🐲 Productivity, From the Master

Hey Friend!

In an effort to make each of my days great, I started studying productivity techniques (most are not what you think they would be).

This lead me back to one of my mentors - Ali Abdaal.

He is an Ex-Physician, YouTuber & Writer.

This is who I wanted to be when applying for med school…

He has studied every productivity technique in the book.

Here are his top 4, S-tier productivity techniques.

(My personal favorite is #4).

⚙️ Creating Systems

An idea highlighted in James Clear’s book, “Atomic Habits.”

Goals are overall what we want to achieve - your overall direction in life.

Systems are the daily habits that lead us to our goals.

Know your goal, but focus on your systems.

This is the basis of all other productivity. Create systems to implement each of the ideas below.

“You don’t rise to the level of your goals, you fall to the levels of your systems” — James Clear

🛫 Enjoying the Journey

We often get caught up in the trivialities of day-to-day life. We get bogged down by stuff we “have to do.” This technique is a shift in mindset.

It causes you to focus on loving the life you are living. Changing your perspective from “having” to do something, to “getting” to do something. A small shift, but sometimes that’s all we need.

This idea is somewhat cliche. But it’s powerful. It becomes useful when you actually apply it.

🌞 Daily Highlight

A daily highlight is the most important thing you want to get done during that day.

Pick only one.

If you could only do one thing today, what would it be?

Focus all your efforts to get that tasks done as quickly as possible.

This is similar to the idea of “Eating the Frog.” Getting your most daunting task done before moving on to anything else.

🚅 Speed Listening (2x)

I started using this technique back in college. When the pandemic hit the world, classes moved online. These online platforms allowed users to listen to lectures at advanced speeds (1.5x or 2x faster than normal).

I used to struggle with procrastination. I would end up studying the information the night before a big test. But now, I could learn the lectures in half the time, by listening to them at 2x speed.

I still use this technique with audiobooks & youtube videos. This allows me to explore my curiosities 2x faster than I would usually be able to. Think of it as mobile research.

It will be weird at first to listen to people talk so fast, but our brains can handle it…once we are used to it.

I usually average 1.5x speed for most of the material I listen to.

Try it and you won’t be able to go back.

🏃 Implementation

You don’t need to start using all of these right away.

Just try one. See if it's helpful.

Keep it around if it is.

🎶 Song of the Week

I've been feeling somewhat lost in my direction in life lately. So my friend sent me this song. It made me realize we don’t always have to have everything figured out… and it’s a banger.

As always, thanks for reading!

Hope you have a great week.

-Rocky “Ali’s #1 Fan” Ferony

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