Life Optimization Hacks for Maximum Productivity | EP 486

Life Optimization Hacks for Maximum Productivity

1. Meal prep. 01:53
2. Do your chores on the day off. 03:52
3. Plan each day the night before by writing a list of everything you plan to accomplish the following day. 06:22

Read the full episode transcript below:

00:21 David Blackmon: Hey, everybody, welcome to another episode of “WP the Podcast,” brought to you by WP Gears. I’m David Blackmon.

00:36 Tim Strifler: And I’m Tim Strifler.

00:38 David Blackmon: Today we’re going to talk about life optimization hacks for maximum productivity, and this is the third part of a four part series called, “Productivity and Life Optimization” series. I feel like I’ve said “series” like ten times in the introduction, and it’s because I have, and I apologize.

00:59 David Blackmon: But it’s a series that we are definitely pumped about, we enjoy talking about, that we probably don’t talk about enough, and who knows? Maybe it’s because most business people don’t talk about it enough, but taking care of yourself is very important, and it can definitely help your business, so we feel like it’s business related.

01:21 David Blackmon: Tim, get us kicked off.

01:22 Tim Strifler: Yeah, absolutely, and if you’re jumping into this without listening to the other episodes, we definitely recommend going back and listening to those. We talked about your brain is broken, let’s fix it, about smart phones, social media addiction and how that can play a role in you as a business owner, a professional that’s trying to get stuff done.

01:39 Tim Strifler: And then yesterday, we talked about healthy habits that lead to success. Highly recommend looking up that. But, yeah, today we want to talk about some of the things that you can do, practical things that you can do, life hacks, whatever you want to call them, to really increase productivity.

01:53 Tim Strifler: And so, the first one is meal prep. Now, some of these might kind of apply mainly for full time business owners that either you have your own office, your home office or something. Of course, they’re helpful for anyone, but keep that in mind. We’re kind of thinking of maximizing productivity for someone who works full time on their business.

02:11 Tim Strifler: So, the first, meal prep is huge. This is something that I struggled with for quite a few years to where I would wait til I was super hungry, and I’d go out and just buy cheap fast food that was quick. It was unhealthy. It was inconvenient, because I had to leave my home office to go and buy food, and it just was not a good habit, and so, I’m not someone who cooks. If you’re someone that cooks and enjoys it and can be disciplined, you can do meal prep on Sundays of every week.

04:36 Tim Strifler: You cook food for your lunches, or however many meals you want to do, all in one day, and then you have those that you can easily heat up through the week. And so, that’s ideal, and probably the most cost effective. However, I went a slightly different route and I use a food service called Freshly.

03:00 Tim Strifler: They deliver already prepared, fresh, healthy meals to your door every week, and you simple heat them up. It’s not quite as cheap as doing it all yourself, of course. It comes out to about $10 a meal, but it’s drastically healthier than fast food, and it’s a lot quicker, too. It takes about three minutes to heat up. The food’s never frozen. It’s always fresh, and I kind of equate it to going to a nice restaurant, ordering a meal, and taking home leftovers.

03:31 Tim Strifler: That’s kind of the quality. Yeah, you’re still heating it up, but it’s good and it’s fresh, and it’s high quality ingredients, and healthy, too.

03:40 David Blackmon: Yeah, and I do the Freshly as well. Tim turned me on to it, and I’ve got to say, it’s pretty dang awesome. The food’s good. This isn’t like bad food. The food is great.

03:52 David Blackmon: Next on your list for a life optimization hack is do your chores on the day off. Don’t do your chores on your work days. If you have days off and you have to clean the house, for example, clean the house. Look, starting your week off with a clean environment is hugely important. I know it is for me.

04:13 David Blackmon: It sets my mental state at an optimal place, so having a clean work station, making sure that your place, your area, is clean, whatever that is for your office and stuff. Make sure you take care of that stuff on your days off, not during your work week.

04:35 David Blackmon: Unless you’re going to do it after your work is over, at the end of the day, maybe, it might work, but going to highly recommend, just do it on your day off.

04:46 Tim Strifler: Yeah, absolutely, and all these come into maximizing your productivity during those most productive hours, and so everyone is a little bit different in terms of when they’re most productive. For me, it’s morning time. Afternoons, okay, but definitely not in the evenings. I never work in the evenings.

05:05 Tim Strifler: And that’s kind of what all these things are based around, is helping you streamline your working time. And so, the next thing on the list here is outsource time consuming tasks that take you away from your business. So that might be hiring a gardener to mow the lawn for you. I know, for me, that’s something that I procrastinate on, and then I end up having a really crappy lawn, and I have to spend more time having to weed it and all of that, where my time is very valuable with my business, and so outsourcing that to someone, where I can get it cheaper than it would be for me to use my own time to do it, that would be a good use of funds.

05:43 Tim Strifler: There’s a lot of things out there similar. David talked about how he hired a maid to do cleaning and stuff, and so it can sometimes be a little tricky to justify the cost to something that you could do yourself, but if you’re a business that’s making money, you can factor the cost of your time, whether you have a product business, whether you have a service business building websites. Your time is very valuable, and so, for me, I would much rather spend my time producing revenue, or spending my free time doing the things I enjoy like family, hanging out with friends, that sort of thing.

06:22 David Blackmon: Absolutely. Last on our list but definitely not least is to plan each day the night before by writing a list of everything you plan to accomplish the following day. Your subconscious mind will start solving these problems if you have problems that you have to solve.

06:41 David Blackmon: I cannot tell you, especially with WordPress, when I was learning WordPress in the beginning and building websites and I would get stuck, I would go to bed at night and I would wake up in the morning with the right answer, a solution to my problem. And what ended up happening was, as I slept, my subconscious mind started to solve the problems that I had to handle the next day.

07:04 David Blackmon: So if you put together your list of things that you want to accomplish tomorrow, you’re going to wake up fresh and optimized and potentially have a very clear path of what you should focus on first, where you need to spend your time and energy, and possibly any solutions to problems that you have.

07:24 David Blackmon: I know it’s been that way for me. I don’t know if I’m crazy, or if other people do the same thing, but it definitely happens to me while I sleep.

07:32 Tim Strifler: Yeah, they say … I don’t remember the exact numbers on this, but only a small percentage of your brain computing power is your conscious mind, what you’re actually thinking about at that given moment. The bulk of your brain power is your subconscious mind, and so, basically, that exercise that David just talked about, writing everything the night before that you want to accomplish, and then going to sleep, it can help take advantage of that subconscious mind.

08:05 Tim Strifler: Our brains are so powerful. It’s kind of like when you … this is a very small example, but when you are driving and you’re daydreaming and you’re thinking about something, and all of the sudden you get to your destination, you’re like, “How did I get here? I wasn’t paying attention that entire car ride.”

08:22 Tim Strifler: Obviously, if you’ve been driving for a while, you have really good driving habits, and you practice good safety, but your subconscious mind takes over and is able to do those tasks without you having to focus on it while you’re thinking about something else.

08:36 Tim Strifler: And so, that’s just a small example of how powerful our minds are, and so, take advantage of that. This exercise is a small but powerful way to start doing that, and that’ll give you mental clarity the next day, whether you get those exact answers, like David talked about where basically while you’re dreaming, you’re solving problems, or you just start the day off on a positive note knowing what you have to accomplish with a clear mind.

09:05 David Blackmon: All right, well, this comes to the conclusion of part three of our “Productivity and Life Optimization” series. Tomorrow, we will have the final part, part four, where we talk about focus, because focus is the key to success. Tim?

09:20 Tim Strifler: Until tomorrow, we’ll see you then.

09:23 David Blackmon: Take care, bye bye.