EP: 80 - The Nitty-Gritty On The Word "Hustle" ...

“Once you have mastered time, you will understand how true it is that most people over-estimate what they can accomplish in a day, a week, or even a year -- and underestimate what they can achieve in a decade!” ~ Tony Robbins
 

Welcome to Episode 80: The Nitty-Gritty On The Word “Hustle” …
 
In a world filled brim-to-brim with busy-ness, beeps and boops from all our devices, endless distractions, and addiction to hustling, there is merit in taking a step back and looking at the bigger picture. That’s why I’m here with you today, to dig deep and share our experiences and findings of the nitty-gritty on the word “hustle”.  

I used to think this was a normal routine exclusively meant for folks stuck in their 9 to 5 jobs -- which is a good chunk of the reason I ran from mine. But since brining Virtually Untangled full circle from part-time to full-time, I realized that wasn’t the case. And that exhausting routine remained intact. And everywhere I looked, alongside everyone I talk to living this entrepreneur lifestyle are all suffering from the very same culture … the “hustle pandemic”. 

We feel the need to always be productive on something … working harder, stronger, faster, and endlessly as if our dream list of to-dos is really going to end one day. And when it does, we’ll look at that blank piece of paper and think, “Gosh darn, I did it!” But in reality, to grind this hard and exert ourselves to maximum capacity and beyond each and every single gosh darn day in order to accomplish our life-long dreams beyond lightening speed, matches that of the digital world we’ve built around ourselves. 

Here's what we will be untangling in this episode ...

• What does a “hustle pandemic” look like?
• To hustle, or not to hustle?!
• How to break the hustle cycle
• A time blocking method that actually works
• 7 tips to plan better productivity days

Are you ready?
Pop in your awesome earbuds and let's dive in!

Transcript

In a world filled brim-to-brim with busy-ness, beeps and boops from all our devices, endless distractions, and addiction to hustling, there is merit in taking a step back and looking at the bigger picture. That’s why I’m here with you today, to dig deep and share our experiences and findings of the nitty-gritty on the word “hustle”. If you’re already quite familiar with the term, it may look a little something like this … 

You wake up and before even going to the bathroom or brushing your teeth, you check your phone. Then you go do your morning duties and check your phone again. You then begin to get ready for your day … you meditate or perhaps go to the gym, have a hot shower, put your face on, get dressed and check your email … or maybe bits of all that. You rush to your office (or job if not working for yourself quite yet), where you spend the day working and scarfing down food at your desk in between an endless slew of meetings. And check your phone again. Then when you finally “finish” work (because let’s be real, you’re checking your inbox -- yet again -- after-hours anyway), you go meet a friend for a nice dinner or spend the evening in with some take out while catching up on some Netflix. Then you prep yourself for tomorrow’s adventure, climb into bed, go to sleep and do it all over again the next day. 

Sound familiar?

It’s exhausting and you’re on the verge of burnout (or already there) but hey, at least you got shit done, right?! And you will catch your big break someday … right?!

I used to think this was a normal routine exclusively meant for folks stuck in their 9 to 5 jobs -- which is a good chunk of the reason I ran from mine. But since bringing Virtually Untangled full circle from part-time to full-time, I realized that wasn’t the case. And that exhausting routine remained intact. And everywhere I looked, alongside everyone I talked to living this entrepreneurial lifestyle … are all suffering from the very same culture … the “hustle pandemic”. 

We feel the need to always be productive on something … working harder, stronger, faster, and endlessly as if our dream list of to-dos is really going to end one day. And when it does, we’ll look at that blank piece of paper and think, “Gosh darn, I did it!” But in reality, to grind this hard and exert ourselves to maximum capacity and beyond each and every single gosh darn day in order to accomplish our life-long dreams beyond lightening speed, matches that of the digital world we’ve built around ourselves.

Here’s what I’m getting at with this … The hustle IS real. And it is necessary. But we need to find a balance within that culture of the “hustle pandemic” in order to protect our mental health and physical well-being. So, the real definition of hustle should be: work hard, be productive, migrate and pivot in all the right directions, create growth, and induce time blocked focus, but with caution and resiliency, not insane overload. Basically, do all the right things which is probably exactly what you’re doing right now, but with mindful moderation.

That being said, do you ever sit back and wonder how much of our work is genuinely productive towards our end goals, and how much of it is an addition to just plainly being busy?

My team and I have been working on a handful of mini productivity experiments this year (mainly over the quieter summer months to not disrupt our clients billable time with us) and we’ve noticed there is actually little correlation with the hours we clocked as billable versus the money we bring in. So, in reality, it should not be about counting all the minutes just to check things off and multi-tasking like a crazy person. But rather the quality of the efforts you put into the things you’re doing.

We strongly believe in the magic that happens when we pause to reflect on how things are going on the outside with our levels of productivity – as well as on the inside with how we feel about #AllTheThings we’re doing. We believe in work-life balance and making our adventures our own, in order to promote creativity, productivity and fun! Through these findings, we wanted to find better ways to grow and strive for happiness, no matter what our ambition or activity.

So, when we looked at the data of what we’ve been doing, we felt slightly unsatisfied with what we have accomplished at the end of a day – even though we got much done for everyone. But our to-do lists kept growing way faster than we can keep up with (such is the life of an over-achiever am I right?) which told us it was time to pivot by making some solid adjustments in the productivity areas of our working day. 

We needed to break the cycle.

One of my very favourite quotes is, “Once you have mastered time, you will understand how true it is that most people over-estimate what they can accomplish in a day, a week, or even a year -- and underestimate what they can achieve in a decade!” 

Read that ONE. MORE. TIME.

Okay, done?

Great!

I hate to admit this out loud -- but there are a lot of “time wasters” in our daily lives which tend to usually have a negative impact on what we’re trying to accomplish. That’s why it’s so important to understand the low-down on time management as well how to “hustle” the right way without compromising yourself -- which in reality can also be viewed in partnership with project management therefore making productivity well rounded. 

We don’t want you getting burnt out, so the key words here are PLANNING and TIME BLOCKING. You want to work smarter, not harder. You want that life of freedom. You want your big dreams to become reality. So, in order for that to all happen you’ll need to plan things out according to your daily tasks, projects, and goals. 

Realistically, if you work too hard you may lose sight of your bigger picture. And if you think multitasking is the way to go, you’re actually going to run yourself backwards. And we most certainly don’t want that to happen as that’s what we’ve been working so hard to build up to in order to gain more sanity with this “hustle” lifestyle. Research actually suggests that as we burn out, we have a greater tendency to get “lost in the weeds” -- that’s the last thing you want.

So, how exactly do you escape this dreaded lifestyle we’re calling the “hustle pandemic” through planning and time blocking?

Well, it’s simple really … By preparing yourself for each and every business day. 

It’s all about creating a small handful of routines and processes to save yourself time and efforts in the long run, thus making room for massive growth. It’s all about manipulating your time because we do not have the power to slow it down.

For this type of planning, it’s better to set aside some bittersweet quiet time. 

For me, nothing kills productivity and my laser focused mind than becoming distracted. I highly value every single moment I have and am ruthless about killing any and all distractions! You’re probably wondering what I mean here …

This means doing things like:

• Having my email, Slack, and social media notifications on silent all day (even though my phone is always within reach).
• Not leaving 5 million tabs open at one time, I close each as I’m done with them.
• Only checking social media posts during certain times of the day (unless a client needs me to otherwise do so).
• Doing my best to not let my mind wander over to my email (whether business or personal) throughout the day making me distracted from the tasks at hand.

You think I’m an over-the-top nerd, I know it! 

But you know what? I’m okay with that!

Now that you’re in your quiet time with zero distractions, it’s time to get into virtual hero mode with time blocking … which is basically controlling your schedule so it doesn’t control YOU!

Time blocking is a time management assist method we use that asks you to divide your day into different blocks of time. Each block is dedicated to accomplishing a specific task, or group of tasks, and only those specific tasks. Yes, you heard me right … NOTHING ELSE! So, instead of keeping an open-ended to-do list of things you’ll get to as you’re able, you’ll begin each day with a concrete schedule that lays out what you need to work on and when. With a little wiggle room for emergencies of course.

The golden key to this seemingly crazy method is prioritizing your list in advance -- so a dedicated weekly (or even daily) review is an absolute must. You need to take stock of what’s coming up for the day or week ahead and make a rough sketch of your time blocks for each day. Then at the end of every working day, review any tasks you didn’t finish -- as well as any new tasks that have come in -- and adjust your time blocks for the rest of the week accordingly.

We prefer to do this with a weekly schedule in mind, on Fridays for the week to come. Then do a mini review at the end of each day to see if adjustments need to be made due to current things on the go and/or new project requests that may have come in.

The wonderfulness of this all is that with your days’ time blocked in advance, you won’t have to constantly make choices about what to focus on. All you need to do is follow your time blocked schedule. Then rinse’ and repeat. 

Okay, so now that you’ve learned the art of time blocking, let’s dive into a mini version of planning so you can become a master of your time like us!

#1. Set a time limit to each task. Don’t forget to add buffers in between in case you don’t complete a task on time and so you don’t take time away from whatever is next on your schedule.

#2. Use a to-do list or project management platform -- which you’ve heard me talk about many, many times. Creating one of these for yourself will keep you laser focused and will also motivate you as you see what you’ve already achieved, and what remains.

#3. Plan ahead (which we just talked about with time blocking) by spending your mornings on your most important tasks. If you have the most amount of energy in the morning don’t waste it fiddling around!

#4. Change your schedule if you must but don’t “half-work” your routines. And by “half-work” I mean, don’t stop randomly to check your phone for no reason or pop onto social media to cruise. A wandering mind never gets things done on time.

#5. Follow the 1-3-5 rule, which is mapping out one big thing, three medium things and five smaller things you want to get done daily (and yes, those are what we like to call a reasonable number of items for your to-do list).

#6. Purge your lists on a daily basis and be realistic with your goals.

#7. Stop trying to be “perfect” because (1) there’s no such thing; and (2) when you’re trying to be a perfectionist, nothing will ever be good enough which means nothing will ever get done and you will be in “rinse n’ repeat” mode for what feels like an honest to goodness lifetime. 

My team and I are firm believers in the mindful “hustle” culture but in such a way that we’re not “stuck” to any one way of doing things. And we know when it’s time to throw in the towel when a process or routine just isn’t beneficial any longer.

We’re also firm believers in every single time, organization, and project management tip we share with you. We wouldn’t share them if we didn’t do the work and try them out ourselves first -- and felt that they actually saved time. (And in some cases, money too!) This information isn’t fluff. It’s not a sales tactic. Were not trying to sell you a way to get you to like us. We honest to goodness share these things because we test them out then follow them faithfully when we know they really do work and add value to our day and business. We share them because our true passion is to help anyone and everyone on this similar adventure in any way, we can … even if you’re not a paying client. That’s how much we nerds love what we do!

So, if you have found yourself in this space of struggle … and stuck in the rinse n’ repeat mode the “hustle pandemic”, please take advantage of these great pointers and make the necessary changes in your business life in order to get your schedule and productivity working for you, not the other way around! And when you know what you’re working on, when you’re working on it, and why you’re working towards it, then everything that doesn’t serve that goal can take a fucking backseat. 

The most productive (and results-yielding) work we as a team have ever done came from being intentional about our time and efforts, alongside our vision to empower leaders -- just like yourself – by deeply connecting with you with real facts and real truths, beyond the everyday “untangling” we do.

Our “why” is YOU! And to create more moments of genuine connection, so that people can finally start seeing one another as human beings (not human doings) … like the way of this “hustle” culture.
So, if you take away anything from today’s episode, let it be this … Don’t lose sight of why you’re pouring your life forces into your business in the first place – as long as you use the tools we share with you, hold your vision close, work hard – but mindfully of course, you will always produce instead of distract.