Transcript & Summary: 12 cheap purchases to boost your productivity

[00:00] hey friends welcome back to the channel in this video we're going to talk about 12 purchases under 20 that have actually boosted my own productivity oh and thank you to Shopify for sponsoring this video but more on them a little bit later on and we're going to start off with the trusty bullet Journal now bullet Journal is not a particularly fancy thing you can get any random ass journal for under 20 and you can convert it into a bullet Journal by just following the bullet Journal method you can read writer [00:23] Carol's book about this the bullet Journal method which is very good or you can watch one of the 5 million videos there are on YouTube where people are teaching you actually how to do a bullet Journal setup I've been doing the bullet Journal thing for the last three or four months and it's sick and I love it and I'm gonna doing it for basically as long as it makes sense for me and actually it's great because bullet journaling is more like a mindfulness system that's disguised as a productivity system and [00:46] I've found that it's really helped me be more intentional with the way I spend my time I also have a gratitude log so I feel more grateful for the things in my life and it also encourages me to set my daily priorities every day and so I'm more likely to make progress on the things that matter to me which is my personal definition of productivity all right item number two is something I've been using for the last few months it's one of these like magic whiteboards these are absolutely freaking incredible [01:07] they're basically it's basically like a long sheet of like cling film like material and what you do is that you can just rip it off you can get up and you can take this and you can literally just stick it on the wall [Music] I'm just completely magically with static electricity this sticks on for now this is a whiteboard you can kind of write whatever you want on it and this is particularly good because for us we are using this for kind of keeping track of various things and it's like YouTube shorts that we're making and videos [01:41] we're filming on the channel and it's so nice having the Whiteboard here because there's something like so nice about like kind of Crossing through things and kind of brainstorming and I've been also using it for ideas for my book so in all the ways this is a very cheap product that's actually maybe more productive alrighty next up we have another physical product and that is in fact an A3 writing pad this is a special one because it's got essentially my stationery brand on it we don't actually sell these we just got them printed [02:06] because it's kind of nice but you can basically get any A3 pad from Amazon or any other kind of stationery shop these cost like five dollars something like that and there's something so nice about having like a pad in front of me that I can actually write on and I use this these sort of pads so much for brainstorming videos and for doing ideas for my book and item number four that makes writing had a lot easier is in fact Sharpies so again these are super cheap I have a bunch of these I always have them lying around on my desk and [02:33] the great thing about Sharpies is that they are very thick now the problem with you know if you're writing with a very thin pen and you're trying to write anything like this it's like let's say I'm planning a video like this is a really thin pen and like the fact that it's so thin encourages me to sort of be very kind of granular in my thinking whereas if I just use a big Sharpie then I can't be so grinded with my thinking and I have to be able to kind of do things that are sort of big picture and [02:56] so this is particularly helpful when it comes for planning videos where I have to worry about the big picture or for example if you're a student and you want to write an essay then initially when you're making a spider diagram you want to think in Broad brush Strokes using something like a Sharpie or a whiteboard pen and then once you're flashing in the details you can use a proper pen like fine liner or whatever to fill in the details but there's something so nice about just the analogness and like the [03:17] the sort of physicality of writing and scrolling with sharpies all over a piece of paper all right moving on item number five is also a little element of physicality and fact item number five is sticky notes by the way all these desk accessories this is something called gather gather version 2.0 from ugga monk you can check out that Kickstarter down below it's sick I have the desk accessories on my desk this is not cheap I'm talking about the cheap stuff in this video the stuff that's under 20 The [03:40] Gather stuff is like super expensive anyway sticky notes are amazing as well ticket notes are also super cheap and the great thing about sticky notes is that you can just write stuff to remind yourself of the things by the way did you know this is not the right way to take off a sticky note because what happens you stick it down and then it's sort of just kind of like it wants to leave the page or leave the place where you stick it whereas if you stick it sideways and then you stick it down now it's way [04:05] more likely to stick and then not be annoying so I personally use sticky notes for two things number one I use it to remind me of things that I have to do so I use it as a sort of to-do list and then for example what I would do is I would take the sticky note and just stick it on my monitor like the monitor is like a good place to put stuff uh I often have a bunch of sticky notes just sort of hanging out there on the Monitor and the other thing I use sticky notes for is to kind of remind myself of my [04:25] own productivity mantras and quotes and things that really kind of resonate with me the one I've been using most often and have stuck to my monitor is this is going to be fun this one's a fresh one because it kind of ran out of stickiness and so I had to Chuck one earlier but I basically stick that on my monitor and that means that as I'm working especially as I'm working on like bookstore for other kind of long-term projects then it just sort of reminds me that this is going to be fun this is supposed to be fun and whenever I see [04:48] that it really does encourage me to just take a step back relax a little bit take a deep breath and be like you know what this is actually really fun and it's very easy for us to think too seriously about the work that we're doing and forget to remind ourselves that like the whole point of doing work is to you know so that we can kind of make up here and a little more fulfilling life and so if we can enjoy the journey of doing that then everything is just great all round anyway sticky notes great way to post a [05:12] little reminders to yourself and you can stick them on your laptop or on your computer screen next on the list we have the trusty fake plant I've had one of these on my desk since like 2014 or something absurd this is like seven dollars from Ikea it's the fetch car potted plant load the tech YouTubers have this on their desks but the great thing about a fake plant is a it's nice and it adds like Greenery and Good Vibes to a desk B you don't need to take care of it because obviously it's a fake plant and therefore it doesn't need any [05:37] watering and there is actually some reasonable evidence that having Greenery around you boosts your creativity and makes you feel good in like you know this part of our brains evolutionary part of our brains that really Vibes with nature and in the absence of being surrounded by a jungle like I was in Bali the other day when I was doing some work in the absence of being in the middle of a jungle like you can just use a fake plant and it's just nice you can have it on your desk have it in different places and it just Sparks joy [06:01] in a nice way it doesn't directly improve activity but I generally find that if I can tweak my workspace to be just a little bit nicer a little bit more pleasant that actually does have knock-on effects on the work that I can do and on my creativity and on my productivity all right next on the list we have a water bottle this is like a 10 water bottle from Amazon um these are great I would recommend the transparent ones because then the transparent ones make you realize when you're finished drinking your water and [06:25] then seeing it over there is a reminder that oh I should probably drink some water I've been again I've been doing a bunch of research around like hydration and stuff apparently if you look at the color of your wee-wee it's supposed to be basically colorless just like a little hint of color in it whereas definitely for me most of the time when I look at my Wii it's like a lot darker than it probably should be and there's a bunch of evidence that shows that even when you're a little bit dehydrated I.E [06:46] your wee is somewhat concentrated you probably won't realize it because it doesn't have any kind of really obvious consequences but when they've tested people in like various like mental tests and that kind of stuff they found a dip in performance for people who are even a little bit dehydrated and so having the bottle on my desk just encourages me to take breaks to fill up the water bottle a little bit more regularly and to sip on water while I'm doing stuff all right next on the list we have a foam roller [07:09] and foam roller ball uh these ones are Lululemon so these are quite expensive but you can get way cheaper versions of these I don't know why I got these I'm just feeling a bit fancy but this is great like having a foam roller and a foam rollerball on my desk next to me a encourages me to take a break from work because you know sitting is an epidemic these days pandemic lol you know that I always get painted the hip flexors always get a bit of lower back pain from just sitting at the desk at all times [07:31] basically everyone has this if you spend large amounts of time at a desk especially if you're working on a laptop and you're kind of hunched over like this having a foam roller around just makes it like it's a good incentive for me to get up off my desk and to grab one of these things one of these things and just sort of simple and do a little bit of do the little foam rolling oh yeah that's good I also my favorite one is in fact one of these little bowls these are so good it's like I always have hip pain in my hip flexors [08:02] from just sitting too much and I can just Jam this oh there we go I can just jam it in that feels so great and these These are so cheap these are like I don't know five dollars or something but it's just like a really hard like bull sounds kind of weird and it's just great like I use I use the Pomodoro Technique so 25 minutes of work and five minutes of break and often in my breaks I will just like lie on the floor and do a bit of do a bit of fun rolling and this just massively boosts my productivity because [08:35] then I feel better and it also encourages me to take a break and all these all this evidence that shows that taking a break from your work is like again a really good thing for conserving energy and for productivity and all of that fun stuff so honestly if you haven't got one of these 100 would recommend it this is freaking life-changing it's so good all right next on the list of purchases under 20 that have boosted my productivity is in fact this book it's called make time it's by Jake Knapp and John zaratsky [09:00] John zoretsky is actually an internet friend of mine now had him on my podcast it's good vibes um this is a good book The reason this is particularly good is because it's very non-opinionated in the productivity advice that it gives and in this book there's basically like 100 different strategies and it's like really nicely Illustrated and stuff as well and of these one 100 strategies I'd use about like five or six of them but the idea is that you go through the book and you just figure out like what are [09:26] the strategies that work for you and so the daily highlight for example is one of the strategies that I really took away from this which is basically where every day you just ask yourself what is the most important thing I need to get done today then you just do the thing it sounds really simple but that is probably the single biggest productivity tip I've ever gotten in my life and I got it from this particular book so this is you this is usually the book I recommend and people are like how do I [09:46] be more productive I was like look just read make time and pick and pick a few things in there and it will probably boost your productivity and it's a very cheap and effective book as well all right next on the list we have something that's a bit more Rogue and this is a candle now candles are nice for two reasons firstly there is some amount of evidence that having a vanilla Essence in particular you know there was a study they did I think it was like vanilla having vanilla scent in your work environment makes you more creative and [10:10] more productive and less stressed so there's something nice about that but the reason I personally like to have a candle on my desk which I then light by the way this is from morning Brew who just kindly sent it to me for free but like can get cheap ones as well the reason I like having a candle on my desk is because I can just stick it on my desk I can set it on fire in a non weird way and now it's like it's it's it's a very easy ritual to get started with stuff you don't need a ritual to be productive but it's generally kind of [10:33] nice that the environment feels good the fake plant candle and when I turn the candle on and I put my headphones in and I put my kind of study with me playlist with Lord of the Rings and parts of the Caribbean and Harry Potter music in the background the fact that the candle is going it's all just part of the work ritual you know grab the coffee and it helps me get into the swing of work and it's also a very nice way to procrastinate where it's like oh where did the lighter go let me find the lighter let me light the candle it's [10:57] just super nice um I've been I've had a candle on my desk now for the last like six months and I found a genuine it genuinely does improve my mood it's a very cheap thing to try out less than twenty dollars probably like five dollars but like a cheap candle so you can try it out and see if it works for you as well now if you're the sort of person that actually enjoys becoming more productive and being able to get more things done then you might also be the sort of person that likes the idea of building your own [11:18] online business like I've done and like maybe people that you've seen on YouTube have done and one of the great ways that you can do that is by using Shopify who are very kindly sponsoring this video Shopify is an absolutely fantastic all-in-one Commerce platform where anyone without knowing how to code you can build your own website you can make it look absolutely sick and you can sell any kind of product goods Services digital downloads over the internet you can sell to customers in over 175 countries you can accept almost any [11:43] payment method imaginable and you can sell things online or even in person or even via your social media accounts I've been using Shopify for the last year or so to power my online store and it's quite fun tinkering with the website and making the products look pretty and putting photos on them and it's just like super nice so we've started bringing all of our stuff into Shopify our physical Goods the essentially product planners and also like my online courses all of that is via Shopify so if you like the idea of potentially [12:06] starting your own business someday you might like to check out a free trial of Shopify by heading over to shopify.com and you can check it out you can see what it's like and you can see how easy it is to start your own business or your own side Hustle by using Shopify so thank you so much Shopify for sponsoring this video alright two more things to go uh the first one is an in tray this is a little bit intense this was like I don't know three three four dollars from Ikea and I just have this on the chest of [12:28] drawers that's just next time that's just next to my desk um this is great so in David Allen's book getting things done he basically told it's a very old school productivity book but he basically talks about the importance of having an in tray basically a place where you stick physical papers that you need to action in some kind of way so for example I've got these two pieces of paper here which are currently in the intro one of them is a letter about my driving license the other one is an electricity bill and [12:52] both of these are things I need to action at some point and before I had one of these I've had these for the last last couple of weeks now before I had before I had one of these these Bits of Paper would just be randomly lying on my desk and it would make the desk a real eyesore and the desk is clutter with all this random crap on it but now that I have an entry you know I've finally taken David Allen's advice having read this book like 10 years ago now anytime physical mail comes in that I need to [13:13] deal with like for example I've got this card I need to cancel my membership for City sport I just put this in the entry and then I just know that okay cool I will get to this at some point and it's like a nice little place for this random crap to go so that it doesn't clog up the desk so if you get any kind of physical mail would 100 recommend some kind of tray that you can just put it in to make your life just feel more pleasant and more productive and then the final thing the final cheap purchase [13:35] is in fact a waste paper basket mini recycling bin which is very much worth having on your desk I've always had a little bin by my desk because I always get random crap like letters and stuff and envelopes and things and then I want to get rid of them and put them in the bin but actually since moving into this new flat about two months ago I haven't had a bin I only bought this a few days ago and I realized what I was missing I was like oh my God it's just so nice having a bin just sitting right next to [13:58] you because when I do my kind of A3 pads whenever I get any physical mail whenever I write Post-it notes and then the thing becomes not relevant anymore and I want to get rid of the piece of paper without having a bin just like within arm's length again the stuff just piles up on my desk and then my desk becomes a nightmare to work in and it's just so much nicer working in a clean environment and just it's just it's it's amazing how much how much of a difference just a simple thing makes just having a bin by your desk if you [14:22] don't currently have a bin biodesk and you suffer too like I do with clutter and papers and random being everywhere on your desk then this is like a five dollar thing you can get from Ikea from Amazon or from any kind of Supermarket even just a little plastic bag you can use you don't need to spend any money on it but it's a freaking game-changing Innovation so those were 12 relatively affordable like under 20 purchases that have genuinely improved my own productivity if you enjoyed this video you might like to [14:45] check out this video over here which is also a listicle of time management tips some of them are from this book make time which you can check out if you like but others are just sort of techniques and tricks and strategies and principles that I've come up with over the last five years of doing this YouTube channel while doing lots of stuff on the side that helped me manage my own time so you can check out that video over there thank you so much for watching and I'll see you hopefully in the next video bye