Well, hello, Governor.
This is Tim Ferriss recording from the UK where I'm trying to blend in.
Welcome to another episode of The Tim Ferriss Show where my usual job is to sit down with world -class performers of all different types to interview them and tease out habits, routines, favorite books, etc.
There are 700 plus of those interviews in the back catalog, and we'll get back to that shortly.
But this time around, we have a different format.
In this short and very tactical episode, I share some of my personal approaches, my personal methods for how to get out of a rut, get unstuck, re -aim yourself at big outcomes, reset and refocus, and make progress on a daily basis despite the self -defeating tendencies and inner voices that we all have.
And that applies to everyone I've met.
The top of the top in any given field, we all have those days.
The first story I tell is of a three to four week period when I was beset by all sorts of personal challenges and ultimately the approach that saved my sanity.
It does not require any heroic efforts, any differential calculus.
It is beautifully simple.
But first, before we get to that, just a few quick words from today's sponsors who make this podcast possible.
If you want to support the show, please check them out.
I use all of these on a daily or weekly basis.
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Regular listeners probably know I've been taking Momentus products consistently and testing them for a long while now.
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I always aim for a strong body and sharp mind and neither is possible without quality sleep.
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This episode is brought to you by 8 Sleep.
8 Sleep recently launched their newest generation of the pod and I'm excited to test it out.
Pod4 Ultra. Pod4 Ultra can cool down each side of the bed as much as 20 degrees Fahrenheit below room temperature.
Pod4 Ultra also introduces an adjustable base that fits between your mattress and your bed frame and adds reading and sleeping positions for the best unwinding experience.
And for those snore heavy nights the pod can detect your snoring and automatically lift your head by a few degrees to improve airflow and stop you or your partner from snoring.
Plus with the Pod4 Ultra you can leave your wearables on the nightstand because these types of metrics are integrated into the Pod4 Ultra itself.
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They currently ship to the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Europe, and Australia.
With this altitude I can run flat out for a half mile before my hands start shaking.
Can I answer your personal question?
Few years ago a creature died in the walls of my home.
It was disgusting. Now to be precise it gave up the ghost in the heating system so the death fumes were conveniently pushed directly into my bedroom.
My ex -girlfriend and I discovered this around 11 p .m.
as we tucked into bed hoping for a good night's sleep.
We could turn off the heat and freeze.
That was one option.
Or we could bathe in the stench of what I assumed was a raccoon carcass.
And the whole thing made my eyes itch.
It was horrible. I imagined it downing its last meal.
Pig entrails, moldy socks, fermented beans.
Who knows? Before defiantly jamming its bloated body into my HVAC.
Don't worry we are getting to some kind of lesson here.
But the Kamikaze Raccoon was just the first surprise guest.
The opening act in short order.
My dog then got horribly sick, unrelated to raccoon.
Overdue paperwork started piling up popping out of nowhere and onboarding a bunch of new contractors ran into trouble.
Then I pulled out of a parking spot and scraped the entire side of my car and the car next to me.
Later that same afternoon all these Christmas presents I had ordered somehow had run out of stock and were auto -canceled so I was sent scrambling.
And on and on it went more and more clowns piling into the clown car for a shit show that lasted three to four weeks.
It was just a 15 car pile -up of nonsense.
There are the rare times when I feel like I'm in the zone.
Those are great. Those are fantastic.
Then there are times when I ask myself how in holy hell have I become the janitor of a mountain of bullshit?
That happens more than you might think.
Put another way sometimes you're the boxer and sometimes you are the punching bag.
We all get our turn as the punching bag.
Doesn't matter who you are as far as I can tell it doesn't matter how successful you become you've always grabbed a number at the deli counter of just wait eventually you're going to get your ass kicked by the universe.
Now during these periods of fire fighting let's just call it when stuff is popping up this whack -a -mole I get fidgety and frustrated.
I feel like I'm treading water and patience wears very thin has never been my strong suit that's true especially with myself.
And my instinct is to try to fix things as quickly as possible and that's all well and good but I've realized that from a place of what the fuck I often rush and create more problems.
This is particularly bad catastrophic sometimes when I try to sprint immediately upon waking up.
The mantra that has saved me and saved me during that three to four week period I mentioned was very simple and it's this make before you manage make before you manage that's it.
What this means is each morning before plugging holes fixing things calling vets answering text messages delegating or yanking out dead raccoons answering a million text messages this mantra was a reminder to make something.
You should read Paul Graham's essays and listen to Neil Gaiman's make good art commencement speech for more on all this but back to any given day and make before you manage.
Even the most time sensitive items can usually wait 60 minutes and by make something I mean anything it could be anything at all you just need to feel like you've pushed a millimeter ahead in some creative direction.
For me personally even a 90 second video of calligraphy could set a better emotional tone for the entire day helping me to be more calm as I handle problems as I execute all the rest of the stuff later or maybe I attempt to jump start my writing with instagram caption right or an email to a friend to
take the pressure off it's practically nothing but it's enough.
Even token efforts allow me to reassure myself with hey pal don't worry you did produce something today and the psychological difference between zero acts of creation and one act of creation no matter how small is really impossible to overstate it's binary right zero to a little bit those are two different
worlds if you're lucky sometimes that one idea that one sentence or one shitty first draft can turn into something bigger and that happens when you catch the wave but the point is to be able to say to yourself even for five minutes hark I am a creator not just a janitor of bullshit here's proof that I
can and will do more than just manage the minutia of life and I think at least personally I do need that reinforcement we all spend time on the struggle bus happens to everybody at the very least this mantra has helped me to find a window seat when it's my turn so as a reminder when in doubt try it
out make before you manage.
Okay folks I'll be back shortly with another story this time from a birthday crisis fun fun fun ultimately it has a happy ending so stay tuned but first just a few quick words from one of today's sponsors I do get asked a lot what I would take if I could only take one supplement and the true answer
is invariably AG1 it simply covers a ton of bases I usually drink it in the mornings and frequently take their travel packs with me on the road so what is AG1?
AG1 is a science -driven formulation of vitamins probiotics and whole food sourced nutrients in a single scoop AG1 gives you support for the brain gut and immune system so take ownership of your health and try AG1 today you will get a free one -year supply of vitamin d and five free AG1 travel packs with your
first subscription purchase so learn more go to drinkag1 .com slash tim that's drinkag1 the number one drinkag1 .com slash tim check it out The moment that you feel that just possibly you're walking down the street naked exposing too much of your heart and your mind and what exists on the inside showing
too much of yourself that's the moment you may be starting to get it right this is a quote from Neil Gaiman one of my favorite fiction writers it's from his university of the arts commencement speech but let's bring it back to my story a few months ago I had a birthday party was great dozen friends
and I gathered for a few days of sun beach barbecue catching up we do it every year and then on the last day I didn't get up until 11 30 that's late even for me knowing full well that the last few remaining friends were leaving about 30 minutes later around 12 noon and the sad reality is I was afraid
of being alone I was afraid of being lonely so like a child I hid my head under the covers that's literally and hit snooze until I just couldn't postpone reality any further but why am I telling you this why am I being so self -indulgent and telling you this ridiculous story it's because we all like
to appear successful a nebulous term at best and the media like to portray certain standouts as superheroes these people in the magazine covers and so on and yes sometimes these dramatic stories of overcoming the odds are super inspiring but often just as often they lead to an unhealthy conclusion maybe
an inner monologue which is something like well maybe they whoever they happen to be maybe they can do it because they're incredible they have no faults they're just karate chopping the day and winning at all moments but I'm just a normal person I can't do that the reality is most superheroes these
superheroes are nothing of the sort they're just as weird and erotic as we are they're strange creatures who do big things despite lots of self -defeating habits and soft talk so to personalize this let's bring it home I am definitely no superhero I'm not even a consistent normal whatever that is so let
me give you a little laundry list not too long ago I cried while watching Rudy on an airplane and that was cause for concern for a lot of people around me I repeatedly hit snooze for one to three hours past my planned wake time because I simply didn't want to face the day I considered giving everything
away moving to Montreal Seville or Iceland location kind of depends on what I'm trying to escape I've used gentlemanly websites to relax during the day when clearly having other urgent and important shit to do I wore the same pair of jeans for a week straight just to have a constant during weeks of chaos
so listening to all that you might think it seems pretty dysfunctional right I assume so I certainly hear it that way but around the same time especially so the latter few weeks of that I also was able to increase my passive income 20 % bought my dream house got to the point where I was once again meditating
twice per day for 20 minutes per session without fail so not winning any gold medals in meditation but incredibly helpful in stabilizing I cut my caffeine intake to next to nothing that usually means poor tea in the morning and maybe a green tea in the afternoon I've had no more than one cup of really
strong coffee per week there's a lot to that but suffice to say much improved sleep signed one of the most exciting business deals of the last decade including working on a collaboration that is first of its kind for me completely transformed my blood work including a few biomarkers I've been working
on for years and I realized as the next point once again that let's just call it manic depressive symptoms or just part of entrepreneurship and last but not least I have come to feel closer to all of my immediate family members so where does that leave us so personally I suck at efficiency which is doing
things quickly or doing things super well but I have a few tricks so here is my coding mechanism it is an eight -step process for maximizing efficacy which is doing the right thing number one wake up at least an hour before you have to be at a computer screen email is the mind killer so don't go immediately
into reactive mode number two make a cup of tea I like Puerh tea and sit down with a pen or pencil and paper I like to do it analog number three write down three to five things and no more that are making you most anxious or uncomfortable they're often the things that have been punted from one day's
to -do list to the next to the next to the next and so on and most important usually means most uncomfortable or very frequently it does with some chance of rejection or conflict to find the most important you can often just look for the most uncomfortable with some chance of rejection or conflict so write
down those three to five things step four for each item ask yourself if this were the only thing I accomplished today would I be satisfied with my day also ask will moving this forward make all the other to -do's unimportant or easier to knock off later that's a nod to Gary Keller the one thanks thank
you for that Gary step number five look only at the items you've answered yes to for at least one of those those are the high leverage items if removed number six block out at least two to three hours to focus on one of them for today one let the rest of the urgent but less important stuff slide they'll
still be there tomorrow step number seven and I'm repeating to be clear block out at least two to three hours to focus on one of them for today this is one block of time uninterrupted no distractions no social media cobbling together 10 minutes here and there to add up to 120 minutes does not work step
number eight if you get distracted or start procrastinating have us to everybody don't freak out and downward spiral just gently come back to your one to do congratulations that's it that's the whole thing this is practically the only way I can create big outcomes despite my never -ending impulse to
procrastinate nap otherwise fritter away my days with all sorts of bullshit and it works work really really well and I've come to learn if I have 10 important things to do in a day it's a hundred percent certain that nothing important will get done that day so you got to pick one thing on the other
hand I can usually handle one must -do item and block out my lesser behaviors for two to three hours a day in the beginning of the day that's what works for me it does not take much to seem superhuman and appear successful to nearly everyone around you if you learn to single task single single single
single task one in fact you just need a simple rule what you do is more important than how you do everything else and doing something well does not make it important so material over method the what over the hell and if you consistently feel the counterproductive need for volume and doing tons of stuff
maybe you should put a few things on post -it notes put them in your bathroom and the first that you can add is being busy is a form of laziness lazy thinking and indiscriminate action does not mean that more equals more in the positive sense being busy is most often used as a guise for avoiding the few
critically important but uncomfortable actions you need to take and when despite your best efforts you feel like you're losing at the game of life just remember even the best of the best feel this way sometimes it happens to everybody and when I'm personally in the pit of despair I recall what iconic
writer Kurt Vonnegut said about his process highly recommend his books amazing guy and here's the quote when I write I feel like an armless legless man with a crayon in his mouth so don't overestimate the world and underestimate yourself you are better than you think and you're definitely not alone
we're all in this together and everyone is fighting a battle that you know nothing about hey guys this is Tim again just one more thing before you take off and that is five bullet friday would you enjoy getting a short email from me every friday that provides a little fun before the weekend between one
and a half and two million people subscribe to my free newsletter my super short newsletter called five bullet friday easy to sign up easy to cancel it is basically a half page that I send out every friday to share the coolest things I've found or discovered or have started exploring over that week
it's kind of like my diary of cool things it often includes articles I'm reading books I'm reading albums perhaps gadgets gizmos all sorts of tech tricks and so on that get sent to me by my friends including a lot of podcast guests and these strange esoteric things end up in my field and then I test
them and then I share them with you so if that sounds fun again it's very short a little tiny bite of goodness before you head off for the weekend something to think about if you'd like to try it out just go to tim .blog slash friday type that into your browser tim .blog slash friday drop in your email
and you'll get the very next one thanks for listening this episode is brought to you by eight sleep eight sleep recently launched the newest generation of the pod and I'm excited to test it out pod four ultra pod four ultra can cool down each side of the bed as much as 20 degrees fahrenheit below room
temperature pod four ultra also introduces an adjustable base that fits between your mattress and your bed frame and adds reading and sleeping positions for the best unwinding experience and for those snore heavy nights the pod can detect your snoring and automatically lift your head by a few degrees
to improve airflow and stop you or your partner from snoring plus with pod four ultra you can leave your wearables on the nightstand because these types of metrics are integrated into the pod for ultra itself so get your best night's sleep head to eight sleep .com slash tim and use code tim to get 350
off of the pod four ultra they currently ship to the united states canada the united kingdom europe and australia regular listeners probably know i've been taking momentous products consistently and testing them for a long while now but you may not know that i recently collaborated with them to put
together my top picks i always aim for a strong body and sharp mind and neither is possible without quality sleep so i designed my performance stack to check all three boxes and here it is crea pure creatine for muscular and cognitive support whey protein isolate for muscle mass and recovery and magnesium
three innate for sleep all momentous products are nsf and informed sports certified which is professional athlete and olympic level testing so try it out for yourself visit live momentous .com slash tim and use tim at checkout for 20 off of my performance deck i'll spell it out it's a long one live moment
ous .com slash tim so live momentous .com slash tim for 20 off
