Young and Profiting with Hala Taha - YAPSnacks: The 5 Pillars of Productivity

Episode Date: February 18, 2022

Are you struggling to get everything off your agenda? Does it seem as if it is piling up? If you thought ‘yes’, you’re not alone!   In today’s culture, a lot of us feel the need to always be productive. Constantly needing to check things off our mile-long to-do list gives us a sense of control and accomplishment. But this mindset surrounding productivity can quickly turn into a slippery slope leading to stress and burnout.  On today’s YAP Snacks, we’re revisiting all of the best tips about helpful productivity! We have experts like John Lee Dumas, Laura Vanderkam, Steven Kotler, and more to tell us their best action items for better productivity.  If you want to learn how to create better to-do lists, change your mindset surrounding time management, and just cultivate less stress in your day to day productivity, this is the perfect YAP snack for you! Sponsored by -  Athletic Greens - Visit athleticgreens.com/YAP and get FREE 1 year supply of immune-supporting Vitamin D AND 5 FREE travel packs with your first purchase. Brand Crowd - Check out brandcrowd.com/yap to learn more, play with the tool for free, and get 73% off your purchase. Issuu - Sign up for a premium account and get 50% off! Go to ISSUU.com/podcast and use promo code YAP Social Media:  Follow YAP on IG: www.instagram.com/youngandprofiting Reach out to Hala directly at [e-mail] Follow Hala on Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/htaha/ Follow Hala on Instagram: www.instagram.com/yapwithhala Follow Hala on Clubhouse: @halataha Check out our website to meet the team, view show notes and transcripts: www.youngandprofiting.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This episode of YAP is sponsored in part by Shopify. Shopify simplifies selling online and in-person so you can focus on successfully growing your business. Sign up for a $1 per month trial period at Shopify.com-profiting. You can crush your fingers and all your toes during a data center migration. You can knock on wood, pluck a dozen four leaf clovers or look to your lucky stars for a successful office expansion.

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Hey everyone, you're listening to YAP snacks, a series of bite-sized content hosted by me, Halataha. Do you feel like you can't get things done in your day-to-day life? Are you unable to focus for long-stints of time while working? Does focus easily slip away from you? If you thought yes to any of these questions, you are not alone. Productivity can feel like a slippery slope, where you go from feeling accomplished and ahead one minute to procrastinating, being distracted and overwhelmed the next. The 8-hour workday has been the norm for more than a century, but employee surveys suggest that most people are truly productive for only about 3-4 hours a day. And what are people doing for the other 5 hours of their work day?

Well, they're checking social media, they're reading news websites, taking breaks, and even looking for new jobs. Imagine how much we could do and achieve if we were just able to stay focused and be productive for 8 hours a day, or how ever many productive hours we choose to work in a day. And what if we ran closer to 100% efficiency rather than just 40 or 50%. And productivity doesn't just relate to your working life, but also your personal life as well.

Maybe you keep putting off tasks that need to get checked off the to-do list because they just seem too difficult, or you can't seem to get your priorities in order, or maybe you just haven't had the time to take that raincheck date with your loved one. I can relate to all of these situations because even though we all have the same 24 hours in a day, it always feels like there's never enough time to get all the things done that I need to get done at work and at home. So, me and the app team have went through all of our app archives

to bring some of the best pieces of wisdom today on the show related to maximizing your time and productivity shared by some of the most reputable experts in the world on the topic. So let's get right into it. First, let's start with To Do Less. How many of us create To Do Less at the start of the week? I personally love to check off those boxes.

It gives me a rush of dopamine and I get motivated every time I check something off the list. But there's a chance that we're organizing our to-do lists all wrong. Back in episode number 105, I spoke with award-winning journalist and speaker Laura Vandercam about her to-do list philosophies and how we can create better to-do list that work for you. You are an advocate of very short to-do list. You say three to five items max and you also sometimes call it a to-do list and you got that from Gretchen Rubens.

I thought that was really cute. So tell us about the to-do list. Why keep it just three to five items max? Well, the idea of having a short to do list is that you want your to do list to represent things that you actually intend to do. And unfortunately, people wind up making these like 50 item to do list, like you're not going to get through 50 items in a day, but the question is, well, which ones are you going to get through?

Right? Like, is it going to be the easiest ones, the ones that were screaming loudest, the first ones you saw? I don't know. But the odds that the ones that you do get through were the ones that absolutely had to happen today and were the most important are low. Whereas if you forced yourself to prioritize

to like five main things, like you will in fact get through them. Now people like, that seems very short. Like, this does not mean the stuff that you do every day. Like this does not mean like, cook dinners on the list for the five things for the day. It's not, you know, if you always post something on your blog, I would say that's probably not something

you'd put on your list of five things, because anything that's a routine, that's a habit. If you always check your email at 11AM, like that doesn't need to go on the to-do list for the day. This is things that are discrete tasks that are important enough to become a contract with yourself that you will get through by the end of the day. But when it is short, then you can get through it.

You start to develop this real trust in yourself. But yes, if I put it on the to-do list, it is going to happen. And the only way you can make sure of that is to keep it short. Because guess what? Stuff is going to come up. Things are going to happen. Things are going to go wrong. People are like, oh, well, I couldn't get through everything on my to-do list because stuff

happened this afternoon. New things landed on my lap. It's like, oh, imagine that. When has that ever not happened? Right? Whereas if you know you've decided these three things absolutely do have to happen, well, you probably will get to those three things even when the new stuff lands on your lap too, or even if you get called away for a personal emergency at like 2 p.m.

Right? You still will have been able to get through the very limited list. And that's why you want to make it very, very short. The Tidalist part is more that at the end of the day it's helpful to know what have I done. And ideally this both matches the Tidalist that you created of the day, it's helpful to know what have I done. And ideally, this both matches the to-do list that you created for the day. And then you can also add anything that you did that came up in the course of the day and then celebrate that those accomplishments happened as well. Laura's philosophy of having short to-do lists with three to five items max seems simple enough. But aside from not including more things

that can actually fit in one day, there are other considerations to make with your to-do list. For one, you need to make sure your activities have clear success criteria and that they're not vague. Let's say you wanna make a perfect proposal and you have that on your to-do list. What's a perfect proposal exactly? Who's defining that?

You need to make sure your task is clear. The other mistake I see people making is putting really big, multiple step projects on their to-do list. You need to make sure your tasks are really just one task and they don't have multiple steps. For example, having a line item like Launch a New Product is much too broad, and that may trigger you to procrastinate

because you haven't thought through the immediate next steps and you haven't broken it down which can actually intimidate you to start the project. And lastly, don't be wishy-washy. If anything on your to-do list has a question mark, it probably shouldn't even be on the list. Having a wishy-washy item sets you up for failure because you don't have the pressure to follow through and it's not officially on your list. Instead, move that item to another date where you're more certain you can accomplish it or take it off altogether.

To do lists are only useful when you actually hold yourself accountable to them. And honestly, keeping a to-do list is just a small part of time management and productivity. A lot of this stuff has to do with our mindsets, especially surrounding time. I constantly feel like there's not enough time to do all the things I want to do in life, but when I take a step back and slow down, I'm able to realize that I have more time than I think. I want to share one more clip from my chat with Laura and definitely go check out episode number 105 after this because it is filled with so many good nuggets of advice. Laura tells us how changing our mindset

towards time and time management can be the key to getting more done. And I love that you said, not to be so worried about wasting a few minutes. And I think that really speaks to your perspective that time is abundant. And you always say that we should approach time with an abundance mindset. Why is that? Like, why is it more

beneficial to you look at time with an abundance mindset? Well, you just make better choices. I mean, because if you are constantly feeling like there's no time for anything, like you feel rushed, you feel harried, you're not going to be open to opportunity because how could you take on any opportunities? There's no time, there's no space for anything, right? Whereas if you tell yourself, I have all the time I need for what is important to me. Well, you know, we see what we choose to see. So if you're walking around with the story that I am harried, busy, rush, star for time,

well, Sherri, you can find evidence of that. I'm sure we can all find evidence in our lives of moments that are star harried, busy, rush, star for time. Well, Sherri, you can find evidence of that. I'm sure we can all find evidence in our lives of moments that are star for time, rushed, harried, whatever. But if you're walking around with the story that I do have time for the things that matter to me, then you're like, oh, hey, I just got my kids in bed and I have 90 minutes before I need to go to bed. I could read a book.

I'm the kind of person who reads a book. Look at me. And if it's same thing with that, it the start of the meeting is like, we have so much to get through. I have 10 meetings today. How could I possibly spend time just chatting? But here's the thing. If you all trust each other and feel like you're happy together and going to have a great meeting, because you all feel like you're in it together because of this five minutes of chat at the start, well, it's going to be a much better beating. Like you may not have to have a second meeting because somebody like just resorted to total

subterfuge over something that they weren't happy about on the previous meeting. Like it is so much better to invest the time in getting it right. I absolutely love this piece of wisdom about abundance of time mindset. It honestly feels like there's never enough hours in the day, but by slowing down and flipping the script in our brains, we do really have enough time for the things that are most important to us. And when we feel this way, we're bound to make better choices and get closer to what matters to us most. And I think that's more important than just checking off boxes. Mindset is huge when it comes to productivity. Typically, when we put off our most important

tasks over and over again, we don't feel good. We know we're not getting enough done at work and we can start to become our own worst critics. Then those negative thoughts start to impede our productivity even more, which leads us back to the importance of maintaining that iron-clad mindset. Tim's story is an expert in this. He wrote the best-selling book, The Miracle Mindset, and has been one of my favorite guests on YAP. Here's a clip from episode number 95 where Tim breaks down the Miracle Mindset and how mindset and productivity are deeply connected. So tell us about what is a Miracle Mindset? What kind of a perspective do we need to have in order to be as productive as possible and move towards our goals? So the mindset is so, so important because it's not just to rhyme, but truly the mindset will create a mood set. So if you tell a little kid that

he's going to do something exciting the next day, you've now put something in his mind and it's created a mind set. His mind is set on something. And so the mindset creates the mood set. Oh my gosh, now I'm happy. I get to do this thing tomorrow. So what I become a master at is creating my own mindset because when we were kids in Compton, California, we had seven people in a two bedroom apartment, which is very, very crowded. And then we had seven people in a Volkswagen bug, which is called illegal. You

not supposed to have that man. So I created my own mindset through the through the realm of imagination. So I started seeing things on TV, predominantly Disney things that we would see. They would come on Sunday nights and my older sisters would watch and my mind just started taking off. So my mindset became beyond. I was thinking beyond dreaming beyond. So my mindset changed my mood set that even though I was in cramped and crowded places, my sisters used to say, this guy, he walks like he's a king, but we were poor, but it was my mindset. Yeah. And so for those people who are struggling to have this strong mindset, if they find them having themselves negative thoughts all the time and they just can't get out of it. Like, what's your advice there?

So I'm gonna be good at this question because I've just spent three years writing a book as you know, called the Miracle Mentality that comes out March 1st with Harper Conds. So literally three years I've been writing with an amazing editor like Holy Schmolley this guy's so good teachers have Princeton But here's what happens

In my travels I found out that people usually live in these categories what I call the messy the shoveled the mundane Which is like the regular the status quo or Many times lived in the madness. So they lived in the messy where their life was just disheveled, okay? Are some lived in the mundane, where it's just mundane day after day after day after day with no break.

And then some lived in the madness, and I found that if you are constantly in the messy and the madness, it's hard to make room for the magic. You gotta make room for magic. And so I teach people in my seminars, don't sprinkle magic on your messy. Like, oh my gosh, I'm going with my girls,

we're going to Vegas, but you're like, all living a messy life, but you're gonna sprinkle like a magical weekend. I mean, that's great because you need to rest and live. But we got to deal with your mess to make some permanent room for magic. That's where I'm good. We have to make room for the magic.

I was so speechless when Tim dropped this line in our interview because if we're leading crazy, hectic, messy lives, we're not leaving room to see our opportunities clearly. These are all actionable steps that we can take to achieve more and more each day, creating meaningful, clear, short to do lists, changing our mindsets, and really engaging our focus

are sure fire ways to naturally increase productivity. We'll be right back after a quick break from our sponsors. Young and profitors, do you have a brilliant business idea but you don't know how to move forward with it? Going into debt for a four-year degree isn't the only path to success. Instead, learn everything you need to know about running a business for free by listening to the Millionaire University podcast. The Millionaire University podcast is a show that's changing the game for aspiring entrepreneurs. Hosted by Justin and Tara Williams, it's the ultimate resource for those who want to

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He's a senior dog but now we've been going on longer walks, and he's much more playful. He used to be pretty sluggish and sleeping all the time, but I've definitely noticed a major improvement since I started feeding him Nom Nom. And the best part, they offer a money back guarantee. If your dog's tail isn't wagging within 30 days, they'll refund your first order. No fillers, no nonsense, just nom nom. Go right now for 50% off your no risk 2 week trial at trinom.com-shap. That's trinom.nom.com-shap for 50% off trinom.com-shap. There's an actionable concept that's really simple that I'd be remiss to not bring up

in this episode, and that's the law of Goia, or simply the law of getting off your ass. Entrepreneur and bestselling author David Meltzer is a big fan of this concept. I had David on the app twice because he's just that awesome. Back in episode number 31, I had David break down the law of Goya and how we can harness Goya to be our most productive cells and maybe even start to attract the things we most desire. Number one, the law of Goya. The law of Goya is get off your ass.

Do not sit at home, I on your mom's couch dreaming about what you want, high and broken, sick. Get off your ass and work for what you want mom's couch dreaming about what you want high and broken sick. Get off your ass and work for what you want. Sacrifice for what you want. Create action because part of attraction is action. And the second phase is the law of attraction. After you put forth all the productivity, all the value that you want, then you need to

be accessible. You need to attract and access everything that you want, then you need to be accessible. You need to attract and access everything that you want. Be accessible to others and access what you want with the laws of attraction. Put your full faith into what you want, what you think, what you say, what you do, what you believe, and even the unconscious competencies of your personality traits and energy,

put all that aggregate of faith to what you want and you'll get more of what you want Mm-hmm And then finally the most hypergress aggressive part of the law of attraction or the law of getting what you want Not only do you have to have action in attraction, but you have to surrender You have to allow things to happen now that doesn't mean sit back and allow it to happen It is a hyper aggressive state. It takes Goya in attraction. You need to fight your ego. Number one, by being aware of it, what is my ego? When am I out of center? When am I out of the flow with anger, frustration,

anxiety, separation, inferiority, superiority, fear? Any of these emotions that put you on the trajectory that is not in the direct pursuit of your truth or potential. And if you can learn to number one, be aware of your ego and then stop breathe and then put yourself back onto the trajectory of truth-based consciousness, not ego-based consciousness, you will be productive and accessible. You will have efficiencies, effectiveness, and statistical success. Most importantly, you will accelerate and exponentially grow in all your pursuits, and so that you may feel that you're 10% of the way there in a year, which means in a half a year more, you'll be 20% of the way there.

And in a quarter of a year more, you'll be 40% and in the eighth of the way there and at quarter of a year more you'll be 40% and at eighth of the year more you'll be 80 and a 16th of the year 160% and a 30 second of a year you'll be at 64 100% and it goes on and on and on that's how life accelerates and grows and when people think they're not close They're a lot closer than they think they are when they think they're close They're even closer than they think they are. That's how acceleration and exponential growth works. That's what the ego does not allow you to do. It creates the corrosion and the illusion that you'll never get there. It creates the corrosion illusion that everybody else knows what's best for you,

that you are what everybody else thinks of you, that you are not worthy, that you must please everybody else. All of these different emotions are included in that ego based. And I highly encourage anyone to study ego and how it's relative to your time and productivity and accessibility. And then you can experience the flow and really, truly, not only be happy, but inspire others to inspire others to be happy. Take action and you'll start to see attraction.

We can't let what we want and need to do pass us by. By taking small steps consistently, that's progress. When we do this, we're actually chipping away at those long-term to-do lists much more than we know. But we have to make that happen for ourselves. We need to be actionable and intentional with our focus. We need to actually do something so that things can start to fall into place. It's not how much time we spend on doing something,

but rather the quality of time that we're spending on the task. And this idea reminds me of my conversation with John Lee Dumas, top podcaster back in episode number 96. Our conversation was all about working smarter, not harder. In this clip, he tells us about his batching technique and how it's changed the game for his work. I honestly don't work that hard.

Now, there is an asterisk there because I work unbelievably hard three or four days per month. Like, I'm putting in long days, and this happens to be one of them, by the way. You are one of 20 interviews I'm doing today. This is a very hard working long day. I'm doing more interviews today than most people are going to do this year, period. But, that's how I operate.

I'm either all in or I'm out. And so back to the batching thing. I'm batching interviews on other shows today. Just like last week was my interviews for entrepreneurs on fire. I did eight back-to-back interviews in one day for entrepreneurs on fire. I love it. It fits my personality because Hala, I wake up in the morning and I say today is entrepreneurs on fire day. It is my super bowl. I'm from New England so I love the Patriots. I love Tom Brady.

Tom Brady wakes up on Sundays and he's like, today is my Super Bowl. I'm going out and I'm playing a football game. I'm giving it everything I got. And that's my attitude on my interview batch days. I wake up and every interview I'm giving it everything I've got because guess what? It's my one Super Bowl. And then I'm'm gonna have two, three, sometimes four weeks before I do another one of those days. So it's not like I'm doing those days back to back because my head would explode, I'd pop off because it is a lot of work.

It is a lot of mental bandwidth and energy and it's tough and it's, you know, I'm zonked by the end of the day, but I've left it all on the table, and then that opens me up to relax the following day or the following week to focus on other things. They just kind of like keep my energy and check and balance like that. So to me, bashing is everything

because I get in the zone, I crush the interviews, and then I turn off. If I had to do one every single day, there would be days where I'm just like, oh, I just don't feel like turning on all my equipment and like getting everything all set up and I just don't feel like doing one interview today. Like, I'll have days like that for sure.

And I'm glad I don't do interviews those days. But when it's my Super Bowl, one day I've got it committed to. And again, at most two days per month for my entrepreneurs on fire interviews, man, I am 100% on all the time for those days. People see success with batching because it eliminates the presence of multitasking. Multitasking or dealing with more than one task at the same time is an absolute productivity killer. Don't take it from me, you can take it from science

and a few different studies on multitasking. First of all, multitasking can lead to as much as 40% drop in productivity. People who are interrupted and have to switch their attention back and forth, take 50% longer to complete a task. And lastly, multitaskers make up to 50% more errors when completing a task. Many of us multitask, and also many of us develop a habit of context switching, which is moving

between different tasks at once, juggling various duties simultaneously and failing to focus fully on any one of them to completion. If this feels like you, then you should really consider task batching. There's something really efficient about being in a specific zone and then knocking out similar items at once. It can help you access flow states, which enable peak performance, which we'll talk about later in this episode. Plus, when you get ready to work on a similar bunch of tasks, you can get really organized and you'll feel less stressed and frazzled. You can grab all the tools, documents, and resources you need to get started, and then just focus on everything you need to do right at hand. And with more organization and thoughts not scattered,

you're likely to be more precise and reduce any errors. Batching is one of my favorite productivity hacks personally. And I have a bunch of tips related to batching that I've learned over the years. For example, you should batch low value work for low energy parts of your day. You can set time limits, especially for your unruly tasks like email, which could take up your whole day.

When it comes to doing low value work for low energy parts of your day, I love to do email at like 3 p.m. Eastern when I'm usually in a slump. I just do all my email once and I use that low energy part of my day to do low value work. Another method that John brought up in our conversation was the Pomodora method. This is an age-old technique that encourages people to work with the time they have rather than against it. It works by breaking your workday into chunks of concentrated time, like 40 minutes, for example. You set a timer for that exact amount of time and

then once that timer goes off, you take a 20 minute break. Then after your short break, you're back to 40 minutes of focused work and then you take a 20 minute break and so on. You may have heard of this method before and so let's hear how John implements the Pomodoro method when it comes to time management to achieve more during his days. A lot of people wake up and it's all about OPP, other people's problems. They jump on email and it's about people wanting this from them, wanting that from them, meeting this. They jump on social media and it's other people's problems, other people's outrage, other people's anger. And they do all of those things first.

Like this is the first thing they get into. And then by the time they finally shift back to like what they should actually be working on and what they should be doing, like the content that they should be creating, they're zonked because their brain's been like getting pinged by all these like, help me help me help me. Hate me hate me hate me love me love me love me love me and

It just never works and they're just like oh, I don't have any energy from my own stuff right now So I'll do it tomorrow then tomorrow is a repeat of today and you never get anything unique or special Don you don't build anything meaningful So I actually wrote my first traditionally published book in 2020 and I knew that if it was going to be a great book, that I was going to dedicate the first two hours of every day to nothing else except writing that book. So I woke up in the morning, my phone was in airplane mode, it stayed in airplane mode. I came into my office here, I brewed a cup of coffee, I made some tea, I did my thing, I hydrated, but then boom, I turned my computer on and nothing came on except my word document.

And I wrote for two hours. And not two hours straight, by the way, because I'm a big believer in sprints. So for me, I've just found out over time that 42 minutes is really a great time for me to work. So I like to work for 42 minutes. I set a timer and it's called the Pomodoro method, by the way. And for those 42 minutes, I had zero distractions. 42 minutes works for me because I know that I can get a lot

done in those 42 minutes, but it doesn't seem like it's this long timeframe, this daunting. So if I knock it out 42 minutes, the timer's going, and then the timer goes off, I stop. I take 18 minutes, the remainder of that hour, the next 18 minutes, and I relax. You know, I might do some stretching, do some meditation, do some breathing exercises, and then my next 42 minutes sprint starts, and then I'm done for the day, writing for that book. I wouldn't allow myself to anymore writing.

Just those two 42 minute blocks that took a total of two hours every day. That's it. In over six months, I wrote 71,000 words, 273 pages. My book was finished ahead of schedule because I committed to that. It is great because I gave my best, most uncludded, most energized time of my day to the book writing process. And I'm convinced that's why I beat my timeline that is a great book,

and I got everything accomplished that I wanted to because I dedicated that portion of my day, the best part of my day to that process. Let's hold that thought and take a quick break with our sponsors. Hear that sound, young and profitors, you should know that sound by now, but in case you don't, that's the sound of another sale on Shopify. Shopify is the commerce platform that's revolutionizing millions of businesses worldwide. Whether you sell edgy t-shirts or offer an educational course like me, Shopify simplifies selling online and in person so you can focus on successfully growing your business. Shopify is packed with industry-leading tools that are

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or wherever you listen to podcasts. The Pomodoro method is an easy way to bring more structure into your working hours and to get more done. Quite honestly, if you're working a nine to five right now, and you're having trouble focusing, I would start with the Pomodoro method, because I think that's more attainable to implement instead of batching your time at first.

But whichever method you find works best for you, stick with it. When you create more structure into your work, you are rewiring your brain to be more efficient. And there's proof that we can hack our brains to reach peak performance levels with enough focus. Back in episode number 32, I had Stephen Kotler on and he is the peak performance and flow master. He's written books upon books about how to train our brains to reach our ultimate flow states, aka our peak performance with more ease.

Cognitive literacy is really important. It's important to understand what's going on in your brain and your body when you're performing it your best. That way you can do more of it. It's repeatable. And so what these triggers do, they do one of three things. They either drive two different neurochemicals, nor epinephrine and dopamine into your brain or they lower cognitive load.

Let me back up one step. Flow follows focus. It only shows up when all of our attention is in the right here, the right now. So that's what all these triggers do. They drive attention into the present moment. And as I mentioned a second ago, they do this in one of three ways. They either produce norrapin, ephrenar, dopamine, which among their many functions in the brain are big focusing drugs. They drive attention to the right here right now and thus propel us into flow. Or they lower cognitive load. Cognitive load is all the crap you're trying to think about at any one time.

And since your brain has a fixed energy budget, if I take away some of the stuff you're trying to pay attention to, if I lower cognitive load, you got more energy to pay attention to stuff in the present. So I'm liberating energy that you can respand on focus. So that's what these triggers do. Simplest trigger, you know, always the place I start. Can I swear on your podcast? Yes. Okay.

We work with organizations. The very first thing I do is I said, look, if you can't hang a sign on your door that says, fuck off, I'm flowing, you can't do this work. Your sunk. Forget about it. And the reason is what the research shows is to maximize flow, you need 90 to 120 minute periods of uninterrupted concentration. And Tim Ferriss has argued that if you're working on anything really, really creative,

and I think he's right on this, that at a couple times a week you should have like three four five hour really time luxurious stretches to focus on your work and for me what this really means is I get up at four o'clock in the morning and I start writing so from 4 a.m. to 8 a.m. every day I write. My phone is off, my email is off, my internet is off. In fact all that stuff gets turned off at the end of the day, the night before. So when I leave my office at the end of the day, I Skype gets turned off, the internet gets turned off, email gets shut down, my phone, my landline gets unplugged, my cell phone gets turned off, all the lights get turned off.

And I leave my computer and focus view. So all I see are the words on a page. It's all I see. It's dark outside. There's nothing but words on a page. There's no contact and that's what I do for four hours. Now sometimes I'll turn I actually will and this is, it's worth pointing this out so people don't get me wrong on this one. Sometimes what I'm writing requires research, right? Our director of research, Conor Murphy, is a coder and he works the same way when he's coding. He will flip all over the internet looking for bits of code and ideas and take this that. I'll do the same thing with research, right?

It's not to say that I totally keep my focus only on the writing. I will go elsewhere and do research and come back to the writing. That stuff happens. But I will stay focused on the task at hand, usually, you know, for four hours straight every morning. And really, that's what I've done for 30 years. It's really a foundational to peak performance. And it's really hard, right? These days, especially for people who have fear of missing out all that stuff, that shutting

down that much every day is really weird to most people. It's really hard. It's hard for companies to do. We're at a lot of companies we work with. They have house policies that say, you don't respond to this message in 15 minutes in this email in a half an hour, like you're fired kind of stuff. That's absolutely insane. Yeah.

I mean, literally it's a corporate policy that goes against our biological hardwiring. And we know when there's, you know, copious research, the late great Clifford Math, it's a corporate policy that goes against our biological hardwiring. We know when there's copious research, the late great Clifford NAS, I was at Stanford kind of proved this more than anybody else, the brain doesn't multitask. It just is not built for. It's not wired that way. You can sort of slowly over time start to train that a tiny little bit, a little more than we thought, but it really doesn't do it. So, under concentration is how we're built, and you need to maximize that for flows.

That's absolutely the place you got to start. Like Steve said, flow follows focus. And the biggest threat to our focus is distractions. So when you have high value work, make sure you set aside time where you will less likely be distracted. For Steve, that's 4 a.m. in the morning when the rest of his family is sleeping. It's also important to take measures into your own hands so that you're not distracted. That means proactively putting your phone away or turning it off or silencing your notifications.

Even though productivity is what enables this beautiful life we as humans live in 2022, it can sometimes get a bad rap, as a lot of us take it to the extreme, especially with terms like toxic productivity coming out, where we feel like we're constantly needing to be productive in order to elevate our own self-worth. A lot of the times we try to overload ourselves with work in order to feel like we've got stuff done, when in reality we're so stressed with the ourselves with work in order to feel like we've got stuff done. When in reality we're so stressed with the amount of work we're doing, and we're putting out subpar work as a result.

So we need to be able to find a happy middle ground. That's why I loved everything these experts told us. By focusing on our priorities, making smaller to-do lists, and changing our mindsets, we're creating a less stressful and more organized environment to get things done. And we learned about so many actionable techniques like time batching in the Pomodora method, which are concrete ways to divide up your time and make every minute of your workday the most efficient it can be, ultimately allowing you to work less hours and get more done.

Thanks for listening to this week's YAHPSNACs on how to be more productive. I hope you learned some actionable advice and that you'll use these words of wisdom to get more stuff done. What do you think about this episode? Let me know your main takeaway by leaving us a 5 star review on Apple Cast Box Spotify or your favorite podcast platform. You guys can find me on Instagram at Yap with Hala or LinkedIn, just search for my name, it's Hala Taha.

Big thanks to the Yap team, as always, this is Hala, sending off. Are you looking for ways to be happier, healthier, more productive and more creative? I'm Gretchen Rubin, the number one best-selling author of the Happiness Project. And every week, we share, and more creative. I'm Gretchen Ruben, the number one best-selling author of the Happiness Project. And every week, we share ideas and practical solutions on the Happier with Gretchen Ruben podcast.

My co-host and Happiness Guinea Pig is my sister Elizabeth Kraft. That's me, Elizabeth Kraft, a TV writer and producer in Hollywood. Join us as we explore fresh insights from cutting-edge science, ancient wisdom, pop culture, and our own experiences about cultivating happiness and good habits.

Every week, we offer a try this at home tip you can use to boost your happiness without spending a lot of time energy or money. Suggestions such as, follow the one-minute rule. Choose a one-word theme for the year or design your summer. We also feature segments like, know yourself better, where we discuss questions like are you an over buyer or an under buyer, morning person or night person, abundance lever

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