My $100K Productivity System - Work Less. Do More.

This productivity system helped me go from working 12 hours a day and making no progress on my business to working less than 4 hours a day and making well over $100,000 in 2023.

I built it just over year ago, at the end of 2022 and it’s made up of just 3 major parts that I’m going to break down in this newsletter (it’s a long one, so hold on tight)

The first part is the foundation.

The second part is the streamlining.

The third part is the principles.

 

Part 1: The Foundation; 

 

A system is only as strong as the foundation it’s built upon.

And a productivity system is built upon the foundation of what you believe productivity to mean.

If you want a strong productivity system, it needs to be built upon a strong understanding of what productivity is.

 

Understanding what productivity is

 

Most people think the more time you spend working and the more tasks can cross off at the end of the day, the more productive you are.

Something I subscribed to for the first 2 years of my entrepreneurial journey.

But after 2 years of following this style of thinking and getting nowhere, I realised this philosophy is fundamentally flawed.

You can spend all day doing 30 different tasks, but if those tasks don’t move you toward your goals, then you’ve just wasted your time.

So when building this system I wanted to build it upon what productivity actually is, not what most people think it is.

Productivity isn’t about cramming your day full of work just so you can shout about how “busy” you are, it’s about getting the right things done to a high quality and in an efficient way.

In other words, productivity is about moving toward your goals as effectively as possible.

And that’s the foundation that I built this system upon, it’s not about getting more done - it’s about getting more of the right things done.

 

What Moves The Needle 

 

For this system to be effective based on that foundation, you need to know what the right things are for your goals, you need to know what moves the needle.

The best way I found to figure this out, was to reverse engineer my goals down into 1-3 daily tasks.

These are tasks that you need to complete every single day that over time, will add up to your goals.

When it comes to being productive, these are your focal points, these are your priority for each day, so figuring these out is crucial.

A question I ask myself to help with this is simply “What’s essential that I do each day to achieve my goal?”

For example, my goal when building this system was to grow my audience to a certain number and achieve a certain income goal.

So I asked myself, what do I need to do each day to help me do that?

I came up with 3 essential tasks

• Create and post a piece of content daily

• Promote one of my products daily

• Build a simple funnel for my products

Theoretically, if I worked on those 3 things, every single day, I would achieve my goal.

Whatever these tasks are for you and your goal, they’re your focal point for each day and are your main priority.

 

Part 2: The Streamlining;

 

Once I built the foundation of the system and understood what my main focus points were, I wanted to streamline the doing of the work so that I could guarantee I would get it done whilst still doing everything else I needed to do in life and guaranteeing that I do the work as effectively as possible.

 

Prioritising

 

As much as your priority is the tasks that move the needle, life isn’t just that simple.

I was going to university, working 2 jobs and trying to build my online business, so I had to figure out a way to focus and prioritise what mattered for my goals, whilst still rising to my responsibilities in life.

And with the tasks that move the needle toward your goals being challenging, if you don’t prioritise them in an effective way, you’ll procrastinate doing them and opt to doing the other easier things you have to do in life

So I decided to use 2 methods to manage my life and everything I was working on.

• A 2nd brain or a life management system.

I use this as a way to track projects I’m working on, from deadlines to the next steps involved in completing it to staying on top of long-term plans such as appointments or dinners with friends or vacations that are a few weeks or more away.

This way I can stay on track of the longer-term goals and plans that I have so that I don’t get sidetracked or distracted and end up falling behind on projects or missing anything booked in the future.

I also use it to note down and develop ideas for my content and my business.

• My pocket notebook, or daily management system

I use a pocket notebook to plan my days.

I chose to do this on paper because I like how I can take it with me everywhere, I can have it open beside me at all times and because I have to put in some effort to use and create my schedule, I’m more likely to stick to it.

I start by planning my week on a Sunday, planning calls and appointments or anything else that’s set in stone.

And then the night before each day, I will write down everything I need to do that day in order of priority, starting with the tasks that move the needle.

I then plan every hour of my day, assigning each task to an hour and again, scheduling my highest priority tasks first.

This way, I’m way more likely to do them and I don’t have to worry about life throwing something in the way which messes up my schedule and stops me from doing the task.

I also get to start my day on a win by doing my most important tasks first.

I then move on to scheduling other tasks, my habits, and then my general life tasks.

This way of planning my day lets me get all my priority tasks done whilst also making time for everything else I have to do in life.

And because I schedule every task to a certain hour, I’m much more likely to do it, than if I don’t have a schedule and wing my day where I’ll tell myself “I’ll do that later”

This concept of having a life management and daily management system is crucial for productivity over both the day-to-day and the long term.

Your brain has a limited amount of bandwidth.

If you’re using it by trying to schedule your day in your head and remember everything you have to do from your work to the gym to cleaning the house and doing groceries whilst also in the back of your mind trying to remember the dinner you’ve planned in 2 months time, don’t be surprised if you have brain fog, can’t focus and can’t get anything done.

Having these 2 systems helps clear up your bandwidth so that you can focus on doing what you need to do right now, and not what you need to do later.

If you want to see exactly how I use the pocket notebook to plan my days, check out this video here

 

Deep Work + Flow

 

When I’m scheduling my day, all my important cognitive work that moves me toward my goals is scheduled in a deep work block.

This is a concept coined by Dr. Cal Newport and is a block of work that involves a 60-120 minute undistracted, fully focused block of time dedicated to doing important work.

Essentially, it’s a block of time where you do important work that moves the needle in a state of focus.

Deep work is the most productive way to work because of how it facilitates flow and focus.

Flow and focus are caused by an increase in neurotransmitters such as dopamine, norepinephrine, and acetylcholine that create a hyper-productive state where you will produce your best work in the most efficient way.

These blocks of deep work should be anywhere from 60-120 minutes and reserved solely for your highest-priority tasks.

Your ability to enter flow and perform this style of deep work is limited by your body’s ability to produce the neurotransmitters that push you into a state of deep focus.

You don’t want to waste these on tasks that don’t move the needle and it’s another reason why I like to schedule my highest priority tasks earliest in the day.

 

Distraction management 

 

When it comes to being productive, focus is your best friend.

It’ll increase the quality of your work and your efficiency at completing it.

But your worst enemy for being productive is distraction.

The last thing you want is to sit down at your desk, start working, enter flow, and then for something to distract you and take you out of focus.

Like with everything, prevention is better than a cure and if you want to prevent distraction you have to manage distractions.

The first way I manage distraction is by optimising my workspace.

My workspace is dedicated to just that, work.

This way I’m only sitting here when it’s time to work and I can train myself to know that subconsciously I’m not here to get distracted or do anything else.

If I want to watch YouTube or listen to a podcast, I do that elsewhere.

Setting up your workspace to benefit you and your focus is crucial, so having no distractions in your workspace is a necessity.

All you need is a laptop, a monitor, a notebook, a pen and water.

Everything else is just a reason to get distracted.

The 2nd way I manage distractions is through removing them before I work.

Before I sit down to work, I turn my phone off and place it on the other side of the room, I shut down all tabs on my laptop that I’m not using for work, I close my door and I get to it.

By taking 2 minutes to do this, I remove everything that could distract me during work, maximising my chances of staying in flow and being productive throughout my entire work block.

Remember, focus is your best friend and distractions are your worst enemy - so if you want to be productive, optimise your environment and manage your distractions.

 

Automate + Systemise

 

One of the main aspects of streamlining work is creating leverage, removing yourself from the work, and removing as many decisions as possible.

This involves automating or systemising the work.

I’m not a big fan of complicated automations or systems and always like to take the simplest path to an outcome.

So I follow 2 frameworks when it comes to automating and systemising.

• If a task isn’t important but still needs done, I find a way to automate it.

Whether that’s through software, ai or outsourcing.

• If a task is important, I systemise it.

Systems can vary depending on the task, but to make a system you have to start with what’s known as an SOP, a standard operating procedure, which involves writing out every step of the task.

Even by having simple automations and simple systems like SOPs, you remove decisions and create leverage, saving you time whilst maintaining quality and making you more productive.

Every quarter, I’ll go through every task I have to do and run them through this framework.

 

Part 3: The Principles;

 

A major part of this system that’s helped me be more productive are the principles.

 

Why It Matters 

 

The tasks that move you toward your goals are important because they’re what create value and drive your progress.

Since they create value they require effort to complete.

There’s a lot of friction to starting them and they’re challenging to finish.

And that’s because as humans, we’re hard-wired for the path of least resistance so that we conserve as much energy as possible, so we face a lot of resistance to doing harder things.

Whether it’s working out, doing deep work, or spending less time on our phones.

The only way around this in the long term is to understand why the tasks matter and the meaning behind them.

This way, when you sit down to do the work and you feel like procrastinating or you don’t want to do it, you’ll have a reason to overcome this resistance and go down the harder but more beneficial path to do the work that you know need to do.

How I use this in my system is that on my desk, I have a post-it note.

It says 2 things;

• Why does this work matter? and

• Remember the importance of the work

This way, when I’m feeling resistance, I can look at this post-it note and take a minute to think about why I need to do these tasks, how they add up to my goals and will push me toward my dream life and becoming all I could be.

And every time I do that, I instantly start working.

I know the meaning behind me shouldering this responsibility of completing what I’ve set out to complete.

And if I didn’t do it, I would actively be going against what I want to do, I would be working against myself.

 

Parkinson’s Law 

 

On top of that, I’ve also built into my system through planning my day the concept of Parkinsons law which states that a task will expand to fill the time allocated to it.

We’ve all been there where we had a project that’s due tomorrow and we got it done in 1 night, when it should’ve taken weeks.

This is thanks to the urgency that deadlines create and can be one of the most powerful ways to boost your productivity.

When you give yourself 2 hours to do a task, it will take 2 hours.

But if you give yourself 1 hour to do the same task, it’ll only take 1 hour.

By planning your day hour by hour, you create a sense of urgency to get the 1, 2 or maybe 3 tasks that you’ve scheduled into that 1-hour block done in that timeframe.

 

Saying “No” 

 

There’s only so much that you can get done each day, after all, you’re only awake for 16 hours a day.

And with it being easy to say “yes” to everything, you can end up cognitively overloaded and with not enough time to meet your commitments.

The only around this is to start saying “no”.

Which, for a lot of us, isn’t as easy as it sounds.

So I use a simple framework to help me judge what I should “yes” to.

• Does the help me achieve my goals?

• Does this distract me from my goals?

• Do I want to do it?

• How does this affect my other commitments?

This way I can figure out if an opportunity is really an opportunity or if it’s just another distraction.

 

Energy Management 

 

If you take on too much, your mental bandwidth gets used up and it means you have less cognitive effort left to apply to what matters for your goals - so you can’t be productive and you can’t make any progress.

The same thing happens if you neglect your energy.

If your energy is low or inconsistent, you can’t apply your focus or cognitive effort in the way you need to, to get the results that you want to get.

Managing your energy and being high energy is key and so I’ve built this into the broader schemes of my system, revolving around 3 areas.

The first is sleep.

I make sure I get 7-9 hours of high quality sleep each night.

The second is nutrition.

I avoid junk food and sugar, and eat at least 1 gram of protein per lb of bodyweight each day

The third is training

I lift weights 5 days a week but do something daily to make me sweat.

This system is quite extensive, so I won’t cover it in this newsletter, but if you want me to make an edition going over the system I use for maximising my health and energy, let me know by replying to this email.

 

Time To Do Nothing 

 

In the gym, you wouldn’t train hard and then skip recovery and expect to make gains or even train to your best abilities in the next session.

Your mind is no different.

If you don’t give it time to recover from the cognitive load you place on it throughout the day, it won’t recover and your productivity will be limited.

When I’m scheduling my day, I dedicate time to doing nothing.

This doesn’t mean I can sit there and scroll my phone, watch netflix or play video games.

Recovery for your mind involves you disconnecting from stimulation and letting your mind think and breathe.

You can walk, you can meditate, you can journal or you can just sit there.

Regardless, your mind is like a muscle, it needs time and space to think in silence so that it can recover.

If you value your productivity or your creativity, spend time doing nothing each day and let your mind relax.

 

 

This productivity system completely changed how I work, what I get done, and my quality of life.

But it’s useless if you don’t have mastery of yourself to build it and then implement it consistently over the long run.

If you want to master yourself so you can master your life - click here

- Ross

  

 

And when you’re ready, here’s how I can help you:

• Achieve Self-Mastery, unlock your true potential, and smash every goal you set with MasteryOS

• Join the waitlist for cohort 2 of Done In 4

• Learn how to build a multi-6-figure audience and business with Personal BrandBldr