Chapters

1 - About me
2 - Getting Started
3 –Know Your Why

4 - The Bubble
5 - Create Rituals
6 - Stop making excuses

7 - Productive routine
8 - Singular focus
9 - I failed ... now what
10 - The importance of measuring performance
11 - Tools
12 - Give back

#1 –About me
Hello, my name is Carlos Branco, I am an entrepreneur/programmer and I have a web
development company. If you are reading this little book, you may want to become
more productive. Let me tell you that I am not very different from you and if at this
moment I can be productive, you will also be able to.

Getting a job to do and not meet deadlines was also part of my day to day. The panic on
the day of delivery and the many errors that this could generate in my work since I am a
programmer was something recurring. At the end of the day, I hated myself ... without
realizing why this was still happening. I just felt like it was self-sabotage. It was not a
lack of time because things were left to be done by choice, but on the other hand, I felt
that the option of postponing a task for the next day had no impact when in fact it had a
huge impact.

The result of the panic in my work was always the same. The product was poorly tested
and presented errors resulting in correction requests that made me even more annoyed
as it further delayed the finalization process. Another consequence that this problem had
was not having the ability to deliver some extras that would improve the quality of the
project. When we want to be professionals, we must always deliver more value than the
one initially asked for and this is only possible if we have the capacity to do it and when
we are in a panic, we do not have this capacity.

But do not think that this awful habit began at work. At school, university was the same,
jobs that were marked matter were taught and dates were defined. Year after year there
was a promise that "this year would be different." But ... as always was everything for
the last hour. Panic and a sense of urgency came to mind. Unfortunately, at school, we
ended up not feeling a big impact from this problem. School is much easier than real life
so even with a mediocre job, you can move forward.

This habit of procrastinating begins to get more and more rooted in our life, gradually
becoming a way of life, we begin to believe that we are anyway. The feeling that we
wake up in the morning and we end up spending all day working without being able to
complete the tasks is horrible. We feel tired and powerless.

We secretly have the idea that one day things will return to normal, but unfortunately,
this will never happen. Albert Einstein said:

The definition of insanity is to do the same thing over and over and
expect different results. (Ok, maybe it was not Einstein)

But fortunately, it does not have to be always like this. After thousands of:
Jobs delivered after the deadline, hours of panic, and all the stress, I decided that things
had to change. I could not continue this self-sabotage process and find it normal. It was
time to seek help, and I did. I found a lot of material that helped me to figure out what
was going on and how I could change it. For this reason, I decided to write this little

book so that I could help others in the same situation. So let's start. The process will be
a little long, but the only thing I can promise is that, it will be worth it.

#2 - Getting Started
If at this moment you are in the middle of a job or project and you are in a panic to
finish the same, my advice is to immediately close this book and finish your project
first. All this happens because our brain has been programmed millions of years, so we
have this terrible habit of trying to avoid the uncomfortable task to the maximum. Our
brain was programmed to keep us alive not to make us happy. Anything that makes you
uncomfortable will be delayed.

As an example, one of the techniques used to avoid uncomfortable tasks may be to read
this book. You are in a panic to finish the project, but your brain will feel good because
you are reading about one of your problems and trying to find a solution. However,
doing this is wrong because you are wasting time that you no longer have and I do not
want to help you with that. So get your hands to work and then we'll make the change.

In case you’ve already finished the work then we can start. To help you in this first step,
I have created a set of questions that you should answer honestly. The normal thing is
that you answer them all with a no.

1. Did you organize your Tasks yesterday?

2. Do you know precisely what you have to do?
3. Do you know precisely how and when to do it?
4. Did you reserve a few blocks of time for emergencies or something you feel like
doing out of what you have scheduled?
5. Define what is your most important task of the day?
6. Do you have your environment organized so that you can easily do it?

Everyday, you can answer these questions again. They will surely help you to have a
more productive day. Do not worry if you still do not understand why this works. I will
explain in the book step by step.

Now you have your material and you are not in a panic or in the middle of a project so
this is the ideal time to begin this process of change. One of the things that you will love
is that you will feel changes in your productivity quickly; the difficult thing is to
maintain them and create the habits/rituals you have that will help you to be productive
in the long run. But do not worry because following this book and applying these
changes in your life will make it easier for you to do things than not do it.

If during the reading of the book you have doubts or you want to share your results with
me, you can do it via social networks that I will leave in the last page of this book. I'll
be happy to help or know your results. Being productive is a fantastic thing and will
change your life completely, but my advice in advance is: let your actions speak for
you. Do not try to change your friends or family lives unless they ask for help. Most
people lack the emotional intelligence to deal with criticism and advice even if they are
constructive.

I know that you will feel fantastic and want to share that feeling and knowledge with
others, but avoid doing it if you are not asked for help or you will find many enemies. A
good book that I will advise you to read related to this topic is the How to Make Friends
and Influence People by Dale Carnegie

#3 -Know Your Why

Unfortunately, many of us have no defined goals. It all starts in school, when we begin
to study, it takes many years until our decisions and choices have some impact. This
does not form the ability to make a correct assessment of the consequences of the
decisions we are taking.

If for some strange reason we came across a lion, for sure we would not delay our
decision to escape. It would be instinctive to start running. The reason is because the
impact of our decision is immediate and the punishment (in this case severe
punishment) would also be immediate if we postpone this beautiful opportunity of
jogging.

In the lion scenario, the brain helps us know how to proceed and act immediately. For
example, in real life, we all know someone who is taking a course with zero
employability and that person don’t even like it or someone who complains on a daily
basis that wants to lose weight but can’t stop putting sugar in the coffee. In both cases
what happens?
After a couple of years studying, the person will find a job in another area after much
searching and the other person will continue complaining and will keep the same
weight. In both cases, you will not have any visible penalty and this happens because
we have don’t have the ability to understand that we are doing something wrong.

I can give more examples like quitting smoking. We all know that it is bad for our
health, however, a great part of the people cannot stop doing it until having bad news
from a doctor or until someone they know died with problems related to tobacco.
Negative motivation only works in extreme cases, and in these cases, it is often too late
when action is taken.

So what do we have to do to change this?

If we want to change something such as being more productive, we must apply positive
motivation here. We must analyze what we want and why we want and in this
assessment, we must be brutally honest. If we do this, it will be much simpler to put the
changes into practice, since we are justifying our changes and all that changes will bring
to our life.
Now follow the following outline on a sheet of paper or smartphone:

1. What do you want to change? (WHAT)

2. Why do you want to make this change? (WHY)
3. How do you plan to apply this change in your life? (HOW)
4. When do you want to start this change? (WHEN)

By following this scheme it is simple to explain to our brain what we are going to do,
how we are going to do it and why we are going to do something.

There is usually a big problem in how the vast majority of people define their overall
goals. Just as an example, I created a list of goals that will be the starting point for
failure:

1. I will make one million euros per month

2. I'm going to lose 30 kilos this year
3. I'm going to move to a better job
4. I'm going to finish the project today
In these 4 examples, these goals are quite regular goals, but they all share a huge
mistake in common. This error is the impossibility of quantifying our result if this one is
not positive.

Analyzing case by case:

Example 1: I'm going to make a million euros a month
This first one has two problems, first, if we fail, we have no indication of what we are
doing wrong and second, we are creating a goal based on something we cannot control.
All goals must be action-oriented and never results-oriented. It is impossible for you to
control if you are going to earn 1 million euros. The only part of the process that we can
control is our actions, not the results.

In this case, the correct objective would be:

I will work 3 hours a day on my side project after work for 6 months

Is it possible to quantify? Yes, 3 hours a day is simple. Is it possible to control? Yes, we

define the amount work so we should have everything under control except for rare
exceptions.

Example 2: I'm going to lose 30 kilos this year

Once again the goal is vague; in case we fail we cannot perceive what we did wrong.
We cannot control the end result. Even if we are doing everything correctly maybe we
don't achieve our goal. A better version of this result would be something like:
I will stop eating sugar
I'm going to walk 60km a week.
I will train 4 times a week. All these are quantifiable and based on actions and not on
results. So we control the process from start to finish.

Example 3: I'm going to get a better job

Again our control over the result is zero and we do not even define the actions so in
case of failure, we do not know how we can improve. A better approach would be
something like this:
I will research 2 hours a day for new job opportunities
I will send 20 resumes per week
In both cases, it is possible to quantify and analyze the result. Whether or not to choose
is beyond our power so we should never include it as an objective.

Example 4: I'm going to finish my project today

How can we control this? What if it's too much work to finish in one day? We should
define our objective based on the tasks we are going to do. So we have total control and
we will achieve our goals much more often because what you do is clear.

It does not mean that we cannot have broader global goals such as helping our family.
But these should be seen as "our why" and our action-based goals will function as our
"How." Responding to our why and how we will be on the right path to success.

So now, sit down with a piece of paper and define what you want for your life following
the scheme I presented above. My advice is to stick around for a change since it is
difficult to change much at the same time. Once you have your goal, write your
"why’s", after that, you can finally define your "how’s", that is, a list of action-based
goals that will allow you to achieve the results you want.

Example:
• I want to read more books about X (what?)
• To have more knowledge in area X (why?)
• I will read 10 pages a day of a book 5 times a week. (how?)"

Just by way of example, 10 pages per day is more or less 1 book per month.
Imagine the person you would be in a year from now by reading the top 10 books about
one specific topic. This is called a compound effect but on this subject, we will speak in
another chapter.

#4 –The Bubble
Now that we have our goals set, it is time to work on them. In order for things to work
out correctly, you will have to change some things that were part of your day.

In this chapter, we will address 3 main problems that may be destroying your
productivity and you may not even be aware of it. These 3 problems can destroy your
productivity, but not only is this also valid for other areas such as fitness related goals.
In this book, when I use the word productivity, I not only mean work but the act of
doing the action that goes according to our goals.

The first factor to take into account in order to be productive is our work area. Many
people love completely messed up tables, how many with everything disorganized etc.
Some people often say that they have read an article showing that various creative
personalities such as Albert Einstein or Steve Jobs had a messy table. But it's important
to realize that neither You nor I are geniuses. So why would we make our work harder
by choice?

We will imagine, imagine these 2 scenarios:

Scenario 1
We wake up in the morning and press the snooze. Another 5 minutes does not hurt. We
woke up again and that 5 minutes seemed like 10 seconds and guess what? Yes, we are
even more sleepy. We get up and decide it is a good day to run so we look out for our
running shoes and shorts. In the middle of the mess it is difficult to find them, but 5
minutes later, we are ready to leave. After the run, we return home and we are ready to
start working.

We sit and on our table, there are papers all over the place. Our eyes also go through the
glass with 30 pens of which half do not write, but we make sure we keep them for some
crazy reason.

After turning on the computer, we still do not know what to do so we decide to open the
email. There are more important tasks then e-mail but since we don't set priorities, e-
mail turns out to be our first choice.

Scenario 2
As soon as the alarm goes off, we get up. The running shoes and the shorts are ready the
day before a meter away from our bed. In less than 5 minutes we are doing our run.
After we finish and shower we look at our immaculately clean table. Only with a
computer, keyboard, mouse, a sheet with the tasks for today and a pen. All we need to
do is tackle the first task and start the day in the best way.

Comparing the two scenarios, it is easy to see that the first is a recipe for disaster in the
long run. The lack of organization in our day and workspace has terrible consequences
because it forces our brain to make unnecessary decisions.

Imagine our brain as a battery. Every decision made reduces the battery. This is called
cognitive load. These decisions are sometimes little things that seem to have no
influence whatsoever, but in fact, they do matter.

For example, choosing what to eat, what to wear, what task to start, to look for
something, to remember things without them being pointed for fear of forgetting
yourself, are all exhausting tasks. When our battery comes to an end, the result is that
we feel powerless to make decisions. I bet you find yourself opening and closing
emails/tabs without having the slightest idea of what they are doing?

Fortunately, this first problem is simple to solve. We must create an ideal working
environment. Remove all stuff that you don’t need and keep just what is important.

• A pen that no longer writes? Garbage.

• The printer used once a month? Maybe you do not have to be at the office.
• Did you use something? Put it in the correct place right away.
• Want to start running? Put your snickers next to your bed.
• Drink water? Put a large glass of water next to your bed so that you can drink it as
soon as you get up. All these little things help our brains not to have to decide since
things are already defined.

The second factor to take into account is distractions. In this case, not always is the fault
completely ours, nevertheless, I can guarantee that we have great control over this
factor. However, we do not like to take responsibility and some people even enjoy these
little distractions.

Imagine this scenario:

We are prepared to start working. We take a look at the phone to see if there is a
notification. Someone comments on your picture. We open just to take a sneak peek and
not realize how well we are already browsing the feed.

It seems like an instant but we know it’s 15 minutes lost. But what does it matter? After
all, I can catch up on work later. I can hear the music of my colleague, it annoys me a
bit, but it is part of this place of work. I've open everything and I'm writing a very
important e-mail when the cell phone rings, a colleague asking a work-related question.
Nothing very important but one hour is already gone pass and still, we do not
accomplish a single task. But if you ask me right away if I’m busy I would respond with
pride: "I'm very busy, lots of work ..."

Unfortunately, it’s a common problem nowadays. We feel busy, but if we have the
ability to coldly analyze what we produce, we can see that it was not so much. We live
in a world where we are 100% available and proud, always ready to receive
notifications and phone calls. But when we receive them we say. Sorry, I'm super busy.
This false occupation is a cancer for our productivity.

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Being available 100% of the time only means that we have zero respect for our time and
for our work and clients. Yes, even if you are 100% available to your customers, it is
wrong! Because you will have to sacrifice the quality of work that you do.

But how can we solve this?

Attacking one problem at a time. Never visit social media during work hours. As
explained previously, social networks are really good at stealing our energy and
attention. They force our brains to take hundreds of micro-decisions with an absurd
amount of information sent to us by the feed.

This means that we should put the phone in airplane mode or use an APP for this
purpose (this is more talked about in the chapter about tools) if it is not possible to
avoid the calls, make the other person realize that it is busy. Immediately attacking the
conversation with a:

Hi, sorry I'm here in the middle of something important.

(Tip from Tim Ferris, 4-hour workweek)

This approach will make the other person feel bad for stealing your time and going
straight to the point. Same goes to check e-mail. You do not have to go to your email 10
times a day. Two, maximum three ... And never at the beginning of your day.

Several studies show that an interrupted person takes more than 20 minutes to get back
to workflow, so ask your colleagues to contact you by e-mail. Since it is more effective
than the phone, it does not imply that two people stop simultaneously to produce and in
many cases, the thing that colleague wants to ask you will solve itself, he was just too
lazy to look for an answer so he chose the fastest way... to call you.

By solving these issues, you will have a better working environment and you will be
more productive. Finally, to finish our bubble of productivity, we have pay to attention
to the people we surround ourselves with. We always hear our parents talking about this
topic and they could not be more correct.
We should try to surround ourselves with people who make us uncomfortable by being
more successful than ourselves in certain areas. Let's imagine that your goal is to lose
weight. Maybe it's a good idea to start rejecting some dinners with friends who love fast
food. First, because they will be a bad influence on you and we humans are quite
influential. And second, they must be out of shape which makes you feel good in your
current state close to them.

Never forget that comfort can be very dangerous. An example of positive influence
would be if we studied in a school where all students get good marks. There is no
chance that our grades would not go up, because we would feel dumb in the middle of
these geniuses.

Now you know how to create your bubble.

First, create a work environment that helps you to take action.
Second, remove or reduce distractions.
Third and final step is to choose better people to surround you.

Start today to apply these methods!

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#5 –Create rituals
In this chapter, we will talk about rituals. If we study the lives of some successful
people quickly, we will find very clear patterns in their day to day life. All these
personalities have various rituals. Many of us have heard about habits and the
importance of having good habits and how they can influence our lives. However, it is
important to realize that in the long run, the rituals are more important than the habits.
Nothing prevents us from turning a ritual into a habit and I will explain how in this
chapter.

Let’s have an example, think of a ritual we all have and how strong it is.

Wash your teeth before going to bed.

This is considered a ritual and not a habit. First, because there is a trigger that triggers
the ritual. “Before going to bed (the trigger)”. We think about going to sleep and
immediately know the ritual to follow. It is quite simple and as this is a triggered act of
going to sleep, the brain does not have to make a lot of effort or decision making. It is
almost like deciding where to sleep, we already know it is in the bedroom and there is
no reason for choices.

This is where rituals beat the habits. The way they are attached to a trigger allows our
brains not to have to decide. Some addictive products are very good at creating rituals.
For example, smoking a cigarette after a meal can become a ritual or opening Facebook
as soon as we open the browser. We may realize that they are rituals if they are
mechanical acts in which we often do them with the brain half-turned off. Believe me,
social networks study the human brain to the fullest, to make sure they control our
behavior and keep us as much time as possible trapped in them. It does not mean that
they are bad, but we have to use them wisely.

So now that we know the difference between a habit and a ritual, it's time to know how
we can benefit from this difference. First, we must think about what we want to change.
Let's imagine that our goal is to lose weight. One of the things we can do is drink more
water. So we can associate drinking water to sleep and wake up.

To achieve this, we can put a glass of, for example, 0.5L in the room and fill the same
before going to sleep. In the morning when we wake up, we should ingest this water.
The same should happen before bedtime. By associating the process of waking up and
going to sleep to this new ritual, we are sure that will last.

Recalling the example of brushing teeth. How many of you think that you will stop
doing it? It is almost impossible because it requires zero effort. Obviously, on average,
it will take 44 to 60 days until it is easier to drink the water than not drink according to
some studies. But when it becomes part of our ritual, our brain has accepted that "that's
the way it's supposed to be" and when it's something that benefits us, that's great.

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We can integrate various rituals to be part of our routine. We can, for example, every
night, schedule tasks for the next day. We can associate the habit of getting out of bed
when going to jog or meditating. On the other hand, we should also give some space in
our life for variance and uncertainty, but never too much. By this I mean that there is
nothing wrong with not knowing what we are going to do over the weekend, we do not
have to program every single second of our life. Consistency in rituals is important, but
we can and should also have blocks of time during our week where we can improvise.
After all, we are humans, not robots.

However, this advice is only for people who already have a fairly organized routine.
Most people do not suffer from this problem, they suffer from the opposite. They lack a
routine in which they do things because they want and not just because they should.

I myself suffered from both problems and of course, sometimes I still have my bad
moments. At first, my routine was dictated by necessity, but then there was a time when
my routine controlled every block of my time. So we should try to find a balance maybe
I would say it will be in the 80% control 20% creative space.

So now that you know the difference between rituals and habits, you should get down to
work and start planning on how you are going to introduce the changes in your life.

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#6 –Stop making excuses

This is perhaps one of the most important chapters of this book because it deals with a
problem common to most people and is something that turns out to be a little invisible
since we do not even realize that this is happening in reality.

The excuses are terrible and in many cases seem completely valid which makes this
whole problem even more frightening. I remember perfectly well that in many different
times of my life I justified not doing something with "I don’t have time".

The "I don’t have time" is one of the most used excuses by all of us and is fantastic for
being very flexible. We can apply the do not have time to:
Learn something new ...
Exercise ...
Start a side project...
Create a to-do list...

When we say we do not have time, 90% of cases what we want to say is: "for me, this is
not a priority". But “I don’t have time” is much better. Because when you say you don’t
have time, you don't feel guilty. We say that we do not have the time to justify to our
brain the reason why we are not doing something that we should and we will accept this
excuse as valid. But unfortunately, the “don’t have time” is just one of the many
weapons we use in our day to day to justify our failure, there are dozens or hundreds,
but I can only list a few in this book.

The "absence of tools" can never be an excuse to not get the job done. A lot of people
romanticize the perfect computer, the perfect software, the perfect camera with the
perfect objective, but all this is just an excuse to try to justify the absence of action. By
way of example, I can tell this little story. About 2 days ago, I had to travel to Laos to
get my visa so I could return to Thailand where I am now living. I was planning to write
this book but I was procrastinating. However, I thought it would be a good time to write
it since I would be without internet for some time so I could capitalize on that. But two
days before starting the trip, I find out that a girl had been robbed in that same city. So I
was a little reluctant to take the computer with me. But instead of giving up the idea of
writing the book, I preferred to try another approach. I have an external Bluetooth
keyboard that I decided to connect my smartphone with and see if worked correctly and
guess what happened? It did not work... Some keys were not detected and I spent hours
trying to change keyboard settings, without any results.

So I decided I would write in it anyway and as you can see I am currently in the 4800
words.

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It would be easy for me to justify that I could not write a book on a smartphone and that
would be complete madness. However, I choose to not give up. Perhaps it is not the
ideal tool to write a book but I was able to do it anyway. So if you have a smartphone
and you want to write your own book and publish it on amazon, the only thing that
could stop you from doing it would be your own excuses.

Carlos okay... okay, but I do not have the money to eat or a cell phone. So you have an
even bigger problem to solve than the lack of productivity. It should be your first focus
to work as much as possible to find a source of basic income before you try to solve
other problems.

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"I was born poor"

This is also a classic to justify our whole life. Bill Gates says, "No one is to blame for
being born poor, but dying poor is surely your fault"

"Political Situation"
Another classic! Blame politics (unless they are in a country with a dictatorship).
Complaining is equal to making excuses. None of them requires any effort. On the other
hand, looking for opportunities is hard and takes lots of work. Our control over politics
or born poor is zero. So it can never be used as an excuse since we have the ability to
move around the world and find/create new opportunities.

"I’m not an early bird/it's my genetics"

This is completely false ... maybe even if you do not like waking up early, I also
thought I was more productive at night until I started to wake up early. You may even
tend to get fat, but try to walk 5km miles a day and drink water instead of light soda at
lunch and you will see the difference this will have in your body at the end of a year.

It is impossible to stop using excuses at 100%, but if we know how the process works
the next time you say "I do not have time", you will immediately be alert. “Wait,
something is wrong!” So my advice to you in this chapter is to be more honest with
yourself and stop a bit to evaluate your behavior and take responsibility for your life.

This is the time to become the captain of your boat!

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#7- Productive Routine

In this chapter, we will talk about how we can create a productive routine. Again, I
remember that when we think about effecting some change, it is a terrible idea to try to
change our whole life at once. So my advice is for you not to try to replicate this whole
routine immediately. This would be the same as trying to run without knowing how to
walk. It just does not work. But first I will describe the routine step by step and at the
end of the chapter, I will say how we should apply it depending on the current level of
discipline that we have in our lives.

As I mentioned in Chapter 5, the idea is to create a series of rituals that will allow us to
maintain a productive routine without feeling that we are making a huge effort. It all
starts the night before. Yes, it is true! The first step to having a productive routine is to
protect our brain and reduce as much as you can the number of decisions that you make
each day. After dinner, reserve 15 minutes. Take a sheet of paper and a pen or Google
calendar, Trello (do not worry, we'll have a chapter related to tools only if you're
confused to think: "What the hell is Trello?" Use paper and pen for now).

In this paper, we will set 5 goals for the next day. The criteria I use (may change
according to your objectives) is to define 5 tasks, 3 related to work and 2 related to my
personal life.

For the tasks related to personal life, usually, you can choose things that give you
pleasure, but we are too busy to do them. These tasks will work as a reward for you.
They are like sugar cube for our reward system. You can choose activities like:

• Read 15 pages of a book

• Take a walk
• Physical Exercise 30 minutes
• Visit a friend
• Call our parents
• View a series

It’s important to be specific in the task. Do not forget that these tasks should be possible
to quantify. The more objective and detailed we are, the better, as that will greatly
increase the likelihood of the task being done and believe that things that are not
mandatory are the things that we can most easily justify not doing. Unlike work, if we
do not read, if we do not visit our friends, if we do not exercise, we will not have
anyone pressuring us so it is a good idea to schedule these tasks and be very specific
about them.

Regarding work-related tasks, we should choose 3. We can choose more than 3 if we

want to be very specific and break large tasks into small ones. (it's a great idea). But
please do not try to perform 10 tasks a day. One of the most important characteristics of
success is discipline and the reason discipline is one of the most important
characteristics is because it leads to consistency. Performing 3 important tasks every
day leads to almost 100 tasks done per month. At the end of a year, we can easily
achieve more than 1000 tasks.

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Now it is important to define from these 3 or more tasks which one is your IMR. Most
important task! Only one can exist. There is a curious fact that shows that until the
beginning of the 20th century, the word priority had no plural. There was no such thing
as "priorities." This idea of “priorities” came with the multi-tasking generation and this
is one of the most usual reasons for procrastination. For millions of years, the priority of
our brain was to keep us alive. Something fairly simple and basic that was achieved
through hunting and procreation. Nowadays, we are bombarded with thousands of
notifications, tasks, all of them "important". This makes it difficult to get a clear picture
of what we want and should do.

If there are any doubts about choosing your most important task for tomorrow, ask
yourself the following questions?

1. What task if performed will help other tasks in the list?

2. If this task is the only thing I accomplish. Will I be happy?

(This system of prioritization was not invented by me but is being referenced by huge
people, EG: Tim Ferriss):

One tip that can help you tackle a rather complex task is to close your eyes and for a
few minutes figure out step by step what you will have to do to accomplish the task. See
yourself in your imagination trying to accomplish the task. If you're going to write your
book, imagine yourself turning on your computer, opening your favorite text editor, and
starting typing. It sounds stupid, but the truth is that if we can imagine doing the task, it
will make the action much simpler.

Once you have chosen the tasks, it is now important to define when those tasks will be
done. We do not want to get up the next day and have to decide what will be the first
thing on the list that we are going to do.

Then we must set a time to start and a time to end each of the items on the list. We
should also leave blocks of time free in our "schedule" because as a general rule we are
very bad at predicting the time it takes to accomplish a task and we tend to be quite
optimistic. We never calculate that we will be interrupted and believe me that even if
you create a bubble, this problem will happen. Add 30 minutes to 1 extra hour on each
task. This extra time will allow you to not panic if the tasks start to take longer than
expected.

If for some reason you finish the task faster than expected, nothing prevents you from
moving on to the next task. As a general rule regarding work-related tasks, I think we
should always approach the task that is the most important first. At the beginning of the
day is when we have more energy because we have not made a single decision and our
brain is fresh. We should take advantage of this.

Tasks that can be done with the brain off should be left for later. For example, check
and respond to e-mails. Usually, people can wait for your reply in the email. Believe
me! We tend to dramatize and believe that the world will end if we are not refreshing
our e-mail every 5 minutes. Most people just enjoy doing and checking their e-mail for
several hours because it is a task that does not require much effort and makes us feel

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that busy and productive when in fact it is just an excuse not to do the work that really
matters.

Again if your job is to do e-mail, yes, you obviously have to be attentive to the email.
But this is the exception, not the rule.

Keep in mind that you should also set an end and start time for your personal tasks. The
less you decide the better. While it is fun to watch a movie, we must respect this time in
the same way that we respect our working time so it is important to have a schedule of
it.

Do not think that by having your day planned you will no longer have freedom. It is
precisely the opposite that happens. When there is no scheduling and organization, the
tasks drag through the day and eventually move to the next day. There is no freedom in
being stuck on the same task and not knowing when they will be finished because we
are poorly organized and productive. When we have everything organized, we can and
should have free blocks of time during the day to do something that is not programmed.
You will be amazed with the amount of work you can do when your day is organized
and how much time you will have left over. Being in control of your life is true
freedom.

Now that we have everything organized, we must begin to prepare our sleep. Several
studies have shown that the pre-sleeping use of electronic devices such as computers,
televisions, and especially mobile phones has very bad consequences on our sleep
cycles. The reason why this happens is because all these devices by default emit the so-
called "blue" light. Our brain, when it sees this luminosity, is deceived into thinking that
it is day and release chemicals that keep us alert. This happens for the same reason that
when we are in a dark place we begin to yawn. Our brain assumes that it is night and
begins to prepare us to sleep releasing the chemicals that make us sleepy.

So we should try to avoid using electronic gadgets after dinner and try to keep the
environment not too bright. Nothing is wrong with watching a little TV on a screen
preferably far from our eyes and in a dark room or read a book in a bright room.

We must also realize how our sleep works. Many times we were confused because we
slept 6 hours and woke up refreshed and then we decided to sleep another extra 30
minutes and wake up completely busted, with the feeling that we were hit by a train.

Our sleep works in 90-minute cycles. So ideally we should sleep 1:30, 3:00, 4:30, 6:00,
7:30 or 9:00. So this means it's better to sleep 4:30 and wake up at the end of the cycle
than to sleep 5:00 and wake up mid-cycle as this will leave us quite worn out.

There are several tools that allow you to set the best time to go to sleep if you want to
wake up at a certain time or otherwise at what time you should wake up if you want to
go to bed immediately. These tools are smart and take into account the time that it takes
us to fall asleep. For most people, it is around 14 minutes. (More on these tools in the
chapter dedicated to this topic).

Having tea before bedtime may not be a bad idea, but avoid green or black tea because
these have caffeine which is not very positive for sleep.

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Before bedtime, you can also prepare something that will help you in the task you set
for the beginning of the day. If you are going to run, make sure “running gear” is ready
and accessible.

Put your mobile phone in airplane mode unless you are a doctor or the president of
some country as no one will need you and leave it well away from the bed. Nothing is
better than a good walk to turn off the alarm! This helps to avoid the possible idea of
going back to bed after turning it off.

After the well-deserved sleep, we are ready to attack the day. Our brain knows
specifically what to do and when to do. If you want to optimize your day more, you can
reduce decisions on stupid tasks like deciding what to wear or what to eat. Those kinds
of decisions are a waste of energy. Leave your clothes ready the day before and try to
create 2 or 3 "menus" for breakfast. So you just have to choose between them.

Many studies show that there are benefits to starting the day doing physical exercise
such as a walk or a run. Try what is best for you and your lifestyle.

As I said we should start slowly. It's a good idea to organize the day. But if we do not
exercise regularly or if we do not wake up early on a regular basis, it is a good idea to
try to implement one habit at a time. Do not try to change sleep, eating, and work ethic
simultaneously.

Maybe you should start by organizing your day because it is what will benefit all other
areas in the future. After 1 month of organizing your day steadily. You may start to
wake up early, or start eating better.
So the evolution will be smooth and you will have a much greater chance to succeed.

At the end of the day what matters is consistency. Life is a marathon, not a sprint.

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#8 –Singular Focus
One of the most important characteristics in the construction of the productive routine is
the ability to have a singular focus. If you are doing your most important task, just do
that. I know that while we are working on something important you will listen to a
voice in your brain saying something like this:

“HUMMM THE E-MAIL BOX MUST HAVE SOMETHING NEW”

It's perfectly normal, after all, sometimes we forget this little detail, but we're animals.
We were not meant to be on the computer focused on a task and we don’t really practice
doing it so then we have to develop this ability.

The important thing is realizing when we are about to lose focus. Every time you think
“I need to check e-mail” or “I should go and get some milk”, you should write your
intention on a piece of paper "check e-mail" or "buy milk" and continue with your
previous task. This ability to ignore the desire to interrupt makes it easier to ignore in
the future. Our focus is like a muscle and it has to be trained just like any other muscle
evolves when it is put into test at difficult times. When we feel like checking our phone
and we grab it, if we put it down again our focus starts to get stronger as we begin to
learn to cope with the impulses and control them. Of course in the beginning,
sometimes, it is better to give up cold turkey by simply putting your mobile phone out
of your reach. You will be able to slowly improve your control over your actions. But
you have to be aware that all these impulses are quite drug-like. Our brain wants to feel
good (dopamine release). So your brain will prefer you to do tasks that give you instant
gratification.
You must teach your brain that by accomplishing hard tasks that you are avoiding, the
reward will be much bigger.

There are lots of techniques to improve our focus. Two of them were discussed in the
previous chapter. Organize/Schedule tasks is undoubtedly one of the most important,
but we also talk about visualization and how the ability to see ourselves doing a task
from beginning to end is also a precious help.

But in this chapter, I want to dwell on one of the simplest and most fantastic
productivity techniques I have ever encountered. This technique is known as the
pomodoro technique. It was developed by Francesco Cirillo during his student days. He
had a hard time focusing on the tasks he had to do, such as studying. So one day, he
decided to take a small kitchen timer. This timer could count up to 25 minutes.

So Francesco decided he would set the timer to countdown 25 minutes. During these 25
minutes, he would have to study and he would not be allowed to do any other tasks. To
feel less pressure to stop if he had any idea or remember something important, he would
write that on a piece of paper. At the end of this 25 minutes block, he decided to take a

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5-minute break. This idea by itself doesn’t seem anything extraordinary; however, he
came to the conclusion that during these 25 minutes, he could accomplish a lot because
he was focused only on a single task without interruptions. The 5-minute pause at the
end of each block was also gratifying and was used as a prize for the 25-minute block of
productivity.

That’s how the pomodoro technique was created. This technique is used daily by
thousands of people around the world. Its simplicity and effectiveness is unbelievable.
Because you know when you will start and you will finish your pomodoro and make
your brain create less resistance to start the task. Your brain will find it most more
enjoyable if you break a massive task in blocks of 25 minutes. Each time you finish a
block, your brain releases a little bit of that sweet dopamine and you start to get
addicted to become a finisher.

If you do not have a kitchen timer do not worry, there are lots of APPs for mobile phone
and computer and that were set up to organize our work and time using the pomodoro
technique. We'll talk about these apps in detail in the chapter dedicated to tools.

Most apps allow you to define the duration of the pomodoro and the duration of the
pause. By default, the standard time (due to the kitchen accessory) is set as 25 minutes
for the pomodoro and 5 minutes for the break. Almost all apps also create a special
break time every 4 pomodoros you do. Some people will eventually find that 25
minutes is not much and they can be focused for longer periods of time and the
interruption after 25 minutes turns out to be negative. In my scenario, you can start to
do 40 minutes pomodoros with 10 minute break. During breaks, I avoid visiting social
media or e-mail. I just get up and walk a little bit. We can take advantage of this break
and read some article or chit chat with a friend.

One mistake I made and that I believe you will also do is to start using the pomodoros
for everything. Imagine all my day full of blocks of 25 minutes. I finally realized that
this does not make sense. The idea is to use the pomodoros for the most important task
of the day or at least just for work that we need to be concentrated. Works such as
reading and responding to e-mail, there is no need to use the pomodoro method because
these are tasks that we will rarely avoid to do them. But if that's the case, why not.

There is something so-called "deep work". These are the kind of activities that need
deep concentration. Usually, you cannot do deep work more than 2 to 3 hours per day
but these 3 hours will have a massive impact on our life. The other smaller tasks should
not be neglected but should never be treated as a priority.

It takes time until you realize that there is a different type of work and that you cannot
handle all work in the same way. If you do it generally, you will sacrifice the work that
requires more concentration and that is the one that will bring us better results.

As an example, if you have a job that you don’t like, your priority should be to take a
study and/or try to find a new job. So to accomplish this, you can reserve a block of
time in your day for these two tasks. Pomodoro technique can help you here.

Perhaps not every single office environment is the best place to apply the pomodoro
technique. But if you work in a small company and explain to your boss that you intend

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to use this technique to increase your productivity and be more effective, I do not
believe he will not approve it. All the teachings in this book should be adapted to your
present reality. The most important thing is to not become septic just because you find it
difficult to implement some method referred to in this book. As it was said in chapter 6,
it is time to become the captain of your boat.

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#9 – I failed ... now what...

You organize your day, you are prepared to be super productive, but something
happens. Let’s say that you get ready to run but it starts to rain. Or something crazy
happens and you cannot work all morning. You have no electricity or internet. Or one of
the tasks you plan to take, took much longer than you were expecting and ended up
taking all day to finish.

Well, life is unpredictable and your day will not always be what you expect. You can
plan your day, but the control you have in what is going to happen is not guaranteed.
The question is how you should respond when these problems happen.

As we get more organized and productive, it can be devastating to realize that

everything we have planned has gone downhill and we cannot do anything to prevent it.
It takes a long time to create a routine and to create rituals, but believe that to destroy
them sometimes is not so difficult especially when they are new in your life.

A perfect example was given above: You go to run, but it starts to rain. Winter can be
the perfect excuse to destroy the habit of running. Especially if you have to do it on the
street. It's easy to justify that we do not want to run while it’s raining, your brain will
accept that justification in the blink of an eye. To fight this problem, you have to find a
solution to the problem and it’s very important that you find this solution as fast as you
can.

It's raining? Is it going to rain all day? Nowadays you can check all this information on
Google. It’s really raining a lot? Is there is any possibility to start running in a local gym
instead?

We must immediately try to find an alternative and evaluate the problems in a realistic
way. If I know that in December in my country it will rain every day, it might be a good
idea to spend a month in a gym or buy a treadmill and run at home.

In the scenario, finding a fast solution is very important. Imagine that you fell off the
horse, what you should do is go back to the horse as fast as possible and minimize the
damage. Let’s imagine that you were writing your book and it was your most important
task for today, but something happened and you could not work a single minute in the
morning. One of the most common mistakes is to try to compensate the next day. But
this is a huge mistake. If you had to write 2 hours, do not even think in: "Tomorrow I
can write 4 hours will do the same". What you should do is look at your schedule and
see what you can sacrifice so you can still do your most important job today.

Double the amount of work for the next day will only create more stress especially if
you have a lot of work for the next day. Sometimes it is important to stop and
reevaluate; by doing this will bring you immense benefits and will also allow you to
learn how to deal more effectively with unforeseen events. In some scenarios, it will not
be possible to save your day and finish your most important task but surely you will
have more good days than bad ones so your balance will be quite positive.

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If by chance the unforeseen events are happening many times, you should to understand
the reason for it and try to understand how you can prevent this happening so
frequently. Often, we have some responsibility in these events and we just do not realize
it.

So to summarize, if something went wrong:

Stop, reevaluate, and act quickly. Remember that we do not have control over many
events, we just have control over our response to them.

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#10 –The importance of measuring

performance
As said before, when we are organizing our day and setting goals, we must always be
sure that these goals are possible to quantify if we don’t accomplish them.

One of the things that helped me the most to understand my problems was to start using
tools to quantify my performance in certain areas. We all have a friend or relative who
when asked:
"Are you drinking water?" he responds immediately:
"Yes, I drink a lot of water." But… is this really true?

If he really tries to quantify how much water he drinks, is he capable of doing so? Is it
“A lot of water”? 1 cup per day? 2 or 3? Or maybe a few days none...
Without methods to measure performance, maybe he is just guessing and he is not even
sure if he really drinks water.

We can pick up other examples where clearly it’s hard for us to give a precise answer
without using tools to measure our performance.

1. How far do you walk/run each month?

2. How much time per day do you use your mobile phone?
3. How much time per day do you write code? (If they are programmers).
4. How much time do you use social networks on your computer?

When we are talking about productivity it is important to know how to answer these
questions and when we use one or more tools to do so, we may be shocked by the
results.

I remember the first time I did such a thing. I decided to start tracking how many
minutes I used my smartphone per day. The result was completely embarrassing and it
scared me.

To do this measure I installed an application (we'll talk about these tools and others in
the next chapter), which logs the number of hours and minutes I was using the phone
and the number of times I unlocked the screen per day.

• 3 hours on average per day

• 80 to 100 unlocks per day.

I was crazy to see these numbers, of course without even noticing I was hurting my
business, physical health, and also mental health since all this phone usage was
preventing me from being able to spend much time focused on the same task.

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After analyzing the numbers, it was possible for me to start working on the problem and
start reducing my phone usage. I can tell you that I am still a long way from perfection
at the moment, but I can guarantee that I can use the cell phone much less.
Some tips for anyone who has this problem:
• Remove any app shortcuts with which you lose more of your home screen. This will
make it harder to use that App. You can even create a folder called social and put the
shortcuts of the apps all in that same folder. The more steps you take to open an
application, the less desirable it will be for your brain to start this activity.
• Turn off all application notifications such as social networks. They are not important.
• If things go out of control just install an app to limit the number of minutes that other
apps can use. (More information about this in the tools chapter).

After doing this, you will get back an hour or two per day. Imagine the impact this will
have on you one year from now. 700 hours if invested on exercise, study, can make you
a completely different person.

Another example that scared me was when I started quantifying the distance I walked
each month. To do this I decided to buy a MI Band (buy one here
https://bit.ly/2F9Qp6N) and start using it to control all the steps I took (literally hehe).
The first month, I noticed that I had only walked 28KM that gave less than 1KM per
day.

These levels of sedentary lifestyle are quite harmful for the heart, back/posture, and so
on. The World Health Organization advises that we must walk at least 8000 steps per
day. These 8000 steps are equivalent to more or less 5km, that's 1 hour of walking.

Every day I was walking just 1km and that at the end of a year means that I would have
walked less than 1460km than I should. You can imagine the negative impact this has
had on my life after 2, 3, or 4 years. (Even today I am paying the price for all this years
I was neglecting my body)

These discoveries and fixes were only possible because I decided that I should be
honest with myself and start measuring my performance. Ignoring these numbers may
give us some temporary reassurance, but at the end of the day ... who are we trying to
deceive? Everything we do negative will have a serious impact on our lives, maybe not
in the short term, but definitely in the long run.

Although I understand that this analysis can be a bit frightening at the beginning,
because deep down we are afraid to see the results, I think we should take advantage of
the next chapter and not be afraid to see the reality of knowing at what "level" it is, in
your life. And the "level" that it is now does not have to be the same as it will be in 6
months or 1 year.

Never forget that you cannot solve problems if you do not know they exist!

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#11 - Tools
This chapter will be a bit more technical. Here I will mention several tools I have used
and some I still use over the last few years to help me become more productive. You do
not have to install all at once or use all of them. Be aware that in some circumstances
the tools themselves are a distraction.

I always laugh when I see an article with a title: "20 apps that will make you more
productive." I honestly do not believe this at all. If the title was "Removing this 20 apps
will make you more productive" would be a much more realistic title.

PC / MAC
1 - RescueTime
Realize where and how you are spending your time on the internet. This tool will
automatically control all the time you spend on each program, website etc. And generate
detailed reports.
https://www.rescuetime.com

2 - WakaTime
If you are a programmer with a program, you can control the number of hours of code
you write per day/week etc. It has several interesting data and even annual statistics.
https://wakatime.com/

3 - Trello
Perhaps for me, it is the best system for organizing your daily tasks, ideas for the future,
etc. We can drag the tasks and reminders between columns and control what is to be
done, to do, future ideas, etc.
https://trello.com

4 - Google Keep
I use this tool to point out all the ideas I have. It is super simple to use and has the
ability to transform image to text and speech to text.
https://keep.google.com/

5 - Cold Turkey
You can use this program to, for example, define sites and applications that you cannot
open. You can create different times for each day of the week, and you can even set
intervals when you can use your distractions.
https://getcoldturkey.com/

6 - SelfControl
This application, unlike the others, is only for MAC.
Allows you to set a period of time and a list of websites to block.
https://selfcontrolapp.com/

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Mobile Phones
7 - Anti Social - Android
Allows you to set a time limit on which you can use the applications. It also allows you
to know how long you have used the phone and the number of unlocks and the time per
application.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.goozix.antisocial_personal

8 - Moment - iOS
It allows you to control the usage time of the phone.
https://inthemoment.io/

Real life
9 - MI Band
This bracelet has a battery that lasts more than 20 days, is waterproof, and allows you to
monitor your sleep, number of steps, and other physical activities automatically. You
can then view statistics
https://bit.ly/2F9Qp6N

10 - Sleepyti.me
Calculate the time you should go to bed.
https://sleepyti.me/

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#12 –Give back

Finally, I will talk about something that I consider very important. All this journey to
productivity was made for the purpose of personal development. It is very important
that for each year that passes, it is possible to analyze and verify an evolution in your
life. These evolutions will make you a better person and deep down you deserve it if
you struggle hard to conquer it.

But what is the purpose of this journey if you are alone. The victories are to be
celebrated with our friends, family etc.

Share knowledge with anyone who wants to learn.

Help those who want and deserve to be helped.
Share experiences and give experiences to the people you care about and avoid judging
others by your current situation.

All this will make you feel that all this work was worth it.

Thanks for reading this book, hope it helps you to become a better version of yourself.
To receive future book launches, subscribe to my newsletter here:
https://imcarlos.pro

If you want to contact me, you can also do so with the data present on my website.

Website: http://imcarlos.pro
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/carlosbranco88
Twitter: https://twitter.com/carlosbranco88
E-mail: hi@imcarlos.pro

Thank you
Carlos Branco

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