The Tim Ferriss Show - #771: Productivity Tactics – Two Approaches I Personally Use to Reset, Get Unstuck, and Focus on the Right Things

Episode Date: October 2, 2024

In this short and very tactical episode, I share some of my personal methods for how to get out of a rut, re-aim yourself at big outcomes, and make progress on a daily basis, despite the self-defeating tendencies that we all have.This episode is brought to you by:Eight Sleep’s Pod 4 Ultra sleeping solution for dynamic cooling and heating: https://eightsleep.com/tim (save $350 on the Pod 4 Ultra)Momentous high-quality supplements: https://livemomentous.com/tim (code TIM for 20% off)AG1 all-in-one nutritional supplement: https://drinkag1.com/tim (1-year supply of Vitamin D (and 5 free AG1 travel packs) with your first subscription purchase.)*For show notes and past guests on The Tim Ferriss Show, please visit tim.blog/podcast.For deals from sponsors of The Tim Ferriss Show, please visit tim.blog/podcast-sponsorsSign up for Tim’s email newsletter (5-Bullet Friday) at tim.blog/friday.For transcripts of episodes, go to tim.blog/transcripts.Discover Tim’s books: tim.blog/books.Follow Tim:Twitter: twitter.com/tferriss Instagram: instagram.com/timferrissYouTube: youtube.com/timferrissFacebook: facebook.com/timferriss LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/timferrissPast guests on The Tim Ferriss Show include Jerry Seinfeld, Hugh Jackman, Dr. Jane Goodall, LeBron James, Kevin Hart, Doris Kearns Goodwin, Jamie Foxx, Matthew McConaughey, Esther Perel, Elizabeth Gilbert, Terry Crews, Sia, Yuval Noah Harari, Malcolm Gladwell, Madeleine Albright, Cheryl Strayed, Jim Collins, Mary Karr, Maria Popova, Sam Harris, Michael Phelps, Bob Iger, Edward Norton, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Neil Strauss, Ken Burns, Maria Sharapova, Marc Andreessen, Neil Gaiman, Neil de Grasse Tyson, Jocko Willink, Daniel Ek, Kelly Slater, Dr. Peter Attia, Seth Godin, Howard Marks, Dr. Brené Brown, Eric Schmidt, Michael Lewis, Joe Gebbia, Michael Pollan, Dr. Jordan Peterson, Vince Vaughn, Brian Koppelman, Ramit Sethi, Dax Shepard, Tony Robbins, Jim Dethmer, Dan Harris, Ray Dalio, Naval Ravikant, Vitalik Buterin, Elizabeth Lesser, Amanda Palmer, Katie Haun, Sir Richard Branson, Chuck Palahniuk, Arianna Huffington, Reid Hoffman, Bill Burr, Whitney Cummings, Rick Rubin, Dr. Vivek Murthy, Darren Aronofsky, Margaret Atwood, Mark Zuckerberg, Peter Thiel, Dr. Gabor Maté, Anne Lamott, Sarah Silverman, Dr. Andrew Huberman, and many more.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Well, hello, a different format. In this short and very tactical episode, I share some of my personal approaches, my personal methods for how to get out of a rut, get unstuck, re-aim yourself at big outcomes, reset and refocus, and make progress on a daily basis, despite the self-defeating tendencies and inner voices that we all have. And that applies to everyone I've met, The top of the top in any given field, we all have those days. The first story I tell is of a three to four week period when I was beset by all sorts of personal challenges and ultimately the approach that saved my sanity. It does not require any heroic efforts, any differential calculus. It is beautifully

simple. But first, before we get to that, just a few quick words from today's sponsors who make this podcast possible. If you want to support the show, please check them out. I use all of these on a daily or weekly basis, and given that I'm able to test everything under the sun, I think that is saying something. Regular listeners probably know I've been taking Momentous products consistently and testing them for a long while now. But you may not know that I recently collaborated with them to put together my top picks. I always aim for a strong body and sharp mind, and neither is possible without quality sleep. So I designed my performance stack to check all three boxes, and here it is.

CreaPure Creatine for muscular and cognitive support, Whey Protein Isolate for muscle mass and recovery, and Magnesium 3 and 8 for sleep. All Momentous products are NSF and Informed Sports certified, which is professional athlete and Olympic level testing. So try it out for yourself. Visit livemomentous.com slash Tim and use Tim at checkout for 20% off of my performance deck. I'll spell it out. It's a long one. Livemomentous.com slash Tim. So livemomentous.com slash Tim for 20% off. This episode is brought to you by 8sleep. 8sleep recently launched their newest generation of the pod, and I'm excited to test it out, Pod 4 Ultra. Pod 4 Ultra can cool down each side of the bed as much as 20 degrees Fahrenheit below

room temperature. Pod 4 Ultra also introduces an adjustable base that fits between your mattress and your bed frame and adds reading and sleeping positions for the best unwinding experience. And for those snore-heavy nights, the pod can detect your snoring and automatically lift your head by a few degrees to improve airflow and stop you or your partner from snoring. Plus, with the Pod 4 Ultra, you can leave your wearables on the nightstand because these types of metrics are integrated into the Pod 4 Ultra itself. So get your best night's sleep. Head to 8sleep.com slash Tim and use code Tim to get $350 off of the Pod 4 Ultra. They currently ship to the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Europe, and Australia. A few years ago, a creature died in the walls of my home. It was disgusting.

Now, to be precise, it gave up the ghost in the heating system, so the death fumes were conveniently pushed directly into my bedroom. My ex-girlfriend and I discovered this around 11 p.m. as we tucked into bed hoping for a good night's sleep. We could turn off the heat and freeze. That was one option. Or we could bathe in the stench of what I assumed was a raccoon carcass. And the whole thing made my eyes itch. It was horrible. I imagined it downing its last meal, pig entrails, moldy socks, fermented beans, who knows, before defiantly jamming its

bloated body into my HVAC. Don't worry, we are getting to some kind of lesson here. But the kamikaze raccoon was just the first surprise guest. The opening act, in short order, my dog then got horribly sick, unrelated to raccoon. Overdue paperwork started piling up, popping out of nowhere, and onboarding a bunch of new contractors ran into trouble. Then I pulled out of a parking spot and scraped the entire side of my car and the car next to me. Later that same afternoon, all these Christmas presents I had ordered somehow had run out of stock and were auto-canceled, so I was sent scrambling. And on and on it went, more and more clowns piling into the clown car for a shit show that lasted three to four weeks.

It was just a 15-car pileup of nonsense. There are the rare times when I feel like I'm in the zone. Those are great. Those are fantastic. Then there are times when I ask myself, how in holy hell have I become the janitor of a mountain of bullshit? That happens more than you might think. Put another way, sometimes you're the boxer and

sometimes you are the punching bag. We all get our turn as the punching bag. It doesn't matter who you are. As far as I can tell, it doesn't matter how successful you become. You've always grabbed a number at the deli counter of, just wait, eventually you're going to get your ass kicked by the universe. Now, during these periods of firefighting, let's just call it when stuff is popping up, this whack-a-mole, I get fidgety and frustrated. I feel like I'm treading water, and patience wears very thin, has never been my strong suit. That's true, especially with myself. And my instinct is to try to fix things as quickly as possible. And that's all well and good, but I've realized that from a place of what the fuck, I often rush and create more problems.

This is particularly bad, catastrophic sometimes, when I try to sprint immediately upon waking up. The mantra that has saved me, and saved me during that three to four week period I mentioned, was very simple, and it's this. Make before you manage. Make before you manage. That's it. What this means is each morning, before plugging holes, fixing things, calling vets, answering text messages, delegating or yanking out dead raccoons, answering a million text messages, this mantra was a reminder to make something. You should read Paul Graham's essays and listen to Neil Gaiman's Make Good Art commencement speech for more on all of this. But back to any given day and make before you manage.

Even the most time-sensitive items can usually wait 60 minutes. And by make something, I mean anything. It could be anything at all. You just need to feel like you've pushed a millimeter ahead in some creative direction. For me personally, even a 90-second video of calligraphy could set a better emotional tone for the entire day, helping me to be more calm as I handle problems, as I execute all the rest of the stuff later. Or maybe I attempt to jumpstart my writing with an Instagram caption, right? Or an email to a friend to take the pressure off. It's practically nothing, but it's enough.

Even token efforts allow me to reassure myself with, hey, pal, don't worry. You did produce something today. And the psychological difference between zero acts of creation and one act of creation, no matter how small, is really impossible to overstate. It's binary, right? Zero to a little bit, those are two

different worlds. If you're lucky, sometimes that one idea, that one sentence, or one shitty first draft can turn into something bigger. And that happens when you catch the wave. But the point is to be able to say to yourself, even for five minutes, hark, I am a creator, not just a janitor of bullshit. Here's proof that I can and will do more than just manage the minutiae of life. And I think, at least personally, I do need that reinforcement. We all spend time on the struggle bus. Happens to everybody. At the very least, this mantra has helped me to find a window seat when it's my turn. So as a reminder, when in doubt, try it out. Make before you manage. Okay, folks, I'll be back shortly with another story, this time from a birthday crisis. Fun,

fun, fun. Ultimately, it has a happy ending. So stay tuned. But first, just a few quick words from one of today's sponsors. I do get asked a lot what I would take if I could only take one supplement, and the true answer is invariably AG1. It simply covers a ton of bases. I usually drink it in the mornings and frequently take their travel packs with me on the road. So what is AG1? AG1 is a science-driven formulation of vitamins, probiotics, and whole food sourced nutrients. In a single scoop, AG1 gives you support for the brain, gut, and immune system. So take ownership of your health and try AG1 today. You will get a free one-year supply of vitamin D and five free AG1 travel packs with your first subscription purchase. So learn more, go to drinkag1.com slash Tim. That's drinkag1, the number one. Drink AG1 dot com slash Tim. Check it out.

The moment that you feel that just possibly you're walking down the street naked, exposing too much of your heart and your mind and what exists on the inside, showing too much of yourself, that's the moment you may be starting to get it right. This is a quote from Neil Gaiman, one of my favorite fiction writers. It's from his University of the Arts commencement speech. But let's bring it back to my story. A few months ago, I had a birthday party. It was great. A dozen friends and I gathered for a few days of sun, beach, barbecue, catching up. We do it every year. And then on the last day, I didn't get up until 1130. That's late even for me, knowing full well that the last few remaining friends were leaving

about 30 minutes later, around 12 noon. And the sad reality is I was afraid of being alone. I was afraid of being lonely. So like a child, I hid my head under the covers, that's literally, and hit snooze until I just couldn't postpone reality any further. But why am I telling you this? Why am I being so self-indulgent in telling you this ridiculous story? It's because we all like to appear successful, a nebulous term at best, and the media like to portray certain standouts as superheroes, these people on the magazine covers and so on. And yes, sometimes these dramatic stories of overcoming the odds are super inspiring, but often, just as often, they lead to an unhealthy conclusion, maybe an inner monologue, which is something like, well, maybe they, whoever they

happen to be, maybe they can do it because they're incredible. They have no faults. They're just karate chopping the day and winning at all moments, but I'm just a normal person. I can't do that. The reality is most superheroes, these superheroes, are nothing of the sort. They're just as weird and neurotic as we are. They're strange creatures who do big things despite lots of self-defeating habits and self-talk. So to personalize this, let's bring it home. I am definitely no superhero.

I'm not even a consistent normal, whatever that is. So let me give you a little laundry list. Not too long ago, I cried while watching Rudy on an airplane, and that was cause for concern for a lot of people around me. I repeatedly hit snooze for one to three hours past my planned wake time because I simply didn't want to face the day. I considered giving everything away, moving to Montreal, Seville, or Iceland. Location kind of depends on what I'm trying to escape. I've used gentlemanly websites to relax during the day when clearly having other urgent and important shit to do. I wore the same pair of jeans for a week straight just to have a constant during weeks of chaos.

So listening to all that, you might think it seems pretty dysfunctional, right? I assume so. I certainly hear it that way. But around the same time, especially so the latter few weeks of that, I also was able to increase my passive income 20%, bought my dream house. Got to the point where I was once again meditating twice per day for 20 minutes per session without fail. So not winning any gold medals in meditation, but incredibly helpful in stabilizing. I cut my caffeine intake to next to nothing. That usually means pu-erh tea in the morning and maybe a green tea in the afternoon.

I've had no more than one cup of really strong coffee per week. There's a lot to that, but suffice to say, much improved sleep. Signed one of the most exciting business deals of the last decade, including working on a collaboration that is first of its kind for me. Completely transformed my blood work, including a few biomarkers I've been working on for years. And I realized, this is the next point, once again, that let's just call it manic depressive symptoms are just part of entrepreneurship. And last but not least, I have come to feel closer to all of my immediate family members. So where does that leave us? So personally, I suck at efficiency, which is doing things quickly or doing things super well,

but I have a few tricks. So here is my coding mechanism. It is an eight-step process for maximizing efficacy, which is doing the right thing. Number one, wake up at least an hour before you have to be at a computer screen. Email is the mind killer, so don't go immediately into reactive mode. Number two, make a cup of tea. I like pu-erh tea. And sit down with a pen or pencil and paper. I like to do it analog. Number three, write down three to five things and no more that are making you most anxious or uncomfortable.

They're often the things that have been punted from one day's to-do list to the next, to the next, to the next, and so on. And most important usually means most uncomfortable, or very frequently it does, with some chance of rejection or conflict. To find the most important, you can often just look for the most uncomfortable, or very frequently it does, with some chance of rejection or conflict. To find the most important, you can often just look for the most uncomfortable with some chance of rejection or conflict. So write down those three to five things. Step four, for each item, ask yourself, if this were the only thing I accomplished today,

would I be satisfied with my day? Also ask, will moving this forward make all the other to-dos unimportant or easier to knock off later? That's a nod to Gary Keller, the one thing. So thank you for that, Gary. Step number five, look only at the items you've answered yes to for at least one of those. Those are the high leverage items, if removed. Number six, block out at least two to three hours to focus on one of them for today. One, let the rest of the urgent but less important stuff slide. They'll still be there tomorrow. Step number seven, and I'm

repeating to be clear, block out at least two to three hours to focus on one of them for today. This is one block of time, uninterrupted, no distractions, no social media. Cobbling together 10 minutes here and there to add up to 120 minutes does not work. Step number eight, if you get distracted or start procrastinating, have this to everybody, don't freak out and downward spiral, just gently come back to your one to do. Congratulations. That's it. That's the whole thing. This is practically the only way I can create big outcomes despite my never-ending impulse to procrastinate, nap,

otherwise fritter away my days with all sorts of bullshit. And it works. Works really, really well. And I've come to learn if I have 10 important things to do in a day, it's 100% certain that nothing important will get done that day. So you got to pick one thing. On the other hand, I can usually handle one must-do item and block out my lesser behaviors for two to three hours a day in the beginning of the day. That's what works for me. It does not take much to seem superhuman and appear

successful to nearly everyone around you if you learn to single task, single, single, single, single task one. In fact, you just need a simple rule. What you do is more important than how you do everything else. And doing something well does not make it important. So material over method, the what over the how. And if you consistently feel the counterproductive need for volume and doing tons of stuff, maybe you should put a few things on post-it notes, put them in your bathroom. And the first that you can add is being busy is a form of laziness. Lazy thinking and indiscriminate action does not mean that more equals more in the positive sense. Being busy is most often used as a guise for avoiding the few critically important but uncomfortable actions you need to take.

And when, despite your best efforts, you feel like you're losing at the game of life, just remember, even the best of the best feel this way sometimes. It happens to everybody. And when I'm personally in the pit of despair, I recall what iconic writer Kurt Vonnegut said about his process. Highly recommend his books. Amazing guy. And here's the quote. When I write, I feel like an armless, legless man with a crayon in his mouth.

So don't overestimate the world and underestimate yourself. You're better than you think, and you're definitely not alone. We're all in this together, and everyone is fighting a battle that you Five Bullet Friday. Would you enjoy getting a short email from me every Friday that provides a little fun before the weekend? Between one and a half and two million people subscribe to my free newsletter, my super short newsletter, called Five Bullet Friday.

Easy to sign up, easy to cancel. It is basically a half page that I send out every Friday to share the coolest things I've found or discovered or have started exploring over that week. It's kind of like my diary of cool things. It often includes articles I'm reading, books I'm reading, albums perhaps, gadgets, gizmos, all sorts of tech tricks and so on that get sent to me by my friends, including a lot of podcast guests. And these strange esoteric things end up in my field and then I them, and then I share them with

you. So if that sounds fun, again, it's very short, a little tiny bite of goodness before you head off for the weekend, something to think about. If you'd like to try it out, just go to tim.blog slash Friday, type that into your browser, tim.blog slash Friday, drop in your email, and you'll get the very next one. Thanks for listening. This episode is brought to you by 8sleep. 8sleep recently launched their newest generation of the pod and I'm excited to test it out, Pod 4 Ultra. Pod 4 Ultra can cool down each side of the bed as much as 20 degrees Fahrenheit below room temperature. Pod 4 Ultra also introduces an adjustable base that fits between your mattress and your bed frame and adds reading and sleeping positions for the best unwinding experience. And for those snore-heavy nights,

the Pod can detect your snoring and automatically lift your head by a few degrees to improve airflow and stop you or your partner from snoring. Plus, with the Pod 4 Ultra, you can leave your wearables on the nightstand because these types of metrics are integrated into the Pod4Ultra itself. So get your best night's sleep. Head to 8sleep.com slash Tim and use code Tim to get $350 off of the Pod4Ultra. They currently ship to the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Europe, and Australia. Regular listeners probably know I've been taking Momentous products consistently and testing them for a long while now. But you may not know that I recently collaborated with them to put together my top picks. I testing them for a long while now. But you may not know that I recently collaborated with them to put together my top picks. I always aim for a strong body and sharp

mind, and neither is possible without quality sleep. So I designed my performance stack to check all three boxes, and here it is. Creopure Creatine for muscular and cognitive support, Whey Protein Isolate for muscle mass and recovery, and Magnesium 3 and 8 for sleep. All Momentous products are NSF and Informed Sports certified, which is professional athlete and Olympic level testing. So try it out for yourself. Visit livemomentous.com slash Tim and use Tim at checkout for 20% off of my performance deck. I'll spell it out.

It's a long one. Livemomentous.com slash Tim. So livemomentous.com slash Tim. So livemomentous.com slash Tim for 20% off.