2023-08-15
You are productive. You do work on your own schedule.
I have this ability. I have always done shit on my own.
Imagine yourself as the person you want to become.
Sam ovens’ “Who are you becoming?” or “Who do you want to become?” or “What do you want to deserve?”
Hamza - “I am the 1%”
Hamza says to learn from Sam Ovens and Alex Becker.
see a movie of you winning, of whatever success is to you every day.
This positively reinforces your new identity.
Visualize the obstacles that could come up.
Think of specific things that could happen.
It could be as simple as searching for a YouTuber. Now visualize yourself closing that tab as soon as you realize what has happened.
Journal: What obstacles could I face? and then solve them. Prevent them. Most people don’t do this. And this is how you win.
For me, this is knowing I can fall off jumps and riding with full body armor(elbow, chest, shoulder, back) and kneepads, and getting the best helmet I can. I will get a mouthguard and neck brace soon.
Parkinson’s law: the task will swell up to fit till the deadline.
This means a 2-hour essay will take a week if the deadline is Friday.
Solution: Set the deadline earlier. I personally set deadlines for my work at least 3 days before the deadline. With MTB, I have goals - sections of trails/jumps I want to nail by the end of the week.
I have not been doing this for my videos. Now: max 2 weeks a video but the best I can make it. 100X effort. 10 times the time. Journal and figure out how to make the story better. Iterate.
Long-term goals: 12 months short term goals - monthly milestones
What is a reasonably unreasonable achievement for that amount of time?
For me, the short run monthly is to nail mini ream by the 23rd of September (when Skyline opens). Nail all trails by 31st December, and win local races by the end of the season. Winning local races is a 9-month, relatively long-term goal.
It has to be reasonable, you must respect the process. Not a million next year, not the world cup next year. Buy local races next year, then national, then world cups.
The key: success compounds
it is exponential. You won’t get 100 subs every month to get to a thousand. It’ll be a whole lot of nothing, then it will shoot up. Rich get richer. Your audience compounds.
This means: you may not see results for 6 months. Keep going.
Don’t cash in right now. long term success is the key. Delay gratification. If the long-term goal is 10K subs, you can clickbait now to get 1K right now, but that would reduce goodwill and you would have less to cash in later. That means 100 subs across the next 6 months.
And those tactics take you away from the long-term goal. They take time and attention away from what would be needed to set things up such that you get 10K the next year.
Now set weekly goals - but these will be action-oriented - ex. I will make 1 video or I will spend 10 hours making this video, or I will do 100 runs of the transition line this week.
To figure out what to do to get the goal exactly:
What tasks should you do?
The tasks that cause most of your results.
For me, this would be: making videos(editing), studying, and riding. Over the 3 sections of my life that matter most.
This note/blog is not part of the essential few.
Here: Ask yourself, “What would you do if you could only work for 2 hours a week?”
If it was my whole life, then it would be to ride. because that is one thing I cannot forgo. I of course would be going to school, and concentrating in class would be enough to pass.
If you spend most of your time only riding, and then rest and digest and think about riding and how to ride better, you defeat everyone else making social media posts and all.
I am doing this. I am doing the blog, Twitter, and the hamza ahmed podcast. But so is Alex. Business, youtube, and writing.
I am: MTB School YT Blog/Twitter/skool - but all of this comes together and is a result of my learning. It is just me learning. But I am spending time making the writing better to release it. maybe that time can be used for studying, and editing videos, and such. Maybe I should stop doing this until I have reached success and can outsource this elsewhere.
Hamza Ahmed Podcast is something I will have to figure out and do to make money.
Hamza contradicts here with the mindset of working all day. The diminishing value is what ultimately skyrockets, but again, it will be better when you can outsource shit. As he said, he has a team of people. SO solution: don’t do bullshit until you can hire the people to do the bullshit for you.
Yeah, he says this after. Outsource everything else. So the game plan is to do the main thing until you have the means to ‘do’ bullshit but it is being outsourced - done by someone else.
Now set your weekly goal according to this: for me: sort anki and CulInt presentation Sort mini dream end finish Slade’s wedding and make it a masterpiece.
Focus on this during work hours.
Stick it up on your wall. For extra accountability, put it on your doors where others can see
LEft date, with columns for affirmations, visualizations, 20% tasks
Now think of yourself getting the outcome you want. 10 seconds. go do it. I’m waiting.
now tick off visualizations.
When you are unable to tick a task, that feels like shit and that is what matters.
Never tear up the habit tracker. Keep the accountability. Feel like shit when you do not do it. That is what will incentivize you to do it.
This is the fastest boost.
Intermittent fasting, for me, I wake up early 4 to 5am, and I don’t eat until seven, so that is 2 to 3 hours of fasted work, mainly editing. And that works for me, however, by 7am I get hungry and tired, and personally, as an athlete with good insulin response, carbs don’t tire me.
So experiment with this.
Hamza has the first 5 hours of his days fasted at the time of recording his course and has currently moved on to a full carnivore one meal-a-day diet. So no carbs at all.
Takeaway: don’t eat before you do your 20% tasks.
Yes, this will impact muscle protein synthesis and your gym gains negatively. Decide what is the priority and proceed accordingly.
It will not however fuck your muscles, eat later during the day, that is still 2 to 3 MPS windows, and as long as you get enough protein in, that should be good enough.
Add fast column to the habit tracker.
Better sleep, better brain, so prioritize this.
2 big things:
Allocate more time in bed. Time in bed=sleep time. you will sleep less than your bedtime. 80% is good sleep efficiency. So aim for 10 hours in bed. For me, I will sleep at 8 and wake up at 5 regardless. 7:30 max.
routine vs sleep. If you go out and fuck up bedtime for the day, take that loss and keep your routine. Keep your routine.
Add wake-up time and bedtime to your habit tracker.
What to eat?
Eat clean. No definition. Just eat what is clean to you, and that is good enough.
Eat cleaner every day. You know this inherently.
Change your self-image to someone who eats healthy. You are the weird person who eats cleanly all the time.
Your mental health determines your productivity.
The depressed millionaire is an outlier. And you are not him, if you were, you’d already be him.
It takes 2 weeks to significantly increase your mental health.
Get the NHS mood assessment. Write down your depression and anxiety.
Now: Daily meditation, gratitude journaling, and sunlight.
For sunlight, specifically, be outside and look towards the sky. 10-20 mins, and you’ll be sorted. Stack all of them together for extra efficiency.
Add these to your habit tracker.
do HIIT/Tabata for 2 to 4 mins. That is it.
And then work.
This will help facilitate getting into the focus state easier, and mitigate the friction.
Hamza recommends shadowboxing.
I have done this.
Only email is kept because those are important, I’ve missed exams because of this and it has cost me.
Put your phone on do not disturb. Certain contacts can be kept as emergency, so when they call/text it will go through. Set that up.
Disable the tap to wake and wake when picked up features.
Disable notifications on the lock screen as well.
No notifications on desktop as well.
Hamza loses respect for the people who have notifications enabled and honestly, I do too.
Do not multitask.
When most people hit a wall that would take between a minute and 5 to get over, they just task switch to something stimulating. Do not do this. This will result in 25 minutes worth of focus, gone. Why? Task switching residue. Your brain takes time to switch contexts fully.
Stay in that difficult frictionful state, where you are unable to progress. If you are thinking of video ideas and do not get more, stay with that boredom and feeling, you will break through. This is what your competitor is unwilling to do and this is why you will win.
Accept that with a level of stoicism, accept and work despite it. Imagine how much better you’ll be when you finally can get to a peaceful place.
When they start seeing your focus and wake up early and go for a ride, they will develop this respect for you and over time automatically become quiet when you’re working.
But until they develop that respect, you respond with love and gratitude. Be grateful. You’d be fucked if they weren’t around if they were dead. Be grateful.
this is my way - escape it. Set up your workplace at a friend’s house. Or stay before or after school at school and work there. I am writing this at school. no one is in this class. focus max environment.
Make it on google calendar. Turn your day into a habit. Have a long-term routine. Before sleeping, before the night routine, plan the next day in google calendar.
What is the optimum day for you? Schedule everything, including social. To not make your timetable a prison, make it a day you’d be happy to live on repeat.
This will allow for experiments and optimizations over time specific to you. You will save a lot of time, and it will compound. Your efficiency will increase.
Focus on the weekly milestone tasks here.
put your habit tracker in your face.
do them.
Track the number of deep work hours, and gamify it.
Over time use leverage and outsource shallow tasks, and transition to working on the business instead of in the business, making decisions and letting others execute.
Come up with solutions to a pain you have. Fulfill a need. Market it. Make money.
What problem do you want to solve? What pain do you relate to? Solve it.
Chase the problem you want to solve, not the benefit you want to have.
Over time, you will increase your Deep Work hours a day. 4 hours of Deep work is a limiting belief, your whole day can be deep work, as long as you switch tasks after a couple of hours, and keep practicing the craft.