Transcript & Summary: My Simple Productivity System

[00:00] - So, you know, over the past decade, I've become somewhat of a productivity guru. And in that time I've realized that the true power of productivity comes through hacks. Like, drinking all my water for the week in a two-minute period on Monday. (gentle music) (water rustling) And consolidating all my phone calls to a 15-minute window. Hey, mom, I'm really sorry to hear about grandpa but I gotta go. And slow dripping my caffeine intake over the day, using coffee enemas. And in this video, I wanna walk you through my never-before-seen, [00:31] 18-step productivity system, designed for maximum efficiency. So you can make the most of your day. It only takes three hours every morning. So, let's get started. (laughs) Goddamnit. (upbeat music) Okay. All right guys, for real, I do wanna talk about productivity today, specifically the productivity system I use to keep my life, both my personal and my work life organized. It's what I've been using since I started my YouTube channel and I realized that with so many projects going on, I needed a way to stay organized, [01:05] prioritize, sort and track tasks, catch, track and write down my ideas. Schedule events and meetings, stay on top of project deadlines, as well as to store and organize my digital files. (transition whooshes) So, to do all this and to set up a productivity system for yourself, you need four main tools, a notebook, a calendar, a to-do list and a way to store and organize all of your files. Now, this is something that I figured out through trial and error but it's also something that Thomas Frank has been teaching for a very long time. [01:34] And it wasn't until I took his course and learned a little bit about how he integrates everything into one cohesive system that I started to think about it in terms of a system. And so hat tip to Thomas Frank for all the amazing tips and advice he's given me over the years when it comes to productivity. If you haven't checked out his channel, I'll leave a link down in the description below. You know, there's a lot of people that swear and die by specific tools and apps. And I've found some that work for me, [02:02] that are really simple, that aren't too bulky, that give me everything I need and nothing I don't. And so I'm gonna share the things that work for me but to be honest, it really doesn't matter. If you use Notion, if you use Evernote or Apple Notes, it doesn't matter as much as you figure out a system, a way to organize all of this stuff to get all those benefits that I just described to figure out what works for you, to figure out a system that doesn't slow you down, that allows you to just get right to work. [02:29] And so, that's the main thing I want you to get out of this. Yes, these tools might work for you but if not, I'm sure you can find others, that work just as well. Let's get into it. All right, so let's start with note-taking. I use Apple Notes to write and organize all my business ideas, YouTube videos, course content, newsletters and social media captions. So, I don't ever remember choosing (laughs) Apple Notes. In a way, Apple Notes kind of chose me, just because of how simple and easy it was. I used to use TextEdit. [02:57] I've tried Evernote. For one reason or another, these just weren't working for me. And so Apple Notes became my go-to place for doing all those things that I just mentioned. And so I'm gonna dive in right now and actually show you my notes, how it's organized and structured in here. So, let's pop in. As you can see, I've got it organized into a few different folders and I've numbered it just so then they're in the order in which I use them most often. And so, in notes, up top, at the very top, this is like just the main notes folder [03:32] that you can't get rid of and so I use this as just my catch off or a lot of quick notes, things, that I might need off the cuff, if say, I'm on a phone call or if it just doesn't fit tightly into any one of these other folders I've created. And so, you know, I've got notes like right here, this is a birthday cake that I ordered for Nat's birthday. It just give me all the information that I needed. Quick notes about maybe hiring people, (laughs) just figuring out what the hell is going on in our life [03:59] with our visas and all that shit. (laughs) So, that's fun. And so, that's what I use this folder for. The videos folder is my most used folder. This is what I use for every YouTube video that I make. And so what I typically do is I'll name and these are literally ideas that I have here about potential videos that I might make in the future. But I usually title it with the title of what I think the video might be. As you can see with this video here, that I just recently released to the YouTube channel. [04:33] I ended up calling it, "The real truth about chasing your dreams". And at some point along in the process, I come up with alternate titles and so, that's a little peek at my process there. I'm like a perfectionist, if you might not know already. And so I'll just go through and write down every possible title option, that would best suit this video, that won't be click bait, that will be accurate to the video I'm trying to describe but also interesting enough that somebody might wanna click on it. [05:00] And so that takes a lot of work. And then the rest of the video, I flesh out below that. And so this is where all of my videos are stored, where the ideas are first captured on my phone and then fleshed out further on the computer. I've got a folder specifically for my newsletters. So, I have a newsletter that I release every week. If you wanna sign up for that and this is where this would go, I think this is the newsletter that's going out this week. We'll find out once I get to my calendar, (laughs) [05:27] we can check that out. Slow growth, It's a business that I started last year. And so these are all business ideas, maybe notes for meetings that I've got coming up. I'm actually going to be blurring out some of these here because I'm realizing now that these are actually business ideas and so, you know, like, I could show you some of the video ideas I have coming up, 'cause I don't think they're crazy top secret but you know, when it comes to business ideas, I'm gonna keep that under wraps. But that's where I might jot down any of those ideas. [05:59] Social, this is social content. I also have checklists. So checklists are something that it's not a to-do list, it's something that I will use more than one time. And so, you know, at the top here, it's a pre-interview checklist, back before COVID, when I did actual interviews. I would have this checklist handy. Just that way, whenever I did an interview with somebody, I can copy and paste this at the top of my questions. But this is a checklist to make sure that I don't, I'm not a dummy. And I remember all the things that I need to do, [06:28] from checking my shutter or the ISO. These are all just the camera settings because sometimes you can forget to say, match the color on both cameras and then the color temperature is a little bit off and it ends up becoming a pain in the arse, when you're editing it down the road. And then also tips for guest, cursing okay, interview will be conversational, it's okay if you need to stop and start over and so on and so forth. I find that having something like this, accessible in my notes, easy to go, [06:56] I can just copy and paste and use it many, many times in the future. Finally, we have my personal, that's just like personal important information that I need to remember. Travel information, all that stuff. And then I have an archive folder as well. And so, when I know I do not need something anymore, a specific note but there may be a time that I wanna search for it or access that information again in the future, say, it's a video that's been published. I'm like, "All right, I don't want that cluttering up my videos folder." [07:27] Even though I do have 282 (laughs) video ideas here, clearly I don't always archive them but by just throwing 'em down in that archive folder, that helps me to stay organized and helps to make sure that some of these folders don't get cluttered and I can find exactly what I need. And so, as you can see here, simplicity is absolutely key but the simplicity comes through the fact that, I set up that folder structure to begin with, that I created that archive folder, that I can throw things down when I no longer need them. [07:54] And also using an app that can sync across my phone, as well as my desktop. Most of my ideas come to me when I'm on the road, when I'm traveling, right before I get to sleep. And so being able to jot them down without pulling out a notebook or without going to my desktop and opening that up. You wanna make it as easy as possible because whether you're a business owner or you've got a full-time job, ideas often drive our progress and what we create. And so we need those ideas before we can bring 'em to life [08:24] and having a system to take them down at any time is really important. Again, really simple but it works for me. Let's get to the next one. So, I use Google Calendar to schedule events and meetings to keep track of project deadlines, to plan out my content and to schedule all the things in my personal life. All right, so let's dive in here and I will show you my Google Calendar, specifically, what the next 30 days of my life look like and how I'm organizing everything. You'll probably notice two things right from the get go. [08:53] One, there's not a whole lot going on. I try to keep my calendar as empty and clean as possible and two, it's color coded and there are multiple sub calendars that help me to organize everything in the right place. And to really look at this and get a bird's eye view of what my month looks like. So, let's dive in. All right, so, first I'd just explain these different calendars that I use. So, this is my main calendar, and this is what I use for both my personal and work tasks. These are specific things that are happening in my life. [09:28] This All Hands meeting, this is a meeting that I have every week with my company. It's a really big company guys. We're expanding rapidly. It's just two people. (laughs) I just have one employee, (chuckles) that's it. We do hire freelancers but this is just a way for my brother, who's my employee and myself to get on the same page every week with everything that we're doing. And so that's recurring. We just changed it now to be starting on Wednesday is going forward, other meetings pop right into the calendar. [09:58] As you know, my one habit this year is my reading habit. And so I've got these little reminders, Start Book 7, Start Book 8, Start Book 9, this is that, so then I have an extra reminder in my environment to keep me committed to my goal of reading two books every month for the entire year. And if you were wondering, it's actually going pretty good. I am just about to finish book number six. And so, I'm just about right on track. I was a little bit behind there but you know, I just picked up this new book [10:29] that I have been just flying through. And so, yeah, just one other, one little helpful tiperoo. (laughs) Tiperoo, what is my life? Integrations here, that's whenever I do work with a brand for a YouTube video, it's important for me to make sure that I don't forget and lose track of that. And so, as you can see, this video happens to be brought to by Squarespace. I'm gonna talk about them in a minute. My newsletters, again, I mentioned that, this is a piece of content here. And so I have, for every newsletter I do, [10:59] I've got it planned out exactly what I'm gonna creating. Slow Growth, these are primarily my deadlines for courses and other stuff that I'm making for Slow Growth, digital products and whatnot. And so I've got an Animation Scope Deadline. That is a deadline for me to put together all of the animations and illustrations that I need for our next course. The yellow right here is just the YouTube videos, My Simple Productivity System. (chuckles) That's literally the one we're making right now and then videos down here. [11:30] Now, I mentioned this in my last video, when I talked about anxiety, that I have been slowing down quite a bit and so what often happens is, I will have a video like this, say, "How to become a minimalist" and I'm like, "Mm, I'm getting busy and I'll just move it." Like, these are not like, and then obviously I would throw that one somewhere and then I would just like be, "oh, no, oh, I can't do that, can't do that." And then I would just throw them to the side and then usually have a big collection [11:54] of things, I didn't do (laughs) because I'm maybe a little bit too ambitious with the stuff that I think I'm going to be able to do. Know what's a fixed deadline and what's a soft deadline and when you can move something and when you probably shouldn't. I think it's really hard to find that balance. And it's something that I'm still working on and I'm not perfect at. And so, know that if you find yourself not getting as much done as you thought you were going to, that's totally normal. Now I'm forgetting where all this stuff was going. [12:22] I think that goes here, okay. And again, you can see that there's not a lot of stuff scheduled and that's because I like to spend most of my time shooting and making videos. And now, that could be YouTube videos, social content or course content, but that's what I love to do the most. And so, if you see days that have nothing here, that's what I'm doing, I'm working on videos. And so I don't have to schedule that into my day. I'll show you my to-do list, how I track those. But the fact that I have these big pillars, [12:58] in terms of my simple productivity system, I know those are my deadlines for my videos. That's when I have to finish them. And so that helps me to keep track, to know what I'm working on. And then my to-do list is where I will then break that down into smaller, more manageable pieces. If you remember, I did do a video about tracking every single minute of my day for three months. And so I got really, really into my calendar and literally scheduling everything, from the morning until the night. And that was a fun experiment. [13:32] And also it's great if you're trying (laughs) to create an alibi. If you need one, that's a great way to do it, is just keep a really thorough calendar. But I found that it was just distracting me from my work. At this point, now, I find it not to be as helpful. It's not making me any happier. It's not making me any more productive. (whistling) I gotta work on my sound effects. So before we go any further, before we go to my to-do list, big shocker here, this video is brought to you by my friends at Squarespace. [13:58] I've been partnering with Squarespace all year because I use them for almost every website I've created over the past few years. It's so easy to get started. It's really helpful for building an audience and building a brand for yourself. And if you're trying to build a website from scratch, 100% I'd recommend Squarespace. So, there are three main reasons that I use Squarespace. First, their website builder is super intuitive and easy to use. You can select a range of beautiful templates, plug in your info and publish your site in no time. [14:29] I can easily add all my calls-to-action, my social media accounts, as well as my email sign up for. And I can buy domains and set up my G Suite email accounts directly with Squarespace. Perhaps the best thing about using Squarespace is that, I don't have to worry about getting things set up, the techno aspects, getting my email accounts synced. And as a creative that's so important because you just wanna get to work, do the work that you love and share it with the world. And Squarespace helps you do just that. [14:55] Go to squarespace.com for a free trial. And when you're ready to launch, go to squarespace.com/mattdavella to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. All right, so, let's hop back in and I'm gonna show you my to-do list. You've seen this before in past videos that I've done but I wanna show you a little bit more, some of the additional features and also some of the mindsets that I use to make sure that I get things done. So, let's hop in. All right, so, great thing about to-do, yes, it's simple [15:25] and it also allows me to just see the next few days. I mean, I don't really wanna see any more than that when it comes to the specific tasks that I'm doing. And so being able to see what I did yesterday and then have a plan for the next four days, has been really helpful for me to maintain my focus. One thing that I do that, I've been doing for so long but maybe didn't even realize it, is I put everything in the form of an action. I think I got this from David Allen's, "Getting Things Done" system. [15:57] Creating an action item for everything. So, film productivity video, getting specific about what that action is, shoot thumbnail for productivity video, double-check charges on credit card. I don't know if that's the best action item, double-check but it helps to motivate me to actually take that action. And I try to keep my tasks to three to five items, no more. When you start to get to 10, 15 items in a day, you're really losing track of what's really important. That's not to say I don't have those days, I certainly do. [16:28] And oftentimes, it's just one day filled up with all of those 10 to 15 tasks, that I've been putting off forever. As things can tend to build up with a to-do list. You know, one other piece of advice, again, might have been David Allen, might have been somebody else, that I got this from but making sure that you break things down into as many possible pieces as you can. You know, and it really depends upon how many times you've done a specific task before. And so for me, making a YouTube video, I can break that down into write, film, edit, upload [17:01] and that's all I really need to do. But if you yourself have never made a YouTube video before, you might have to break this down into 10 or 15 different tasks because it is so complicated and it's so easy to overlook the important steps required to make a YouTube video. And so, brainstorm, write video, create shot list, breaking down each scene that you need to shoot in your video. I think those are some helpful things, especially if a task where a project is particularly complicated, you'll need to break it down even further. [17:35] Now, if I can't get something done, then I just move it along to the next day. If I can get something done, I will check it off. Now, one additional aspect of this to-do list, which I've never shown before. Down here are additional lists. And so, I might have a list for my groceries here and this is where they'll add up over the course of a week, although we just went grocery shopping, so I don't need that. A reading list, anybody that I respect, recommends a book or if an author I love writes a new book, [18:06] I pop it right down here and I put it on my list and that helps to make sure that I always have something to go to. Especially with a year like this year, when I really wanna build that reading habit, I wanna always have something in my back pocket, that I could read. Future Stuff, these are all the things that usually were up here and then I'm like, I just don't have time for this right now, so I'd throw it down here. Write "4 founder features", that's just a social post for Slow Growth, setting up 401ks, [18:32] just a little notes and reminders to myself. And over here, Things, these are like digital tools and physical products that have been recommended to me. I think this is maybe like, just my minimalist practice at work here. If I hear about something great, I don't instantly just go run out and buy it. I'll add it to my things list. And then I'll see if I need it in the future, you know. This right here, the Timemore Slim Grinder, that's a grinder that somebody recommended to me that was, he was on my email newsletter. [19:00] He sent me message and said, "Hey, Matt, you're using a shitty grinder, (laughs) use a better grinder." I looked into it, I'm like, "Ah, yeah but I have this grinder and like, it works fine. I don't think I want it." But I don't wanna forget, 'cause in the future, if I do need a grinder or if I change my mind and decide I'm gonna get it, then I know exactly where to find it. Right down here in my things list. And so, that's pretty much my to-do list and that's how I keep all my tasks organized for the week. [19:26] Moving along and last but not least, we have my file management system. So, how I organize all of my documents and files and photos [19:39] and media and all that fun stuff. And so, let's dive in here. I use Google Drive and I use something called backup and sync and so that's how I have a Google Drive folder right here with all of my sub folders, that help me to store everything right there on my desktop but it's also available and immediately backed up onto the cloud. And so I've got organized into business documents here and then just documents documents. So, these are just like, my personal documents from apartment leases, literally every apartment that I've ever lived at, [20:21] I've stored all the leases right here in case I ever need them. And sometimes surprisingly, you do end up needing those in the future. Back up of all my Apple Notes, let's see Green Card documents, health insurance, all that documentation, house hunt, parking tickets, oh my God. Yeah, every year since 2015, everything has its place. Finances, these are more like personal finance related, from the yearly donations we make every year to investments in 401ks, medical taxes, utilities and vehicles. So, basically, like, when I buy a car [21:01] or any major purchase, a camera, usually comes with some form of documentation. I'm not talking in the user manual but like, the registration, all that stuff, that proof of purchase, I'll take photos of that and store everything digitally because I just don't want all that paperwork lying around. And so, that's where I store all that. Media, I actually don't use this that much. If there's any folder in here that I really don't use, it's this one because I tend to store everything on my hard drives, [21:29] 'cause my video files are so freaking big. But this is every once in a while I pop in here to store stuff. And this folder here is probably the most useful and something that you might be able to implement on your own, apart from all these other folders that you might wanna build to organize all your files. I like having a, this week folder. And so, these are all the things that I might share in a particular week, usually on social media but sometimes with, you know, if I'm just sharing it with family and friends. [21:56] And so this is from a video that I did on anxiety. And so I have like, a few different options. Like, this is my Instagram story. This is an Instagram story with text. Look, I didn't know if I wanted it with or without text, so I have both thrown in there. This is the actual post. These are bunch of photos that Nat and I took in the Blue Mountains from a recent trip. And so, I was just kinda sharing these, whenever I felt like it, just for fun. And so, there are still a bunch that I haven't shared in there. [22:26] So, I'm just keeping it into this week folder. This is a... (laughs) This is embarrassing. I don't know if it is embarrassing. It's actually kind of amazing. These three sneeze files. This is not something that I shared on social yet, I probably will though. I found this old video of my dad sneezing and just, my dad is the loudest sneezer in the world. You might have a sneezer like this in your family. And so he sneezed, let me see. - There we go. - This is the sneeze. (Matt's father sneezes) - [Matt's brother] He's doing it on purpose. [22:54] (Matt's father sneezes) (group laughing) - Thank you. - So, that was the sneeze that I found just obnoxious, right? Like, nobody needs to sneeze that loud. He's doing it on purpose as you heard my brothers say in that video. And so, then I decided I'm gonna turn this into a beat. And so, that's what I did this past weekend. This is the beat, I'll play it for you guys, 'cause it's quite a work of art. (laughs) I'm actually really proud of it. (gentle music) ♪ Here we go ♪ (hip hop music) (Man vocalizing) [23:29] (Man vocalizing) (Man laughing) ♪ Thank you ♪ Yeah, so, that's the beat there. (laughs) That's pretty good. I had a productive weekend. I just gotta get Gambino to send me his bars. He did a few, you know, little number on it and pop that in there. Share with you guys later. Anyway, here's some other, like, photos in share but you get the idea. Basically, when I have this folder, I can find these files and I can share them to social or I can send them to my family in our group chat. And that's how I, you know, just have this rolling folder. [24:03] And then when I'm done with it, I simply delete everything. Boom but I'm not done with it yet. And that's how I organize my digital files. And so, that right there is my productivity system. That's how I organize my life. I hope this help you guys out a bit. If I have any advice for you, it would be to start small, to set up those systems in advance, make sure that you create those folders and that structure and adapt and change as your life changes. I think that's the one big problem that most of us get into [24:35] is that, we think that our lives are always going to be the same or we'll always name the same kind of folders and the same tools that we use five years ago will continue to work today. And sometimes that changes, you know, when it came to my digital storage, using Google Drive, that was something that I just started using really a year or two ago. So don't worry if these things change but if something's working, if it's not getting in your way, then I don't see a reason for you to change it. And so get started. [25:04] Good luck with your productivity goals and I'll see you guys next time. (gentle guitar music) (water rustling) [25:19] (Matt coughing) (Matt coughing) [25:29] Fuck. Ah. (gentle music) (Matt clears throat)