there's something off-putting about most productivity systems they are either too complex too difficult to set up or just too rigid to be useful get rid of all that noise and get back to basics in this video we'll talk about the most simple intuitive effortless productivity system ever made something you can use even if you were stuck on a desert island with nothing but some coconuts and you don't even need the Coconuts quite literally you need nothing but amazingly it will still somehow work in fact it's what I use to get into Harvard for undergrad Yale for medical school in Harvard again for residency and I'm going to share it with you so you too can get what you want here we go strategy number one the inverted pyramid method always start your day with the most important thing spending the majority of your time on this task you give yourself an a lotted amount of time let's say 3 hours and after you finish or 3 hours are up whatever comes first you funnel down spending proportionately less and less time on the tasks that are less and less important in a three- tiered system you'd spend 3 hours on your most important thing 2 hours on the second most important thing and 1 hour on the third most important thing that's pretty much it it's as simple as it gets no complicated calendar scheduling no insane planning in advance just settle in put on a timer for 3 hours Put on airplane mode and get to work the hours you spend in each slot of the inverted pyramid is arbitrary I personally like the 321 system because it is easy to remember and gives me enough time for solid work but decide what works for you the most important part of this whole thing is picking what goes in each of these three slots don't put stupid stuff here and waste your time think about what you are trying to accomplish what would your goal in its most finished ultimate State look like what is the most important thing you could achieve in the next 3 hours in service of this goal that if we're done would get you 80% of the way there this is the Crux of strategy number two the Paro principle it states that for many outcomes 80% of results come from 20% of the causes this is the power of Leverage and if you consistently Focus your work on the 20% that matters not not only will you become more efficient you'll have more time to do whatever you want with like bake gingerbread cookies and save puppies from being punched don't strive to be perfect just make it a habit to figure out where this magical 20% is most people have heard about this but inherently don't utilize this consistently in their work and end up focusing on the wrong things making up for it by brute force and sheer hard work I've seen these people in my high school in college and even in medical school people copying their notes five times in a row with different colored pencils for example to try learn a subject I've been victim to this mentality as well in different shapes and forms under leveraging my efforts and wasting precious time the funny thing is we often don't even realize we are doing it because we feel like we're being productive and it's this feeling that reinforces our inefficiency this is what I call Feelgood work productivity done for the sake of productivity so to solve this stop basing your productivity system on feelings and emotions use your brain and step outside of yourself is there a better way to do this what is the most leverage next step if you're coaching yourself what would you tell yourself to do if you could only accomplish one thing today what would that one thing be when you have an answer that's what you then do the next most important thing and the inverted pyramid dictates that you do this most important thing first and the earlier you start it in the day the better ideally right after waking up you know brush your teeth take your dump wipe your butt and then just get started no fancy scheduling reminder system no meticulous planning just do it Nike get started and finish the task once it is done repeat the thought process figure out what the next most leverage step is and go do that your most important thing can be obviously different dayto day but that's the idea to focus on using your brain to think critically about your situation and adapt to the moment the efficiency gain will be enormous when you consistently leverage your efforts for example if I want to make it on YouTube I need to get better at storytelling editing filming part of me knows this is a heavy lift and inherently I want to avoid it it's much easier to do you know busy work browsing Amazon to find the perfect camera lens watching another video on YouTube to get inspiration finding more stock footage Clips like this one to intersperse between my talking head shot maybe hire another Editor to do special effects like this yeah probably not very high yield right now or worth my time right now the highest yield effort would be simply to get in front of the camera to turn it on try and give you something of value and hit upload everything else is secondary just because I didn't spend 3 hours trying to find the cutest puppy in the world to be inserted right here won't realistically make or break this video strategy number three there are no rules to when you take breaks just how you take breaks listen to your brain and body if you cannot concentrate stop wasting your time trying to push through and just take a break if that means once an hour then great if that's twice every 10 minutes that's fine my only ask of you is this when you take a break don't let it be a Mindless Endeavor where you jump to your phone and scroll like a scavenger hungrily looking for spikes of dopamine to distract yourself yourself with so what should you do on your break then high-intensity exercise exercise is good not only for your muscles and your heart but also for your brain exercise ramps up the production of bdnf brain derived neurotrophic factor a kind of Miracle Grow that supercharges your brain creating and maturing new brain cells in synaptic connections perfect for learning growing and thinking think of high intensity exercise as a way to literally upgrade your operating system and reset your mind for the next set of meaning productive work the fact that so little people do this despite the mountain of evidence growing in support of this is mindboggling no pun intended but don't worry if nobody else is doing this this is soon going to become your Competitive Edge a study in the Journal of physiology shows that even just 4 minutes of high-intensity exercises can quintuple the production of bdnf that's five times the brain power the study used stationary cycling but realistically it doesn't matter do jumping jacks planks burpees push-ups bin on your head just do something that elevates your heart rate pushes you to sweat and leaves you winded and then take a few minutes to catch your breath meditate to calm down and get back to work the last strategy in the system is the most simple of them all I almost hesitate to put it here but for completion sake here it is simply focus when you decide to work work get rid of all distractions don't multitask don't answer text messages don't have Netflix on in the background I rarely study or work with music because I want 100% of my brain to be focused on producing my best work we only have so much bandwidth why would I sacrifice even 10% of this precious resource and have it be distracted by something I've handicapped myself with that's just stupid Focus your brain energy and fully utilize your time to get what you want and that's it folks the most effortless simple intuitive productivity system ever if this was helpful to you at all be sure to tell your friends your grandma and your pet hamster and then tell them to subscribe and follow for more strategies just like this one until next time smell you later