Unproductive? Here Are My 6 Unconventional Tips

Unproductive? Willpower won't work.

You need more unique systems.

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I spent all of my 20s unproductive, but at 31 I flipped a switch.

I now oversee 5 companies and get more done in a week than most do in month.

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Here are my 6 unconventional tips:

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1.  Increase your baseline for stress. How? Why?

You need to overburden yourself. Seriously. Stress test yourself.

If your job is seating tables at a slow restaurant and then you get 2 parties come in at once, you feel stressed.

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But if you wait tables at the busiest restaurant in NYC, that that stress is just the baseline, and it takes a customer having a heart attack to feel stressed.

Be HONEST about how much REAL WORK you do in a week.

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If you keep fitting 20 hours of real work into a 40 hour workweek, you'll never be productive because you don't know what your limits are.

Real work is work only you can do. It's the stuff you're great at.

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You need to bite off 80 hours of work per week and fit in into 40. That's when you'll get creative and your baseline will increase.

If something doesn't get done then it probably wasn't very important.

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Say yes to everything. Ignore Steve Jobs' advice on focus.

Saying yes to everything will help increase this baseline much faster, and it'll help you learn what you love and what you hate.

Don't start with 80 hours. Bite off a little more every work and work up to it.

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2. Live by Parkinson's Law. What is Parkinson's Law?

I’m not a fan of his terrible disease, but Mr. Parkinson has a law that is my favorite of all laws, and it states,

“Work expands to fill the time available.”

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What does this mean, exactly?

Elon Musk fired over 80% of X employees. Over 80%! And guess what? We have the benefit of hindsight here, as it’s been about a year.

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X is still here!

It’s no longer publicly traded, so we don’t know for sure how well it’s doing financially, but the CEO claims that monthly active users are at an all time high and it’s still growing.

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Unless she’s lying to the world and her investors, I believe her. It turns out, you don’t need 8,000 employees to run a website. Crazy!

Now other tech companies are thinking, “Hmmm…is there something to this?”

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If you give yourself a month long deadline to finish a task, you’ll probably take a month.

If you’re on vacation with your family and everyone is waiting for you to go to the beach, but you REALLY HAVE to bang out some emails, you’ll do a days’ worth of work in 1 hour. It.just.gets.done!

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So when people ask me, “How do you do it? How do you keep track of so many companies, people and initiatives, while still leaving time for church and family?

I just tell them the same thing, “There’s always time.”

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It’s the opposite of what everyone always says. “Gah, there’s just not enough time in the day.”

No, there is, you just aren’t allowing Mr. Parkinson to do his job. You aren’t stress testing your day. Your baseline is too low.

There’s always time. With the asterisk being, there’s always time for the most important things, because those things float to the top.

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3. There is no app or tool that will save you, so stop looking.

Use the method that works for you. Usually the unsexy ones work best.

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What works for me? 6 simple things:

1. Google Chrome tabs. If a tab is open in my browser, then there’s something still there that I need to do. I usually have 5-15 open at any given time, with 6 of them pinned at all times:

Google Drive
ChatGPT
Upwork
A real estate Google Sheet
A Twitter Google Sheet.
A Google Sheet for my companies

(Right click a tab to permanently pin and shrink it, BTW)

A closed tab is a checked box on my to-do list, so to speak.

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2. Unread emails.

My unread emails act as my to-do list, and occasionally I’ll email myself and leave it unread until it’s done.

This is how I’m able to get to inbox zero, because I relentlessly unsubscribe and mark as read the stupid stuff.

Otherwise, I’ll use:

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3. My Apple Reminders app. Very occasionally I’ll put to-dos in here that will take a bit longer.

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4. I leave my calendar 80% open so I can have the bandwidth to explore rabbit holes and be creative.

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5. I use my Macbook Pro for everything across all offices and have identical work stations (the same model lone external monitor) at all of my offices that look exactly like this:

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6. I concocted my own clean, caffeinated drink with only 3 ingredients that I drink a gallon of each day. It’s got about 200 MGs of caffeine, plus Stevia and organic lemon powder.

It’s healthy, almost calorie free and keeps me very productive. If I drink a gallon of something per day I wanna know what exactly is in it. And no, it's not for sale!

Yes, it looks like frothy urine. Great conversation starter.

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4. Get the most important stuff done early.

If you have a 2 hour morning routine, you should already be wealthy. If you're still in the grind, then stop kidding yourself with that nonsense.

Wake up, brush, shower and start working.

The hard and hairy things need to get done first. After that you can have the freedom to be creative and really create value.

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5. Let your overburdened day highlight the most important things.

What do I mean by that?

Picture in your mind a mountain lake at a 10,000 foot elevation, with a dozen streams funneling water away from it, down into the valley below.

The mouth of the streams are all at different elevations. One is at 9,984, one 10,009, another 9,956, etc. You get the idea.

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The water closest to the bottom of the lake has been there for a while, right?

The lake has never gotten low enough to drain that water, so the snowmelt just keeps piling on, and then as the water level drops the 12 streams carry it away again.

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That lake is like my workday, the snowmelt represents my ideas, companies or initiatives, and the streams carry away the superfluous waste.

The water near the bottom of the lake is the distillation of people, companies, projects and ideas that just won’t die, and they shouldn’t, because Mr. Gravity won’t let them. Mr. Parkinson won’t let them, either.

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Every day these ideas rush into my head, and many (if not most) of them I will take seriously and do something with right away.

If that idea shows promise, I’ll commit more time to it. If it doesn’t, I’ll add it to a Google Sheet and let it go, until I have an operator for it.

I do the same with entire initiatives or companies.

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If I’m not giving a company enough time, it’s probably because it’s not showing enough promise to deserve my time, and I should keep leaning into that.

Don't feel bad or guilty if something doesn't get done BUT you are still being hyper productive and getting the most important things done.

If something isn't getting done then it needs to be delegated or deleted. We all know the Eisenhower Matrix (urgent/important). Lean into that.

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DO feel guilty if things aren't getting done AND you're being unproductive. We have the capacity to feel guilt for a reason. It's a signal.

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6. Move faster.

I don't know how else to say this. When I'm in a flow but really have to pee, I literally run to the bathroom and then run back.

Why? 1. I love what I do. 2. I'm always in a hurry.

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If you talk, think, walk and type faster then you will get more done.

We all know that coworker that is a hard worker, but they just work REALLY SLOW, right? Don't be that guy.

Caffeine is your friend. Sorry Huberman.

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You can learn to move faster by overburdening yourself, tip #1 above. We've come full circle.

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To recap:

1. Increase your stress baseline.
2. Live by Parkinson's Law. Think about it daily.
3. Stop looking for a tech fix-all. Use what works
4. Important stuff comes first, and early in the day.
5. Don't stress over what doesn't get done. Revel in the new distillation of your day.
6. Move faster.

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Also, PS, I'm prescribed and take adderall some days. Sorry, not sorry. It helps. It wouldn't be fair if I left that out, would it?

Is there a downside to everything I've mentioned? Oh yeah. There are tradeoffs for everything in life.

My life isn't perfect, but my family life is rock solid and I get incredible fulfilment from my work.

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You can't be happy/fulfilled and unproductive at the same time. Pick one.

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Thanks for reading. Would love a follow @mhp_guy if you found this helpful.