2 Great Productivity Hacks

The Polish Productivity Hack for Crazy Busy Entrepreneurs

The other day a friend of mine tried to drag me into his drama.

You see, my friend is an online coach… and he has a beef with another online coach.

He forwarded me a couple of posts and a video he had made …as if this was some high school dramarama where I had to pick a side.

“Not my monkey, not my circus,” I told him before deleting his messages and giving him a courtesy two-week block on Instagram.

I stole that line from my friend Scott. He says it at least once on every coaching call… And I love it.

Not my monkey. Not my circus.

Turns out it’s Polish in origin (who knew!).

“Nie mój cyrk, nie moje malpy.”

This phrase (the English version!) is what you need to keep in mind when other people want:

·       To drag you into their drama

·       To have you put out their “emergency fires”

·       To trick you into doing the work that they were supposed to do

Sure it’s a little “cold”…

But it will help get your mind right when you’re tempted to:

a)     Do a $10 (or $100) an hour task that steals from your $1000/hour time

b)     Do something that is not your job & should be delegated out

c)     Do something useless that NO ONE should be doing at all

d)     Steal precious moments from your kids to argue online

Not my monkey.

Not my circus.

Back to work.

Productivity Tip #2 – The Meeting Stack Hack

Everyone knows to stack wins.

But few people know how to stack meetings.

If you don’t stack meetings, and you have them randomly scheduled throughout your day, then your productivity is going to die a “death of a thousand cuts”.

Just as you get into the flow a part of your brain will start to think… “Oh, I have a meeting in 30 minutes.”

Then after the meeting it will take you time to get back into the flow.

Soon you’ll have to switch back out of the flow and into preparing for another meeting.

The next thing you know the day is over … full of activity, but not accomplishment.

Here’s how to fix this:

Avoid adding new one-off meetings.

Only schedule meetings immediately before or after existing meetings.

This allows you to have meeting blocks with hard deadlines (this meeting has to end because you have another meeting to attend).

Make sure to also reduce the meeting time… if someone asks for an hour, tell them you have 45 minutes.

Stack them up into 3 hour blocks (with a few 5-10 minute breaks in there).

Make the world play by your rules.

Now combining the two hacks above…

This weekend I want you to do a ruthless reexamination of your Aug-Sept calendar and remove all fluff…

You probably have a lot of monkeys on your calendar that shouldn’t be there.

·       Meaningless calls you’ve agreed to…

·       “Coffee meet-ups” that will go nowhere…

·       Podcast interviews that you agreed to out of guilt…

It’s time to “cull the herd of calls on your calendar.”

Use the old “Marie Kondo Spark Joy” method on your schedule.

If the meeting (or results of the meeting) do not “spark joy”, toss it! 

This also seems a little cold.

But here’s what happens when you let crap creep onto your calendar.

Yes, even ol’ CB over-schedules and says YES where I shouldn’t…

Last Monday I agreed to a podcast out of guilt (because the podcasters were good friends with Bedros).

And then I stacked a meeting after because an old client I’ve known for nearly 20 years asked for help with his business and wanted to vent about his ex.

So I missed out on going to the pool with Isabella and Sofia…

To do a podcast that didn’t matter…

And then my friend NO SHOWED on a call he begged for.

I won’t get fooled again.

Time to be ruthless.

So while it might seem “cold” to cancel…

Stealing playtime from my kids is much colder. 

Or being late for dinner with your partner because you took random phone calls all day that left you running behind on your deadlines.

Or skipping workouts and hurting your health because you were Golden-Handcuffed to Zoom all day. 

The problem is that while everyone knows how to book a (useless) meeting…

Few people think to cancel useless meetings.

That’s why I spend 15 minutes every week “editing” my calendar.

Every Friday afternoon…

Right before my call with my good friend and longtime client Trent in New Zealand (where it’s Saturday AM)

I set aside time to get rid of the monkeys that are not part of my circus.

I give my calendar a good Marie Kondo-treatment. 

I cancel as many calls, meetings, podcasts, etc. as I can.

For example, yesterday I canceled:

• 3 meetings that could easily be done by emailing instructions
• A podcast with a woman who insisted on a call before noon (my time) because she lives in Europe & wanted an early time for “better lighting”
• Reviewing an old friend’s book so I could give him a book blurb. (I’m not the type to give a blurb without actually reading the book.)

I just don’t have time for these things.

Feels so good to let them go.

As Bruce Lee said, 

“It’s not the daily increase but daily decrease. 

Hack away at the unessential.”

BTW, my belief is this…

If I give someone 72 hours notice (3 business days) when cancelling a call, that’s more than fair. No guilt here.

***
Bottom Line: I grant you permission to put more VALUE your time!

You must be OK with saying NO, and saying, “I’m sorry, gotta cancel.”

You must ruthlessly protect your high value work blocks. Most things can wait. Most things don’t matter.

Cancelling, culling, and quitting the minor open up space for the major.

The Japanese and Polish are on to something!