This article is about how to be more productive… but better than that.
There’s already a ton of articles like that online so I wanted to share with you something that’s more unique.
This article has productivity tips based on only the billionaires I have studied. Billionaires are some of the most productive people in the world because they have to lead and manage thousands of people. They have to deal with thousands of requests a day and exercise prioritization to decide what task is most worth their time.
Therefore, they are one of the best people to take advice from.
I have spent years studying them through books, videos, interviews, and speeches. This includes books like 15 Secrets Successful People Know About Time Management, where the author interviewed the world’s top athletes and billionaires on time management.
Here are the top 5 ways of being more productive based on my study of billionaires:
1. Do The First Most Important Thing Of Your Day At The Beginning Of The Day
Sounds simple but how many of us actually do this every single day? I definitely didn’t. Most people go through their day doing whatever crosses their mind first. This is usually because they have been pre-programmed through most of their life to do what they’re told. Most people have spent their lives doing things based on what school told them.
When you hit the real world, you don’t have this luxury anymore if you want to be very successful.
2. Plan Your Calendar Ahead Of Time
You can’t succeed in life if you don’t have your next week planned. By failing to plan, you are preparing to fail.
How are you supposed to know what’s the #1 most important thing to do at the start of the day if you don’t spend some time planning beforehand? Set some time to write out your biggest values and goals for the next year and the next 5 years.
Make sure to keep into account values and goals that many people overlook. These include family time, doing things outside of your comfort zone, and doing what you might regret not doing when you die. People over-emphasize on certain goals like making money and regret spending too little time with their family when they die. Make sure you considered all your goals!
3. Do What’s Most Important NOW Rather Than In A Moment
The most important things in your life that you have to do are often not pleasant to do or urgent. Because it’s not pleasant, it’s easy to push it off. Because it’s not urgent, you push it off to later and never get to it.
Use this motto: if you can do it in 10 minutes, you should do it now.
John Paul DeJoria is a man who went from homelessness to billionaire. One of his best pieces of advice is that successful people do what unsuccessful people are unwilling to do. For example, when average people are too lazy to go to the gym or work an extra hour, successful people do it because they want to get ahead.
It’s not urgent to exercise daily. You won’t die immediately if you don’t. Therefore, it’s easy to push it off. And that’s what people do for years. Over time, they get overweight, unhealthy, and fat. Although I have always been skinny no matter how much I ate, I knew this I wasn’t as fit as I wanted to be and made exercising a daily habit.
It’s not pleasant to exercise either. There’s a lot of physical pain associated with lifting weights and running. Successful people are more than willing to endure present pain for future reward because their dream is bigger than their fear of pain.
4. Walk Back From Your Future Ideal Self
Here’s a great exercise to do. Picture how your ideal self is a set amount of time in the future. Let’s say you picture yourself 3 years from now.
Describe that person in detail. This might be something like “I am making $100,000 a year and I have a remote job that allows me to travel the world. I’m very healthy, fit, and successful in my dating life.”
From there, walk it back to your current situation and ask yourself what you need to do to get there. Set daily, weekly, and monthly goals that will reasonably get you there by your deadline.
In the example I used, you would realize that you have to start exercising, working on social skills, and starting to develop skills that would make you a ton of money remotely.
Those example goals may be too hard for you. However, if you set reasonable goals and try your absolute hardest, you have nothing to be embarrassed about if you fail since you gave it your all. Also, if you set high goals, you will often still get farther than you would have if you set very modest goals. It pushes you further.
A great book on this is called The Magic Of Thinking Big, which is billionaire Chris Sacca’s favorite book.
5. Use The Pareto Principle
The Pareto Principle is a rule that says that 80% of the results usually come from 20% of your work.
Believe it or not, this rule applies to many things in life. 80% of the wealth in the world is owned by 20% of the population. 80% of what restaurants you went to this month are the same 20% of the ones in your area. 80% of what you order at a restaurant is the same 20% of the items on the menu.
Use this principle to find out what you are doing that is getting most of your impact.
For example, let’s say you want to get 1 million views on the internet. There are multiple things you can try.
Let’s say you spent 5 hours on each of these tasks to try to get views: making Youtube videos, answering questions on Quora.com, and writing blog posts. After you do this, you find that you get 11,000 views. While this is a far way off from 1 million, you realize that 83% of those views came from Quora.
After you do this, you find that you get 11,000 views. While this is a far way off from 1 million, you realize that 83% of those views came from Quora. Although you spent the same amount of time on different methods, you realize that one method is working best. Therefore, you double down and spend more time on whats most impactful to get your results.
If you have tried multiple ways of making a side income and one method made you 90% of your money, that is what you should do more of. Use this same method with everything in your life that will get you closer to your goals.
It sounds simple but most people don’t do this. They don’t measure how much time they spend and therefore can’t differentiate between what has the highest impact. Measure where you spend your time and what results you are getting. If 80% of your profits are coming from 20% of your customers, focus on those customers!
If 80% of the increase in your grades came from one of many study methods you tried, double down on that method!
Final Thoughts
Successful people live three times the life of an average person because they get three times more done in a day. However, they aren’t gods with skills that cannot be duplicated. Once you understand the system they use, you can slowly overtime work to create similar results.
If you start working these time management principles into a habit, you will be able to live three times the life of an ordinary person.
Do you want more? I have a free gift for you an eBook called “10 Books That Changed The Direction Of My Life.” See what I learned after years of studying successful people by getting this free bonus at http://willyoulaugh.com/powerful-books