ScotthYoung.com Members Area

Ass-Kicking Email – How 30 Minutes can Double Your Productivity

Hey,

Today is about productivity. Although learning tactics are great,
much of being a successful learner is simply about organizing
yourself so you get more done with less time.

In this email:

1. I discuss the guide “Close Open Loops”
2. The 30 minutes per day that may double your productivity

—

Close Open Loops

Occasionally, I like to offer more general productivity advice as
implementation guides. This is an example of a tactic that doesn’t
only help you with learning faster, but also doing more in any area
of life.

You can get it from MONTH 6 in the CONTENT section of the website:

https://scotthyoung.com/members/?page_id=42

—

The 30 Minutes that Can Double Your Daily Productivity

One underutilized tactic for boosting productivity is forming a
morning ritual. This is where you devise a brief, but focused,
routine that you use every morning you wake up.

The power lies in the truth that getting started is the hardest part
of doing work. Once you’re already in a productive workflow, it’s
relatively easy to continue. It’s overcoming the initial hurdles of
laziness and procrastination that set most people back.

By devising a morning ritual, you preprogram yourself to start your
day off on the right foot.

Just imagine two hypothetical days.

One day you roll out of bed late. You spend an hour surfing the
internet, maybe make some breakfast and eventually take a shower.
By the time noon comes around, you have your first class and you’ve
accomplished nothing.

Now imagine a different scenario:

You wake up a bit earlier, right as your alarm clock buzzes for the
first time. You make your bed, shower and eat a light breakfast
before immediately sitting down on your most important task for the
day.

Looking at these two examples, which person would you guess
continued to accomplish work productively throughout the day?

Setting Up Your Morning Ritual

The key to the morning ritual is that it is the same, every day.
This is admittedly difficult as a student. If you stay out late at
a party, or have an early 8am class, your schedule is probably far
from consistent.

The first step is to set a 30 Day Trial where you do roughly the
same 30 minutes to start off every day.

My mistake in doing this in the past was to assume that I also
needed to wake up early in order to make the morning ritual work.
Early rising is another great productivity tactic, but it’s not
necessary to make the morning ritual effective.

That’s why I suggest trying out the morning ritual, even if you
plan on sleeping in on weekends or don’t feel like rising early.
The benefits come from having a tight routine that preprograms
yourself to be productive for the rest of the day.

Designing a Morning Ritual

Think about your most productive day ever. How did it start?

That’s the basis for designing your morning ritual. If you did
15 minutes of exercise, followed by a large breakfast and reading
a newspaper, go from there. If you woke up, had a coffee and started
work immediately, use that.

The morning ritual isn’t a template that fits everyone. It’s
something you design to trigger all your feelings of being
productive, so that those triggers push you to work effectively
during the rest of the day.

—

If you’re thinking about starting a morning ritual or any other
tactic we’ve discussed, please start a new thread about it in the
forums. I’m happy to offer advice if you need it, and the hundreds
of other members can offer encouragement.

https://scotthyoung.com/members/?page_id=109