The Productivity Routine That Changed My Life (4 simple habits)

Harsh truth:

Most people aren’t productive because they fear the risk and responsibility that comes with working on something that is meaningful and moves the needle.

Initially, this might seem over the top.

How can you fear performing a task?

Well it’s not the task that you fear, it’s the risk and responsibility.

The risk of failing.

The risk of being judged.

The responsibility of completing it to a high standard

The responsibility of revealing a part of yourself to the world through your work.

Productivity is high stakes from a personal perspective, with each task you complete you’re putting a tonne on the line.

It’s no wonder most people aren’t productive.

But let’s take a few steps back…

What is productivity?

Well it’s not about the number of hours you work or the number of tasks you complete, it’s simply about focusing on the tasks that matter for your goals and ignoring everything else until they’re complete.

And that’s why there’s risk and responsibility.

The tasks that matter for you to be productive are meaningful.

They matter.

At least that is if you’ve consciously chosen the goals that these tasks add up to over time.

And with meaning comes responsibility and responsibility IS risk.

But that’s a good thing.

It means by being productive and completing meaningful tasks you’re taking on responsibility and creating MEANING in your day-to-day life, which means you’re taking on responsibility and creating meaning in your life as your life is simply just a sequence of days.

Most people struggle to be productive, they struggle to take on this responsibility and meaning that comes from completing important tasks and ignoring everything else until they’re done.

That used to be me - until I built this routine.

The Productivity Routine That Changed My Life

Now this routine has 4 habits but 5 parts

The first part is what I would consider “macro” and the other 4 which are the habits are what I would consider “micro” - things you do on a day-to-day basis.

Part 1

Extracting responsibility and meaning from the macro into the micro 

We’ve already went over how being productive is about taking on responsibility and meaning.

But that’s only true and you’re only productive if the work you’re doing adds up to something meaningful in the first place.

In other words, you need goals.

Remember, productivity is about focusing on the tasks that matter for your goals and ignoring everything else until they’re complete.

So you need goals so that you can complete the tasks that add up to the goals.

I’m not here to tell you what goal to set.

But it needs to be meaningful.

It needs to move you toward your dream life.

It needs to be big, it needs to be specific and it needs to have a deadline.

The main thing is that the goal has meaning.

You’re not just choosing it because it’s what you think you should do, or because that’s what other people want you to do, you’re choosing it because you’re innately pulled by it.

Once you’ve got the goal, you have to break it down until you’ve gotten a daily action.

Figure out the main task that you need to do every single day that over time will add up to you achieving your goal.

And since your goal is meaningful, these tasks will also be meaningful.

Now most people avoid the meaning and responsibility of being productive because they haven’t consciously set their goals,

So they don’t understand the meaning behind the work, the importance of it and hence, the meaning seems meaningless.

But by doing this you know what the meaning is, you know why you’ve set that goal and why the tasks are important, so you’ll gladly shoulder the responsibility of the work.

You’ve extracted responsibility and meaning from the macro into the micro.

Part 2 - My Routine 

Planning My Day

This has been one of the biggest needle movers in terms of upping my productivity.

When you don’t have a plan for your day, you’re mindlessly going through your day.

At each moment you have to stop and decide what task to do next.

And since we’re hard wired for the path of least resistance, doing this will lead to you avoiding the dragon, avoiding the most important, most meaningful tasks.

So you need to plan your day and remove this moment-to-moment decision making.

How you plan it is up to you.

But here’s what I recommend you do each night;

• Write down the tasks you need to do tomorrow that will move you toward your goals

• Write down the busy work tasks that don’t move the needle but need done

• Write down your self-improvement habits (working out, reading etc)

• Write down all your life stuff (groceries, cleaning the house, school run etc)

• Assign every single task you do to a specific hour of the day

Yes, you’re going to plan every hour of your day.

I don’t necessarily recommend everyone to do this long term as it can be too strict for some people.

BUT, I do recommend that everyone does this for at least 1 or 2 weeks.

It’s what I personally do and have done for the past 3 years.

I can go back and tell you exactly what I’ve done at every hour of every single day for the past 1000+ days

It’ll allow you to understand how much time your tasks take to complete, how much time you’re wasting, and what can be optimised slightly better.

Either way, you need a plan for your day otherwise you’re wasting both time and energy deciding when to do what.

Face The Dragon Early 

We all have a dragon in our lives.

A task so important that it almost scares us. 

There’s a tonne of friction to start it, so often we put it off.

We procrastinate.

When I started facing the dragon head on, both my productivity and my mood improved.

Now what facing the dragon means is that you do your most important tasks first.

That’s why I told you to write out your tasks in that specific order.

Because you should plan them in the order you write them.

The tasks that move you toward your goals should be the very first thing you do each day, even if that means you have to start getting up earlier.

There’s 3 reasons for this.

1. Willpower is limited

The more you use it throughout the day, the less you have later in the day.

So by putting off your most important tasks with the most amount of responsibility, that require the most amount of willpower to complete, you’re decreasing the likelihood that you complete them.

When you face the dragon, you face your most important task when your willpower is highest, meaning you’ll find it easiest to complete when you complete it first.

2. It’s an act of Self-Mastery

Nobody wants to do their hardest task first.

Nobody.

It’s tough.

But the simple act of doing it, despite not wanting to, will build your level of Self-Mastery and ripple into every other area of your life.

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3. Momentum

By getting your most important task done first you’re starting your day off with a massive win.

You instantly have momentum, you instantly feel good and you’re instantly ready to handle whatever life throws at you.

And with that, it means that if life throws a haymaker at you and messes up your day, the dragon has already been slain. 

You don’t have to worry about facing it later.

Face the dragon early.

Distraction Management

This is simple.

Everybody knows they need to do this, but almost nobody does it.

And that used to be me.

But the moment I started to manage and remove distractions from my work environment, my productivity skyrocketed.

The main distraction here is your phone.

You don’t need it.

It shouldn’t even be in the same room as you.

We are all so addicted to our phones that we’re constantly looking for the first excuse to pick it up.

And if it’s sitting on the desk behind you or worse, beside you, you’re going to pick it up eventually.

Taking you out of focus, taking you out of flow, and ruining your productivity.

Put your phone in another room (seriously).

Remove any other distractions in your environment.

Manage your distractions and manage your focus.

Enter The Arena 

One of the most important aspects of being productive is the skill of focus.

Because that’s all it is.

Focus is a skill you can build and the better you get at it, the easier it is to do, the higher the quality of your work, the more progress you make and the better your damn life will be.

So you need to practice.

Daily.

And that’s all this 4th habit is.

Do the work daily.

Don’t avoid the responsibility and meaning.

Turn and face it, enter the arena and rise to the challenge.

Because that’s what it takes.

If you have big goals, you need great results.

And you can’t get great results if you avoid doing the work you know you need to do.

You can’t get great results if you don’t be a professional and show up.

You can’t get great results if you run from the responsibility and meaning of the work that you’ve chosen to set yourself.

Every single day you must practice.

Every single day you must enter the arena.

- Ross

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