At some point near the end of last year, I realized that I had a problem. I was trying to do way too many things with my days. I was working on multiple software development projects, I was doing CEO things in my company, I was working on videos for both this channel and my second channel, doing product design tasks.
Basically, I was trying to do the work of like three different people and I didn't have a lot of clarity, which had two negative knock-on effects that you might be familiar with. Number one, I started a whole lot of things that didn't end up getting finished. And number two, I was working way too much.
I was often in the office until 8 p. m. , my wife was wondering where I was, I was skipping workouts, I knew something needed to change.
So over the holiday break, I took a morning and sat down and did a planning exercise to get clarity on what I actually wanted from the coming year and what I was going to do to get it. And that exercise, which really started out as just kind of a free-writing exercise, turned into something so useful that I had to make a video and share it with you, because I think a lot of other people deal with this problem of doing too many things. So in this video, as the title says, we're going to talk about how to get everything you want this year, or at least how to get clarity on the things you actually want and on what you need to do to get those things.
This will be a process of answering six key questions that we're going to go through in this video, which at the end should leave you with three distinct to-do lists or lists of action items. And a bit later, you're going to understand why in this case, three is actually better than one. But more holistically, this process is also about solving a problem that I like to call low pressure when it comes to your productivity.
Consider for a second this CO2 canister. There is so much gas packed into this small form factor that it's under extremely high pressure. And with that high pressure, we can do useful things, like pumping up a bike tire really quickly.
Even the air that you and I are breathing right now is under a fair bit of pressure, both due to gravity and all the other air stacked on top of it. And because of that pressure, we can breathe it, we can live in it. But if you were to get into a rocket and go all the way to the upper level of the atmosphere and then step outside, you wouldn't be able to breathe the air at all, or at least it would be very, very tough because there's such low air pressure up there that all the gas molecules in the atmosphere are so thinly spread apart.
So pressure is often what makes things useful. And I think about this in terms of our productivity and our prioritization all the time. If we think about all of our goals, all the concerns in our lives as a sphere, the bigger that sphere is, the more we're trying to do at any given moment, then the more our limited resources, our time, our attention, and our energy get spread thinly and the less effective they are.
And all of an exercise like this is to take those limited resources and put them into a smaller form factor, to put them under higher pressure and point them at a smaller but mightier list of priorities and goals. So the first part of this process, the first question to ask yourself is deceptively simple. What do you want?
So this is where I started the exercise for myself. I went to a coffee shop, I opened up a blank page in Notion, no fancy templates or worksheets needed, and I simply started writing out the things that I wanted. And to guide my thinking, I defined six different categories to kind of ensure that I was trying to prioritize across my entire life as well as my business.
So you can use these categories if you want, maybe I missed some, but the ones that I defined are number one, personal growth, number two, business, career, and finance, kind of lumped all those into one category, number three, leadership and community, number four, health, number five, relationships, and number six, a category for fun and daily experience. And throughout these six different categories, I just started listing out things that I want. I'll put some of them on screen right now.
I'm not gonna go through every single thing I listed, so we won't be here for an hour, but a few of them are do 20 pull-ups, get back to my 1,000 pound powerlifting total, spend more time with my mom and my brother, develop my team's leadership capabilities and help their career growth as well. And then for the new startup we're building, Flylighter, I set a kind of holistic goal to have people that I respect come and tell me that they're using the app and enjoying it without prompting. I thought that was a good proxy metric for both product excellence as well as distribution and getting the word out about this tool that we're building.
Now as I was writing this list, I had another sort of sub-question in the back of my mind, which is if I achieve this goal, what does my average daily experience look like and do I actually like that experience? And I've learned to ask myself this question when I'm setting goals or trying to prioritize because in the past, I've often prioritized things that actually don't really matter to my daily experience, don't really help the world, but are more just things that I would sort of like to happen and I think I would look cool if they happened or I'm sort of idealistically thinking about them. So for example, since I live in Denver, one of the things I've always added to my goal list every year prior to this year was to go skiing more often.
I live in Denver after all. I'm an athletic person. I like skiing.
I should be doing it every week, right? But when I look back and observe my average daily experience over the last years, even when I had free time during the ski season, I didn't go skiing. Instead, I lifted weights.
I went for long walks. I played video games with my friends. I played guitar.
I made music. I did a whole lot of stuff that wasn't skiing. So I kind of came to realize that I like the idea of myself as a frequent skier, but it's not something that I really prioritized.
When I looked at my actions, when I looked at my history, it wasn't something that happened. So when thinking about how to get everything I want, I had to think about, again, how am I going to prioritize, how am I going to allocate my limited resources, and if I tried to allocate something I didn't really care about, I was just going to be muddying the waters and, again, inflating that sphere and creating that problem of low pressure again. So I think this is a useful question for you to ask yourself as well.
Do you like your average daily experience if you achieve the goal that you're setting out to achieve? So once you've answered that question, once you have your sort of pared-down list of wants or goals, the next question to ask for each of them is, how do I get it? And that is exactly what I did.
I just entered down from each of those little list items, indented in, and started listing out the things I knew I would need to do for each of them. And I think for the rest of this video, I'm going to pick at least one of the goals from my list and use it as an example for how to go through this thinking process for each question. So for this one, we'll pick the goal of getting to 20 pull-ups in one set.
For that, I know I can do at least two things. Number one, when I'm doing my sets of daily pull-ups throughout the day, when I just get up from my desk and do some random pull-ups, I can jump down from the bar after I max out, rest about 10 or 20 seconds, and then try to get at least a couple more reps. This is basically going to be challenging my body a little bit more and training it for that higher number of reps versus the plateau that I'm sort of stuck at right now.
Another thing I know I can do is add weight to the pull-ups when I'm in my actual workout sessions. Now, I'm not sure if those alone are going to get me to 20 pull-ups. There might be other things I need to do.
There might be questions I need to ask, but I do know those two actions are at least going to get me moving in the right direction. Question number three in this process is to ask yourself, are there any common actions across different goals you have? I came to realize that this was a really important question when I noticed that there was a frankly quite scary action underneath several of my different goals.
Underneath, spend more time with my family, help my mom financially, and also have a bigger yard for my dog to run around. Yes, I'm now one of those millennials getting a house specifically for my dog. I realized that moving to a different city, specifically Minneapolis, would be an action that would put us in the right direction.
I started talking with my wife, and her goals were in alignment with that as well. Even though that is a super scary goal and it has a lot of trade-offs and a lot of unknowns, we do like it here in Denver. There is a lot of good stuff here.
Seeing that underneath multiple different goals and understanding that in the first part of the process, I had identified those as the things I wanted the most started to make me realize that's probably an action that is worth taking or at least worth really seriously considering because it's not just in service of one goal, it's in service of many. If you have actions that are similar, if you have actions that are going to push the needle in multiple areas of your life that you truly care about, those are actions that you should probably prioritize. I would recommend bolding those actions in your list if you're writing this out and following along with me.
That brings us to the final three questions in our list, which are going to create those three lists of action items that I talked about in the beginning of this video. The first question to ask is which of these items on my action list is actually a project. If you've ever read Getting Things Done or you've heard about David Allen's work, he often talks about how an action is something that has an obvious next step.
If I have a check and my action is go cash this check at the bank, I obviously know what to do. I need to go to the bank, I need to talk to the teller, get it cashed, that's clear. If I have something big and scary or ambiguous like maybe move to Minneapolis, that's not an action, that's a project.
That is something that I need to break down into a series of actions and then define a very next action. For each of the items on your list, ask yourself is this an action or is it a project? If it's a project, you'll want to do two different things.
First, start breaking it down into smaller actions that you know you need to do and try to identify the first one that you should do right away. Secondly, create what I like to call an ignorance list. For almost every project that I start, there's a whole bunch of stuff I don't know how to do.
That doesn't actually worry me. In fact, that often indicates the project is worthwhile and is going to result in some growth. Right now, I'm reading Seth Godin's new book, The Song of Significance.
One of the stories he tells in that book is about a guy who built a carpet manufacturing company back in the 1970s. They became one of the market leaders and realized that manufacturing carpet is actually incredibly environmentally destructive. One day, the CEO got with his leadership team and said, "I don't know how to do this, but we're going to become a carbon neutral carpet company.
This is the challenge I'm giving you. Go figure out how to do it. " That is an example of a project that is worthwhile.
They actually achieved it and they had to start out by asking questions. If you've got a project and there are things you don't know how to do in that project, create an ignorance list. Create a list of questions and people that you could go ask or resources you could consult, and that's going to give you some more actions, questions you can go out and ask and research for your action list.
Once you've finished answering this question, you're going to have the first of our three lists, which is your next actions list. This is a list of either one-time actions that will immediately help you achieve a goal, probably a small one, or a list of next actions for the projects that make up what you need to do for your larger goals. With that, we can move on to our fifth question, which is, "What are the systems you need to build and habits you need to adopt to ensure that you are putting daily or at least regular effort into these goals that you have identified as priorities?
" When it comes to building these systems, I have two little subcategories to think about here. First, what are the environmental changes you can make that are going to make it easier to adopt better habits? Second, what are the systems of accountability you can put into place that are going to hold your feet to the fire?
Again, taking some examples from my own goal list with the pull-up goal, a very, very easy environmental change that I actually already made but is a good example nonetheless, is putting the squat rack right next to my desk in this very studio. That way, when I want to take a break, I can get it from my computer, I can go do a bunch of pull-ups, or I can do some other exercises, and I'm getting exercise throughout the day, and I'm getting closer to my goal of doing 20 pull-ups. Likewise, with another one of my goals, play more guitar.
I've got a guitar right back there. I have another one right next to my desk. I have one in the living room of my house.
And because they're just sitting out all the time, I pick them up and I play them multiple times a day. And as a result, I'm playing more guitar and I'm getting a lot better very, very quickly. But sometimes those environmental changes aren't enough on their own, and that is where systems of accountability come in.
Now, there's a lot of ways that you can sort of hold your feet to the fire. There are habit tracking apps. There are more hardcore apps like Beeminder that will actually charge you money if you don't do what you said you were going to do.
But I think, and I talked about in a video about the five levels of self-discipline, the best way to sort of hold yourself accountable is to have other people that are relying on you, to either work as a team or to get a coach or an accountability partner. Basically, if there's another person that I know is expecting me to do something, I am much more likely to do it. One example would be my lifting coach.
He sends me programming and expects me to get my workouts done and send video footage of my final sets. So I make sure I get those done. But a more important example, which pertains to one of my goals this year, is my team that is helping me with content.
So a huge goal I have this year, like I mentioned earlier in the video, is for people that I respect to start using the app that my team and I are building, Flylighter, and to tell me without prompting that they love it. And there are a couple of different sub-goals we are going to have to achieve to make that happen. Number one, we're going to have to make an excellent product, but we're also going to have to up our distribution game.
So to do that, we need to publish more videos on this channel and we need to make sure they're good as well. And to do that, I have built an entire dedicated content team in my company before everyone was kind of wearing a lot of hats and they were sort of switching roles all the time. At this point, there are people in my company who are entirely dedicated to content, which means that they are relying on me to do what I said I'm going to do on time so that way they have the time they need to say, edit the videos or write the videos or research or do whatever it is that they need to do.
That means there's a system of accountability that isn't just an app or a habit tracker or a calendar, but it's a real person depending on me to get their work done and that will ensure that I will get my work done. So think about that idea when you're trying to build systems of accountability for your own goals. Who are the people who are dependent upon you?
Can you align your goals with other people's goals? Can you join a team or can you at least get an accountability partner or a coach or somebody who's going to hold your feet to the fire? And once you've answered that question and also answered the questions of environmental design, you're going to have our second list, your systems of building actions, the actions you need to take to either change your environment or add systems of accountability to keep yourself in line.
And finally, we have perhaps the least fun question here. What are the things that you might need to cut out of your life or at least put on pause so you can shrink that area of concern down to only the items you listed in the first question, so you can create that area of higher pressure. Now there are some low hanging fruit here for sure.
Bad habits for one, if you're say staying up way too late watching Netflix at night and it's affecting your sleep or you're trying to get up earlier and read books every morning like I am, you might want to cut out one of those Netflix episodes you're watching every night and that's going to be a pretty easy decision to make. But a harder decision to make is going to be cutting out things that you see as beneficial, maybe that are even fun, but that weren't on the initial list. And I have a perfect example for that.
It's one that I don't really want to admit to myself, but it's programming. The last video I made was all about how I learned how to code last year and I made some really cool stuff last year, but when I sat down and I listed out all the things that I truly cared about, all the things that I wanted for myself, for my family, for my company this year, me programming is not going to move the needle in a positive direction for any of them. Now me actually acting as CEO, me helping to develop the talents and the abilities of the people who are working for me, me making content, all those actions will have a beneficial impact, but me sitting around programming, it's not going to do it.
And I hate admitting that to myself because I like programming, but it wasn't on the list and I didn't even write program more as like a fun goal. I wanted to sing, I wanted to play guitar, I wanted to play magic with my friends. I didn't want to program.
So what I've started to realize is that programming is something that I'm going to have to put on pause if I want to shrink that area of concern, create higher pressure and actually achieve the things that I want to get done. And I'm admitting that to myself in this video for you because there's probably something in your life that you know is beneficial to a degree, but it's sort of taking your time and attention and energy away from the things you know are actually higher priority and that you want more. Now the good news here is that for items like this that are not actually bad habits, you don't have to commit to cutting them out of your life forever.
You just have to put them on pause. If you truly care about the stuff that's on your list, the stuff that you wrote down in the first question in this exercise, you would put those things on pause. And then later on, you can always reevaluate.
You can ask yourself, do I now want to add this into my life? Have I achieved some of these goals and created space for myself to add this back in? Do I now care about this a bit more?
You can always reevaluate. But for the time being, you need to figure out what you're going to commit to for at least the next few months, I think. And at the end of this question, you're going to have your third and final list, which is your list of cutting actions.
Actions you need to take to cut out the bad habits and to put the non-prioritized activities and habits on pause so you can truly focus on the things that you said you care about. So that, my friends, is how to get everything you want this year, how to get clarity on what it is you actually want, how to break that down from projects in the next actions, and how to figure out what you might need to cut out of your life to make time for the things that truly do matter. Now, the entire point of this exercise and this video was to help you get clarity and direction at a bird's eye level, to understand what you really want and need to do this year, or maybe even within the next few months.
And if you also have your more in the trenches productivity figured out, you wake up every single day knowing exactly what you need to do, then you're good to start executing. But if you're the kind of person who often wakes up and is not sure what you're supposed to do in the next hour, or you're not sure how to plan your day, then you probably should invest a bit of time into also building what I like to call a productivity system. This is basically an external collection of tools or external system that gives you clarity on what you're supposed to be doing next, and also gives you a trusted place to put anything that comes into your life that you shouldn't be storing up in your head, ideas, tasks, events, all that kind of stuff.
And if you want to learn how to build a great productivity system, I have an entire course that you can take over on Skillshare who have kindly sponsored this video. This is a one hour meaty course that will show you exactly how to set up your productivity system with a calendar, a to-do list, a note taking system, and a system of file organization, and make all these pieces of your productivity system work in harmony. And Skillshare actually launched a really cool new feature this year called Learning Paths, and that class is actually in a new productivity learning path along with four other classes, one of which I'm super excited about because it's all about automation.
So if you want to know how to get from point A to point B, if you want, again, more guidance on getting a specific outcome, their learning paths feature, and in particular, that productivity learning path with my course in it is a great place to start. If you're one of the first 500 people to join Skillshare using my link in the description down below, you're even going to get a one month free trial of Skillshare which will basically let you take at least my class if you can get through an hour of material within one month for free, and I know that you can. Plus, after you go through that learning path, Skillshare has thousands of other classes.
They are the largest online learning community for creatives, and they've got classes not just in productivity but also in filmmaking, in graphic design, in animation, video editing, even building and setting up and running a freelance business. So they have something for pretty much everyone who wants to boost their creative skills, maybe even make money through their creative talents. So once again, you can use that link in the description down below, be one of the first 500 to do so, and you're going to get that one month free trial and also help to support my content.
Thanks, as always, to Skillshare, not just for sponsoring this video but for seriously being a long-term partner on this channel. I think I've been working with them since 2017, and being able to work with a trusted partner for now seven years is truly awesome. So I want to thank them for that.
I want to thank you for watching this video all the way to the end, and also if you choose to support my sponsors, thank you for that as well. I want to end this video with a bit of a note on productivity systems, and in particular, something that we will be adding to your productivity system if you want to use it in the future. And that's an app we're building called Flylighter, which is all about both idea capture and also knowledge capture.
We want to build a suite of tools that helps you to capture any of your ideas frictionlessly but also helps you to capture knowledge and resources you come across on the web. And I am obsessed with idea capture. It's the entire reason that I started building this over a year ago, because I think the easier it is for you to capture your ideas and the knowledge you come across, the more dots you're collecting, as Steve Jobs would have put it.
And the more dots you collect, the more dots you're able to connect, the more creative insights you can have, the more problems you can solve. And when you have tools that allow you to collect those dots more easily, you're going to do it more often, and you're going to have more of those creative insights. That's the entire point of what we're trying to build with Flylighter.
And now that I've got talented developers on my team, designers, people who are working on this tool, the sponsors that we work with on this channel and the content that we make isn't meant just to fund the channel itself, but it's also helping to fund the tools we're building without us having to go out and take VC money, without us having to take on the different incentives that investors might have. We can focus entirely on building a great tool for you, listening to customer feedback, and also when we launch later this year, having a more powerful free tier than we otherwise would be able to have. We kind of have this whole entire business now with a content arm, the Notion arm over on Thomas Frank Explains, and now with our SaaS with Flylighter, we have that tool that we're building as well.
So just wanted to give you a little bit of insight into some of the business decisions that me and my team are making this year, give you a little teaser of Flylighter and hopefully build some excitement for that as well. Once again, thank you so much for watching this video. I hope you found it helpful.
I've got a couple more videos right there and right there that can help to boost your productivity even more, and I will see you in the next one.
