So how do you stay productive? Or are we actually talking about procrastination?
In case you live under a rock, procrastination is the act of delaying or postponing a task or set of tasks.
Whether you’re procrastinating or whether you’ve just got a lot going on in your life and you can’t seem to get your affairs in order, the question is:
How do we combat those forces that prevent us from following through with what we set out to do?
So Darious, why are we talking about this?… Well behind the scenes boys & girls underneath all this deeper Darious nice there’s a huge battle I’ve been waging for years against myself on how to get more s*** done!
I feel like I have a lot of goals and a lot of things I want to do with this channel and with my film career and with my business. It’s hard to find the time to do everything. If I’m being transparent, sometimes it’s hard to find the motivation, given the mountain of work I’m looking at.
Everything seems to take longer than planned, and everything takes more work than I thought. And just yeah.
I’ve tried many things. I’ve read many things. Some tactics work, some tactics don’t. I know a lot of you are grappling with the same issue because I see it in the comments.
“Yo D4 put me on some game. I got know, how do you stay productive?”
Let me hop on a soapbox with you, Fam. Let’s have a heart to heart.
If you feel like you’re a procrastinator, I can say with confidence that 90% of the time, it’s not because you’re lazy. So let’s start there.
Productivity Hack #1 Batching Tasks
Task batching is when you group a list of similar tasks together and do them in one block of time. This is also known as time blocking.
Each time you switch between tasks, there’s a lag in your brain where you have to refocus on the new task. Guess what happens when you go through that lag? You get resistance distractions. It’s harder to get back in the groove.
An example of batching would be instead of writing one YouTube video write two or three. Once you’re in that headspace and you’ve got the mojo all worked up to write, it’s easier to keep writing.
It’s the same thing with shooting YouTube videos. Say it takes you an hour to set up everything for a shoot. Well, it’s easier to shoot two or three together back to back, Then to spend an hour setting up just to shoot one. Depending on the types of videos, you should, of course.
Finding ways to batch your tasks together will make a big difference in productivity.
One of the things I’ve been doing lately is just having a thumbnail day where all I do for an entire day is shoot thumbnails for videos I’m working on and videos know I have coming up. Once I’m in that groove of shooting thumbnails, it’s easier to just stay there and get a whole bunch of them done at once.
Productivity Hack #2 Go For The Low
When we look at our list of to-dos, we have a habit of looking at it as a big giant forest. The reality is it’s not a big giant forest. It’s just a bunch of little trees.
Break your tasks up into smaller manageable chunks or steps and then go after the easiest step first. Pick the lowest hanging fruit first or “go for the low.”
It’s a good way to trick yourself into working If you’re feeling unmotivated.
For example, I have a shoot tomorrow morning. It’s just an assistant and me maybe, but I’m doing all the heavy lifting, and I’m already tired after a long day. It’s 9:00 at night.
I’ve got:
- Batteries to charge
- Shotlist to make
- Planning and reviewing the script,
- I’ve got to check all the media and format the cards.
- Clean lenses
- Check my GoPro bags
- Fire up my camera rig one last time to make sure I’m not going to have any surprises on set.
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How do I trick myself into getting all that done when it’s the last thing I feel like doing?
I go for the low-hanging fruit; what’s the easiest thing I can do, and I do that first. Put the batteries on a charger. Okay, just start moving.
What’s the next easiest thing to do? Do that.
Then the next easiest thing, do that keep putting one foot in front of the other, and before you know it, you’re there.
Little by little, a little becomes a lot.
I apply this same philosophy to writing scripts. If I feel like I just don’t have the writer juice in me today, I might just write dialogue and start there. Or I might just write a list of scene descriptions back to back, of scenes where I think things will take place but no dialogue no action. Go for the low hanging fruit.
Whatever comes easiest, do that first. Nibble your way into the task
Productivity Hack #3 Reduce Inefficiency
Aside from life emergencies and other mandatory obligations, your biggest enemy keeping you from productivity is inefficiency.
Inefficiency creates resistance, wastes time, and drains motivation.
If it takes you ten steps to do a task that you could have gotten done in three, that’s called being inefficient. If you’re already feeling demotivated, It’s easier to push yourself to do something that only takes three steps, as opposed to something that takes 10.
Complexity is the enemy of execution.
Your 10-step process is more complicated than it needs to be. The more complicated things are, the less likely we are to do it.
Here’s the rub though, you don’t know that your ten-step process could be done in three steps.
Part of your job is to find ways to simplify your process: to trim the fat.
For example, when I set up wide shots for my YouTube videos, it used to take me about 45 minutes to an hour and a half to set up. I know it’s ridiculous, but if you want quality, you’ve got to do it right.
There would be days when I need to shoot a video, and I can’t bring myself to do it knowing it’s going to take an hour just to set everything up I’m tired I’ve been I’ve already been working other gigs all day.
My subscribers are just going to have to wait; there’s only 24 in a day, Fam.
Over time, I kept looking for ways to streamline the process. Now it only takes 20 minutes.
Just recently, I purchased a boom arm specifically for this table. Before this, it was saying back in my stand, this alone shaves probably 60 seconds to a minute and a half off of my setup time, and my space is less cluttered with stands. That’s one less stand that I need to move out of the way when I’m moving other things around.
All these little incy, wincy, tiny things add up to a lot of time saved.
Now it’s a little easier to find the motivation on those days where I’m just not quite feeling the mojo, you feel me?
Because now I can tell myself, setups only going to take 20 minutes just do The easiest thing first keep moving as opposed to setups going to take possibly an hour to an hour and a half.
A good system shortens the road to the goal.
If you keep looking for ways to refine and simplify your processes for doing things, you will have less resistance to doing them.
Complexity is the enemy of execution. That’s why we have to simplify. It’s our job to find ways to streamline what we do so that we can keep doing it.
I hope this was helpful. At the end of the day, we’re all in the same battle—the war ourselves.
The hardest enemy to conquer is the one you see in the mirror.
Get in the comment box and let me know what’s been working for you.
These are things that I do, but if you have a system that gets you results, please share I’d love to hear it.
Make everyday count.
Keep hustling
-D Britt out.