27 "Weird" Productivity Hacks You Can Try Today (Greatest Hits)

25:31So you can click that off if you don't like it, but I like the ability to have that happen. The other one is Accelerate, where it increases the amount you save every time by just a little more, one or 2%. So you're gradually saving just a little more money and kind of just turning up the heat a little at a time. And I've found that my lifestyle just changes and it's not an appreciable amount of money. So I save more and keep it out of my hands where I'm just going to spend it. So I like those. And now also Rise has this cool new thing where you can invest the money instead of having it in savings if it's a long-term goal.

26:03I like that. So those are my fave tools. I hope somebody finds them useful. Thanks, Nick. That was coffeetivity.com for free coffee shop style background music. And if that's hard to spell, former side hustle show guest Kurt Elster built a similar service called rainycafe.com. And I like this sort of thing. And I've actually been using a service called Brain.fm, which is supposedly focus enhancing music. It could totally be placebo, but there's something about putting the earbuds in, putting it on and getting to work. And thank you, Joe. Both Process Street and Rise are new ones to me. They look really cool.

26:35So I'll be checking those out. Hey, y 'all. This is Matt Marr from the Dear Matty Show podcast. And some of you don't know, but I'm a therapist. And I believe truly that your mental health helps your productive health. So here's kind of my mental productive health weird thing that I've done that people kind of go, what? I live and work in a small space in an apartment in Los Angeles. And so I just had so much crap everywhere and I got rid of my desk. I know you're thinking this is the symbol of work. Oh, this is the Mecca. But no, actually, instead, I got rid of my desk and I created this kind of inspirational, much less cluttered space where I sit.

27:14I think I meditate I journal I plan my day and it's been such a better Productive outcome for me than I ever imagined because it helps me organize my mind So if you live in a small space and you have a desk like me that was just honestly Piling up your mail and keeping your iphone Chargers or their headphones or that little dongle thing that you keep losing from the eye Well, you know what i'm talking about sugars if it's just holding all that Maybe it's time to get rid of your desk. Think about it Okay, so I have two productivity tips that have really helped me. First, number one, Boomerang. It is an extension you can use on Gmail through your Chrome, and it's free, free, free, free, my favorite little word.

27:56And the way it works is Boomerang, let's say you have a meeting with a colleague or you have a networking meeting, and the guy says, this is great. He said, you know what, I'm busy right now, I'm traveling, but email me in two weeks. with boomerang you can go into your gmail on your desktop it's not on your phone yet but you can go into your gmail and you can email them write your email now and then tell boomerang email it two weeks down the road it does all the work for you it's amazing it also let's say you get an email and you're like yeah i don't want to read this right now or i'd actually this is a deadline i'm not concerned with till like a month from now you can tell boomerang hey i want you to email me this email in like a month when I actually want to deal with it.

28:36So it'll get it out of your inbox. And then a month from now, it just shows up and then you're ready to work. Okay. So my other weird kind of hack is whether you're starting your business, whether you're in the middle of your business, really think about like what inspires you not only to work and be productive and make money, but what inspires you to give yourself to the world? Because when you're an entrepreneur, you're not just giving your time, your money, your resources. You really are giving a part of your soul to this career we're all trying to build. So think of a theme song that really inspires you and you're just like, man, I'm going to get this.

29:11It can be whatever you want. Honestly, for me, it's totally Shania Twain's Man, I Feel Like a Woman, but I don't know what it is about that song. I'm like, I am ready. When I hear that song, it's a song I like to karaoke, but it also reminds me, it makes me feel powerful. I like the guitar lick. It makes me feel like I'm going. And when I'm kind of just feeling like I'm not being productive or that I'm stuck in the same kind of cycle of ideas while I'm working, it pulls me out of my head and just gets the juices flowing. I like that one. What's your hustle theme song? And for a long time, I would have said taking care of business, a little BTO.

29:46But lately, I don't know, maybe something from Hamilton, maybe a little Zac Brown band. In any case, next up is Mike Gregg from NinjaBudgeter.com. What's going on, Side Hustle Nation? It's Mike here from NinjaBudgeter.com. One productivity hack that's been working for me lately is to do some of my writing without an internet connection. I've been making a point to do some of my writing in places where I just can't get connected, like a park or we have a local coffee shop by my place that doesn't have Wi-Fi. And it really frees me up from all the distractions that usually take over when I'm trying to pump out some content.

30:18A couple of tools I cannot live without. First one is definitely Canva. If you've never used Canva, you are missing out. It's an awesome tool for designing images for my blog, tweets, Pinterest, pretty much anything. I couldn't design my way out of a wet paper bag and it is awesome for someone like me. Another tool I'm using a lot lately is Tailwind. Tailwind is a Pinterest scheduling tool that allows me to schedule pins at certain times of the day. I only started using it about six weeks ago and I've already doubled the traffic to my site. Ever force yourself to go into airplane mode like that?

30:49It's a little hack I discovered after I got like 2 ,000 words of writing done on a flight because I was just trapped in that little seat with no distractions. But we're moving on to the next segment of the show, which is in the zone. That's how are you structuring your working time itself? And to kick us off, we've got Mr. Productivity Discipline and Focus, John Lee Dumas. Hey, this is John Lee Dumas of Entrepreneurs on Fire. And my weird productivity hack isn't really that weird after all. It's simply utilizing the Pomodoro method. So many people pretend to do it or fake doing it. They look at their little clock on their computer and say, yeah, in 15 minutes, I'll work hard till then.

31:27That doesn't work. You need to set an actual timer on your iPhone using tomato-timer.com. Whatever you want to do, just go to your Google browser and type in 45-minute timer and actually press the start button. your brain has to mentally switch into the mode that it knows there's a timer going down. Tick, tick, tick, tick, tick. That will switch your brain into cram mode and you will get stuff done. And then reward yourself afterwards. Go do 10 pushups. I don't know if that's rewarding for everybody, but it is for me. Go for a walk around the house. Go onto social media, but use the timer. Pomodoro works.

32:11Make it happen. Hey, Austin Nessie here. I'm the founder of 2X. One weird productivity hack that really helps me is simply clapping my hands. So when I start a Pomodoro sprint, which is either a 25 or 50 minute, just like hyper-focused sprint, which you should definitely do those for productivity. But when I start those, I start by just clapping my hands and that gets me in the zone. So I put on my headphones, I clap my hands and I get right into it. And the hardest part about getting into focus or getting into motion is that first piece. So I clap my hands and that just triggers in my mind that, okay, now I'm serious.

32:48Now I'm getting to it and I just get into motion. Then once I get into motion, then it's easier to stay in motion and stay super focused. And then one tool that I really, really like that helps me work smarter is simply a 90-day calendar. So I've got it on my wall, and every single day I list out specifically what's my number one thing. And I cross it off if I get it done, I X it out if I don't get it, and I don't want those red Xs. So my goal is to, quote-unquote, not break the chain. I learned this from Seinfeld. Seinfeld did this. It's one of his tips for productivity and success is doing something every single day.

33:22I summarize my day into one important thing and try to get that done. So those are two things. I hope that really helps. And that's it. Crush it. Again, that was Austin Netsley from scale2x.com. And both he and John are talking about the mental and physical hacks they do to switch their brains into work mode. Curious what you do to make that transition. Next up is Monica Louis from monicalouis.com with her take on it. Hey, I'm Monica Louis. I am a Facebook ads coach and strategist from monicalouis.com. My weird productivity tip is that I always have my earbuds in when I'm working. I spend a lot of my day meeting with clients, but even when I'm not meeting with clients, I will keep them in even when I'm not listening to anything.

34:07I've just trained my brain to focus when I have my earbuds in. And as long as it works, I'm going to keep it up. And yes, I have my earbuds in right now, even though I'm not listening to anything.

34:21me work smarter are hands down Google Calendar and Asana. So with Google Calendar, I have multiple calendars. So I always know what's happening and what's coming up. And I have specific calendars for specific reasons. So I have one for my work appointments. I have one for my work tasks. I have another for my personal appointments and yet another one for my team. And I love that I can share these different calendars with the people who need to know what's going on. So some I share with my team and others I share with my husband to keep him in the loop. Plus my husband shares his personal calendar with me.

35:02So we never have to ask what's going on. And I love scheduling my tasks on Google Calendar as well, because then I can plan for how long a certain task is going to take and then realistically have a plan for when I can get it done. And Asana is a web-based project and task management software that I have been using for years. Since I have a growing team and a lot of projects going at any one time, this helps to keep us all organized so we know who is doing what and when it needs to be done. And the best part that I have been using the free version for as long as I've been using Asana. And it has all the features that my team and I need.

35:44Plus, there's a mobile app so that I can always check in on the go. Hey, hey, Amber Hurdle here from amberhurdle.com and the Bombshell Business Podcast. And a weird productivity tip from me is to type in the word Facebook in the search box of your emails and just search your inbox, not all of your email. And this will quickly find most of the marketing emails that you're probably never going to get to read anyways. and put them all in the same page. So you can select all and then delete all. Most of these offers, newsletters, ads, that sort of thing are going to say, find us on Facebook or have a Facebook link of some kind.

36:25And so that is their inbox death wish. So search for Facebook. And then my second productivity tip that is pretty kind of weird, probably because I take it to the next level, but being the daughter of a world-class drummer, I'm pretty committed to music when it comes to my productivity. So I have different playlists for different types of activities. For example, if I'm going to be in an Excel spreadsheet or in my business budget or working on a project plan, you're probably going to hear something pretty intense like the Foo Fighters or Nine Inch Nails or ACDC. And if I'm trying to write and I don't need a bunch of lyrics in my head, then I'm going to move over to New Age Solo Piano on Pandora or something super vibey like Thievery Corporation or Zero Seven.

37:06So creating all those different playlists for different types of activities will help keep your mind in the game. And if you wanna next level it and then really take it to weird like I do, then you might need a desktop disco ball, a bongo drum, a tambourine, or other musical accoutrements like I have. But I'm telling you people, embrace your weird. Basic people do basic things. So don't be basic. Hi, my name is Nina Babel. I'm gonna keep it 100. I'm gonna keep it real and true, just like I do on my Keep It 100 Girl podcast. So one must-have productivity tip for me is the 20-20-20 rule. What I do is every 20 minutes, I walk 20 feet away for 20 seconds or more.

37:51And that's for two reasons. One, to make sure that the blood is flowing in my legs. And then secondly, to give my eyeballs a break. And this one I just recently discovered. So I feel like I need to share this just because I think as human beings, we are visual learners. So this tool is called Vidyard Go Video. This is a webcam and a screen recording tool. And with this tool, you can record yourself if you want, your screen, or both just to deliver a video message. And how I use it, I use it to communicate to people or my team visually opposed to writing an email because I don't know about you, I hate writing emails.

38:37So this allows me just to navigate and show them on the screen, whether it's a tutorial, orientation, how to find something, how to do something, or maybe just to highlight what I want done for that very day or week. and I love it because you have the option to share the video through email, social networks, or using your favorite apps as well. So check it out. Vidyard Go Video. As a business owner, you worked hard to make that phone ring, but missing a business call, it's like watching money fly right out the window. That's why today's episode is brought to you by Quo, spelled Q-U-O. It's the smarter way to run your business communications.

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40:18That's No missed calls, no missed customers. What's up, Side Hustle Nation? Pete McPherson from doyouevenblog.com here. I have two tips and two tools. First tip, speed up your mouse sensitivity to the max. You'll thank me later. Tip number two, it is time to revisit voice dictation software. So it's bad on phones, iPhone, Android. You have to switch back and forth between typing and talking. It's annoying. Not so much on the computer. On Mac, you can use the built-in dictation app on PC. You can download Dragon or just use Cortana. And the real reason this has been such a huge productivity hack for my writing and blogging is because you can leave the software running while you type.

41:01It no longer toggles back and forth on computers. You can actually just integrate it with your typing. So whatever you think of a sentence you know you want to type out, just say it. You can leave it running as you type, as you move your cursor, as you alt tab, all that great stuff. Okay, two quick tools I use every single day of the week. Number one, CloudApp. GetCloudApp.com. There are a ton of screenshot tools on the market, but CloudApp goes 10 steps further. You can record quick videos and screenshots. You can annotate. It all gets uploaded automatically to the cloud, and it just copies a link for you to paste anywhere.

41:35I use this to record video responses to almost every single email that people send me these days. A thoughtful email response could take 10 minutes. A thoughtful video for me takes a minute and a half, and people have absolutely loved it. The second tool I use every single day is Freedom. Freedom.to is a website. You can find it there. This blocks distracting and addicting websites like social media, my Gmail, and you can automate the times of day that it restricts you from accessing those sites. So I do it every single morning. I block my emails. I block Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, everything.

42:08I get absolutely nothing done when I check my email every hour, and this is necessary to limit distractions, get focused, and get stuff done. Those are my tips. Thank you, Side Hustle Nation, and let's get out there and do it. Hey, my name is Brock McGoff. I run themodestman.com, the Modest Man YouTube channel, and this sounds really basic, but one productivity hack that I use is just learning the shortcut keys and the shortcut commands for every program that I use daily. So, for example, I do a lot of video editing and just learning the shortcut keys for trimming clips and moving clips around and muting and disabling clips and enabling clips, that probably cut my video editing time in half.

42:48So if you find yourself doing any repetitive task using the trackpad or the mouse a lot, Google it, see if there's a shortcut, and then train yourself to use that shortcut. Again, it sounds simple, but I am amazed every time I'm watching somebody else work on their computer, how much they're not taking advantage of all of the shortcut keys and the shortcut commands available. Two tools that I've been loving recently are both applications for Mac OS and probably for PC too. One is called Magnet, and it basically lets you stick windows to either side of your monitor, top, bottom, left, right, just by dragging it over to the side.

43:22So if you use like a one widescreen monitor like I do, you can kind of basically make it behave like a split screen. The other tool is Text Expander. And you use this to create little snippets that you can type in and then they can populate a field or an email with like a preset piece of text or message. So, for example, if you have a lot of emails, which I'm sure you do, you probably find yourself writing the same things over and over. So you can kind of create templated boilerplate responses and then just type a few letters of your choosing and it will expand that entire message for you. And these are free or cheap apps extensions that you can use with your computer that will shave a lot of time off of those tedious little admin tasks that you're doing.

44:04And if you look at like a whole year, you'll probably save hours of your life by using these little apps. Hi, it's Danielle with Virtual Assist USA. And having a large team of virtual assistants and clients that I manage means that I am obsessed with productivity tools. I have two favorites that I want to share with you today. Phrase Expander is my first. If you are like me and you spend a lot of time typing at your computer, then I think this is going to be really invaluable for you. How it works is that relevant phrases automatically appear as suggestions in a dropdown right as you type, regardless of the application.

44:40And you can pretty easily create custom phrase directories. You can edit their existing ones. There's a spell check. And it really cuts down on a lot of time if you're doing a lot of extensive emailing or even data entry. My second favorite is rescue time. So this is great if you're someone that gets done with work for the day and you're wondering, what did I just spend the afternoon doing? that I really highly recommend that you use RescueTime. It runs in the background unobtrusively. It monitors exactly what happens. The statistics are automatically collated and they're visualized in really nice charts for you right on the dashboard.

45:16And it can tell you whether you've done things that are very productive or very distracting. And the numbers don't lie, as they say. And so there's really a lot of good information to see there if you are someone that is wondering how you can improve your productivity. Hey, everyone. It's Nate with FreeUp.com. Today, I'm here to share with you two hacks that I use to be more productive. And the first one is a little known app called Yet Another Mail Merge. This app is great for emailing people in bulk. A lot of times I want to email a lot of clients and update. I want to email a lot of freelancers and update.

45:49Maybe I want to send some sales emails to potential clients. So I use Yet Another Mail Merge to simplify and customize emails and send them out with one click of the button. It does not get faster than that. The other thing that I use a lot is Trello. And I know it's super basic and people use it before. But what I do is I divide it up. I have a personal board. I have short-term, long-term, and I have day-to-day ones. And I'm constantly moving stuff around along with my virtual assistants to make sure that it's 100 % in line. They'll also have their own board to keep track of issues and projects that I give them.

46:21And again, it's very similar where it's split up between short and long-term projects and ones that are complete so you can easily keep track of them. I also use Skype a lot. Again, that's something that everyone uses, but check out my video, Serious Skyping, and how to get the most out of Skype. Hope these tools are helpful, and I look forward to talking to you guys really soon. Hey guys, it's Brandon from biggerpockets.com, and one weird productivity tip that's been working really, really great for me lately is actually tracking exactly how many minutes per day I'm spending on my phone. Now, I'm using this iPhone app called Moment, and it simply tracks like screen time, but there's a few of them out there that do that.

46:55And what's nuts is that I didn't think I use my phone all that much. But like every time you pick it up, check a text, make a quick call, check Slack or whatever, it all adds up over time, right? Over the course of a day. And when I first started using it, I was averaging over four hours of time. My eyes were glued to my phone every day. I mean, that's a massive chunk of the day. And now listen, before you start laughing at four hours, I want to encourage you guys to track your screen time for a week. And you'll be shocked as I was, I bet. It's just crazy how much time we spend on our phone, which is robbing us from doing other things.

47:25So by installing the app, I've now cut my screen time down to under two hours a day, which still sounds like a lot. And I feel like I'm never on it. But anyway, cut out that. So let's save me like what, two hours a day, 10 hours a week, 40 hours a month of time that I now get back to do more important things like spend time with my family or get more work done, get the important things done. And again, it's not like I cut it out completely. I didn't throw my phone away. I just took the time wasting things. It makes me consistently wonder what am I doing on my phone? Do I need to have this out?

47:52That's helped a lot. Another side tip on that, that I actually learned from, I think, Tim Ferriss, turn your screen black and white. Both Android and Apple can do that. Make your screen black and white. What I noticed what that does for me is it makes me, again, like I don't get sucked into things like Instagram and Facebook quite as easy because they're just not as fun to look at. And it's just a reminder. It's just being aware of what I'm doing. That's really the key with both these things, like both the Moment app and other the things is just black and white. It's just being aware. And when you're aware of things, you're generally more likely to not just kill time.

48:25After hearing Brandon's suggestion, I had to download the Moment app to see where I was at in terms of time on my phone. And it was pretty eye-opening, although it's a little tough to do since I do use the phone for work quite a bit. But when I first started, I was over two hours a day. But for the last seven days, I'm down to just under an hour and a half, which still seems like a lot, but at least it's improving. The most depressing stat the app is going to show you is the percentage of waking hours you're spending on your phone. So like everything else, if you want to be more present, more productive, what gets measured gets managed.

48:54So definitely check out the Moment app. Thank you, Brandon, for that one. Next up is Grant Baldwin from grantbaldwin.com in episode 57 of the Side Hustle Show. And I laughed out loud when I heard his tip because I do this all the time. Hey, what's up, Side Hustle Nation? This is Grant Baldwin from thespeakerlab.com. So one productivity tip that I've used for a little while that I asked my wife, I was like, hey, give me something that I do regularly that's just kind of weird. And she said, well, it's weird that when we're driving down the road, you have me send emails to you reminding you of things.

49:27That's true. I do that. I am guilty. I'm very much adamant on if you think of something that you need to do or you think of an idea, you need to capture it in one way or another. So oftentimes when we're driving, I'll mention to her, hey, can you send me an email telling me to do da-da-da-da-da-da? And I'll just end up adding that to my list later, but that way it is captured. So a little productivity thing. A couple of tools I can't live without. First of all, Slack I use religiously with our team on a daily basis and absolutely love Slack. The other thing that we use a lot is a tool called Screencastify.

49:57There's other versions of this. I think Loom is one of them. Screencastify basically allows you to record a video screen share or even just a video of yourself. We use this regularly whenever we are, if I'm explaining something to one of our team members or doing a screen share, just walking them through something or making some type of walkthrough video explanation video. That works really, really well. The other thing that we do with some of our students and our clients is that we will send them videos of us answering their question or saying hey to them. I think we're all used to getting email text replies to things, but being able to send something to someone where they can actually see your face and realize that you are a real person answering their actual question, I think it makes a big difference for them.

50:37So anyway, those are a few things that we use. Again, check us out over at thespeakerlab.com. Hey, guys, what's up? It's Bethany from the Money Mill House podcast and Wanderlustforless.com blog. A slightly strange and possible eccentric productivity tip for me is having three individual notebooks that encompass my entire life. The first one is my trusty nomadic planner, which helps me map out my schedule as well as my editorial calendar for all my podcasts and blog posts. And it also helps me organize my goals for the week and the month and the year. The second notebook I have is a bullet journal that helps me organize my thoughts, track my habits, and keep up with what's going on in my brain.

51:19And then the third notebook is a list of just lists. It's all of my lists that keep my little brain happy. Brainstorming sessions, what I need at the grocery store, ideas that come to me about anything creative, and I compile it in there. And though having one notebook might be pretty good for some people, having three notebooks to separate everything helps me feel a little bit more organized. One of my favorite tools to work with for podcasting is Zencaster. It helps our team meet in one place from around the country to record a podcast, and then it automatically sends the audio straight to our editor without me even thinking about it.

51:59Another awesome tool is unroll.me. It's my favorite site to help organize my email and to keep track of my subscriptions. I even have the app downloaded on my phone. It's awesome. It's like Tinder for my emails. I can unsubscribe from an email, which is swiping left, or I can swipe up, which means to keep it in my inbox. But if I like that email, I'm going to swipe right and add it to my roll up, which is one email with all of my subscriptions every single day delivered to my email inbox. It helps organizing and it saves time because I don't have time to delete 500 emails from my inbox every single morning.

52:35All right, that's it for me, guys. Talk to you later. All right, how about that for some crowdsourced wisdom? I've definitely got some new tools, apps, and tricks to try, and I hope you do too. Let me know what you think in your new favorite hack or discovery from this episode at SideHustleNation.com slash 276. Some common themes from the show, right? Number one, find a task management or project management system that works for you. Find a way to switch your brain into work mode, hustle mode, engage, and find a way to reduce the decision fatigue, or at least to put a filter on the distractions or choices that come at you every day.

53:12My top takeaways from this roundup, number one, embrace your weird, basic people do basic things. There's a quote from Amber Hurdle. When Amber said that, I was like, yes, because we're all a little weird. Weird that we just don't want to take life as it comes, but we want to take control of it on our own terms. Embrace it, own it, live it, love it. Thank you, Amber. Embrace your weird. Takeaway number two is to start with what you have when you have it. It's a little bit of a riff on Pat Flynn's comment from the top of the show, but let's say you have just 15 minutes here or 10 minutes there, and I'm totally guilty of saying, well, that's not enough time to get anything meaningful done, especially for a bigger project.

53:51But what I found is you can actually put a pretty good dent in your work in that time. Even if you're not going to finish it, you can start it. And just that act of starting builds momentum, kind of builds up that daily progress for later. Takeaway number three is to bookend your days. So my brother turned me on to this guy, Brian Johnson, who runs a site called Optimize.me. I think there's a YouTube channel associated with that as well. But it is awesome. I was listening to some of his stuff on a recent car ride. And one concept he covered was bookending your days, explaining that we have the most control over the very start and the very end of our days.

54:31So be intentional and proactive about using that time to make progress toward your most important goals. In the middle of the day, all sorts of other demands pop up and there are fires to put out first thing in the morning and last thing before bed. Those are usually easier times to take full ownership of. Once again, if you visit sidehustlenation.com slash 276, you'll find the links to all the resources mentioned along with a summary of the advice shared in this episode. I wanted to give a huge thank you to all of our contributors today. Definitely a ton of fun to put this one together. And hopefully you heard a few new tools and ideas that can help out in your business.

55:07That's it for me. Thank you so much for tuning in. Until next time, let's go out there and make something happen. And I'll catch you in the next edition of the Side Hustle Show. I'll see you then. Hustle on.

55:29We'll see you next time.