All leaders know that capturing their day in the most productive way is the only way they will reach their goals. The are extremely focused, and have a strategy to their madness. We have had the privilege of learning from the best in the industry like, Gregg Davison, Andrew Cass, and Michael Force. All three of those guys have opening shared how they capture their day. Andrew Cass has recently shared some of his EXTREME tips, and to me they don't seem as extreme as they seem necessary. Here are 5 tips and how we apply these extreme techniques to our life.

With all that in mind - consider this quote as the underlying thread.
"Your success is determined by your daily agenda." - John Maxwell.
That is so true!

5 EXTREME PRODUCTIVITY TIPS

TIP #1 - Break free from the time management myth
You can not manage time, you can only manage yourself in time. READ THAT AGAIN. You will also want to manage your mental energy, and what you spend your time thinking about. If you think negative, more negative thoughts will come. If think positive, more positive and creative thoughts will come. Manage your physical energy - without this your brain will be fussy, and less productive. When you manage your time, assign scheduled time for certain things, and avoid multi-tasking. Multi-tasking will only keep you scattered and less efficient. As a mom and dad of two small children, this one is key for us.

TIP #2 - Tackle being overwhelmed on a schedule
That sounds pretty funny, doesn't it? It is true, let me explain. How you view overwhelm will determine how you handle it. Being overwhelmed is the reality that we live in - during the information age. Schedule intake by scheduling learning, process, and planning your strategy. Create a system by doing things in a pattern and being consistent. Look at this as management of information. You will need to disconnect from the world, and get time to generate ideas, and creative time, by scheduling a few hours or a day of the week to process this information. When you take this time you will be able to plan how you can implement what you have learned. Journal this, track all of this. Batch things like emails, phone calls, and productive time. Put a start time and a finish time to an assigned task. If you don't answer your phone or email for a day or two, life will still go on. Consider turning off all distracting things a few days of the week to keep focused.

TIP #3 - Overcome the biggest time sucker in your life.
Distractions are the biggest time sucker you have in your life. They include things like emails, phones, text messages, and people. People are by far the biggest time suckers. Again, this is related to being productive and keeping a schedule of productive time. What are you allowing in your environment that will distract you? WHO do you allow in your space in a reactive mode? You automatically react to a person(s) without thinking, and let them distract you. When these distractions come up, set up boundaries. No email, no phone, and in the morning focus on revenue producing activities. For Guy and myself, shutting off the phone or email is easy, but with two small kids, we have to set aside quality time for our kids. We plan our day around them, and making sure they have what they need so we can focus on productivity in the scheduled time slot, and not do multi-tasking. Many of you moms know we are the queens of multi-tasking and even think we were created for this purpose. This shift is important to make sure we too can be productive, and achieve our goals.

TIP #4 - Leveraging your environment
This is key, identify the best environment for maximum productivity. Where are you the best at copy writing? You want to focus your energy, and some environments are distracting. This is about having spaces that bring out the best you. If you are copy writing, your best environment will most likely be different then the environment for sending emails, or phone calls. Where is the space that allows you to study the best? Intake of information is important to digest without any distractions. Find inspiring areas, solitude areas, and productive zones. It could be your home office, kitchen table, sitting on the deck, or going to a Starbucks. You decide, and assign spaces to your scheduled tasks. Keep your physical space organized, a cluttered space can lead to a cluttered mind.

TIP #5 - Place a dollar value on your time.
You will never be able to waste another hour without feeling guilty again. This is a formula that comes from experienced multi-seven figure earners. Write out this formula, and assign your hourly worth.
The formula goes like this. You project what your income goals are for the year. For example - $200,000.
You then look at 250 work days a year x 3 hours a day. (Not 8 hours - because you really only have 3 hours of revenue producing hours in a day.)
So that leaves you with about 750 hours a year that are revenue producing hours. You take your income goal, for our example $200,000 - and divide it by 750 hours = hourly worth rate of $266.66.
As your income goals expand you can see how your hourly rate goes up. I don't know about you, but clearly not an hour should be wasted if your income goals are like ours. You will easily have an hourly worth of $1000+ if you are on track to be a seven figure earner. Take this seriously, and consider it with every move you make in the day.


Let's summarize, follow this plan and you are sure to be an expert in productivity.
You can not manage time, you can only manage yourself in time
Tackle being overwhelmed on a schedule
Distractions are the biggest time sucker you have in your life
Leverage your environment
Place a dollar value on your time

A special thanks to Andrew Cass for sharing his top tips for others to learn and use for themselves. Do not under estimate the power of these tips.It could be a game changer for you too.

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