Frustrating.

You work tough every day, but the rate of things added to your to-do list is faster than what you get done.

It feels like you’re never going to get ahead no matter what.

You thought everything would be done by the end of the day, but you still have a few more “to-dos” to take care of. It’s midnight, and you’re dead tired, so you add them to tomorrow’s to-do list and head to bed.

Deep inside, you envy those millionaires and billionaires who get their work done and spend plenty of time with their families—something you only dream of.

You think they have some superpowers that you lack, and there’s no way to solve it—so you’re doomed for life!

It has nothing to do with superpowers OR natural talent. It’s the secret methods that they use that make them different. And you can learn to become just as productive as them—and more.

1. Throw away your to-do list.

It happens to you.

You have more stuff on that list than the hours in the day. And to feel better about yourself, you do the most straightforward tasks and leave the extended challenging functions for later. The only problem is that you’re tired in the evening, so you procrastinate on the big jobs. All because you wanted to look at a shortlist. That’s just one of the reasons you shouldn’t be working from your to-do list in the first place.

Productivity experts, including the world’s billionaires, don’t use to-do lists; they use calendars to schedule their tasks. Don’t believe me? Look for yourself.

“I’m not big on to-do lists. Instead, I use e-mail and desktop folders and my online calendar.”

—Bill Gates

Elon Musk, Kevin O’Leary, and many more run their days from a calendar.

To-do lists have many problems. Some of them are:

• It’s tempting to write a long list of tasks that you won’t be able to find time for.
• It doesn’t account for time, so you misjudge the time it takes to finish your list and therefore keep adding more throughout the day.
• You procrastinate on what you hate and do the tasks you enjoy, burning your energy on low-priority functions in exchange for high-priority charges, and that’s holding your business backward.

On the other hand, calendars are:

• Time-conscious, so you know exactly how long each task should take, avoiding cramping in too many daily tasks. It’ll force you to eliminate the unimportant stuff.
• Easier to manage since your day will be written down in front of you.
• Most importantly, motivate you to do the work on time and within time; otherwise, the whole day will be ruined.

So that’s the number 1 secret you need to apply if you want to see any change in your life.

How do you use a calendar, and what should you use?

There are two types of calendars out there:

• Printed
• Electronic

So which one’s better?

It’s an easy guess. The electronic one tends to be better because:

• You can automatically put your daily tasks on repeat and save time having to write them daily.
• You can carry it with you at all times (on your smartphone or any other device).
• You save paper and the environment.

The best electronic calendar to use is Google Calendar.

Now for the real question: how to use a calendar?

1. Well, for starters, there’s an excellent tutorial for Google Calendar on Youtube.
2. Once you’ve watched it, you should now understand how it works. So open up Google Calendar.
3. Now move the tasks from your to-do list and put them as events on the calendar. Make sure you assign enough time for each job. The default is 1 hour, so make sure to reduce it for tasks that require less time.
4. You’re all set. Make sure to refresh the Google Calendar app if you made the edits from a computer.

2. Don’t work on urgent tasks first.

A lot of people think urgent means high priority. Although sometimes true, that’s not always the case.

So what is urgent? Urgent is people’s way of telling you to get their stuff done first. It can also come from people who worry and have low-tolerance levels or bad judgment with priorities.

Ok, so what exactly is a high-priority task?

An excellent matrix by MindTools shows the four kinds of tasks you will encounter. Effort on the X-axis and Impact on the Y-axis.

Listed in order from high to low:

• You should focus on significant projects first in the morning while on maximum energy. They require the most effort, and they give the highest rewards. They include whatever hard work leads to your startup’s success or puts money in your pocket.
• Quick Wins are tasks that have high impact but require less effort, and that’s why they’re called quick wins. You can do these after you’ve completed the major projects.
• Fill Ins are low-value tasks that don’t need much effort. You do these to fill your free time or outsource them.
• Thankless Tasks are those tasks that don’t matter much to your company’s success but require a lot of effort. They are thankless because your efforts get you little to no reward; these must be outsourced when possible.

Remember these when you’re creating your schedule on the calendar.

3. Make time for email and social media.

Contrary to the “don’t check email or social media except once a day” advice that’s been going around, experts such as Kevin Kruse (who interviewed nine billionaires,13 Olympic Athletes, 29 Straight-A Students, and 239 Entrepreneurs) say that the most effective method to manage email is by implementing “The 321Zero System”.

Here is how The 321Zero System works:

Schedule 3 21-minute sessions on your calendar to process them (morning, noon, night).

Empty your inbox in that time frame.

Although his advice doesn’t include social media, it can be had with today’s smartphone addict people who prefer sending WhatsApp messages rather than emails.

So instead of assigning 21 minutes for email, you can post 30 minutes for both email and social media (15 minutes for each). That way, you get to spread your replies to messages and notifications throughout the day instead of once a day, which isn’t practical today.

To take email management to the next level, you can read Kevin Kruse’s full article on how millionaires manage their email.

4. Have a keen focus.

A study by Professor Gloria Mark found that after a distraction, it takes 23 minutes to regain your focus completely!

So what does that mean?

Let’s say your spouse comes through the door and interrupts you for just “two seconds,” which usually takes a minute or two—maybe five.

What seemed to your spouse like a two-minute interruption cost you 25 minutes of focus time!

And that is why you don’t let ANYTHING disturb you at all costs.

So how do you gain super focus until everything else fades into the background?

Simply by making a few adjustments:

• Work in a silent room.
• Clear your desk and only leave what you need within reach.
• Put your phone on silent (not vibrate) or flight mode, then place it flat on its face so you don’t see the screen light up, or even better, put it in another room.
• Hang a “Do not disturb” sign on your door and lock it. Let everyone know that you want to be left alone.
• Turn your desk towards a boring plain wall. The last thing you need is the mesmerizing view through the window or colorful wallpaper.
• Work in periods of 25 to 90 minutes and have a 10–30 minute break between sessions.
• Stay well hydrated. Keep a bottle of water next to you.

If you want to take your focus training to the next level, I recommend you read Laser-Sharp Focus. A No-Fluff Guide to Improved Concentration, Maximised Productivity and Fast-Track to Success by Joanna Just.

5. Let someone else do it.

This may sound counter-intuitive; isn’t this supposed to be about you getting work done?

Well yeah, but you can’t do everything on your own. You’ve got the same 24 hours as everyone else, and you’re not an expert at everything.

Things like accounting or logo design can take up a lot of time. These kinds of tasks should just be outsourced if they take up too much of your time and you can find someone cheap to do them.

I’ve seen so many authors waste half of their time designing their books when they could have given the job to someone on Fiverr for a measly $10.

Places like Fiverr, Upwork, freelancer, etc. are good places to find book designers, web developers, accountants, editors, and just about anything you can think of.

So instead of wasting your time on things like book designs that can take hours to do, outsource them. Focus on tasks that create the most value and the ones you’re good at, like writing.

6. Don’t plan the night before.

Many entrepreneurs advise that you should plan your day the night before. You’ve probably seen it all over the Internet.

But your mental ability to make more decisions decreases after a long day of making decisions. According to research done in a courtroom, judges were more likely to give a favorable ruling in the morning than later in the day.

This is because your willpower is like a muscle, and it gets tired after making decisions. Therefore, planning decisions at night isn’t a good idea.

Planning is vital for optimal performance. Without a plan, you’re likely to procrastinate rather than execute your plan.

A solid plan is time and energy-consuming. That’s why you should plan for the whole week rather than spend time each night or morning planning your day.

A good time to create your schedule would be the day before your work week (Sunday morning if your work week starts on Monday).

You may have to make minor tweaks before you go to bed, and that’s fine, as long as it isn’t a significant planning decision.

While planning your week, follow this guideline: The morning is for high-priority tasks, as we mentioned previously.

7. Do average work.

Are you a perfectionist? If you’re not, then good for you. If you are, then you’ve got yourself a serious problem. Because to you, nothing is ever finished.

You focus on every detail and try to make your work “perfect.” But I can assure you that nothing ever is perfect.

Humans cannot create perfect.

Even the Royce Royce phantom, a masterpiece, isn’t perfect. It is an excellent product, but not perfect. It can still break, yet it is very durable.

But as a young startup, your products don’t need to be anything near that. You aim to launch a minimal viable product that does the job and then keeps improving it based on feedback—the lean startup.

As long as the thing you’re doing works and it is complete! End of Story.

8. Learn the hidden shortcuts.

Sometimes it’s just all about moving faster and cutting corners. Lazy people like me love this one, and it’s the simplest of them all, yet many of us don’t take advantage of it.

Have you ever thought about learning the shortest route before driving? Learning how to read faster? Or just finding a way to be able to do something in a faster way?

For starters, not many people learn how to read or type faster. They think it’ll take them a lot of time and waste more than it would take to read slowly. Other people are just lazy.

Reading and writing are daily activities for entrepreneurs, so I’ll give you a few resources to improve your speed.

For reading:

Spreeder.com

Speed Reading by Tim Ferriss

For Typing:

Keybr.com

Ratatype.com

Typeracer.com

Here are some more tips:

• Dentists recommend brushing teeth twice daily, for 5 minutes if you have a manual toothbrush and 2–3 minutes if you have an electric toothbrush. For that reason, get an electric toothbrush.
• For driving, you could drive faster, but then you may get into an accident which wastes time and your safety; in that case, make the driving time productive by listening to a podcast or lecture. The same goes with the rest of your transportation or idle time; make the most of it by listening to something beneficial.
• If you’re still in college and want to impress your parents or get good grades in the fastest way possible, then apply the methods we discussed in this post and strategically tackle questions. You do not need to answer every question in an assignment or test to get an ‘A.’ Work hard on the parts that are worth the highest marks and just quickly do the low mark questions. Don’t spend the same time on a 1-mark question as you would with a 10-mark question.

There’s a shortcut to almost everything. You never know: you may end up creating a product that saves people some time. People pay for time-saving tools that make their lives easier. Always ask yourself, how can I do this faster?

9. Schedule to do The One Push-Up Challenge.

Because our willpower is limited, whenever we set a big goal, such as workout for 30 minutes, we tend to get lazy. It just seems like too big of a task to complete. However, if you were told to do only one push-up, you wouldn’t need much willpower to get up and do it. The whole thing would feel like a joke. One push-up? I’ll do that right now, and since you’re already in the push-up position, why not do a few more? And since your heart is pumping, why not do a few squats? Before you know it, you’ve done your 30-minute workout.

You can apply this to everything in your life, such as:

• Reading
• Writing
• Cleaning
• Research

Just give yourself a ridiculous goal, such as washing only three dishes, and before you know it, your kitchen sink area is shining clean.

This was inspired by Stephen Guise, author of Mini Habits.

10. Sleep like a bear.

Do you know what’s heartbreaking?

The worst part about sleep deprivation isn’t the risk of getting diabetes. It’s not the risk of heart attack, stroke, or obesity. It’s not even the inability of your body to remove toxic proteins from your brain cells (although that’s bad).

The worst part is that sleep deprivation costs the U.S $63 billion annually in lost productivity. I mean, that’s a load of cash.

If you can’t get 7–8 hours of sleep, take power naps throughout the day. It’s no wonder Google has sleep pods for employees. There’s no point in you working if you’re fatigued.

11. Use cloud storage.

How often have you spent hours editing a document to find out it’s the wrong version?

Or even worse, how often have you sent the wrong document to your team member, boss, or professor?

And not to forget the number of files you have for the same assignment that looks something like this; assignment-1, assignment-1-draft, assignment-1-final, which bogs up your computer’s memory and takes a few minutes to figure out the latest version.

You probably felt like smashing the screen when that happened.

The amount of time wasted could be saved working on the document.

The good news is that you can solve your problem using cloud storage.

You can work on the document online to avoid duplicates and looking for files. And you can share the link to your paper with a team member or boss. If you have to upload a file manually, just download the final version easily.

Some cloud storage services include Google Drive, DropBox, Box, and OneDrive.

12. Don’t waste your time networking.

Networking is necessary, but not if it hinders you from working on what matters in your business. When choosing between working on something important or attending a networking event, always work triumphs.

A good rule of thumb is attending only 1–2 hours of networking events a week. Of course, this depends on your work and the impact networking has on your business; for most experienced entrepreneurs with an extensive network, the amount of networking needed will be less.

Now Imagine looking at your to-do list, except this time, you’ve got each task scheduled on your calendar, and you know exactly when you’ll finish each job.

Instead of stressing about the tasks you couldn’t finish that day, you can now sleep in peace because you know precisely when each job will be done.

Not only that. You also won’t procrastinate on long tiring tasks anymore because you know how to make a long job seem like a joke by following the one push-up challenge.

All because you’ve implemented the methods presented in this post.

Guess what: you’re not the same person after reading this post. You now know the secrets to achieve insane productivity!

No more lost focus, no more doing other people’s “urgent” tasks, and you know exactly how to deal with email and social media compared to the average Tom, Dick, and Harry.