Here is the complete transcript of the podcast
If you believe in peak performance, you take personal accountability, you believe in growth, then today’s podcast episode is for you. I believe. Regardless of whether you are a subscriber or you’re a first-time listener, you’re watching this on YouTube, maybe YouTube suggested this video to you, doesn’t matter, I think you are a success-minded individual. And you care for all these tasks while you are here. So stay with me over the next 10 minutes, I promise you, this podcast episode or this video is going to change your life.
Early on at the beginning of this year, I talked about my morning routine and why it’s important to wake up early in the morning and why it’s important that you get the minimum tasks, that’s the scheduled tasks that you have in your mind prior to that day, needs to be done as early as possible, preferably in the first hour itself. And I talked about this extensively. I did multiple podcast episodes. And again, on a later podcast. In that series, I talked about how it’s important that you at least get three things done in the day if you can get three things done. The whole day, it’s a day well spent. That was my message. But then after I was done, I knew something was missing. And I was thinking, well, 24 hours, you’re awake 16 hours, only do three things, only to 10 things. So I went back, and I started experimenting with something in the last six weeks, I did a little bit, you know the same more of the same model. But then a little bit of a different frame a different approach said, I’m going to do at least 10 tasks in the first two hours of waking up. So I wake up at 430 before the sun hits the skies, or the sunlight comes through the window into my house by 630. So I need to get at least 10 things done. And I was successful for a few days, which was good. And then I said I’m going to change something here, I’m going to do 20 tasks. But I will do it under one hour or one hour at the most. So I kind of cut down the duration. But I increased the effort. That’s what I did. And I did that for a few days, I was successful.
And I started gathering data, I started seeing how I was doing. What was interesting is I was able to move fluidly across all the tasks without any hindrance. Now before I go and explain this principle, let me define what a task is. A task, in my mind, is a chore, a duty, or a job that I can do under five minutes. And I should be able to do without edits, I should be able to do without repeats, I should be able to do without any debates, I should be able to do without any emotional thinking, I need to get it done, I’ll get it done. So that’s the definition of a task in my mind, as I’m executing. Then I did something different. And this is what triggered today’s podcast episode, which as I said, I’m gonna take the hour limitation out completely. I don’t want to do 15 minutes of work and then take a 10-minute break. Do it for two hours, do it for one hour, and see as many tasks, how many tasks I’m doing, and all that I said, I’m going to take all that out. And I’m going to do I go practically as far as possible and at least set myself to complete 100 tasks. And I want to measure myself, literally line by line by line. I’m going to document all the tasks and I’m going to go through them one by one by one till I hit 100. And I’ll see how much time I will take to do it. Here is an interesting observation.
I was able to complete 100 tasks in under four and a half hours. And I was able to do it may be the first time I did I thought it was a false positive. But I kept on repeating. And I kept on trying and I kept on succeeding. And I did that for about seven days. And today is the seventh day and I’m recording this podcast. So I think it’s real I think it’s true. And I’m not saying I’m not going to slack. I’m not saying I can continue this performance forever. But at least I think I have enough data to come on record this podcast and share this data with you. The reason why I’m doing this is that I want you to try this. I want you to see if you can wake up early or whatever time you wake up, but then try to see if you can document and accomplish as many tasks as possible, preferably closer to a three-digit number like 100 and measure yourself. Now, here is an interesting observation and multiple observations along the way. One key observation in this is, that the more the pressure, the better the performance. So for some reason, the more pressure I started putting on myself, the higher was my performance.
Now, I’m not saying that the equation is not going to break at some point, eventually, we run out of ideas, we run out of energy, and all that that is true. But then that was the biggest takeaway from this. I also found out something else in these five minutes is what I had in my mind. But the majority of the things that I thought would take me 1015 20 minutes, because to begin with, I was having difficulty identifying 100 tasks. So I have to sit down an hour the night before and write down all the tasks that I want to accomplish the next day. And I had to come up with 100 tasks. And I had to start early. And I want to accomplish that as soon as possible. So I was setting these limitations on myself, and setting myself up for failure. Interestingly,, each time I came up almost close to that 100 Number, almost, maybe one or two times have a shot, but almost 100. So you take the average. Yeah, it’s 99 point something. So here is the second big takeaway, which is the majority of the tasks were less than five minutes. Because I choose not to engage emotionally interesting. So if I’m running on a treadmill, I want to go run for 10 minutes, but I want to run those 10 minutes where, at the end of 10 minutes, I’m sweating. I don’t want to spend an hour on the treadmill, and then don’t sweat and don’t feel the high when I’m done. You see you I hope you see where I’m going with this.
So 100 tasks are done consistently, each task done more, more or less efficiently, but then in a minimal time. And then at the end of all this, I have a heightened sense of self-esteem. It’s amazing. I’m not questioning whether this task is in the kitchen this task is in the garage this task is in my business or this task is this podcast num I’m getting things done. And getting things done is an important thing. That’s all I want you to try this, I want you to experiment with this. And I want you to share with me your observations at least start with the 10 tasks early in the morning, see how you do, and start to keep increasing that number. And it doesn’t matter what the definition of a task is for you. But make sure that it is not a project, make sure it takes a lot of time, a lot of thinking a lot of debating all that. So if you get into that mode, then it becomes difficult. You can’t accomplish much and you keep on exerting your energy without results. It’s not a worthy thing to do.
Okay, that’s all for now, wherever you are, be safe. Hopefully, this is helpful. If it is, leave me a comment if you’re watching this as a YouTube video on YouTube. And if you’re listening to this as a podcast on your podcasting app, this should be a place where you can write a comment. You have a question for me. 888-818-0404 is the number where you can call can text. Leave me a message. And I promise you if you have a question for me that you know is going to help you and the wider audience of this podcast. I’m going to do my best to answer your question on this podcast. That’s all for now. I’ll talk to you soon. Bye.