The Mindset Mentor - Ep 74 - How to be More Productive

Episode Date: February 8, 2016

Do you ever have a to do list that seems like it never ends, no matter how long you spend on it, it just keeps getting longer and longer? In this episode I talk about how to major in the majors and use the 80/20 rule to be more productive every single day. 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

Before we dive into today's episode, if you would like a free copy of our motivational ebook called Hack Your Goals, the Step-by-Step Guide to Achieving Success, go to mwfmotivation.com and download it. It's already been downloaded over a thousand times, so go ahead and get your copy now. All right, I'll get you the podcast right now. Welcome to the MWF Motivation Podcast, which I am proud to say has been rated the number one podcast in iTunes new and noteworthy in six different categories, including self-help and business, and is a podcast designed to help you grow into the best version of yourself in 10 to 20 minutes. Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, we'll take a life topic, break it down, discuss it, and leave you with thoughts to impact your life and mind. My name is Rob Dial, and

the podcast starts now. Welcome to the MWF Motivation Podcast. I am Rob Dial. And if you have not yet done so, please subscribe to us, however you listen to Dial. And if you have not yet done so, please subscribe to us, however you listen to us. And if you like this episode, share it with somebody who you think would get a lot of it as well. And what I'm going to be talking about today is majoring in the majors and minoring in the minors. And I had this conversation with one of my coaching clients. And side note, if you are interested in coaching with me, you can send me an email, rob at mwfmotivation.com.

And I can give you some more information. It's pretty much just like this podcast, but on steroids and personal time with me to go over and try to make you a more productive person, a richer life, richer bank account, everything like that. But my coaching client was saying that he wakes up, he works from home, and he wakes up, gets straight to work, will work for 10 or 12 hours and doesn't feel like he gets anything checked off of his to-do list because his to-do list is so long. And then throughout the day, he adds more stuff to it. And what we realized after going through his to-do list was that he was not majoring in the majors

and minoring in the minors. He was majoring in the minors. So what that means is this, minors. He was majoring in the minors. So what that means is this. He was spending the majority of his day doing crap that was not really bringing him money, not making him feel productive, anything like that. Because what happens with our to-do list, we have these massive to-do lists we come up with of 20, 30 things we have to do. But we do the easy things. We pay the bills. We clean the carpet. We do the carpet. We do the dishes. We wash the car. The things that are just easy for us to check off, whatever they might be, do the dishes, blah, blah, blah. But then the very important things we don't do because we know it's going to take a lot of our brain power to do these things. So with that being said, what do you spend

your time on when you have a to-do list? Do you take your to-do list and mark down those one, two, or three things that have to be done today? This is the key to doing the majoring in the majors, the minoring in the minors, is to find those things where if nothing else got done today, if you just got this one thing done today, you would feel productive. If you got these one thing done today, you would feel productive. If you got these two things done today, you would feel productive. Those are your majors. You want to major in the majors and you want to make sure that you find the most important things. Because think of it, if you were to just put those things down and not worry about everything else and say, okay,

I have this to-do list of 20 things on this list. These three things have to be done today. If you get those three things done, you're going to feel more productive, but also you're probably going to have time to do some of the other crap. Here's what I think. If you get the most important things done, maybe you have to wait an extra day to do your laundry. Maybe you have to wait an extra day and the dishes might have to stay inside of the sink for a little bit longer. But who gives a crap because you are actually productive. It's basically the 80-20 rule. The 80-20 rule means this. 20% of the stuff that you can spend your time doing will bring you 80% of the results, 80% of the money, 80% of the productivity.

If you're a sales rep, 20% of the people that you could call will bring you 80% of the money, 80% of the productivity. If you're a sales rep, 20% of the people that you could call will bring you 80% of the income that you're going to have throughout your year. The thing about that though, is it also means this, 80% of the stuff we could spend our time doing, the miners, all of the crap that really doesn't matter that much, will only bring us 20% of our income, 20% of our productivity, 20% of everything else. So what do we need to do? We need to focus on the 20%. So if you have your to-do list, what's your 20%? What's your one, two, or three things that's going to bring you the most money, that's going to bring you the most productivity, that's going to make you feel like you got the

most stuff done? If you're a teacher, what's the 20% that you could teach your students that's going to make you feel like you got the most stuff done? If you're a teacher, what's the 20% that you could teach your students that's going to make them learn 80% of all the stuff that you need to teach them? It always works out this way, the 80-20 rule. So if you're an entrepreneur or small business owner and you're struggling, ask yourself, what are you spending your hours working on? Are you working on getting all of the crap together inside of your business? Or are you focusing on actually how to grow your business, who to connect with to help grow your business, who to connect with that could possibly be a mentor for you? And you get more done in less time if you do it this way. If you're an employee, what are you spending your time doing?

I've been an employee before. A lot of employees, what we do is just waste a lot of time. That's what I know I did. And that's why I hated being an employee because I felt like I never really got anything done. It's human nature to just kind of waste time for some reason. So if you're an employee, why don't you start knocking out your most important tasks and impressing your bosses so that you can get that next promotion? Gary Vaynerchuk calls it the clouds in the dirt. Don't spend time in the dirt. Spend your time in the clouds, the things that really matter. If you're the type of person who also worries a lot, are you spending your time worrying about the majors or are you spending your time worrying about the minors, the minor crap that doesn't

really matter? Here's what I would ask if you are the type of person to worry a lot. What are you worrying about? Are you worrying about stuff that you're actually going to remember in 10 years? So ask yourself this. If you're a worrier and you're worrying about one thing right now, ask yourself 10 years from today, are you going to remember that thing that you're worrying about right now? If not, forget about it. It's not serving you. Get rid of it. Don't worry about it anymore. What I do want you to do is this. Get a to-do list. Figure out the most important thing that you can get done. What are you most talented at? What are you best at? I'm good at a few things. I'm bad at a lot of other things. I do know that.

You're probably the same way. There's a few things that you're really talented at that you can really shine at. Why don't you spend your time in those things that you're the best at? If you're a sales rep, maybe you're really good at talking to people on the phone, but you hate making phone calls. Well, you're going to have to make those phone calls so you could start making all of the sales that you really need. What are you most talented at? Make sure that you always remember that. And here's the thing that I'll tell you. If you spend your time on the things that matter, if you spend your time crossing out the things that matter the most each day, you will always feel like you had a productive day because you got the things done that really matter. And I want to tell you this. If you do like this episode, this is also something

that I shared on my Facebook page. You can look it up. MWF Motivation with no spaces. So MWF Motivation podcast. You can look us up on there. I did a short video on this and I've been posting motivational videos, motivational quotes, all of those things throughout the day because I know through my Facebook that my newsfeed can be filled with a bunch of crap, a bunch of news that I don't really want to read, a bunch of stuff that just is not motivating to me. It's demotivating more than anything else. So if you want your news feed filled up with some positive stuff, you can go ahead and like us over there. And with that, I will leave you the same way I leave you every single day. Make it your mission to make somebody else's day better. And I hope that you all same way I leave you every single day. Make it your mission to make somebody else's day better.

And I hope that you all go out there. You conquer your to-do list, the top 20% of your to-do list that really matter. And I hope that you have an amazing day. Well, that's it for today's podcast. If you want the show notes for this episode, they can be found at mwfmotivation.com. Also, if you liked this episode, please spread the love and share it with a friend because it's our mission to help as many people as we can. And to keep in touch,

you can follow us on Instagram and Facebook. Both handles are at MWFMotivation with no spaces. Now you know what time it is. So go out and make your dreams a reality.