 Hey, welcome back to the channel. So in today's video, I wanna talk about how I stay focused and get a lot of work done working on most days just around four to five hours a day. So I'm sure you see the hustlepreneurs out there who say you need to work 12 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year. And I can tell you from personal experience, even if you can do it for a few weeks, maybe even a few months, it's not sustainable. You're gonna burn out. And once you do burn out, it's really hard to come back from that. So when I first started as an entrepreneur, when I first quit my job, I thought I had to work 12 hour days and I had to be working every single day or I was basically a failure. So I would spend every single day, 12 hours a day, just sitting in front of the computer. And if I wasn't sitting there for like 12 hours, I felt like I wasn't doing enough. And eventually I reached a point where I started to resent my work and I went into a slump for about six to seven months or so where I wasn't doing the top quality work I could have been doing. So nowadays I spend about four to five hours per day working, I get more done than I did before. I run two businesses that bring in multiple six figures a year and still have time to get into some trouble and have fun on the weekends. So right now I'm about to head out to Vegas or to the airport at least and it's 110 degrees there. That's why I'm wearing a tank top here. And I'm going for my bachelor party. And the only reason I don't have to look at my computer over the weekend, I can just focus on getting drunk is because I got all my work done throughout the week and just working four to five hours per day. So in today's video, I'm gonna share how I stay focused and work only four hours a day while getting more work done than some people who do double that, who work eight or even 12 hours per day. Now before we begin, make sure you hit the subscribe button and hit the bell icon so that you get updates whenever I release future videos. Doing that lets me know that you're enjoying the content. It also shows it to other people who can benefit from the content. And I wanna help as many people as possible with this content. So if you're enjoying this, make sure you subscribe, hit the bell icon, you're gonna get updates to any of my future videos. So with that said, let's dive into the video right now. So the first tip is to make sure that you are working on the right things. There's a big difference between being productive and being busy. So let's use an example. Let's say that you wanted to start an agency or build some kind of service-based business and you needed to go out and get clients. One example of just being busy is you would be checking your email. Maybe you're playing with the colors on your website. Maybe you are reading books or learning from courses. These are all just examples of being busy. Things that can take up a lot of time but aren't actually moving you forward. Now an example of being productive for this would just be picking your niche and then starting to reach out to people in your niche and putting your offer in front of them. That's how you're gonna get clients and that's what you need to be doing every day if you want to be getting the result that you're after. So that's the first tip is to make sure that you're being productive. You're not just being busy and filling your day with useless tasks. Tip number two is to do your most important thing first. So every day you should have one main big thing that you need to get done. For example, today I need to film this YouTube video. I need to get this filmed and edited and schedule it out for next week or on Monday. So right now it's pretty early, it's about 7 a.m. I'm filming this video for you before I head out to the airport and this is the one thing that I need to get done today. So what a lot of people do is they have a to-do list with like 10 different tasks on it and they move the most important thing to the end of the day when they don't have any energy left. So what you need to do is first of all trim your to-do list. Don't have 10 items on it. Have maybe two or three things on it and put the most important thing at the top of the list to do the first thing when you wake up or the first thing in the morning. By doing it this way, you have the most energy at the start of your day and you can get it done versus just pushing it all the way to the back and then you end up procrastinating and pushing it off to the next day and the next day. So that's tip number two. Move the most important, your one most important thing that you need to do first thing in the morning or first thing when you wake up to do before anything else. Tip number three is to have designated distraction blocks. Now what is a distraction block? Well, it's a designated time. Usually I assign 30 to 45 minutes and you can do these once or twice per day. And this is just designated time where you can have guilt-free distractions. So for example, from 12 to 1230 or 1245 every day, I allow myself time to just go and scroll through Twitter or Facebook or YouTube and just consume some content and have some fun. Or I get distracted. Now by assigning yourself these distraction blocks, you are able to go into it and not feel bad about going through and viewing Facebook, Twitter, social media, whatever it is. And you also are more focused when you are working. So as soon as your timer is up, your 30 to 45 minute block, whatever it is, or maybe it's 60 minutes, you turn off your phone or you turn off social media and you get back to work. So what most people try to do is they just try to quit all the distractions cold turkey. And some people can do it, right? Some people have really good discipline and really good willpower, but it's tough. It's really tough to do that. It's tough for me to do that. So I need to have time throughout the day. I usually have two blocks, one at 12 to 1230 or 1245 and then one in the afternoon, usually around four, where I'm just allowing myself some time to go and view some social media, get it on my system, and get back to work after that. So give yourself these designated distraction blocks. It's gonna help you feel less guilty about viewing social media and content and consuming things and make you more focused when you are working. So that's tip number three, have designated distraction blocks. Tip number four is to use a timer. So using a timer has been the single most important thing for helping me get work done faster. And the reason is work expands to the time that you give it. So if you remember when you were a kid and you had 30 days to study for a test, right? Your test was in 30 days and your teacher says to start studying now. What do you do? Well, you usually end up wasting 29 days and studying the night before, right? So the same thing happens with your work. If you give yourself 12 hours, and this goes back to the first thing that I talked about, about giving yourself 12 hours a day to work, seven days a week, you are gonna take those entire 12 hours to do all of your work, which is gonna take a lot longer because work expands to the time that you give it. So if you give yourself 12 hours a day when it really should only take one or two hours, you're gonna take that entire time. So get a timer, whether it's a physical one or a digital one. I use an app called BeFocused Pro. I don't remember how much it cost. I think it was like 30 or 40 bucks for a lifetime subscription or membership. And what it does is it allows me to set a time for working and a time for break or rest. So I created my own funky method called 5217. And what that means is 52 minutes I'm working, just straight, deep work, uninterrupted, nothing else, there's no distractions. And then I have 17 minutes where I spend on a break or rest. And I usually spend that time drinking water. I do a few pull-ups or push-ups. I walk around. I just get the blood flowing. And it helps me to step away from my computer and take a short break. And then I get back after those 17 minutes and go for another 52 minutes. So I do four to six of these cycles a day, depending on the day. And that helps me to get in around three and a half to five hours of work. So every day I use this timer. And it's my mission to get four to six cycles of those 5217s in. And again, 52 minutes is on, it's uninterrupted work, nothing else. And then 17 minutes off where I'm just walking around, I'm drinking water, I'm doing some light exercise and getting the blood flowing and getting myself away from the computer. So give it a try, get yourself a timer. Use the 5217 technique if you wanna copy what I'm doing, but get yourself a timer and you're gonna find yourself doing work a lot faster if you actually start using a timer. And don't give yourself the entire day to do your work. Tip number five is to create themed days. So there are literally over a thousand different tasks you can be doing every day. But each time you switch a task, it takes a ton of mental energy. So let's say I were to go from filming this YouTube video to writing copy to creating a sales funnel jumping on a sales call to then jumping on a coaching call. Every time I'm switching tasks, it takes up a ton of mental energy. And you only have so much mental energy every day before you're just done. So if you're working on too many different things in any given day, you're not gonna get much done. So the way that I get around this is I have themed days. So for example, Monday and Wednesday for me is dedicated to sales calls and any client work I need to do. Tuesday and Thursday is reserved for any creative work like writing sales copy or creating sales funnels, product development or mapping out some systems and processes to use in my business. And Friday is for filming and editing and scheduling YouTube videos. So I try to do two, but today I'm heading out to the airport so I'm only getting one done. But Friday is dedicated to filming and editing usually two YouTube videos. I also only check emails and I respond to my virtual assistants in the afternoon after all of my important work is done. So by having a routine like this and having themed days where Monday and Wednesday I'm only doing sales calls and client work. And Tuesday and Thursday I'm doing creative work like sales copy or sales fun or product development. And Friday is where I'm doing content creation like filming and editing YouTube videos. When I have a themed out like this, I never have to think about what I'm working on each day because I know exactly what the theme is for the day. So that's step number five is to create themed days. And if you do this, you're gonna find that you're gonna get work done a lot faster. You don't have to switch between tasks so you're not wasting mental energy. And you're gonna be able to stay focused because you know what you have to be doing on each day. Now the sixth and final tip is to audit your work week. And what I mean by this is to spend one to two weeks just looking and writing down what you're working on every day. So the way that I did this was I spent two weeks and I was just writing down physically in a notebook what I was working on hour by hour. And what you're gonna find and what I found was there's a lot of work and distractions and things that I was doing that I did not need to be doing. And by auditing your work week you're gonna see what you can eliminate, what you can automate and then what you can delegate. So first I just asked myself, I look at the things that I've worked on after I've audited my work week and I asked myself, can I just remove this completely? Do I need to be doing this at all? And if I can, I just cross it off and I stop doing it. If I can't eliminate it, I'm gonna look for a way to automate it. So for example, maybe I'm sending out cold email campaigns and I'm manually sending out the emails. Is there a way I can automate this, right? I don't wanna eliminate that because I wanna be getting clients still. So is there a way I can automate this? Yes, there's some software that can help me send out these emails without me having to lift a finger. So if I can't eliminate it, I'm gonna automate it. Now if there's no software, what do I do then? Well, then I might hire some virtual assistants. I might hire a freelancer to come in and do the task for me. If it's not something I wanna do myself. So for example, customer support. I don't wanna be answering emails. I don't wanna be checking into my emails every day and responding to everything. So I hired a virtual assistant for $4 an hour to respond to any customer support inquiries. So by auditing your work week, you're gonna find these areas that you can eliminate, automate, and delegate. And that's gonna get you hours back every week. So I do this usually once a quarter and every time I do it, it gets me at least five to 10 hours back every week. So that's a sixth and final tip is to audit your work week and you're gonna identify areas that you can eliminate, automate, and delegate, which is gonna give you hours back every week. So those were the six tips on how I stay focused and work only four hours running two businesses and still having time to have fun and getting into trouble on the weekends. I hope this helps you stay focused and get more work done so you can have fun on the weekends and get more of your time back every week. And let me know in the comments which one of these tips was most useful to you or which one you're gonna start taking action on right away. If you enjoyed this, give it a like. And if you wanna know more specifically about what I work on every day in my businesses, go to emailrainmaker.com, which will take you to my free Facebook group on how I run those two businesses. One is a service-based business and one is an online education and info product business. Both of them are around email. So go to emailrainmaker.com, that's gonna take you to my free Facebook group you can join for free and learn more about how I run my email-based businesses. So that's it for this video. Please pray for my liver in Vegas and I'll see you in the next one. Take it easy.