 So you likely clicked on this video because you want your time back in this video I'm going to share with you my favorite productivities that I absolutely swear by as a full-time physician, let's get into it. Hey guys welcome back to channel in case you're new here my name is Alex from internal medicine physician and here on this channel I make videos to help you succeed on whatever journey you are but doing it with less stress. And one of my favorite topics to talk about is productivity and how to do more and less time and ultimately increase that free time for yourself because you can truly enjoy yourself. So if you're ready to get into this video hit that like button down below to truly support the channel and let's get into it. So number one is to eat the frog first. Now this sounds absolutely gross and there's a book by its name that I absolutely recommend that you guys read I will link the down below but the main idea is that you want to do the hardest thing or the least desirable thing first thing in the morning. Now I'm a perfect example of somebody who loves to procrastinate until something is due in a month and then suddenly we get our gears turning and want to do it at an accelerated pace but wouldn't it just be nice if you can always do the hardest thing first out of your day so then you could truly enjoy the rest of your day and saying yeah even if I didn't do anything the rest of the day at least the hardest task is out of the way. This is definitely a productivity techniques that I used in medical school where my first thing that I would do is I would just grab my gym bag take a quick shower and then go to the gym get my workout in and do my study session before class started and most of my classmates hadn't even made it to school between the hours of six o'clock when the gym would open and nine o'clock when the first lecture happened I had got my first workout in and my full study session from the lectures from the day before already out of the way. And so if there's anything on your to-do list that you are constantly pushing down make it the first thing that you do tomorrow and let me know in the comment section how it works. Number two is to focus on your output versus the amount of things that you're doing it's very natural for us to try to fill our to-do list for the day the week and the month with huge ambitions goals and it doesn't really matter for example if you have 10 tasks if you do four of them and you do them really well and those are the high valuable things if you didn't do six of them you feel discouraged and kind of let down and so it's important that you get out of this trap of trying to get multiple things done in a day instead ask yourself what is the most effective and impactful thing that you can get done today that really will make a difference and have me moving forward. A lot of times this happens to be that task where you're just kind of procrastinating on and pushing down the road so try to make that the first task that you do and then after that ask yourself what two to three more things would you like to get done that if you got done the rest of the day would be a success. Now productivity hack number three is to prioritize your to-do list automatically now if again if you go down the very traditional style of creating a list of things to do sometimes it's not very easy for us to say okay like what do I need to work on next and so let me just kind of show you and to actually my Notion dashboard so I've shared with this in more detail in my Notion videos I'll link that down below of how I kind of plan my Notion and day with a lot of simplicity but this is basically my priority list and so there's anything that I need to work on in the future so for example if I'm planning a vacation I need to create my packing list then I can do this but now using Notion and using kind of a sorting database I can basically say the importance of doing this is an eight and the impact of this is a 10 and so now the way my Notion database works is that it will rank everything based on the due date so if I pick something let's just say I was going to go on a vacation tomorrow the making of this video then it's going to put it much earlier than these are two tasks already done so it's going to move it next to the list and so if I have to create my to-do list for the day I can basically say okay what type of thing so I have my priority list that I need to put at the first thing that I need to do for today so if I was going to go on a vacation which I'm not just yet then that's what I would do productivity hack number four is to commit your goal to someone else it's very natural for us to be okay with procrastination with our cells where we're like I'm going to do something and then we don't and you're like hey I like you suck but you kind of move on past that but if you commit to doing something by a deadline and you tell somebody about it and you don't get it done and you do it over and over and over again that person's like you're not going to get this done and having somebody doubt you to get something done makes them much more likely that you'll get it done so a lot of times when I have to do things like research projects or things for work or things for the business or the MD journey a lot of times I will give a team member of mine or a physician that I work with on a research product a deadline even if I haven't started working on the paper itself I may say I will have the first draft written within 30 days on this day and I'll give it to you and that way it just gives a nice deadline because if I'm behind first time you know the person may say okay but every time you promise something you don't kind of come through it may see you look more like a procrastinator and sometimes even though we may think of ourselves as a procrastinator you may not want others to think of yourself so so you may make deadlines more often if you share your goals and deadlines with somebody so pick somebody who is going to actually keep you to your deadline that you set whether it be a spouse or a family member and tell them the importance of what you're trying to do so they understand why it's important to keep you accountable and then just tell them by this deadline I will have this done and I'm going to tell you that I had it done number five is probably one of my favorites and that's to have a cutoff time the biggest part of our productivity is to not always be busy because if you are busy and that means you're filling all of your hours with things that seem like they're effective but then when you evaluate a day like yesterday you realize that while you had 24 hours most of them weren't spent effectively and so having a cutoff time where you say after this hour I'm not going to be doing any form of studying or work and that forces you to use the hours before your cutoff time so for me in medical school like 730 because that's where my favorite tv shows would come on a lot of NBA games would come on so I didn't want to feel guilty of watching tv after a certain hour and not studying so that made me want to be more efficient during the hours before so if you're somebody who's watching this thing I have no free time for myself I have no extra time for other things that I enjoy use that cutoff time to truly make yourself more efficient in less hours now next productivity hack that I loved using in medical school I still use as a position is to use motivational content while I'm working now there's two styles of motivational content that I really enjoy whether it's the youtube style videos that are just a motivational somebody talking with a bunch of clips kind of have that going in the background or just those motivational instrumental musics that are kind of upbeat having that in the background just makes you feel more excited and more pumped to work usually I will start that on my computer before I actually start working so then you just kind of feel like your environment's ready for you to come and attack it and then finally for those of you guys are watching this video and saying I just wish I had more time to enjoy myself and all this work is like getting in the way instead as a productivity hack start to sandwich your fun and your work in between itself so for example when I would go in medical school I enjoyed working out and so I would wake up early and make the first thing that I did something fun so I would work out because I feel like I was starting the day on my turn but now I knew I had to do some work so then I would work out and study and I would come home and like watch youtube videos or like kind of keep off and I would study again and then maybe I could watch a tv show later in the evening go play some basketball and study again but I was just sandwiched something that I looked forward to with something that I really needed to do and so I always felt like my life was still there regardless of how busy I was as a medical student I wasn't just study study study sleep repeat it always felt like the parts of me that mattered were still intermixed within all that work and so it didn't make that work feel all that demotivating because I always knew that it'd be followed by something that I'd be looking forward to so if you're a student who is struggling with the motivation or energy levels try to stack it with something that is less kind of fatigue or something that is up your alley and something you'll actually enjoy and then get back to the work after you do that task but those guys are some of my favorite productivity tasks that I swear by both in medical school as well as a physician hopefully you guys enjoyed them if you did let me know the comment section down below which one of your favorites or your personal productivity hack that you enjoy using that really helped you get more stuff done and if you enjoyed this video then check out the full productivity playlist that we have for you here on youtube it's all my favorite productivity videos and related videos that I've made over the last four years and before you click off I really ask that you hit that like button if you enjoyed any of these tips let me know in the comments again which one you did hit that like button again just in case you forgot hit that subscribe button if you're new here or lurking here and haven't done so I promise you we're going to put out more content just like this one on a weekly basis and hit that notification bell no one of those videos go out if you enjoy these productivity tips and you want more as well as tips on how to study better and how to manage your motivation basically how to crush every phase of your medical journey then check out the medical school domination bundle which is basically all of my favorite piece of advice and strategies that I use in medical school or that I wish that I knew and thousands of students have already gone through the programs so you guys can check out that down below if you're interested both that being said guys if you guys did enjoy this video then these two videos may also help you on your journey this video will tell you how to study from start to finish this video will tell you how to use onki like a pro both that being said guys hopefully you guys enjoyed this video thank you for being a part of my journey hopefully I was a little helpful to you guys on yours and I'll see you guys next one peace my friends