Sleep is critical.
And I did not get enough of it during the past days while travelling.
Which brings me to…a chain of very random and over-caffeinated thoughts! But behind it all is one SUPER important lesson I’m hoping to deliver with this, in just a bit.
Sleep is important, but want to know what’s even more important?
I’ll tell you.
More important is to be a bit flexible.
Recently I read about someone (one of THE big major podcasters, millions of audience, etc) having 3 glasses of wine 3 years ago, which, apparently, “destroyed” his sleep so his next 3 days were “destroyed”… And the ramifications were so bad he’s never had wine since.
The influencer bros are so fragile, it’s not even funny.
How are these the people the world looks up to? Must be so tough! Three glasses! Ruined it all!
Tears fall down my cheeks when I think about how horrible it must’ve been.
Try having kids! Try hitting a paper deadline! Try just about anything fun in life for once! How is it that we have millions of people idolising people who are quite simply and rather clearly clueless?
I mean, sure, you don’t need to drink alcohol, I’m fine with that. But if your perfect productivity-elite-polished-hyper-über-optimized life got so disrupted because of three glasses, well you simply have a problem.
Your stack of “optimize everything” cards is ridiculous.
“Simo you’re just jealous?”
Sure. I know, I know, they are business geniuses. Famous! They’ve got money.
Lol, if that’s what it takes to derail your life, no, I’m really not. Sounds like a God-awful way to live your life to me.
Look.
Let’s try something new this time.
The ability to simplify means to eliminate the unnecessary so that the necessary may speak.
Hans Hofmann
Burn the stack.
Find a handful of things that you can reliably do and that “just work” and then just keep strolling happily forward.
Consistency of everything, absolutely everything.
I know I’m kind of part of the problem. I have packed absolutely everything from A to Z in my courses, but…yeah, there’s also a reason why the VERY FIRST lesson is about “joy of missing out” and developing a mindset of testing things calmly over the long run. Open-mindedly. N=1=You.
And finding out what works for you. Keep that. Discard everything else.
And explicitly NOT to stack absolutely everything to your already full life. I’m 100% sure you’ve heard about the 20/80 rule. On how 20% of everything you do will get you 80% of the gains or results.
Yeah, that’s what you need. The only way to find that 20 _ for you _ is through trial and error.
How can anyone know what you’re going through? What resources do you have or don’t have? Maybe you have a sickness that prevents you from working 16 hours per day. Maybe you have kids. Maybe you don’t. Maybe x 100, you know where this goes. Nobody. Can. Know.
In this spirit, let me make an attempt of finding the minimal common denominator here.
The minimal bulletproof productivity blueprint you can 100% do, every day. No stacking, simple and doable. And if you try it for a few days, you’ll see what I mean. I promise, this works for everyone.
- Walk. Every morning, go for long-enough a walk to feel just a bit exhausted, to break a sweat. Could be 20 minutes, could be 45 minutes. Just do it for a week. During that walk, don’t listen to any audiobooks. Listen to yourself, or have some ritual where you intentionally try to think of good things in your life, or plan in advance what everhting good you’ll make happen THAT DAY. Keep it simple. If your thoughts wander, just gently bring them back. Good vibes only, no bad vibes allowed. You’ll get a ton of great ideas, you’ll polish your older ideas, and when you’re back and ready to work, you’ll actually know what to do and how to do it better. Walking is a science-backed lifehack with dozens of benefits (p<.001)
- Work. Before lunch, complete at minimum one 90-minute super duper focused work block on ONE very important but not extremely urgent task. I’m sure you have these. If not, well then we have bigger problems to discuss. Urgent and important is source of stress. Not urgent and important is source of everything good in your future. Identify those, block one good work block every morning.
- Win. Before you sleep, you must recognize three wins from the day. These can be anything, not just work-related. And if you want to cheat, you can count the morning walk and that solid progress in part #2 of this list already as two wins. But only if you actually did both — don’t get into the habit of lying to yourself. So if you did those, just one more. This is a crucial skill anyway! Give yourself some credit. Build the muscle of seeing the good in your life. Your own achievements. It’s the best way to build confidence and feeling of momentum in your life!
I call this WWW: Walk, Work, Win.
Genius, huh?
Nothing can break that rhythm. No complicated stacks. Just winning.
You can even have a glass of wine, or some other form of living a life, and it’ll still work.
Boom.