How can I get better at executing?

Hey Grant. Recently went through the same slump. Here's what has been working for me:

1. I got my things organised in a structure that made sense to me. By planning things ahead of time I find I spend less time sitting at my desk figuring out what my priorities are. I use dead time - like being on a train, or the loo, or waiting in line to jot things down. I use trello. I have 5 columns:

• Remember - more or less my mission statement items. Why I'm doing what I'm doing
• Ideas - tasks that I haven't fully fleshed out yet but think I might like to do
• TODO - tasks that I have fleshed out and promoted from Ideas. I keep this usually less than 5 things. If they sit there for too long - like 3 days - then I kick them back to ideas or altogether. Clearly they weren't important enough.
• Doing - pretty obvious what this is. I keep this < 3 items
• Done - I keep these around for a couple days then archive them. It's a good reminder that you're getting sh*t done

1. I re-read this reddit post. I go back every now and then to get the kick I need:
   https://www.reddit.com/r/getdisciplined/comments/1q96b5/i_just_dont_care_about_myself/cdah4af/

2. I communicated what I was going to do - it made me accountable. I posted in IH daily-standup threads (which kinda suck for me coz im in AEST), I told my wife, I told my best friend. I told anyone who would listen. It feels good to tell people because it makes it feel real.

3. I timeboxed it originally to an hour a day. For those days where I really couldn't be bothered, I just promised myself only an hour was needed (no zero days!). Now I can find myself doing 3, 4, 5 hours without really batting an eyelid.

I'm definitely not an expert in keeping super productive. But I also accept past me being a bit lazy. Some days it's up and some days it's down. Love yourself, keep your head straight, and it'll all work out.

Goodluck.

p.s. if you want someone to do #3 with, my email is on my profile.

Great question, Grant. I want to share my approach as it's unique compared to some.

I used to have super complex processes and systems in place to get more tasks done. However, over the years I found that they didn't work as well as I was hoping.

After sitting down with an old professor of mine at my University as well as listening to other founders and their advice (such as Signal vs Noise), this is what I do now.

1. Do not use a backlog. Your todo list should only contain items for the next week or so. Any longer and you are just giving yourself stress and work to do that may end up being a waste of time.

This is my secret to helping me not feel super overwhelmed and feeling more productive. No one wants to look at a giant todo list that spans over months to years of work long. Also, how/why are you planning your work life for the next month(s) to year(s) when your project might change dramatically tomorrow? Things change, markets change, people change, there's no way you can plan that far ahead. It will actually slow you down.

1. Your todo list, start it off being super broad and generic. "Add analytics tracking to my website.", "Send email newsletter about new product launch", "Send email to team about new idea". But when you actually begin to work on that todo list item, stop and do this exercise before working on the task.

Break that task down into as many tiny chunks as possible. Let's go over each of my examples above.

"Add analytics tracking to my website." turns into:

• Research best analytics tool to use these days for tracking websites. Look at blogs posted in only 2018.
• Look up instructions for how to add analytics to my site depending on what tool that I chose to use.
• Deploy website with changes with analytics. Do it via Filezilla FTP transfer. Push up code changes to GitHub.

"Send email newsletter about new product launch" turns into:

• Open up Mailchimp and start a new campaign. Title it, "More themes!" and send it to everyone who uses the paid version of my app.
• Use the layout, single column with 1 header image.
• Find an image on unsplash for the header of someone drinking coffee.
• Copy and paste the newsletter content that Sue wrote: https://drive.google.com/document/link/here
• Schedule post for this Friday at noon.

Keep breaking down that 1 task as much as you possibly can. This is my secret recipe that helps me stay away from browsing YouTube and Twitter all the time.

When I get stuck is when I usually leave and begin browsing sites. Having a clear direction helps me naturally do that less.

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Hope that helps others. Ask me questions here or @levibostian.

Hey Grant. That stinks you’re feeling unproductive. I think that happens to all of us.

Can you try something for me? Instead of describing all of the things you want to avoid, could you take a look at your calendar, pick a day, and describe for me exactly what you ideally want to get done that day. Be as specific as possible, broken down into 15 min blocks. To do this, set a timer for exactly 6 minutes and just write it out. If you get distracted, that’s fine, just note that. How’d it go? 👌

I like to do 2 things

1. Limit your list. Chose one one thing to do. Once you've completed it chose your next. Forget about your huge list, you'll never get through looking at it as a whole.

2. Limit your time. I always get more done if I've only got an hour or even 30 minutes to do it.

This is probably going to sound a little silly but you get better at executing by just executing.

Cut out distractions. Get off social media.

• Complex organisation systems
• Reading books and blogs
• Courses
• Podcasts
• Productivity Hacks
• Project Management Software

These are all products created by productive people for unproductive people and are a distraction. I'm not saying you shouldn't do these things but keep time spent to the absolute bare minimum.

Get a simple to-do list like Wunderlist or a sheet of paper and work through it, don't procrastinate by trying to organise it, just do the stuff on the list.

Also consider that you may be procrastinating because of other psychological reasons like fear of shipping and being judged.

You can read the book "Getting things done". I think it is like what you are trying to do, but more systematic. For me, it made a lot of difference. Hope it helps.

https://www.amazon.com/Getting-Things-Done-Stress-Free-Productivity/dp/0143126563

http://WaitbutWhy.com - worth the 14 mins. https://www.ted.com/talks/tim_urban_inside_the_mind_of_a_master_procrastinator?language=en

Hey Grant - have you thought about finding like-minded accountability buddies as a tool to help you stay more productive and focused?

Andy, one of our early beta testers, said Tribe of Five helped him snap out of it multiple times when he was wasting time on Twitter.

Maybe it could help you too!

I've got a pretty big list of things
Maybe it's too big? It can be very demotivating.
Try to ask yourself why you need to do all these things. If you don't have a clear, motivating answer, it means that the problem is not you but what you are doing - it simply wrong.