The Book in 3 Sentences

1. Productivity isn’t about doing things right, rather doing the right things that move you closer to your goals.
2. Strategic productivity involves anticipating roadblocks and key moves, striving to make each action impactful.
3. To live a fulfilling life: set big goals, break them down into smaller chunks and determine actionable steps that can get you there.

Impressions

Nice short book. I was familiar with a lot of the ideas from books like The 4-Hour Workweek but it was a good refresher. The writing was digestible and interesting to read. Not much original content though. Read this if your want to boost your productivity and get more meaningful things done in your life.

Top 3 Quotes

Efficiency is doing things right while effectiveness is doing the right things. There is no point doing things right if those things don’t move you closer to your goals.

The strategic producer does the right things while the average person seeks to do things right.

When you play chess, your goal is to win. To do so, you have to anticipate your opponent’s moves. Strategic productivity is a similar process. You anticipate potential roadblocks and identify key moves. You strive to make each action impactful.

Summary, Notes & Quotes

In today’s society, everyone is obsessed with doing more. Being busy has become a badge of honour.

While we may be busy on the surface, we often accomplish very little.

Using the latest productivity app doesn’t help much either. While technologies such as the internet are a wonderful source of information, or a way to learn new skills, to be effective, they must be used tactically.

Strategic productivity means using your time in a way that enables you to achieve maximum results with minimum effort.

Part 1: Planning Effectively

You cannot hit a target you don’t set.

Efficiency is doing things right while effectiveness is doing the right things. There is no point doing things right if those things don’t move you closer to your goals.

Your ability to think long term is one of the best predictors of success.

By removing options, you can direct all your energy toward achieving your goals. Once you know where you want to go, you can reverse-engineer the steps you need to take to reach your destination. As a result, each action you take will become more impactful.

When you play chess, your goal is to win. To do so, you have to anticipate your opponent’s moves. Strategic productivity is a similar process. You anticipate potential roadblocks and identify key moves. You strive to make each action impactful.

When you keep making progress toward your goals each day, you build momentum. You accumulate small wins, which boost your confidence and increase your motivation.

While results may not be apparent at the beginning, soon enough you will reach a tipping point. Things start to accelerate, and your success becomes exponential.

With enough focus, you can achieve almost anything you desire.

Focus acts like an axe. If you try to cut down a tree by hitting it in thousands of different spots, you’ll never succeed. But when you focus and hit the same spot over and over, you can cut down even the biggest tree. With laser-sharp focus you can achieve almost anything you desire.

Focus on only a few goals at the same time, implement a sound strategy to reach them, and make progress towards these goals each day by taking action in line with your strategy.

Day 1 - Planning your year

Most people spend more time planning a one-week vacation than they spend planning their life. Michael Hyatt, author and speaker.

Ask yourself, “What would make the next twelve months truly valuable?”.

Then, to further help you, visualize yourself exactly twelve months from today.

Finally, spend a moment visualizing your achievement, while experiencing a deep feeling of satisfaction from achieving it.

Write down some of the things you’d like to achieve, then select just one of them. To help you identify the one thing you’d like to focus on, answer the following questions:

1. If I can achieve one thing this year, which one would make me the proudest?
2. If I can achieve one thing this year, which one would make the biggest positive difference in my life?
3. What’s the one thing I’ve always wanted to do (but haven’t)?
4. What do I really, really want in life?
5. What’s the one thing that scares me the most? (The thing that scares you is often the thing you need to do the most.)

Day 2 - Making the dominos fall

You need to be doing fewer things for more effect instead of doing more things with side effects. Gary Keller, author of The One Thing.

In truth, there is an almost infinite number of actions you can take to move from Point A—where you are now—to Point B—where you want to be. Your task here is to narrow down these options and identify the actions with the biggest leverage possible.

Look at the primary goal you identified on Day 1. What dominos need to fall for you to reach that goal? Brainstorm ideas, using your action guide. A sound strategy will save you a great deal of time—sometimes years.

Bear in mind that oftentimes, the first ideas you come up with aren’t always the best ones.

Here are some characteristics of the right dominos:

1. They help you build momentum and activate the power of compounding,
2. They entail a paradigm shift that changes your reality immediately and improves your results,
3. They allow you to make significant progress toward your goals, and/or
4. They dramatically reduce your options, eliminating most of the irrelevant actions you could be taking to reach your goal.

A paradigm is a model of reality based on a set of assumptions or hypotheses.

A paradigm shift occurs when you ask yourself different questions and gain new insights and change your behaviour as a result. A new paradigm often requires that you take a step back and look at the overall picture. It requires you to challenge some of your most deeply ingrained assumptions.

Accurate thinking → effective actions → tangible results.

Conversely, inaccurate thinking → ineffective actions → mediocre/inconsistent results.

To create a paradigm shift, ask yourself:

1. What’s the fastest way to achieve my goal?
2. If I were lazy and wanted to do as little work as possible, what would I do to achieve my goal quickly and effectively?
3. What would Albert Einstein, Bill Gates, or Elon Musk do to achieve the same goal?
4. What if this goal is not the right one for me? What if there’s a goal that better meets my needs and is more closely aligned with my values?
5. Can I reframe my goal? If so, how?

In some cases, toppling the right domino may be a hundred times more effective than anything else you could be doing instead.

Even when we hustle our way to success, it is almost always the case that only a minority of our actions lead to tangible results. We simply didn’t take the time to identify what these specific successful actions were.

You must remember that you are almost always doing too many separate things.

A good strategy must narrow your options. It will allow you to develop laser-sharp focus and ensure that your actions are truly impactful.

Day 3 - Planning your 90 days

The best thing about the future is that it comes one day at a time. Abraham Lincoln, former President of the United States.

Instead of setting yearly goals, I recommend you focus most of your attention on the next 90 days. Why 90 days? Because 90 days is the perfect length of time to make tremendous progress toward your goals. At the same time, it’s not so far in the future that it makes your goals too distant or too vague. Conversely, you can almost see the finish line.

The benefits can be summarised as follows:

1. They make your goals more tangible.
2. They force you to create a more detailed blueprint.
3. They create a sense of urgency.
4. They encourage you to measure your progress more consistently.

Ask yourself: What would I need to have completed by the third quarter of the year to ensure I’ll hit my target by the end of the fourth? What about the second and first quarters?

Part 2: Effectiveness vs. Efficiency

Day 4 - Being strategic during your day

Be strategic about productivity—do less exceptionally well, instead of doing more in an average way. Laurie Buchanan, life coach and author.

As a general rule of thumb, the more effective you are today and the closer it moves you to where you want to be tomorrow, the more productive you’ll become.

In truth, we usually know what we need to do—but we often fail to do so.

The strategic producer does the right things while the average person seeks to do things right.

The 7 Step method to approach tasks the right way:

1. Before you even start doing anything, ask yourself the following questions: If I could complete only one thing today, which task would have the most impact? Is this task moving me closer to my main goal? Do I really need to do this right now, or can I do it later?

You want to train yourself to think in terms of priorities and keep an eye on the bigger picture.

2. To ensure the task is something you actually need to undertake, ask yourself the following questions: Do I really need to do this task? Is right now the best time? What will happen if I delay it for a week? A month? Forever? Am I working on this task because I need to or because it makes me feel good? Am I working on this task as a way to avoid what I really should be doing?

There is nothing more unproductive than doing something you didn’t need to do in the first place.

3. Before starting on a task, be certain you know exactly what is required. To do so, ask yourself: What do I need to do here? What am I trying to accomplish? What does the finished product look like?
4. Whenever possible, try to delegate any task someone else can do better, faster or more cheaply than you.

To do so, ask yourself the following questions: Is this task worth my time? Can someone else do it better than me? If so, can I ask for help? What will happen if I simply remove or postpone this task? Do I enjoy working on this task? Does it motivate me?

Your time is more valuable than money. So, learn to use money to save time.

5. Find the most effective way to tackle the task.

Abraham Lincoln said, “Give me six hours to chop a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.”

Ask yourself the following questions: What tools can I use, people can I ask or method can I rely on to complete this task as efficiently and effectively as possible? What skills could I learn to help me complete this task faster in the future?

Always aim to utilise existing templates, methods, or knowledge.

1. Batch tasks. Some tasks can be combined with other tasks that require the same type of effort or preparation.
2. Look for ways to automate your task, especially if it’s a repetitive one.

Ask yourself: Can I create templates to reuse every time I work on this or similar tasks? (For instance, you could design templates for the specific emails, presentations, or documents you need to create repeatedly.) Can I create a checklist? (Checklists provide you with specific steps to follow, making it less likely you’ll forget a step or become distracted.)

Practice this 7-Step Method on a regular basis until it becomes second nature and you’ll be able to use your time much more strategically.

Another strategic tool is the “CEO/COO/Employee Framework.” This framework entails giving yourself different roles during the day to increase your strategic thinking and boost your productivity.

The CEO plans the day (in the morning), the COO looks for ways to improve the system (self-reflect in the evening), and the Employee executes the tasks without overthinking them.

Benefits of this framework include: removal of friction, decreased self-doubt, enhanced strategic thinking, increased self-reflection.

If you doubt your ability or motivation to complete a certain task, take note of it and make adjustments by changing its scope, giving yourself more time, or eliminating it when relevant.

Part 3 - Thinking smart

Smart questions —> effective thinking —> intelligent actions —> tangible results.

Day 5 - Asking yourself smart questions

Successful people ask better questions, and as a result, they get better answers. Tony Robbins, life coach and motivational speaker.

Whether you’re aware of it or not, you ask yourself questions every day.

Eg. Examples: Why do bad things always happen to me? Why am I so stupid? Why didn’t I speak up during the meeting?

These negative questions are unlikely to produce insightful answers.

“How” questions help you become more result-oriented by focusing on ways to solve your problems rather than dwelling on them or blaming other people or situations.

Eg. How can I prevent this from happening again? How can I make myself speak up?

The more specific your questions are, the more detailed solutions you’ll be able to create. The broader your questions are, the more creative ideas you might produce.

Eg. How can I reach my goal ASAP? (broad) How can I reach that goal in two weeks working 8 hour days? (specific)

Your imagination is one of your most powerful assets. “What if” questions enable you to tap into it. They allow you to broadcast your desires to the world and set specific intentions.

Eg. What if I could design my ideal life? What if I could land my dream job?

“Who” questions enable you to tap into the collective intelligence around you. There are millions of people smarter than you and who know how to achieve your goals.

We don’t have enough time or energy to focus on all areas of our lives simultaneously.

As a strategic producer, you must focus on the key area that will unlock everything else.

Often, it is your health. When healthy, you have more energy to work toward your goals.

Focusing on one area doesn’t mean neglecting all the others.

Day 6 - Applying what you learn with maximum effectiveness

In the end we retain from our studies only that which we practically apply. Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe, poet and playwright.\

Strategic productivity isn’t about absorbing more and more information, it’s about putting what you learn into action.

There are two things you must do to reach any goal:

1. Being able to find the right information, and
2. Being able to implement the information to achieve tangible results.

You must balance these two components well.

5 learning mistakes most people make: overlearning, analysis paralysis, illusion of competence, shiny object syndrome, poor planning skills.

Being able to gather just the right amount of information is a skill that everyone needs to learn.

Knowing the type of information to search for and for how long will make it easier for you to act.

You must always keep in the back of your mind:

• What you’re searching for.
• Where to find it.
• What the end product must look like.

When you try to bite off more information than you can chew, the result can be a sense of overwhelm often accompanied by a loss of confidence and motivation.

Information overload leads to analysis paralysis for the following reasons:

1. You encounter contradictory information.
2. You start grasping the complexity of the topics.
3. You lose sight of the big picture.

The key is to identify whenever this happens. When it does, take a step back, zoom out and refocus on the bigger picture.

You tend to choose what’s easy (and what makes you feel good), rather than what’s effective (and difficult to do). If you wish to learn faster than almost anybody else, you must do what’s hard.

Developing Shiny Object Syndrome simply means you have difficulty sticking to something for long enough to achieve tangible results. Instead, you jump from one thing to the next

Having a clear goal and a specific timeframe will motivate you to keep learning.

Whatever you’re trying to learn or achieve, someone else has probably already learned or achieved before.

Therefore, your first goal is to find that person and ask them for their “secret sauce”.

Your second: ask yourself to identify the most effective way to reach your learning goal. Third: Create an action plan that maximizes your chances of hitting your target.

It is important to identify key skills you must learn.

Meta-skills can spread across several areas of your life and/or make the acquisition of other skills easier. They are really powerful. Examples include: how to study effectively, communicating clearly, listening attentively.

Keep focusing on your strengths whenever you’re already seeing positive results. Only focus on your weaknesses when they become obstacles standing between you and success.

Don’t focus on learning more than two to three new skills at the same time.

Some examples of valuable skills are: Coaching, Decision-making, Leadership, Logical thinking, Marketing, Persuasion, Public speaking, Sales, Writing, and so on.

Whatever skills you choose to cultivate, make sure they are aligned with your goals.

There is no point in becoming overly good at a skill that is only partially useful or one that isn’t needed at all.

The gap between being good and being an expert is enormous. While you may reach eighty to ninety percent proficiency at a skill relatively quickly, acquiring the last ten percent might take you years.

Day 7—Managing your energy well

Life begets life. Energy creates energy. It is by spending oneself that one becomes rich. Sarah Bernhardt, actress.

Use your peak times to focus on your major tasks. For me this is the morning (9-11).

Productivity isn’t about time—it’s about focus, clarity, and energy levels.

To be productive you must alternate between “push” and “pull” periods. During push periods, you remain focused on your main work trying to get as much done as possible. However, during “pull periods”, you let go and relax. You stop trying so hard and let your subconscious do the work. This gives your brain time to process information and consolidate your learning or provide you with valuable insights.

Carve out time to think each week.

This means: Confirming you’re moving in the right direction, Reflecting on what you could have done better, Optimizing your processes to boost your productivity or enhance your well-being, or Brainstorming innovative ways to skyrocket your success in various areas of your life.

Don’t try to multitask. It doesn’t work.

You must take rest breaks between focused work sessions.

Segment your day. To do so:

1. Decide what to work on. Set specific goals for the day and for each work session.
2. Take regular and ample rest breaks between each work session.
3. Stay focused on your main work. Whenever you notice yourself being distracted, make a conscious effort to refocus on your task.

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