Speaker 1: I got our team happy, bloody, terrific. Welcome to another
Speaker 1: installment of the show. I want to talk to you
Speaker 1: today about efficiency, and this is an area of interest
Speaker 1: and at times concerned for me, because I have had
Speaker 1: and do have a propensity to be periodically inefficient. Now
Speaker 1: let me just preface this with saying I don't think
Speaker 1: every day needs to be about efficiency and high performance
Speaker 1: and ticking boxes and results and outcomes and productivity and
Speaker 1: of course not. But I think in general terms, you
Speaker 1: and I, when it comes to doing the things that
Speaker 1: we want to do with work, with projects, with our health,
Speaker 1: with creating certain outcomes on planet us, whatever those outcomes
Speaker 1: are given the option to be inefficient or efficient, all
Speaker 1: of us are going to choose efficient. Because I have
Speaker 1: a pretty busy diary most days, most weeks, most months.
Speaker 1: You know that include seven podcasts a week minimum. There's
Speaker 1: seven of these seven new projects, and then there's often one,
Speaker 1: two or three podcasts that I do on somebody else's show.
Speaker 1: And then of course there's my research, my PhD that
Speaker 1: you know is drawing to a close, thankfully. Then there's
Speaker 1: all my corporate speaking work, which is I guess, on average,
Speaker 1: two times a week one hundred times a year, give
Speaker 1: or take. And then there's public workshops and events, and
Speaker 1: there's online stuff, and there's face to face stuff, and
Speaker 1: then there's a bit of coaching and a bit of consulting,
Speaker 1: and then there's a bit of lifting weights every day,
Speaker 1: seven days a week. And then there's my commitment to
Speaker 1: walk kind of about ten kilometers a day. And then
Speaker 1: there's the old people that I love the most, my
Speaker 1: mum and dad, who are eighty five years I hate
Speaker 1: it when people say young. Let's just say eighty five
Speaker 1: years old, because that is exactly what they are. And
Speaker 1: you know, so I've got a I don't have to
Speaker 1: of course, I want to spend time with them, look
Speaker 1: after them, love them, make sure they're okay. So that's
Speaker 1: something that needs to be factored in high on my
Speaker 1: priorities every day and every week. And so you know,
Speaker 1: when you put all of that together, and trying to
Speaker 1: get some quality sleep and trying to eat some quality
Speaker 1: food and also prepare quality food because I live by myself,
Speaker 1: and then have a bit of fun and a few
Speaker 1: laughs and you know, lift heavy shit with my mate
Speaker 1: and all of that and be a good human. It's
Speaker 1: very easy with so many variables and so many things
Speaker 1: and so many factors to be inefficient. And so I think,
Speaker 1: and I've said this before, I think we can have
Speaker 1: but I think a lot of us do have, if
Speaker 1: not all the time, a lot of the time or
Speaker 1: some of the time, but we do have this tendency
Speaker 1: to kind of operate on autopilot, to live kind of
Speaker 1: unconsciously and do the thing that we did yesterday and
Speaker 1: the day before and the week before and the month before,
Speaker 1: and do that thing not because it works well, or
Speaker 1: not because it's optimal, or not because it's efficient, but
Speaker 1: just because we are in the habit. We are in
Speaker 1: the unconscious habit of doing that thing that way. So
Speaker 1: I think it's good to, as I always say, to
Speaker 1: maybe put up our operating system, our day to day
Speaker 1: operating system, up on the old hoist, the metaphoric hoists,
Speaker 1: so that we can walk around and have a look
Speaker 1: at it and see what's working, what's efficient, what's inefficient,
Speaker 1: what's optimal, what's suboptimal, what kind of results we're getting.
Speaker 1: So I guess efficiency is it's getting the most output
Speaker 1: from the least input. And that doesn't mean we're not
Speaker 1: trying it just means what is the best what is
Speaker 1: the best return on investment physical, mental, emotional, time, skill, knowledge, whatever,
Speaker 1: What is the best ROI that I can get doing
Speaker 1: this thing now, whether or not that is you know,
Speaker 1: time or energy, or money or effort or resources or
Speaker 1: all of those other things. It's about doing things well
Speaker 1: with minimal minimal what minimal waste? I guess. So, in
Speaker 1: simple terms, efficiency is, for example, I'm going to give
Speaker 1: you some examples so we're clear, and then I'm going
Speaker 1: to give you some strategies along the way, and then
Speaker 1: I'm going to give you some questions that you can
Speaker 1: ask yourself and then operationalize off the back of that,
Speaker 1: so that you might if you feel like you're not
Speaker 1: always efficient or you are wasting like I said, time, energy, resources, skills,
Speaker 1: that you might be able to think better, do better,
Speaker 1: create better. So it's lifting heavier with better form and
Speaker 1: less effort. That's an example of efficiency. I'm doing a
Speaker 1: better weight or a heavier weight perhaps, or maybe I'm
Speaker 1: lifting the same weight but with better form, and now
Speaker 1: I'm going to get best, better results and over time
Speaker 1: when I train well, So when the quality is high,
Speaker 1: not just the quantity, but when the quality is high.
Speaker 1: Now I'm getting the best return on investment because one
Speaker 1: my body needs to adapt. I'm going to build more
Speaker 1: strength and there's going to be more muscle, or there's
Speaker 1: going to be more fitness or flexibility or range of
Speaker 1: movement or whatever fitness variable it is that I'm trying
Speaker 1: to stimulate to respond. Right, I'm going to get a
Speaker 1: better outcome because I'm doing it a better way. It's
Speaker 1: not junk training, it's not trash training, and it's not
Speaker 1: taking forever. Efficiency is solving a problem in five minutes
Speaker 1: that used to take you thirty. It's having a ten
Speaker 1: minute conversation that creates more clarity than a fucking thirty
Speaker 1: minute waffle fest. You know those meetings where you go
Speaker 1: and sit in meetings. I don't sit in lots of them,
Speaker 1: fortunately because I work for me, but I do sit
Speaker 1: in enough of them where I'm thinking, fucking hell, we
Speaker 1: could have all done. We could have said all of
Speaker 1: this shit much more succinctly, much more quickly. We could
Speaker 1: have been in and out with more clarity, less confusion,
Speaker 1: and less bullshit in one fifth of the time. And
Speaker 1: for a range of reasons that often doesn't happen. But
Speaker 1: I think for those of you who can control that,
Speaker 1: like if it's your meeting or it's your business, or
Speaker 1: you can somehow influence the way that that goes, or
Speaker 1: maybe you can even suggest bravely, I feel like we
Speaker 1: could be more efficient even if you're not in charge.
Speaker 1: But I feel like we take sixty minutes to do
Speaker 1: ten to fifteen minutes of work, because sometimes that's just true,
Speaker 1: and sometimes we need to be brave enough to say it.
Speaker 1: Efficiency is writing an email once that answers ten people's questions.
Speaker 1: It's about writing. In my case, it was about writing
Speaker 1: a global or a generalized auto reply to the myriad
Speaker 1: of emails that I would receive. So one of the
Speaker 1: things Melessa. If you don't know who Melessa is, she
Speaker 1: runs my life. She's amazing. She's my business partner, business manager,
Speaker 1: much smarter than me, et cetera, et cetera. Melissa would
Speaker 1: spend some days four or five hours responding to all
Speaker 1: the emails that would come through my website, and without
Speaker 1: being rude, a lot of those were people wanting something
Speaker 1: for free essentially, or people are asking me a question
Speaker 1: that with respect, I just don't have the time or
Speaker 1: energy to be able to answer deeply personal things sometimes
Speaker 1: and things that it's not It's not my role to
Speaker 1: do that. It's not my role to sort through seven
Speaker 1: hundred emails a week and dispense personal advice. My gift
Speaker 1: to the world, if it's a gift, is what I'm
Speaker 1: doing now, which is sharing my thoughts and ideas and
Speaker 1: my knowledge and my inspiration in a way where speaking
Speaker 1: of efficiency, I can reach a lot of people at once.
Speaker 1: Me spending thirty minutes like I am right now talking
Speaker 1: to thousands of humans like I am right now or
Speaker 1: who will hear it eventually, is way more efficient than
Speaker 1: me grinding away with one on one responses that come
Speaker 1: through my email. So what I did was I wrote
Speaker 1: a really thoughtful, really comprehensive email where I basically answered
Speaker 1: every potential question and set everything clearly so that people
Speaker 1: would know this is not a personal advice column. This
Speaker 1: is not you know it is what it is. Love
Speaker 1: you all, thank you for your support. But I can't
Speaker 1: be a personal advisor or counselor, or nutrition coach or
Speaker 1: fitness coach. So if you want personal advice, there's a
Speaker 1: lot of people who can do that, but I'm not
Speaker 1: that person, right And that just that one email reduced
Speaker 1: Melissa's work in that space by ninety eight percent. It's
Speaker 1: about efficiency. Is about a ten minute zoom call instead
Speaker 1: of a two hour round trip in person meetings that
Speaker 1: I have I often so before and events I have
Speaker 1: pretty much every event, one hundred events a year what's
Speaker 1: called an event briefing. And people will want to will
Speaker 1: often want me to come to them. Now I live
Speaker 1: twenty five thirty minutes out of the city in Melbourne,
Speaker 1: they would want me to drive into the city quite often,
Speaker 1: find a park, go and find them, sit with them,
Speaker 1: have a conversation that we could have honestly had on
Speaker 1: the phone, but way more conveniently, and still being able
Speaker 1: to see each other and interact and all of those
Speaker 1: things on zoom. So when it's possible, which is most
Speaker 1: of the time, I would say to people, love to
Speaker 1: meet with you, love to answer your questions, love to
Speaker 1: sit with you and look at you and connect with you.
Speaker 1: But rather than me spend two hours out of my day,
Speaker 1: can we spend ten to fifteen minutes on a zoom call.
Speaker 1: And if it takes twenty or thirty that's also okay.
Speaker 1: And ninety nine percent of the time they go, oh yeah, sure,
Speaker 1: of course, of course, but you need to be able
Speaker 1: to with these things, recognize that you do it politely.
Speaker 1: There's no real advantage for either of us on either
Speaker 1: side with me sitting in a room across the table
Speaker 1: versus me sitting at the desk where I am, and
Speaker 1: then sitting at a desk. There might be one or
Speaker 1: two things, to be honest, but in general terms, it
Speaker 1: really doesn't make any difference, and it saves everyone a
Speaker 1: lot of time and it's a lot more efficient, especially
Speaker 1: for me. It's about efficiency, is about doing a thirty
Speaker 1: minute workout of compound movements in the gym. Sometimes sometimes
Speaker 1: I will go in and I will do something like
Speaker 1: deadlifts and chin ups and push ups and maybe a
Speaker 1: version of squats or leg press. I'll do four exercises.
Speaker 1: I'll do them pretty much back to back. There'll be
Speaker 1: minimal recovery. I'll hit pretty much every major muscle group
Speaker 1: in my body. I'm building strength, my heart rates up,
Speaker 1: so there's a cardio component to it. I'm training effectively efficiently,
Speaker 1: I'm using good technique, I'm not chatting, I'm not wasting time.
Speaker 1: And obviously I don't do this all the time, just
Speaker 1: sometimes when I really need to be in and out.
Speaker 1: But I can do a thirty minute session that would
Speaker 1: equate to what a lot of people would do in
Speaker 1: seventy five or sixty minutes. But we just need to
Speaker 1: make sure that we know what we're doing and we're
Speaker 1: optimizing everything once we get into that environment. It's about
Speaker 1: For me, efficiency is about the guy that does my
Speaker 1: garden doing my garden. Because the guy that does my
Speaker 1: garden awesome me. Shit he can do in sixty minutes
Speaker 1: with his skills and his tools and his knowledge and
Speaker 1: his experience and his energy. He can do in sixty
Speaker 1: minutes what I will do not very well in three hours.
Speaker 1: And not only that, I can pay him a decent
Speaker 1: hourly rate for him. But while I'm paying him that
Speaker 1: Ali rate, I'm doing other shit and making a better
Speaker 1: HOLI rate. So bibbity Bobby boo. He's happy. I'm happy.
Speaker 1: I don't have to do the thing that I don't
Speaker 1: really like doing. I'm not great at it. I love
Speaker 1: being in the garden. I love looking at the garden.
Speaker 1: And some of you are going.
Speaker 2: To go, oh, perhaps it's therapeutic. You know what, it's
Speaker 2: therapeutic if you love doing it. If you fucking hate
Speaker 2: doing it, it ain't therapeutic. So I will continue to
Speaker 2: look at it and sit in it, and I mate
Speaker 2: will work in it him gladly. I pay him more
Speaker 2: than he gives me a bill for every time.
Speaker 1: So he loves me and I love what he does.
Speaker 1: So it's about efficiency. And the same thing goes with
Speaker 1: everything you know with Melissa that I mentioned before. There,
Speaker 1: Let's say there's fifty things that need to be done
Speaker 1: on the U project and through Craig harpadot Net and
Speaker 1: all the meetings and all the events and all the
Speaker 1: camps and all the things that we do. If there's
Speaker 1: fifty things that need to be done, there's at least
Speaker 1: twenty five of those things that Melissa is better at
Speaker 1: than me, at least probably thirty five, probably forty five,
Speaker 1: let's be honest. And now that doesn't mean she does
Speaker 1: forty five and I do five. But what that means
Speaker 1: is we both of us go all right, these are
Speaker 1: all the things that we need to do. Also, Tiff
Speaker 1: works with us as well, who's amazing, and we go
Speaker 1: all right, Well, between Tiff and Melissa and Fatty Harps,
Speaker 1: who's going to do what who's going to do what?
Speaker 1: So the question is what is the best use what
Speaker 1: is the best use of Tip? What is the best
Speaker 1: use of Melissa? And what is the best use of me?
Speaker 1: And so the question that I ask myself a version
Speaker 1: of this question every day is based on what I
Speaker 1: want to do, be, create and change today. What's the
Speaker 1: best use of me? What's the most efficient use of
Speaker 1: my time? Knowledge, skills, energy? And then when I ask
Speaker 1: with a question like that, what it does? It gives
Speaker 1: me clarity, It gives me focus, it gives me intention,
Speaker 1: and off the back of all of that, it gives
Speaker 1: me a plan and a timetable. Now I have, essentially
Speaker 1: I have a to do list because at the start
Speaker 1: of the day I jumped into it consciously, thinking critically.
Speaker 1: I didn't just jump into another groundhog day doing what
Speaker 1: didn't work yesterday, last week, month, here. I started the
Speaker 1: day with a good intention and the intention is was
Speaker 1: is today. I want to be efficient and effective. I
Speaker 1: want to get the most out of me, the most
Speaker 1: out of my energy. I want to get the most
Speaker 1: out of my day, my relationships, my conversations. I want
Speaker 1: to get the most out of everything. How do I
Speaker 1: do that? How do I get the most out of
Speaker 1: Melissa in this working relationship? How do I get the
Speaker 1: most out of me? How do I get the most
Speaker 1: out of Tiff? Now, also with those questions comes what
Speaker 1: does Tiff want to do? Melissa want to do? What
Speaker 1: does Craig want to do? And of course the other stuff.
Speaker 1: It's not just all about efficiency. It's about purpose, it's
Speaker 1: about having fun, it's about having a laugh. But today
Speaker 1: specifically we're talking about efficiency. And so the challenge for
Speaker 1: us is to figure out what is the operating system
Speaker 1: or what is the paradigm, or what is the protocol
Speaker 1: or the process? Pick any of those big sciency words
Speaker 1: that works best for me. It's best for me. So
Speaker 1: I might even say, well, how do you listener? How
Speaker 1: do you study most effectively? Now, if you're like a
Speaker 1: lot of people, sitting down with a big fat book
Speaker 1: or staring at a screen full of words for an
Speaker 1: hour is probably not the most effective way for you.
Speaker 1: I don't know what it is for you, But for
Speaker 1: some people, the most effective way to study is to listen.
Speaker 1: For some people it's to read a little bit and
Speaker 1: then write stuff down, then highlight some of the stuff
Speaker 1: they wrote down, then go over those notes later not
Speaker 1: nates notes, and then to read another bit to read
Speaker 1: it out loud perhaps rather than when I read stuff
Speaker 1: out loud, it goes in more, by the way, even
Speaker 1: when and I recall it better, even when I'm by myself.
Speaker 1: If I really want to remember something or I want
Speaker 1: to lock it in, I read it out loud because
Speaker 1: when I'm reading it out loud, I'm much more present
Speaker 1: and much more focused versus I can literally read something
Speaker 1: on a screen while be thinking about while I'm thinking
Speaker 1: about something else, But when I'm reading something out loud,
Speaker 1: I can't do that because I'm totally present. So one
Speaker 1: of the things that I used to do I don't
Speaker 1: do as much anymore, but a version of it sometimes.
Speaker 1: But in my first degree, there was no AI. There
Speaker 1: was the Internet was there, but it was really really fundamental.
Speaker 1: But what I used to do was and I'm just
Speaker 1: giving you an example of efficiency. When I first started
Speaker 1: my first degree, I could not study, I couldn't concentrate.
Speaker 1: It was all bloody. It was terrifying, it was arduous,
Speaker 1: it was uncomfortable, It was inefficient, it was ineffective. It
Speaker 1: was all of that. So what I learned over time,
Speaker 1: for me. And again, remember we're always trying to figure
Speaker 1: out how do I work optimally. What I figured out
Speaker 1: for me was if I read. Let's say I'm reading
Speaker 1: a paragraph of something in a book or on a
Speaker 1: on a screen. So I'll read the paragraph and I'll
Speaker 1: try to comprehend it, and then I would I mostly
Speaker 1: started with books first time round, not online as in,
Speaker 1: you know. The stuff that I needed to read and
Speaker 1: absorb would be generally through books or papers. Then I
Speaker 1: would read whatever it is i'm reading again, I would
Speaker 1: read it with a highlight or I've literally got two
Speaker 1: highlighters about six inches from my hand right now. I
Speaker 1: still use highlighters all of the time. I would read
Speaker 1: the stuff in the paragraph. I would read the paragraph
Speaker 1: I should say. Then I would highlight the stuff that
Speaker 1: for me was the most important stuff I thought I
Speaker 1: needed to know, remember and recall. And I would do
Speaker 1: that for hours. And I would sometimes do ten or
Speaker 1: fifteen minutes. Then I would go get a drink, Car'd
Speaker 1: do another ten, fifteen minutes, I'd do some squats and
Speaker 1: push ups. I do another ten. I'd just do what.
Speaker 1: Sometimes it'd be seven, sometimes it'd be twenty four. Right,
Speaker 1: there's no set protocol, but it was as long as
Speaker 1: I've felt I was present and I was absorbing as
Speaker 1: well as I could. Now, I'd do that for hours
Speaker 1: on and off in my little installments, and then at
Speaker 1: the end of the study session, I would get out.
Speaker 1: I had a digital recorder, so this is before we
Speaker 1: had recorders in phones, but I had a digital recorder,
Speaker 1: and I would record all the highlighted stuff into my recorder. Right,
Speaker 1: so now I'd read it multiple times, I'd highlight highlighted
Speaker 1: it is that the word highlighted, highlighted, and then I'd
Speaker 1: read it, so I'd read it, and now I can
Speaker 1: listen to it. And then what I would do is
Speaker 1: wherever I would be going, if I was going for
Speaker 1: a walk, if I was going for a drive, if
Speaker 1: I was heading somewhere. Not all of the time, but
Speaker 1: a lot of the time, I was listening to the
Speaker 1: stuff that I'd read, that i'd highlighted, and that I'd recorded,
Speaker 1: because for me, that helped lock it in, so I
Speaker 1: could literally hear the same information five, ten, fifteen, twenty
Speaker 1: times without doing the thing that I hated or didn't enjoy,
Speaker 1: which was sitting looking at a book in a room
Speaker 1: where there are so many other awesome things I could
Speaker 1: be doing other than looking at this fucking book in
Speaker 1: this fucking room and trying to remember this shit that
Speaker 1: I'm trying to remember. So for me, that was a
Speaker 1: way of becoming more efficient and more effective. But you
Speaker 1: need to find out your efficiency protocol every day. I
Speaker 1: suggest that you start with a clear focus, a clear intention,
Speaker 1: and they're from there, you know, and asking me what
Speaker 1: do I need to do today, Like what's the most
Speaker 1: efficient use of me time, energy? All that. Then off
Speaker 1: the back of that, build a plan for the day.
Speaker 1: If not do it the night before, what do I
Speaker 1: want to do tomorrow? What's the best use of me tomorrow? Cool?
Speaker 1: Then you get up, you've already got to do, list,
Speaker 1: your timetable, your plan, and then you jump into it.
Speaker 1: And I think, also also speaking of efficiency, we need
Speaker 1: to learn to say no to the things that don't
Speaker 1: align to the things that don't align with our purpose
Speaker 1: and our mission and our goals and our intentions, and
Speaker 1: to protect the time that we have doing what matters,
Speaker 1: because it's so easy just to go down a rabbit
Speaker 1: hole of bullshit. Now, by the way, rabbit holes I
Speaker 1: think are fine, but maybe we need to go. You
Speaker 1: know what, I'm done. It's five o'clock in the day.
Speaker 1: I'm done. I don't need to be more productive or
Speaker 1: efficient today. I'm just going to fuck off and have fun.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna lift shit, I'm going to eat some shit.
Speaker 1: I'm going to watch some Netflix, and I'm gonna I'm
Speaker 1: going to jump online and look at two hundred motorbike
Speaker 1: reviews as is often my way or whatever. Right, But
Speaker 1: we know that we're doing that and we're okay with it.
Speaker 1: We're not doing it because we got distracted. We're not
Speaker 1: doing it because we're being inefficient. So I want to
Speaker 1: give you some questions that you can hear and then
Speaker 1: potentially write down and then potentially operationalize. Question number one,
Speaker 1: is am I efficient? Am I busy? Am I both?
Speaker 1: Or am I neither? Am I efficient? Just busy, both
Speaker 1: or neither. Sometimes we're busy and also efficient. Sometimes we're
Speaker 1: busy and inefficient, and sometimes we're not busy, but we're
Speaker 1: really efficient. Which that's kind of a beautiful scenario, isn't it.
Speaker 1: Where we're really we're really being effective with all of
Speaker 1: the things that we have at our disposal to do
Speaker 1: the work, to create the outcome and questions that I've
Speaker 1: already mentioned. I'll just repeat, what's the best use of
Speaker 1: my time? Etc? Am I best person for this task?
Speaker 1: You know? Should someone else do this? Also, here's a
Speaker 1: good question, when am I most efficient? I think everybody has,
Speaker 1: for want of a better term, I've never heard this term.
Speaker 1: I'm making it up as we go, an efficiency window. Right,
Speaker 1: we have a time of the day, not everyone. I mean,
Speaker 1: some people are awesome in the morning, then they lag
Speaker 1: in the day, and then they have a bit of
Speaker 1: a bloody a burst at night. Melissa seems to be
Speaker 1: like that. Melissa seems to come to life after six
Speaker 1: She's like a fucking efficiency vampire. I don't know what
Speaker 1: that is about, but knowing how your body and your
Speaker 1: brain and your mind and your nervous system and your
Speaker 1: focus and your attention and your efficiency are all intertwined,
Speaker 1: I know for me, I tend to be better before
Speaker 1: three o'clock, two o'clock in the morning. I'm often sometimes
Speaker 1: I feel fucking amazing. I feel literally smarter in the morning.
Speaker 1: I feel literally and well. We do know that people
Speaker 1: score higher and lower on IQ tests at certain times
Speaker 1: of the day and under certain circumstances and conditions. That's
Speaker 1: a really interesting topic for another day. But because by
Speaker 1: the way, your IQ as a measure is a variable,
Speaker 1: that's not a constant. So which is why depending on
Speaker 1: a bunch of variables, you could do the same IQ
Speaker 1: or the same kind of quality of IQ tests, not
Speaker 1: the same questions, but the same style of IQ test
Speaker 1: ten times and you would be scored potentially at ten
Speaker 1: different levels of IQ depending on a myriad of things. Anyway,
Speaker 1: I'm getting off efficiency. Here are some more questions for
Speaker 1: you to think about. Is there a simpler, faster, or
Speaker 1: smarter way to this? Here's another e what's eating up
Speaker 1: my time and or energy without producing meaningful results? Where
Speaker 1: am I being busy rather than effective? Am I focused
Speaker 1: on the right things or just doing the easy and
Speaker 1: or urgent things? What mental clutter is slowing me down
Speaker 1: or making me second guess myself? Where am I overthinking?
Speaker 1: And what am I overthinking that I should just take
Speaker 1: action on. How much of my day is spent doing
Speaker 1: things that don't actually matter to my goals and values.
Speaker 1: Like I said before, I think there's a time where
Speaker 1: that's okay. But I like to like, for example, as
Speaker 1: I record this, it's one seventeen. I have another podcast
Speaker 1: at two o'clock with a guy called Perry who we've
Speaker 1: had on the show before, and I want to do
Speaker 1: another solo one after Perry. So my intention this afternoon
Speaker 1: is to do three podcasts now. In order for me
Speaker 1: to be efficient and effective and get that done, I
Speaker 1: needed to get a lot of stuff done before. I
Speaker 1: needed to organize my food, my coffee, my walking, and
Speaker 1: I needed to block out around four hours to get
Speaker 1: these three podcasts done so that I could be effective
Speaker 1: and productive and efficient. And I think that day to
Speaker 1: day there will be times when it's absolutely understandable and
Speaker 1: fine for you to go from nine till midday. I'm
Speaker 1: in the zone. I'm flying, no distractions, I'm down the hole.
Speaker 1: I'm doing what I need to do, batten down the hatches,
Speaker 1: captain productivity. But between midday and three or midday and two,
Speaker 1: I'm taking it easy and I'm going to go have
Speaker 1: lunch with my missus or my bloke or my kid
Speaker 1: or whatever it is. Or I'm going to watch an
Speaker 1: hour of Netflix, or I'm going to do a workout,
Speaker 1: or I'm going to go for a walk along the river,
Speaker 1: or I'm going to watch some funny shit and laugh.
Speaker 1: It doesn't matter. I don't think that well. I know
Speaker 1: that the idea of being every day, all day efficient,
Speaker 1: productive and effective is not a great plan because it's
Speaker 1: not healthy. But I think it's just deciding when and
Speaker 1: how we're going to be most effective and most efficient.
Speaker 1: Could this task be automated, delegated, or deleted? That's a
Speaker 1: great question. Am I doing this out of habit, obligation
Speaker 1: or actual purpose? In other words? Does it? Is it
Speaker 1: moving the needle? Is this something that I do because
Speaker 1: I've just always done it and I'm kind of psychologically, emotionally,
Speaker 1: behaviorally addicted to it. It's just what I do. It's
Speaker 1: my unconscious kind of pattern. Or am I intentionally consciously
Speaker 1: doing something which is productive? Let's still a couple more
Speaker 1: of them were jam Am I clear and direct? Some
Speaker 1: communication stuff? Am I clear and direct? Am I using
Speaker 1: one hundred words when ten would be fine? What do
Speaker 1: I need to say? And how can I say it
Speaker 1: with empathy and awareness and kindness? Of course? But how
Speaker 1: can I say it as succinctly as possible? So one
Speaker 1: they get what I'm talking about? There's no confusion, there's
Speaker 1: no mystery? And two we're done quite quickly? Have I
Speaker 1: said what I actually mean? Am I clear? Am I
Speaker 1: speaking in bloody metaphors and analogies that they don't understand?
Speaker 1: Or am I being thoughtful but also direct so they
Speaker 1: don't need to solve any kind of verbal mystery we're
Speaker 1: telling them, we're sharing directly. Could I prevent future confusion
Speaker 1: or current confusion by being clearer in this moment? And
Speaker 1: let's do a few about energy and effort? Is this
Speaker 1: effort giving me growth? Is the effort? Is the psychological,
Speaker 1: emotional and physiological energy that I am spending on this?
Speaker 1: Is it growing me? Or is it exhausting me? Is
Speaker 1: it wearing me out? Is it moving the needle in
Speaker 1: a positive or a negative way? Two? More? Am I
Speaker 1: working hard on the wrong thing? Last one? What one
Speaker 1: change would make the biggest difference to how I feel
Speaker 1: or how I perform this week? I think the idea
Speaker 1: is to realize that we do so much. In conclusion,
Speaker 1: the idea is to think about how much stuff that
Speaker 1: we do on autopilot without, as I said earlier, without
Speaker 1: really being conscious, without really thinking critically, and without having
Speaker 1: I guess a bigger picture awareness of what we're doing
Speaker 1: that's great, that's effective, that's efficient, and what we're doing
Speaker 1: that's maybe somewhere closer to the end of the scale.
Speaker 1: And as always, this is about us thinking better and
Speaker 1: doing better and being better. This isn't about self loathing
Speaker 1: or hating on ourselves. This is about recognizing that all
Speaker 1: of us. I don't think there's anybody listening to this
Speaker 1: that wants to be more inefficient. And with that in mind,
Speaker 1: the question is, well, then, how do I become more
Speaker 1: effective and efficient and productive? How do I get the
Speaker 1: best ROI return on investment without killing myself or wearing
Speaker 1: what's the best plan, what's the best strategy, what's the
Speaker 1: best use of me and my time? All of those things,
Speaker 1: but none of that, none of that in movement. That development,
Speaker 1: that growth, that efficiency is going to happen if we
Speaker 1: keep doing what we've been doing.