The Space Shuttle, Habit Gravity, and Escape velocity
How to make 2022 The Year of Your Dreams
--
The space shuttle is the world’s first spacecraft that can carry satellites to and from orbit. When it is launched, it moves like a rocket, navigates the Earth’s orbit, lands like an airplane. It has two rocket boosters that provide the lift during the first two minutes of light. These propel the shuttle forward at escape velocity for a maximum of 2 minutes. This is the way habits work.
How to Double Your Productivity in 2022
We are in a new year and it is that time when people set new goals for 2022. The proactive group follows the 5-Hour Rule and has an idea of the things they want to achieve in the new year. If you don’t have that in place, not worry. It’s not too late.
I had the conviction to put this information out so that as many people as possible can make use of the information and have a more accomplished year. There are two things that can almost guarantee that you would double your productivity this year. If you do these two things consistently, you will double your productivity even though you might feel already maxed out with everything you’re trying to get done each day.
In addition, you will have time for the things that matter to you and you will greatly reduce your stress and overwhelm. This is a very simple and efficient system.
Imagine working 80 hours a day for a week. And things are going well, but you hardly have time for yourself or for things that matter to you. Does this look like you?
Are you in a situation where you wake up in the morning and the first thing you do is to respond to emails? And you notice that by the time you are going to bed you have your energy has been maxed out.
Are you looking at opportunities before you and do you still have projects to execute?
One major thing that robs us of productivity is a distraction. We live in a distracted society where the majority of people can’t hold their focus for a long time. Research has shown that humans now have a shorter attention span than goldfish.
People lose concentration after 8 seconds, and this highlights the effects of an increasingly digitized lifestyle on the brain.
Today, many young people are more forgetful than some older folks. This is because we are not focusing, rather, we are always multitasking and distracted. We have information going in all the time and little gets absorbed into the brain. It Is a snacking culture- we flip through videos clips and notifications, and then we move on to the next one. We don’t eat full, healthy, and nutritious meals. Instead, we snack mindlessly through the day.
Traditional productivity methods like goal-setters, to-do lists, and planners do not work as effectively anymore because there are roadblocks to productivity. Technology and information are multiplying exponentially and this trend is set to continue.
Have you ever been up at night just thinking about all the things you have to do? Oftentimes we can’t shut off our minds. We get into distraction behaviors in an attempt to get some release of stress but this doesn’t work.
People brag about multitasking like it is something to brag about. We think we are getting more done by multitasking, doing many things at once. But the truth of the matter is that we are not being more productive.
Multitasking is not an efficient way to work because when switching from one task to another there is an interruption period. When you are interrupted in the middle of something and go back to it, it takes at least 20 minutes to get to the point you were initially. If you keep getting interrupted every 20 minutes that means you are not able to get anything done for that day.
The inner game of productivity
Why do we get an incredible number of things done the day before we leave for a vacation? How do we manage to get many times what we would have gotten done in an entire week in just one day? It’s because we have not mastered the inner game of productivity.
It’s about getting your head straight so that there is no friction or resistance when it comes time to take action on the things that give you the highest leverage for your time. When you remove resistance to taking action you have an upper hand in the inner game of productivity. Public history is preceded by a private victory internal success proceeds public success.
In my opinion, you should only be doing one of two things at any given time:
1. Do what you are great at and what you really enjoy doing and create massive value for others. That’s one thing you are talented at and passionate about that gives high value to others and you get paid a lot to do.
2. Disconnect and recharge your mind body and emotion. Take time to rejuvenate and re-energize.
Productivity starts with recharging yourself
Take care of yourself first emotionally, physically, and mentally take time out to recharge yourself through prayer, exercise, and things that energize you physically mentally, and emotionally. This will help you to be more productive. This could be an activity like jogging, taking a quick game of basketball, taking a walk in the neighborhood, just something that you can stick to and enjoy, that re-energizes you physically, emotionally, and mentally.
You could also keep a notepad where you write out the things you’re grateful for. Or you write out your achievements or accomplishments that will inspire and motivate you. This step may sound so simple but it is very important to create a routine where you exercise and take care of yourself. It increases your productivity over time.
It also gives you the energy to focus so you can be able to get yourself to do the things you know you should do and every day you can be like the day before your vacation where you are energized and inspired to do work in a day that you would have ordinarily not been able to do in a week. If you are able to do just this one thing every day you are bound to achieve more because you feel more energized and inspired and you have the focus to be able to do what you need to accomplish.
The outer game of productivity
This is where we get into the nitty-gritty details of what we need to do in order to be more effective and start getting the results we want in our lives and businesses. How are we able to take more time off to get the rejuvenation we need even though we have so much to do. How do we deal with distractions and interruptions that take us away from the work we are supposed to do that can make a difference in our lives and the lives of others?
The 80/20 rule
Alfred Pareto noticed that 80% of the land in Italy was owned by 20% of the people. He kept looking around and observed that this ratio held through in business in economics in scientific discoveries and productivity. For instance, 20% of the employees in an organization do 80% of the work. 80% of the results you are getting now come from just 20% of your actions.
Organize your work based on the value
You need to put the big rocks into your day first otherwise, your day is filled up with activity and you are not able to cover the most important things. You don’t put if you don’t put the big rocks in first you can never get them to fit in. And you need to identify your most valuable activities and then install them in your day ahead of time.
Time management is a misnomer. The challenge is not to manage time, but to manage ourselves. The number one thing Warren Buffet takes into consideration when making his biggest investment is the alternatives. In Economics, it is known as opportunity cost.
If there is a more valuable opportunity in the market it doesn’t matter what the risk level is or what the value of the stock is. Wyatt Woodsmall has a saying that “it’s what you are doing when you are not doing what you’re supposed to be doing that is the problem.”
The Productivity Pyramid
Remember I mentioned that you need to fit the big stones into the bucket first. Identify those activities that bring the highest returns. Having done this, the next thing is to organize your week around those things that bring the highest value.
Start by drawing a pyramid. At the base of the pyramid is the activities that have a low or negative value. Those are activities that zap your energy or productivity killers. Next comes the low Dollar value activities. Afterward, the high-dollar value activity period and the high lifetime value activities. These are the activities that pay again and again.
Activities like investing like reaching out to new customers, hiring new people to work on a business, and getting new partners. These are the things that will pay us again and again.
Once we are able to identify the highest value activities that give us the highest leverage — the 20% of action that gives us 80% of results. Then it is time to structure how to execute them.
The Pomodoro Technique
Also known as the 60–60–30 Solution, this is where you work to focus blocks of time on your highest value-creating activities. With this, we are taking advantage of the body’s natural cycle of focus and relaxation. It is a big mistake to power through the day without taking any breaks. This leads to burnout.
Consistency
Just because you work out at the gym one day it doesn’t mean you are going to be fit for Life. You need to be consistent with the practice to gain the most benefit period. You need to make it a habit, not something you just do once in a while.
Conclusion
We live in a digitized world. This gives us a tendency to be easily distracted. As a result, you need to be intentional about your habits and activities. If you apply the things mentioned in this article, I can guarantee that 2022 would be the year of your dreams.
