Stop Doing These 6 Habits In 2021 (UNPRODUCTIVE)

So most people think that in order to live a happy and productive life, they've got to do more things. They've got to start new habits. I found it's way more so of the opposite. It's about not doing stupid things and not doing bad habits. It's something that Charlie Munger here, it's a great book. Taught me one of the quotes he says, all I want to know is where I'm going to die so that I don't go there.

Well, he wants to know is what not to do so that he can avoid that. He says success is not about being smart. It's not about making really good decisions. It's just about not being dumb and not making bad decisions. And this is something that I found completely true. So in this video, I want to outline six habits.

That are bad that I think everyone should break. And particularly me that I'm trying to break in 2021. And as we go from habits, one to six, we're going to start with habits that are easier to break and move to habits that are more difficult to break. And we're going to start with habits that are beneficial when you break them and move to habits that are insanely beneficial when you break them.

Now, the first habit is dwelling on the unimportant. When I was thinking of different habits that I wanted to stop in 2021. It's easy for my brain to come up with 10, 20, 30 bad habits that we've heard are bad and that we should try and stop. But 99% of the time, it's just not worth our energy. Our limited resource of mental focus in a day.

Focusing on these habits that may have some benefit, but aren't really that important one example for me is saying, um, I know that my speech would be better and I'd be able to communicate more effectively if I never said. Um, but at the end of the day, it's not that important. Where I want to get to the thing that matters most is the quality of my thinking and decision-making and how valuable the ideas I can bring to you are those are the things that matter.

You guys will excuse an arm every now and again, my team will, excuse me. Um, every now and again, no one really cares about that. Therefore, it's not worth spending any of my energy on, I should be spending my energy on the most important things. So the first bad habit is dwelling on the unnecessary, which is what most people spend most of their day doing.

So the second habit that I want to avoid is scheduling in my calendar for most of my career up until now. I've benefited significantly from scheduling in all of my activities. Don't use it to do list they're nowhere near as good as a calendar with a calendar. You have to be so much more precise. And you have the action plan when you're going to do it, instead of just saying, I'll do it at some point.

So everyone should be using a calendar. Most people that are watching this should be using a calendar and that's benefited me a lot. Scheduling in my time has made me insanely productive compared to the person that I used to be. But now I've started stepping in into an interesting role where the amount of hours I work matters a lot less, and there's a lot less specific activities for me to do on my, to do that.

Now that I've got a team, it matters far more. My decision-making and my quality of thoughts because guide the team in the right direction, then that's so much more important than working very hard in the wrong direction. And I found that having less in my calendar, scheduling less activities in being less precise with what I'm doing and when I'm doing it is actually allowed me to be better at making decisions.

So most people should use a condor, but once you get to the point where your time is leveraged and your decision-making is leveraged, you should use it less. Third habit is checking my phone too regularly. Now I've turned off all of my notifications. I did that ages ago. I don't have any social media, so there's no things that pop up on my phone that make me want to go to it.

But there's still some wiring. There's still some habits in my brain around checking my bank account and checking my emails for whatever reason. Those are things that my brain gets so much stimulation from that I find myself doing them. Now, this problem used to be very bad. It used to be very, very bad.

I installed rescue time and a bunch of different apps, so I could see how. Frequently. I was checking these things and it was a lot now the habits, a lot less bad only check them two or three times a day, maybe email four or five, but. I still want to reduce it down to just once a day, I can go in and get it done.

So I'm at the tail end of the habit. And I know I'm heading towards that. I know over time, I'm checking it less and less and less, but I want to get it to the point where I'm not checking and, or checking once a day. And I want to do this without imposing restrictions. I want to do this without installing ad blockers or, and installing the app from my phone or website or app blockers.

Because that shows that my Mo wiring still wants me to do it. And I'm using external tools to stop myself from doing which works. But in the long run, I want to get it to the point where I just don't want to check these things. Cause that's when I can rely on that habit to stick. Even if I don't have these extensions, the fourth habit is letting my work thoughts, spill over into my relaxation time.

So it's got to the point where. It's slightly more difficult for me to switch off when I'm relaxing, going to sleep or on my day off once a week than it used to be. And I'm letting my thoughts from work be spilled over too much into my relaxation time, which is causing me to relax less. But also I believe if I'm always thinking about the same problems.

And not giving my spells space. It's difficult to come up with creative solutions. We've all got to the point where we've stepped away from a project, come back to it a week or a month later and realized everything you were thinking about was completely wrong. So by taking a break away from work, I'm able to more effectively come back with a fresh pair of eyes.

Habit finds about setting limits in your brain. This is something that I think every single human on the planet does, they set limits for that progress. They set limits for how quickly their business can grow limits for how successful their relationship will be limits for their health. They think that there is a level that is unrealistic, but more often than not.

What you deem is unrealistic, comes from your own perceptions, not the actual limit for your personal growth or your business growth or whatever. You're the one that sets the limits and you set the limits far lower than what they actually are. So I think it should be a habit for everyone to try and break these limiting beliefs that they have, because why would you not be in the perfection?

Why would you not want to live the best life that you could live? Now? I know some people are going to hear this and think that I'm recommending people to always be desiring more than what they currently have. That's not what I'm saying. That's all, of course you should be completely grateful for everything you have now, even if it's not perfect, but open your eyes to that possibility that things could get even better.

Don't focus on it too much. Don't obsess over it, but recognize that it is that, and the sixth habit is probably the most difficult one to break, but it is the most beneficial habit that I believe that anyone can break. And that is focusing on prescriptions. So what most people live their life, like when they're improving themselves, when they're learning about productivity, is they getting prescriptions, they're getting things recommended to them.

For example, you should wake up at 5:00 AM where you should be grateful, but this is the completely wrong way of viewing it. Those two things. And pretty much all of the other advice are symptoms to a deeper disease. And when I say disease, it shouldn't have negative connotations to it. This disease is a positive disease.

So most people say that you should be grateful and you should wake up early in a bunch of these different things, but they don't recognize that these things are the side effect of a deeper disease and that deeper disease. Is wisdom understanding truth. When you understand truth, those things come as a side effect.

When you understand really how small you are and how magnificent the world is, gratefulness will come as a consequence of that, just like telling someone to be curious is bad. They should just understand truth. They should see the world, how it is. And then a curious curiosity will come. Because the world is incredible and there's so much to learn.

We know nothing there's so much more to learn and so fun to learn. So when you see truth with these incredible benefits, come from it, but don't try and get the benefits directly, aim for wisdom, aim for truth. And these things will come as a consequence.