The Ultimate Productivity Hack by James Clear

The Ultimate Productivity Hack by James Clear

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Welcome back to the Daily Mastermind, George Wright III with your daily dose of inspiration, motivation, and education. I hope you're having a great week today. I want to talk to you about your productivity, and I want to give you a couple of amazing resources that you can use that I use quite a bit.

So if you have not gotten. As always, we have the daily Mastermind quote of the day. We've got a lot of power quotes and links to articles and resources that you could use. And today is no different. I have a great new resource for you, and I think you're gonna love it. Some of you may have heard of it, some of you may not have, but if you have and you're utilizing it, you know exactly what I'm talking about.

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Introduction to James Clear and Atomic Habits

James Clear. And for those of you that don't know who James Clear is, you obviously haven't been listened to the podcast, but James Clear wrote the book, atomic Habits Tiny Changes. Remarkable Results. Now, that book itself is definitely an all time bestseller. It's also something that I think can help you with your productivity at an epic level. But James and I never thought about this. I actually didn't know this until a few weeks ago, but. James does a newsletter called the 3 2 1 newsletter, and it's one of the most popular newsletters in the world.

In fact, every Thursday he sends it out to about 2 million people and it's super short. It's just how I like it. It's three short ideas from him, two quotes from other people, and one question for you to ponder. It gives you this great little mix in a bullet form for you to digest. And today what I wanted to do is I wanted to highlight an article that I came across in one of those newsletters.

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The Ultimate Productivity Hack: Saying No

Top articles of all time that he's published, and it's called The Ultimate Productivity Hack is saying no. The ultimate Productivity hack is saying no. And I thought he had some really good insights on this because you've heard me say before, you've heard many people say your ability to create success is going to be in direct proportion to your ability to say no, but.

I'm gonna do you a favor today, 'cause I know a lot of, you're not just gonna hustle over and read it cover to cover, but in fact, you're probably so busy not saying no that you haven't taken time to do a lot of things that I've suggested. But I'm gonna just read it to you. It's that important. Plus I'll save you a little bit of time.

That's what I'm here for. I'm here to help you level up. Now remember, and I'm gonna remind you before I get going here, you have to find ways to create your best life. It's a daily process. A daily process. So I'm gonna go ahead and go through this.

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Reading and Analyzing the Article

I want to talk to you a little bit about saying no because, and I'm gonna read this article to you.

So this is not my words, this is James Clear. To be clear, and I'll put a link to the article in the show notes as well. I. So let's get going into it because I know most of you won't read it cover to cover. I'm gonna go ahead and paraphrase it for you here. Not doing something will always be faster than doing it.

This statement reminds me of the old computer program saying. Remember that there's no code faster than no code. The same philosophy applies in other areas of life. For example, there's no meeting that goes faster than not having a meeting at all. Think about that one. This is not to say you shouldn't ever attend another meeting, but the truth is that what we say yes to.

So many things all the time that we don't actually want to do, and there are many meetings held that don't need to be held. There's a lot of code written that could be deleted. So how often do people ask you to do something and you just reply? Sure thing. Three days later, you're overwhelmed by how much is on your to-do list.

We become frustrated by our obligations, even though we're, we're the ones that said yes to it in the first place. So it's worth asking if things are necessary. Many of them aren't, and a simple no will be more productive than whatever work the most efficient person can muster.

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The Importance of Saying No

But if the benefits of saying no are not so obvious, then why do we say yes so often?

I'm sorry, let me rephrase that. But if the benefits of saying no are so obvious, then why do we say yes so often? So here's why we say yes. We agree to many requests, not because we want to do them, but because we don't want to be seen as rude, arrogant, or unhelpful. Often you have to consider saying no to someone.

You will interact with again in the future. Your coworker, your spouse, your family and friends. Saying no to these people can be particularly difficult because we like them and we wanna support them. Not to mention we often need their help. So collaborating with others is an important element of life.

The thought of straining the relationship outweighs the commitment of the time and energy we may have to put in. I like how James says that because, and that's one of the reasons I like how he writes, because he's very quick and concise. And really gets to the point, it could be helpful to be gracious in your response.

Do whatever favors you can and be warmhearted and direct when you have to say no. But even after we have accounted for all these social considerations, many of us still seem to do a poor job of managing the trade off between yes and no. We find ourselves over committed to things that don't really improve or support.

Ourselves are the ones around us. Perhaps one issue is how we think about the meaning of yes and no. And I really like how he says this, so listen to this real carefully. The word yes and no get used in comparison to each other so often that it feels like they carry equal weight in a conversation. In reality, they're just, they're not just opposite meeting, but an entirely different magnitude in commitment.

When you say no. You're only saying no to one option. When you say yes, you're saying no to every other option. Lemme read that again for you. When you say no, you're only saying no to one option. When you say yes to something, you are saying no to every other option. I like how the economist Tim Hartford, put it.

Every time we say yes to a request, we are actually saying no to anything else we might accomplish With the time. Once you've committed to something, you've already decided how that future block of time will be spent. In other words, saying No, saves you time in the future I. Saying Yes costs you the time in the future.

No is a form of time credit. You retain the ability to spend your future time however you want. I really love that. Think about what he's saying here. No is a decision, but it basically gives you all this time in the future. Yes, makes a responsibility. It makes you have debt for the future. I really like that.

So what's the role of No saying No is sometimes seen as a luxury that only those in power can afford. And it's true. Turning down opportunities is easier when you can fall back on the safety net provided by power, money, and authority. But it's also true that saying no is not merely a privilege reserved for the successful among us.

It is also a strategy that can help you become more successful. Saying No is an important skill to develop at any stage of your career because it retains the most important asset in your life, your time. If you don't guard your time, people will steal it from you. You need to say no to whatever isn't leading you towards your goals.

That is an absolute truth. You need to say no to distractions. Now nobody embodied the idea better than Steve Jobs who said, people think focus means saying yes to the things you've got to focus on, but that's not what it actually means. It means saying no to the hundred other good ideas that there are.

You have to pick carefully. I really love that. And James goes on to talk about how you can start to upgrade your no over time. As you continue to improve and succeed, your strategy needs to change. The opportunity cost of your time increases as you become more successful. At first, you just eliminate the obvious distractions and explore the rest.

As your skills improve and you learn to separate what works from what doesn't, you have to continually increase your threshold. For saying yes, you need to you still need to say no to distractions, but you also need to learn to say no to opportunities that were previously good uses of your time so you can make you know, space for great uses of that time.

In other words, you have to upgrade your no over time. The general trend seems to be something like this. If you can learn to say no to bad distractions. Then everything, you'll earn the right to say no to good opportunities. Then eventually, I'm sorry. Then eventually you'll earn the right to say no to good opportunities.

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Strategies for Saying No

So this last section I want to I want to emphasize with what James Clear talks about is how to say no, because that's the challenge most people face. Most of us are probably too quick to say yes and too slow to say no. It's worth asking yourself. Where you fall on that spectrum?

Is it difficult for you? Is it easy? If you have trouble saying no, you may wanna follow the strategy. Proposed by Tim Hartford, who's a British economist, mentioned earlier. He writes, one trick is to ask, if I had to do this today, would I agree to it? It's not a bad rule of thumb since any future commitment, no matter how far away it might be.

We'll eventually become an imminent problem. If an opportunity is exciting enough to drop whatever you're doing right now, then it's definitely a yes. If it's not, then perhaps you should think twice. I really love that whole concept. I love what he says here, and I think the bottom line is this, if you'll understand the power.

Of saying no, you'll understand, and this is me giving you this feedback. If you truly learn to understand the power of saying no, you are going to have it far outweigh the uncomfortable feeling you may have of saying no. And when you learn to value yourself and value your time, saying no will not be a problem.

So it's back to that idea that the clearer your vision is of the future, the clearer you have your goals set in front of you. The easier it'll be to say no if you're just drifting, if you're just moving through life, if you haven't gotten clear on what you want, saying no is gonna be hard. It's really gonna be hard, but I encourage you to really empower yourself. With the power of no.

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Conclusion and Call to Action

So that's my message for today. I really am excited about seeing how you can apply this in your life. So hit me up on the Daily Mastermind at Instagram or Facebook. Message me, dm me. Let me know what you're working on and how you can apply this power of no in in your day-to-day life and business.

And then, do me a favor, share this episode. Share it with someone that you know. Could benefit from it if you've gotten any value, and I look forward to talking with you more tomorrow. Once again, my name's George Wright III. This has been The Daily Mastermind. I'll talk to you then.

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