The World's Simplest Productivity Trick

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1:44Welcome to today's episode of the Mindset Mentor Podcast. I'm your host Rob Dial. If you have not you've done so, hit that subscribe button so you never miss another podcast episode. I put out episodes four times a week for the past 10 years to help you learn and grow and improve yourself. So if you're looking to improve your life, hit that subscribe button. Today, we're going to be talking about the world's simplest productivity hack. Because let me ask you a question. Have you ever had one of those days where you were just busy all day and at the end of it, you still feel like you did absolutely nothing.

2:16Like you were busy all day. You answered emails, you checked messages, you scrolled, you were moving all day and doing things all day, but you didn't do the one thing that actually mattered. It just didn't happen. And then what did you do? Well, you negotiate with yourself. Oh, well, I'll do it tomorrow. I just wasn't feeling it today or I'll start fresh on Monday. Right. And slowly without realizing it, what you're doing is you're training your brain to believe something that is extremely dangerous. And that is my word doesn't mean anything. And so today I want to help you shift that by learning basically the simplest productivity hack on how to take action every day on what's important and what moves the needle in your life.

3:02Okay. And so this productivity hack that I learned is like stupid simple. It's so simple that I almost ignored it. And it's so simple that you might want to ignore it. But I gave myself one non-negotiable per day. That's it. Not a to-do list, not 10 habits, not some optimized productivity system from some productivity guru, just one thing. And I made a rule of myself, like a contract with myself. I cannot go to bed until this thing is completed every day. Not, oh, I should do it or I'll try to get it done. No, it must be done no matter what. And the crazy thing about it is that when you really start to dive into it, this isn't just about productivity.

3:52It will make you way more productive, but it's about something way, way deeper than just your productivity, which is your self-trust, which is your self-confidence. Because most people don't have a productivity system that's a problem in their life. It's not a productivity problem. They have a self-trust problem more than anything else. And so let me give you two separate versions of what this could look like in your life. And you can choose which one you feel is right for you. Because depending on where you are in life and what you need, there's two different versions of basically the same idea.

4:23Okay. Option one is this, is you have a fixed non-negotiable. It's the same thing every single day. You write 500 words every single day. You post one piece of content every single day, or, you know, you do 60 minutes of deep work every single day, or you wake up at 5am every single day, or, you know, you walk 10 ,000 steps every single day, or you do 30 minutes of moving your body in some sort of way every single day, or you meditate for 10 minutes first thing in the morning every single day. The idea is to find what is called your keystone habit. A keystone, if you look at like what an actual keystone is and where this phrase comes from, is when you looked at Roman arches and there's the arches that they made, there were always stones.

5:07And the keystone was the stone that was at the very top. And when you put the keystone in place, gravity pulled it in pulled it down and it locked all of the other stones around the arch in place and made the actual arch stronger and the idea of a keystone habit is one thing one habit that we have that will make us want to do other habits as well so not only is it just like the one stone but it's the one stone that affects all the other stones in the arch so it's the one habit that affects other actions and habits so like your keystone habit might be waking up at 5 a.m And if you do that, that's it.

5:42Like if your feet hit the floor at 5 a.m., you've completed your task. But then you might say, well, I'm up an hour early. I might as well get a workout in or I might as well go for a walk or I might as well do meditating or I might as well do some journaling. And every day it actually turns into some extra habits and things that you're doing because you're awake. So it's that one thing that affects other areas of your life. It could also be like some, for some people, a keystone habit is working out and you just focus on working out and working out. And then after a while, you're like, you know what?

6:08I'm working out. I might as well eat healthier. I'm working out, I might as well drink more water. I'm working out, I might as well stop drinking so much alcohol. And it affects other areas of your life. And you're going to do this one thing. This one thing is your non-negotiable for 100 days, every day, even on the weekend. Why 100 days? Because it takes between 21 to 100 days to create a new habit. So let's just go for 100 just to make sure that the habit becomes real. And this is really important because it becomes a habit, but it also becomes part of your identity. You start becoming and thinking of yourself as I'm the type of person who does this every single day.

6:46I'm the type of person who follows through. I'm the type of person who does what they say they're going to do. And after, you know, 10, 20 days, it starts to change your identity of who you think you are. Like, hey, this is who I am. This is what I do. This is part of me now. And when you go to 100 days, you lock it in. So that's option one, which is a daily non-negotiable that's the same thing every single day. The other side of it, depending on who you are, is a chosen non-negotiable every single day. You choose this non-negotiable every single morning. You sit down with your morning coffee and a pen and paper, and you ask yourself, what is the most important thing that I have to accomplish today?

7:25One thing that would make this entire day a win. Like if I do this, I won the day. And it's a little bit more flexible because, you know, some of you guys have moving targets in life. Like maybe you're an entrepreneur or you're a creative or you have some dynamic life, right? The key is this for both of them. It's chosen. Like once it's chosen, there are no other options. So for both options, you do not go to bed unless it's done. That's the contract you set with yourself. Whether it's the same thing every single day or whether it's chosen every single day, the contract that I make of myself is I do not go to bed until it's done.

8:05No excuses. No, it's no, no like, oh, I'll do twice as much tomorrow. No, literally no sleeping. If you didn't write 500 words today, I'm going to stay up until it's done. If I didn't get 60 minutes of deep work today, I'm going to stay up until it's done. If I didn't walk 10 ,000 steps today and I'm only at 1 ,000 steps, I am going to do 9 ,000 steps right now before I go to bed. if I didn't get my 30 minutes of moving my body in some sort of way I will stay up until it's done and we will be right back hey showing up for yourself day in and day out and doing the hard things is what creates a better life and noon hydration helps you stay moving with the real deal activated hydration built to support you through those moments that challenge you noon hydration tablets deliver clean ingredients and optimize electrolytes that hydrate better than water alone, especially when you're sweating or on the go.

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11:42And if you mess up on one night, you will, please believe me, you will mess up one night and you'll be laying in bed and you go, oh shit, I forgot to do my 60 minutes of moving. And you have that moment where you have to make a decision on who you want to be. Do you want to be the person that follows through no matter what or the person who makes excuses? That's your decision. And one quote that I love that I heard recently is that you're born looking like your parents, but you die looking like your decisions. So you have to make the decision in that moment when you're sitting in bed and you're all nice and cozy.

12:16And then you're like, Oh my God, I've got to do 9 ,000 more steps. I forgot about it. Do you go to bed and just say, Oh, I'll make an excuse for it. Or do you say, I got to get up. That's what I told myself I would do. I, it is more important for me to follow through than to get an extra hour of sleep. Because when you force yourself to follow through when you do mess up, it makes you better on the days after that. Why? Because you actually start planning correctly to finish that task because you don't want to stay up late again. So then you get even better in the days after on taking action. There's this concept that's called decision fatigue.

12:51And this is one of the things that makes it really important in the situation. The more decisions that you make, the worse your decisions actually get. That's why by By the end of the day, you might eat worse. You might scroll more on Instagram. You might avoid the hard things. But when you have one daily non-negotiable, there's nothing else to decide. Like it's already decided. Do you get that? Like let me say it again. There's nothing else to decide. It's already decided. It has to be done today. Another reason why this neurologically makes sense and really helps your brain is there's a thing that like your brain hates unfinished tasks.

13:25When something is unfinished, your brain just has this tension. It's actually something that's called the Zegernik effect. Unfinished tasks stay active in your mind and unfinished tasks create this tension and your brain does not like that tension. And when you finish a task, it like releases the tension just a little bit. And, you know, here's a twist of it all though. Like if everything is unfinished in your life, your brain gets super overwhelmed. It shuts down. And that's like mostly modern life for people. If you think about it, they have, you know, 50 tabs open on their computer, but also in their own brain, they have 10 things that are half started and your brain goes, you know what?

14:03Like I can't win. There's just so much stuff to do. Like why even try? But when you have one non-negotiable one, your brain knows exactly where to close the loop to release the tension. And that is the most important loop that you close every single day. So when you start to look at this and you start to look at how it works neurologically, it's not just some stupid tasks that you're doing every single day. It's actually an identity that's now being created around it. Like this is who I am. And this is what's really important. Your identity and what you think of yourself matters more than anything else.

14:39Like there's something that's called a self-perception theory. I've talked about it many times in the podcast, but in the self-perception theory, like you don't become confident first. You take action. You see yourself taking action. You see yourself doing what you said you're going to do. You see yourself staying up late to get this done. You see yourself doing this stuff. You take action. And then your brain says, oh, this is who I am. I'm the type of person that shows up. I'm the type of that person that does what they say they're going to do. Or it says, oh, this is who I am. I'm the type of person that makes excuses.

15:11I'm the type of person that doesn't follow through. I'm the type of person that I can't trust. And if you actually are taking action, your brain is seeing you take action and saying, oh, this is who I am. This is who I am. That's how confidence is built. You cannot read a book on confidence and become confident. You cannot go to a confidence conference and become confident. Confidence is built in you doing what you said you were going to do. Confidence is another. Another word for confidence is or phrase for confidence is self-trust. You know, if you don't do what you say you're going to do, you're not building self-trust.

15:44You're not building confidence. But when you do what you say you're going to do, you're building trust within yourself. You're building confidence. Every day you complete your non-negotiable, you're casting a vote for I'm somebody who follows through, right? And this is one of the things that I see with people that do this, that kind of mess this up. They think that like they have to do it perfect or they have to do it efficiently or whatever it might be. No, no, no. I don't, it could be the messiest thing that you've ever done. As long as it's completed is the thing that matters. It's a simple rule.

16:16You don't get to escape it. Just get it done. It doesn't have to be perfect. It doesn't have to be efficient. And you can delay all that you want to. You can procrastinate all day long. You can scroll. You can distract yourself. You can clean your entire damn house if you want to. You could do everything except for the thing. But the catch is you still have to do it. That's the most important part of the whole thing. It has to be done. No no matter what. Will you want to make excuses? Yes, you will make every damn excuse you possibly can. You will. But that excuse making part of yourself, the part of yourself that wants to make excuses is the part of you that you're trying to kill off.

17:00Don't you see that? Like the one that makes excuses, the one that says, I'll do it tomorrow. It is time to destroy that part of yourself. That is a part of yourself that's holding you back from everything that you want. and the place where it really starts to get interesting when you do this is there's a concept in psychology it's called learned inevitability and it becomes inevitable like once your brain learns patterns it learns that something is optional it will resist it if they know it's if your brain knows it's optional but if it learns that something is inevitable it stops resisting it it's this weird kind of you never expect like okay i'm gonna force myself to have to do it but because it's inevitable, my brain actually won't resist because it's like, I just got to get it done.

17:44Like think about it. If you had to run a mile today and that was just, or you could not go to sleep, no exceptions. You might delay it. You might complain about it, but eventually you would just do it, right? Because avoidance becomes pointless. Like you want your brain to learn that avoidance is pointless. At this point right now, if you're procrastinating, your brain knows that avoiding something gives it some sort of benefit of not having to do it, of getting to rest, of scrolling and numbing our brains out to something. You want your brain to learn that avoidance is pointless. Just get it done.

18:20That's the part of you that you're trying to train. It's not even about discipline. It's just inevitability. It's gonna be done no matter what. And so you're trying to really like kill off this procrastination side of you, the excuse-making side of you. Like when you look at procrastination, People think that procrastination is laziness. Procrastination is very rarely laziness. It's usually emotional avoidance. You're trying to avoid discomfort. You're trying to avoid judgment. You're trying to avoid a fear. You're trying to avoid the feeling of not being good enough. But when a task is inevitable and there's no other options, avoidance loses its power.

18:58You're not going to procrastinate anymore. It has to be done. So eventually your brain just gets smart and it says like, why am I stressing all day? I could just finish this in 30 minutes. Why don't I just execute on it? And that builds you into the person that just sees discomfort and says, all right, I'm just going to do it, right? Instead of your current habit of procrastination and avoidance. And here's a really, really important part when you think about it. When you only have one non-negotiable, everything else becomes optional. And weirdly, the odd part about it is that you will get more done because you reduce overwhelm, you create momentum, and you eliminate this internal conflict.

19:35And when you start executing on the most important thing, you will start executing on other things outside of that important thing. Because you're not just doing that one thing, you're building yourself into the type of person who does all of these things. And so it's like, yeah, you do your non-negotiable, and then you get better at executing on everything else outside of that. Why? Because it's who you are now. You are now somebody who takes action. And there's research on something that's called goal shielding and goal shielding is basically like protecting one goal. Then it says, when you focus on like one primary goal and only that goal, your brain suppresses distractions automatically so that you can just do that one goal.

20:15But when you have 10 goals, everything competes for your attention and nothing really wins. And so, you know, I'm going to, I'm going to give you a real quick tip before I wrap all of this up. You're going to want to add more. If you're like the average person I talk to, you're like, well, I could just, if I'm going to do one thing, I might as well do three or I'll just do five. I'll do five different things. I'll have it stacked. Please don't do that. It's one thing, only one thing. That's it for a hundred days. Because if you add too many things, that's actually a form of self-sabotage. You will self-sabotage at some point in time and not get it done.

20:48The power is in this sentence. I will not go to bed until this one thing is done. And after a few weeks, something inside of you starts to change. You stop asking yourself, like, do I feel like it? And you just basically become the type of person that says, I'm the type of person that follows through. And that will change everything in your life, your confidence, your discipline, your consistency, your success. And so my challenge for you is this. Starting tomorrow, choose one non-negotiable. It could either be the same non-negotiable every single day, or you choose it first thing in the morning.

21:20It's either option one or option two. But once it's chosen, there are no other options. You don't get to negotiate. You don't get to skip it. You don't get to try. You just do it. And so to wrap up, you can distract yourself all day long if you want to, but all you're doing is delaying the thing that must happen anyways. And I'll leave you with this. The gap between where you are right now and where you want to be is not intelligence. It's not IQ. It's not talent. It's not strategy. It's whether or not you trust yourself to execute. So build that one non-negotiable at a time. So that's what I got for you for today's episode.

21:55If you love this episode, please share it on your Instagram stories. Tag me at Rob Dial Jr., R-O-B-D-I-A-L-J-R. And with that, I'm going to leave it the same way I leave you every single episode. Make it your mission to make somebody else's day better. I appreciate you, and I hope that you have an amazing day. Hey, Fidelity. What's it cost to invest with the Fidelity app? Start with as little as$1 with no account fees or trade commissions on U.S. stocks and ETFs. That's music to my ears. I can only talk.

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