Chapter 1: What unconventional approach to productivity is discussed?
If you're the kind of person who wants to get more done in less time, then you've clicked on the right video. Because if you give me just a few minutes, I'll give you decades of productivity advice in return. Because the most successful people, they don't rely on discipline or willpower to be productive. They rewire their brain to make it impossible to fail.
I've got intense ADHD, but the systems I've built turn that from a weakness into a weapon. And those systems is what helped me build several multimillion dollar businesses. And through it all, I've learned there are only five things that make productivity simple and life a whole lot easier. Welcome to the Martell Method.
I went from rehab at 17 to building a $100 million empire and being a Wall Street Journal bestselling author. In this podcast, I'll show you exactly how to build a life and business you don't grow to hate. And make sure you don't miss anything by subscribing to my newsletter at martellmethod.com. Starting with the two minute rule. I first learned this from a guy named David Allen.
He wrote an incredible book called Getting Things Done. And a long time ago, I went to an event in New York City where he was speaking and he shared this wisdom that was so simple yet so profound. A rule that applies to everything that I'll talk about today. If something takes less than two minutes, just do it. Don't think it, don't plan it, just act.
Most people spend more time writing down, tracking, put it in their project management software than the actual work to just do it. The longer you hesitate, the heavier the task actually gets and the longer the list of the tasks get. I like to say JFDI, just do it. Send the email, book the meeting, shoot the video, respond to the text. Just do it now. Less than two minutes.
Don't even write it down. Those tiny actions actually build massive momentum. Reminds me of this quote by Jeff Bezos, which I love. He says, stress doesn't come from hard work. It comes from ignoring things that you shouldn't be ignoring.
It's true. Some people create more pain in their life from the decision they got to make than the downside that might happen if they just make the decision.
Now, not every task takes two minutes. So what do you do when you've got real work that demands focus, energy, and time? You need to fix your focus. Before we get back to the episode, if you want to jumpstart your week with my top stories and tactics, be sure to subscribe to the Martell Method newsletter.
It's where you'll elevate your mindset, fitness, and business in less than five minutes a week. Find it at martellmethod.com. Here's a wild idea. You can't be productive if you have no idea what to focus on. Clarity creates acceleration. If I have a clear direction of where I'm going, I can sprint.
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Chapter 2: How can the two-minute rule enhance productivity?
It means that it's not about just how hard you work. It's about working in the right direction. This first got introduced to me through a guy named Sean Ellis, who's like the original growth hacker, if you've ever heard that term. And he shared me this concept called North Star Metrics.
Essentially, he said, if you can distill everything you're trying to accomplish in your business into one number, then it gets everybody focused on the right thing. So I was building this company, Clarity, and when we sat down as a team and looked at it, we realized there's this thing called expert-driven signups.
To the degree we could convince people that we're using our platform to share it with other people and they would drive signups to use our product, that that was our North Star metric. That became our focus. That became our guiding light for all things, our sprints, our developments, our marketing, everything.
That one decision to get everybody focused on our North Star metric is the reason why we sold the company two years later. Real productivity isn't managing time, it's managing focus. So here's two steps you can follow to fix your focus. The first, you have to define your 12 power goals.
At the beginning of the year, I always sit down and I go for a walk and I get quiet and I sit down with my heart in the trees. I literally like to go to nature and I ask myself, what do I want to accomplish this year in all aspects of my life, from the business side, to the family side, to the adventure side, to just creating the world. And I just do a flood of consciousness.
I just write down a bunch of things. And then what I do is I take that list and I look at them And I always take the one thing that goes to the top that if I accomplish that one, it makes everything else easier. But then I backfill it with the other 11 that are aligned, that feel good, that, I mean, that are crazy.
A couple of years ago, I had this wild idea to donate 10,000 copies of Think and Grow Rich to every kid in my hometown. as almost like an economic experiment in our city. That process of having those 12 goals is the first step because that'll give you your North Star. Where most people miss the opportunity is I then set up a habit to review that list three times a day. Think about it.
Most people write a business plan or a life plan and then after the first few weeks, they put it in a drawer and they never revisit it. Because I sit down and I have triggers set up in my life, when I sit in my car, when I'm at my office, when I read in the morning, where I pull up my phone and it's in a note file and it's literally pinned at the top of my phone and I just review.
And that allows me to ask myself, how aligned is my calendar? What do I got going on today? When's the last time I did anything on that? It reminds me of a quote by Stephen Covey, which he says, the main thing is to keep the main thing, the main thing. Essentially, if these are your goals, look at them and make sure your calendar reflects your goal. If you do that, you will be a freaking weapon.
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Chapter 3: What strategies can help fix focus for better productivity?
My wife and I have this very simple rule. If it isn't a heck yeah, it's a hell no. If somebody's asking you to do something and that thing would be today or tonight, and the answer would be no, then I don't care if it's in six months, make it a hard no. It's better to close the loops by making a decision, not leaving them open. See that two minute rule coming into play?
then to leave it as a maybe. You will stress yourself out around maybes. If you would jump out of bed to go do the thing that you're being asked to do, then yeah, do it. If it's a no, just say no. Put yourself first. So here are three ways to cut the crap out of your life and become more productive immediately. The first one, say no by default.
It's a wild concept to consider that no matter what you're asked to do by other people, just say no. Protect your calendar. Treat it like a bank account that every time somebody asks you to do something, they're essentially asking for you to give them money because they are. It's your time. You just don't realize it. Every day has 86,400 seconds. Think about that as in dollar bills.
Every time somebody asks, hey, you got a second? They're not asking for a second. They're asking for maybe $17, maybe $60. Like what are they asking for? And if you wouldn't give them that, protect it, which then allows you to choose how you use your time, which I'm going to get into in a second. If it aligns with your goals, then it's an easy yes. If it doesn't, then you say no.
But be careful because there's this middle ground of things that will stretch you, that will scare you, that will put you outside of your comfort zone. And I don't want you to get too quick to say no. If it aligns with your goal and it pushes you outside of your comfort zone, those are the ones that are yes. So next we have to audit your time weekly.
Every Sunday, I want you to take some time to look at the previous week and ask yourself what worked and what didn't. The stuff that worked, run the play. The stuff that didn't, cancel, cut, clear it, fix it. And then on a monthly basis, look at your previous month and then create a thing called the kill list. Essentially eliminate any task, any reoccurring stuff, that don't support your dreams.
Have no mercy. If you don't, you won't create the space to do the work that's gonna push your life forward. And you do that by either deleting, delegating, automating, or just doing the work. And last, one of my favorite, simplest, easiest, and easily the most productive is pretty much live in DND mode. DND mode is yes, on your phone. Right now my phone is Do Not Disturb.
But by default, you should literally get rid of all your distractions. For those that are willing, go into your notifications and turn them all off. Oh, I know. You're going, I can't. What about my calendar? What about my messages from my friends? What I know. Here's what I've discovered. We allow these tools to take away from our life, our distractions, our focus.
And all I would say is schedule time to plug in either for me, 1130 or 430. But I also even use the time when I'm doing my fasted cardio in the morning to do all my Slack messages. I've blocked these times to plug in. I don't let the apps distract me. I'm so easily distracted with my ADHD that like I said, I had to create these systems so that I could just be productive.
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Chapter 4: How can defining power goals improve productivity?
I like to put my most difficult tasks right after the gym, my most creative tasks like this right after the gym. Why? because that's when it's gonna get my best work. My mind is primed after I work out because I exhaust the body, tame the mind. And your gym could be as simple as putting a weighted vest and going for a walk. It could be as simple as doing 100 air squats.
It doesn't have to be complicated. You'll be surprised how much more productive you'll be. So now we got our body and our energy and our mind right, but none of that will actually make you more productive if you don't follow this next step, which is setting up simple systems.
Before we get back to the episode, if you actually want to know what my real life looks like and see the people and the businesses and the companies I buy and my family and just like how I make it all work, go follow me on Instagram. Dan Martell, 2LZMartell on Instagram. It's where I show the behind the scenes, the real deal, real time. I'd love to see you there. Have an amazing day.
This is a universal truth. Systems beat motivations every single day of the week. A lot of people ask me like, I don't know how you stay so motivated. I'm not. I just follow the system. I make it easy for me to win. I just have checklists that I have a little bit of discipline to start with and review it.
And the best part, the more you build your life, the more people you'll have in your life, the more you'll coordinate with other people to do life and they will keep you accountable to the system. Like my whole team works out. When we travel, we work out. I literally think they would probably be like, oh, something's wrong with Dan.
If they texted me or I texted them and said, I'm not going to the gym tomorrow. So that's the whole point is that everybody has goals, you know, as James Clear says. But it's the systems that create the winners, not the size of the goal you wrote down on the paper. It's almost gotten to the point where I just make it hard on myself to fail.
For example, when I was writing my book, Buy Back Your Time, I said to myself, I will sit down and I will write every day. And I sat there and I wrote every day. I think I made it to like 22 days. And then I realized I hated it and I didn't wanna do it. And then I missed one day and one day turned into three days and then I wrote a little bit and then I didn't touch it for weeks.
That was not a winning system. What I then changed was that I hired somebody, his name is Ron, and I said, you be the book CEO. You hold me accountable. You're the expert. I will work for you. So I created a system with Ron where we actually co-created this project called Buy Back Your Time, this beautiful blue book that's helped millions of people.
I had to create a system that I couldn't fail at by making it other people's dreams and goals for me to support. Because I learned a long time ago, and I don't know if this is true for you, I will do way more for somebody else than I will ever do for myself. I mean, it's a challenge as you have more success in life to keep the hunger going when you don't need anything.
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