what your life will become. In this episode, I am going to teach you how to maximize your focus and productivity! Follow me on Instagram for more inspiration --> @RobDialJr https://instagram.com/robdialjr Want to learn more about Mindset Mentor+? For nearly nine years, the Mindset Mentor Podcast has guided you through life's ups and downs. Now, you can dive even deeper with Mindset Mentor Plus. Turn every podcast lesson into real-world results with detailed worksheets, journaling prompts, and a supportive community of like-minded people. Enjoy monthly live Q&A sessions with me, and all this for less than a dollar a day. If you’re committed to real, lasting change, this is for you.Join here 👉 www.mindsetmentor.com My first book that I’ve ever written is now available. It’s called LEVEL UP and It’s a step-by-step guide to go from where you are now, to where you want to be as fast as possible.📚If you want to order yours today, you can just head over to robdial.com/bookHere are some useful links for you… If you want access to a multitude of life advice, self development tips, and exclusive content daily that will help you improve your life, then you can follow me around the web at these links here:Instagram TikTokFacebookYoutube

Welcome to today's episode of the Mindset Mentor podcast. I am your host, Rob Dial. And if you have not yet done so, hit that subscribe button so you never miss another podcast episode. And if you want to follow along with these podcasts through video and also see some of our mini documentaries we're starting to put out, go ahead and follow me on YouTube. Go just put in Rob Dial. Pretty easy. R-O-B-D-I-A-L, you pop up, you'll see me, you'll see all the videos. You can start watching us. We put out three to four new videos every single week. Today, I'm going to be giving you my seven tips to maximize your productivity and your focus in every single thing that you do. And I'm also going to give you my number one tip for

productivity and focus, the thing that's helped me more than anything else. And so if you're trying to be productive, if you're trying to create the life that you want, these seven tips will help you. One of the things I want to say before I give you the tips is this, do not ever say the phrase, I don't have enough time. Let me say that again. Don't ever say that you don't have enough time. I promise you that there is somebody who has been in the exact same situation as you or very similar that has been able to create the life that you want. And so if somebody else has done it, there is absolutely no reason why you can't do it as well. Don't blame it on your children and say, oh, I've got children.

And that's the reason why I don't have enough time. Don't say, oh, I've got a full-time job. And that's the reason why I don't have enough time. Or don't say I don't have enough money. And that's the reason I don't have enough time. Whatever it is, just admit to yourself finally, that all of that shit is just an excuse and that you're going to create the life that you want to no matter what. Cool. Can we all agree on that? Here we go. Instead of saying, I don't have enough time, just say, it's not a priority for me because that's the truth. It's not that you don't have enough time. It's just that you haven't made that thing a priority. Just say you don't care. Instead of saying, well, I don't have enough time to create my dream life. Just say,

I don't make my dream life a priority and see if that starts to shift your mindset a little bit more into creating the life that you want. Because ultimately what it comes down to is intention. And so when we go into these seven steps, realize that you have to put intention into every single thing that you do. And if you do, and you put intention into becoming better at focus and becoming better at being more productive and getting things done, you will eventually get whatever it is that you want in life guaranteed. So let me give you my seven tips for maximizing your productivity and your focus. Number one, get some freaking headphones. And I would say, don't just, if you really want a tip, invest a little bit of money into a really great pair of headphones. Don't just use your Apple headphones.

You just put them in and you can still hear everything outside of it. The ones that you get for free with your iPhone. Actually go and invest, I don't know, 50, 100, 200, $300 into a good set of headphones. I like to use the ones that I have. I don't know the exact brand. I know the brand is Sony, but I don't know exactly which ones they are, but they are noise canceling. So literally what I do is I put on headphones, I click on the noise canceling so I can hear nothing outside of it. And then what do I do? I put on some focus music, binarial beats, and that's what I listened to. So literally if a, if a train were to go by, I probably wouldn't hear the train, which means that that's, if I'm focused, if I'm in the zone of something, I want to have my headphones on so that nothing can pull me out of that focus. Why? Because you know you've been really focused before and then

somebody taps you on the shoulder or somebody makes a phone call to you and then you get out of it for 30 seconds and then you try to get back in. How detrimental that can be, that 30 seconds of pulling you out of focus can be. And so if you have noise canceling headphones and you're listening to binarial beats or you're listening to something that has absolutely no words in it, that makes it so much easier to focus. So get a really good set of headphones. The other reason why headphones are great is because people are less likely to walk up to you and steal your attention away if you have headphones on. So if you don't have headphones on, it makes it easier for someone to just say something to you across the room. If you work in an open air area, people can just say something over to you and steal your focus away.

If you have your headphones on, they could go, oh yeah, I guess I'll talk to them later. Right? So put on headphones and find music that has absolutely no words that you can just put on and listen to. You may have heard me say before, but I have songs that I listen to just for focus. I have one song, one YouTube video. I put in focus binarial beats on YouTube. And it's the one, if you want to use the same one that I am focused by narrow beats on YouTube. And it's a little neon owl is the one that I listened to. It's like three hours long. And I listened to that so much that my brain knows when this song is on Rob focuses. So buy a good set of headphones. If they're a good set and you invest into them,

it makes you more likely to take it serious and more likely to actually use the headphones and to be more serious about getting stuff done. Second tip that I'll give you, which is my number one tip actually for being highly productive, but this is tip number two right here, is to do the Pomodoro technique. You may have heard me talk about the Pomodoro technique, but it is incredible. It has changed my life as far as getting shit done and stop multitasking. Multitasking actually they have found makes you dumber. You do worse work slower when you multitask. What you should do is what they call single tasking, doing one thing at a time. The Pomodoro technique is perfect for this. It's super simple. You do 25 minutes of work, five minute break. But those 25 minutes of work

is focused on one thing and one thing only. So you say, okay, I have task XYZ in front of me. This task has to be done today. I'm going to go for 25 minutes. Maybe you don't finish after those 25 minutes, but at least you get a break and then you go back into it. 25 minutes on, five minutes off. 25 minutes on, five minutes off. 25 minutes on, five minutes off. Where you focus on one task and one task only. If an idea comes into your head,

jot it down with pen and paper. Don't look at your phone. Just have a journal next to you and write down that idea and go right back to what you're doing before. While you're doing the Pomodoro technique, put your freaking headphones on, right? Stay locked in. You ask yourself the question, like if I'm trying to be focused and I'm trying to be productive, the thought that I have in my head is I need to be locked in. What is going to assist me in being more locked in? Headphones,

that'll help me be locked in. Pomodoro technique, that'll help me be locked in. 25 minutes on, five minutes off. If you want to hear me go deeper into the Pomodoro technique, just Google Rob Dial Pomodoro technique or go to YouTube and type in Rob Dial Pomodoro technique. I have entire lessons on just specifically how to maximize the Pomodoro technique. So stop multitasking, start single tasking. And when you single task, use the Pomodoro technique. That's tip number two. Tip number three, take your to-do list. If you're a to-do list person, you have 30 things on your to-do list. Let me make your life super simple. Okay. I know, and I've seen, I know because I've done this and I've talked to so many people have done this before. You'll make a to-do list and you'll be like, oh my God,

I got to do this thing. And you go do that thing. And then you come back to your to-do list and write that thing down on your to-do list and then cross it off. So you feel like you crossed something off in your to-do list, right? You've done this before. We've all done this before in some different way. The easiest thing to do is this. If you want to get hyper productive and hyper focused is productive means doing the important things, getting the important things done that need to be done, right? Make your to-do list. And then what I want you to do is circle on your to-do list. If it's 20 things, let's say the three most important things, circle the three most important things. Take out a three by five card, an index card, write down number one, the most important

thing. That's the, that's the hit list. I need to get, if nothing else gets done today, I've got to get my most important task done. Then I write down number two, and then I can write down number three. Then what I do is I take that three by five card and I put it in my back pocket and I leave the to-do list wherever it was. I can leave it on my desk. I can come back to it later. But now instead of having 20 things that I have to focus on, which can make me feel really scattered. And if I feel really scattered, I'm less likely to actually get that thing done and to do it. Instead of doing that, what am I going to do? I'm going to take that list of 20 things, make it into a list of three things, and then only focus on those three things. And that's it for the day. I'm going to focus on number one and I won't do anything else

until number one is done. Once number one is done, I can cross it off. Now I can go to number two and I won't do anything else until number two is done. And then once number two is done, then I can go to number three and I won't do anything else until I get number three done. If I just get my most important things done every single day, that's a really fricking productive day. And I might not get the other 17 things done, but they weren't important in the first place. The three most important things were on that index card. Let's say I do happen to finish those three things. Then I can go to the rest of the to-do list and figure out what's most important after that. But what it comes down to is being productive versus being busy, which is what we're going to go into in the next one. So the next one is being

productive versus being busy. Speaking of focus, this episode is brought to you by NeuroGum. NeuroGum makes functional gum and mints that help you do more. Imagine your health supplements in your pocket for wherever you go that you can take throughout the day instead of taking an entire dose in the morning. It's loved by Olympians, engineers, academics, fitness enthusiasts, and people who are stuck working from home right now. The company was started by athletes who have backgrounds in neuroscience and chemistry. And these patented cold-pressed gum and mints

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shown to reduce stress and stabilize your mood. Because these are gum and mints, they're also easy to carry around, they taste good, and they give you fresh breath. So go to getneuro.com to order and have a better state of mind now. That's getneuro, G-E-T-N-E-U-R-O.com and use the code DIAL to get 15% off your first order. If you think about it, tip number four, being productive versus being busy. A lot of times people will call themselves, oh, I don't have enough time. I'm too busy doing things. You're doing busy work. You're not doing productive work. When I say you take a list of 20 things and shorten it into three things and concentrate on those three things and only focus on those, that's called being productive. Being busy is just taking time and focusing on doing whatever it is that I need

to do. Just getting stuff done. So let's say, for instance, I run a business, right? And I might have make 10 sales calls. That might be the top of my list. I might have reach out to my employee and talk to them about this. I might have make a lesson. That might be another thing that helps me. And then also on that to-do list, I might have do my laundry. And then I go, well, doing laundry is easy. I won't get rejected. I can do laundry and at least cross something off my to-do list. So then you ask yourself, is doing laundry being productive or is it being busy? It's just being busy. I'm just acting like I'm keeping myself busy doing things when in reality, I'm not doing anything that actually means something for my business.

So when you look at tip number four, am I being busy? Am I being productive? Right? One of the things that I find that holds most people back is that they think that they're being productive when in reality, they're just keeping themselves busy, right? They go, oh, you know what? I've got to, like, for instance, I could go, I got to make a podcast episode. And I could go, I'm going to do an episode on being focused. And I can spend the next 10 hours actually researching being focused. Or I could go, I'm going to spend 20 minutes about being, you know, trying to be focused. And then I'm going to start actually creating content, right? The creating content is most important part of what I do. So I don't need to spend 10 hours focusing and figuring out how to create the best podcast episode. I need to spend 20, 30 minutes

focusing, putting it together, and then boom, I need to record it because recording it is the actual most important part, which is the productive side of it. People go, oh, you know what? I want to, you know, I want to work out more. And then so instead of actually going to the gym, which would be being the productive side of it, they go, you know what? I'm going to research for the next three hours the best protein. I'm going to research the best diet. And all of this stuff, that's important, yes, but that's not going to move the needle like going to the gym will, right?

Being productive, go to the gym, pick up weights, put weights down, throw them at the ceiling. That's being productive. Being busy is I'm going to spend the next few hours researching the best diet plan and researching the best protein and researching the best workouts and researching this and researching this. Is it important? In some way, yes, but it's one-tenth of the amount of importance of actually going to the gym if you're trying to lose weight. Make sense? So are you being busy or are you being productive? Ask yourself this question to just cut through all of the BS. Is what I'm doing right now getting me closer to or further

from my goals? Is what I'm doing right now getting me closer to or further from my goals? Is what I'm doing right now getting me closer to or further from my goals? Ask yourself that 100 times a day. I guarantee you're going to find yourself being way more focused and way more productive of doing everything that you need to do. Is what I'm doing right now getting me closer to or further from my goals? Simple. That's all you got to do. So then you look and you say, okay, is researching protein for the next two hours getting me closer to or further from my goals? It's actually getting me further from my goals. Is going and buying new yoga pants getting me closer to or further from my goals? Honestly, that's getting me further from my goals. Just going and doing yoga would

be getting me closer to it. So you have to realize you can either be productive or you can be busy. And the way that you decipher what you're being is you say is what I'm doing and how I'm getting me closer to or further from my goals. So that's tip number four. Are you being busy or are you being productive? Tip number five is to find your peak hours. Everybody has peak hours. It's usually about two to four hours where you are the most focused, where you do your best work. For me, it's from 10 a.m to 2 p.m that's my most focused peak hours all of the most important stuff that i do in my day is done between the hours of 10 and 2. right for you it might be the same time for you it might be later on at night for you it might be earlier in the morning find your peak time i know i have friends that wake up at three o'clock in the

morning because they have kids they wake up with you know i have a friend that that runs a business and he wakes up between three to four o'clock in the morning because they have kids. They wake up with, you know, I have a friend that runs a business and he wakes up between three to four o'clock in the morning and he runs a $30 million a year business because he wants to be out before, he wants to be up before his kids so they can get as much done as he possibly can. Right? His peak hours is he likes to wake up and work as soon as he gets up. I don't like to work as soon as I wake up. So it's different for everybody.

When are your peak hours? When are your three to four hours of peak time where you can really get locked in? Because that's what we're trying to do. We're trying to get locked in and being focused and being productive. If you try to have me get a lot of shit done after 7 p.m., it's not happening because usually throughout the day, I'm working so hard that my brain is fried after 7 p.m. So that's just the way that I am. But do you know the way that you are? Do you know when your peak hours are? Think about that. That is tip number five. Tip number six is to clean up all of the shit that's around you, right? A cluttered space, a cluttered mind is usually the key to it. Now,

are you going to have everything being perfect around you? Absolutely not. But if there's crap all over the place and you're trying to be productive and you're spending 50% of your time rustling through things to try to find the things that you need to, that's going to hold you back from being productive. If you have crap all over your desk and you can't find what you need to in order to get stuff done, that's holding you back. It's taking time away from you. So what if you were just to hire somebody to come in and tidy up your space for you, right? That'd be one of the best $100 or $200 you've ever

spent. Is it beneficial to have someone, if you work from home right now because everything that's happening, is it beneficial for you to spend $ bucks to have someone come and completely clean your place to make everything more organized, to get rid of all of the crap that's on the floor, to do your dishes for you, to do your, your laundry for you? Is there benefit into paying somebody to do those things for you? You know, is, is it, is it more beneficial for you to put your time into doing laundry? Or if you were to take the same amount of time that it took you to do all that laundry and actually put it into work, would you make more money working than you would doing laundry? And if you would, maybe you should hire somebody. If it costs you a hundred bucks to have someone do your laundry and it takes them two hours,

but you make a hundred dollars, you know, a hundred dollars an hour and you were to say, okay, if I work about $100 an hour, if it costs me a hundred bucks to have somebody do this, and in that time that I can have somebody do this, I can make 200 bucks. Let's say on average, you'd make $200 an hour and it takes somebody an hour to do all of your laundry, right? You would make, if it's a hundred bucks to do all of your laundry, I'm gonna try to explain this so it makes the most sense. If it costs a hundred bucks in an hour for someone to do your laundry and you make about $200 in an hour when you're hyperproductive, that means by paying somebody a hundred dollars and you make $200 that you're actually netting a hundred extra dollars.

Most people don't think about this. They just think, oh, I got to pay somebody and I don't want to pay somebody because I'm too cheap. But if you're net positive in the revenue that you make or the amount of money that you bring in, it's worth it for you to do that. So maybe it's worth it for someone to come in and clean your place. Maybe it's worth it for someone to do your lunch. Maybe it's worth it for someone to do your landscaping. Maybe it's worth it to outsource things so that you can be more productive at whatever it is that you do because you only get 24 hours every single day. And if you're sleeping afraid of it, you're only awake for 16

of it. So how can you be more focused and more productive and outsource the things that you don't necessarily need to do? How can you clean things up? Okay. And the last thing that I'll tell you is this. Tip number seven is to batch your tasks. What do I mean by batching it? I'll give you the perfect example. You take everything that you do. And if you do something over and over again, can you do all of those at one point in time? Like for instance, if you wake up in the morning and you're like, you know what, I'm just going to get all my emails done first thing in the morning and later at night. And you just do all of your emails in the morning and at night, then you don't have to do your emails throughout the day. And you can focus on other things you need to do right now. I'm recording this, this episode. This is the third one that

we've recorded in a row. All I do is literally change my shirt. I'm not lying this episode. This is the third one that we've recorded in a row. All I do is literally change my shirt. I'm not lying to you. This is the third shirt that I've been wearing in the past hour and a half. Why? Because I'm fucking batching this stuff that I'm doing, right? First shirt. Okay. So now I'm wearing it for those of you guys that aren't watching the video. I'm wearing a green shirt. The episode I did before this, which was literally recorded right before this, I was wearing a maroon shirt. The episode I did before this, which was literally recorded right before this, I was wearing a maroon shirt. The episode I did before that, I was wearing a gray sweater that said, be a nice human, right? I just recorded and made it look like it was a different day. It's the same damn day. But why do I do that? Because it's easier to batch my tasks and to get my stuff done all at once. Because what

do I do? Wake up in the morning today, I planned out four episodes. Right now, we're recording three episodes. Later on in this week, we'll record another three episodes. So if I put out three episodes per week, Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and then I have a bonus one that comes out on Thursday, I only need to record most of the time one day to get all of next week done, right? So what can you batch in your life to make you more productive? Your emails, your phone calls, your meetings, right? My Tuesdays are my busiest days. Why? Because I batch all of my coaching calls

and all of my calls. You know, I've got business breakthrough, which is where I teach coaches how to build coaching businesses. I teach them how to make money and how to make six-figure businesses. I do my call with them on Tuesday. Then on Tuesday, I've also got my accelerator program later on, which is the advanced mindset course that I have. I do that on Tuesday as well because I know Tuesday

is my coaching day. So I could get my coaching brain on, put on my coaching helmet and get that done on Tuesday. And then I don't have to worry about it for the rest of the week. Batching stuff will make you way more focused and way more productive. I cannot recommend it enough. So batch all of the tasks that you do if you can batch them. So that is tip number seven. So if we go through this again, number one, get some freaking headphones. Number two, use the Pomodoro technique. Number three, ask yourself, are you busy or are you being productive? Actually, that was your to-do list is number three, which is to find the three things that are most necessary for the day. Number four is, are you being busy or are you being

productive? Number five is to find your peak hours. Number six is to clean up or pay someone to clean up for you. Number seven is to batch all of your tasks. You only have 24 hours in the day. Every single person alive only has 24 hours in the day. So you have to figure out how can you get more locked in? How can you get more focused? How can you get more productive? And ask yourself this question is what I'm doing right now, getting me closer to or further from my goals. And if you ask yourself that a hundred times a day and you focus on being productive and you focus on being focused, you will get a whole lot more shit done than everybody else. So that's what I got for you for today's episode. If you love this episode, please share it with someone that you know and

love. And I'm going to leave it the same way I leave you every single episode. Make it your mission to make someone else's day better. I appreciate you and I hope that you have an amazing day.