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So if you don't know this already, in South
Korea, there are thousands of teenagers who
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wake up every day and spend more hours doing
schoolwork than you spend being awake. Literally.
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And many people look at these students and think,
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But, in reality, most of them just wanna
get out of school and join an esports team,
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a good portion of them don’t even shower at
all, and the most popular productivity hack,
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is to drink an entire Iced
Americano in between each subject.
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So how do they do it? What's their hidden
secret to being so productive all the time?
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It’s actually very easy.
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And I was about to spend weeks reading
these productivity books to find the answer,
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but luckily, thanks to Shortform, I was able
to read all of them in just a few hours.
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That’s because Shortform gives you full guides,
to pretty much any book you could ever want,
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including the most popular books in genres like
Money and Finance, Productivity, and Business.
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For example, I read the guide to Ali Abdaal’s
Feel-Good Productivity, and Shortform even gave
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me exercises to actually apply the information
at the end. And here’s 3 things I learned
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and that’s why I only upload once a month.
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But unlike me, Shortform drops new book
guides and articles every single week,
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and subscribers get to vote
on what books are covered.
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So if you wanna get a 5-day free trial,
join Shortform through my Special link,
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shortform.com/easyactually, or
click the link in the description.
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Sooo in the end what i found,
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is that productivity is basically just
a cycle. And this is what it looks like.
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First, let’s say you get motivated. Motivation
makes you wanna do work. Finishing some work,
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makes you feel good, and that gives you
motivation, to then finish more work.
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Around and around it goes.
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The more motivated you are, the more
work you do. And the more work you do,
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the more motivation you get.
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So, every time you think of productivity,
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just think of this cycle. Because even
though it simplifies a lot of stuff,
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it’s easy to remember just this image whenever
you wake up and don’t feel like doing anything.
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And it explains pretty much everything.
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For example, how can you spend
3 weeks not writing an essay,
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but somehow, 30 minutes before it’s
due, you turn into prime Shakespeare?
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It’s because when the due date is in 30 minutes,
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your motivation goes sky high, and
therefore, the cycle goes much faster,
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and no amount of distractions, sleepiness,
or boredom, will be enough to stop you.
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The cycle also explains why you can get so
much more work done when you have a to-do list.
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Because each time you cross
something off the list,
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you’re very obviously telling your
brain, I finished something. I did
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a task. And that makes you feel good. And
now that you feel motivated, guess what?
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Here’s another task that’s gonna give you an
even better feeling once you cross it off.
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And this is why the most productive people
almost always have a detailed to-do list.
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Cause if you split up a big task like
“homework” into each individual subject,
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and even better, you split
it into each individual task,
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then not only is there less confusion
about what you have to do, but you
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get to have that boost of motivation
after crossing off every little task.
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So if you wanna make the cycle as
smooth and efficient as possible,
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make a to-do list, and make it detailed.
More detailed. More! Ok that’s good.
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And it’s important to know that if you don’t have
a lot of motivation, you can still start up the
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cycle and get it running, by using some
self-motivation tricks. And here's a few:
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- First, remind yourself what drives you. why
you’re doing this, and what the end goal is.
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- Next, remind yourself what
you enjoy about your work.
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- Third, challenge yourself to see how
much work you can do in the next hour,
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and race against the clock, as if you have an
essay that’s due in one hour and you haven’t
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started. Because you know what they say,
procrastination is the best motivation,
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so why not just give yourself your own time limit?
- And finally, make work into a habit by doing it
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every day around the same time, and by making
it part of a bigger routine. For example,
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a lot of people have a morning routine of
wake up, shower, breakfast, gym. Or they
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have an evening routine of come home, change
clothes, eat food. And if you just stick a
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work session into these built-in routines, then
eventually it’ll feel weird, not to do work.
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And what better motivator is there,
than not wanting to feel weird?
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But having said all this, you also don’t have to
start with motivation, to get the cycle going.
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If you wanna turn the cycle on,
you can just start here. With work.
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For example, if you wake up one day and you
feel really unmotivated, like you don't want
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to do anything, just start working anyway.
It can even be just one minute of work.
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Literally one minute.
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Whatever it is, once you finish that bit of work,
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you’re done, and you can go back to
lying down in bed and doing nothing.
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But chances are, you probably won’t want to
go back to doing nothing. Because finishing
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that one task will almost always give you
enough motivation to do the next task,
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and that motivates you more, and before you
know it, the cycle is running at full speed.
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And this is the secret. Don't wait for motivation.
Start working now, and get motivated as you work.
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It’s said that students at Oxford
University in England spend at
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least 40 hours a week studying. Which means
that even on those days with no motivation,
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they still have to wake up
and go study for 6-8 hours.
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And they’re not sitting in bed telling themselves,
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Cause that’s a huge task that they
don’t have the motivation for.
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Instead, what they actually
do, is wake up and think,
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And 12 hours later someow,
they’ve finished 2 textbooks,
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written 4 essays, and colonized 78 countries,
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Cause getting stuff done, is what
motivates you, when nothing else will.
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Of course, the cycle can’t go on forever.
Things like tiredness, confusion, boredom,
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anxiety, and distractions are all things
that make this cycle less and less efficient.
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But the good news is that you
can deal with all of these.
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And one way to tackle them all at the same
time, is to just take a break and go for a walk.
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Especially if you go outside, a walk will give
you some extra energy,. A walk helps you collect
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your thoughts and plan out your next move. It
gives you something to do that’s not work. It
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calms you down when you’re anxious. And during
a walk, you can take in all your surroundings,
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and allow your mind to wander now, so
that you don’t need distractions later.
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But besides walking, here’s how
you can deal with each problem.
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...one thing that works way too well and
pretty much never fails is switching up
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the location you work from, even
just facing a different direction.
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You can honestly work from even
the most nonsensical of locations,
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but be warned that people might look at you
weird. Doesn’t matter though cause it’s fun.
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Anxiety: The best you can do
is ask yourself some questions:
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For example, if you have a biology test
coming up you might feel too anxious to study.
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Why? Because you’re worried you might fail anyway.
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Is this reasonable? No,
cause studying always helps.
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Will this matter in the long run? No,
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because the two hours you spend studying
now is not that much time in the long run.
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And what can you control? Obviously,
you can study. And even if you do fail,
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you can always just draw over
your grade and change it to an A.
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And lastly, distractions. according to many books,
distractions are the enemy to deep, productive,
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work, and they also stop you from reaching a
state of flow. And the best way to stop this, is
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to simply take your phone, put it on silent, and
put in another room, or just hide it somewhere.
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This is way better than just
turning off your notifications,
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and I personally I don’t even miss anything
cause no one calls me in the first place.
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Anyway, I’m collecting donations in the
form of subscribes to fund the next video.
