You've heard the saying 100 times before without a doubt, "we've all got the same 24 hours in a day yet some people manage to get more out of it."
It's true.
There's no voodoo magic involved, they're not expending their fortune to buy an extra hour or two...
What they are doing is something both the multi-millionaire and the guy that's down to his last penny trying to catch a break can do...
It's utilizing dead time?
"SJ, what the hell is dead time?"
Dead time is time spent sitting on the subway waiting to get to your desired station, it's time spend sitting in traffic on the highway as you drive yourself home during peak hour, it's the time spend performing your low intensity cardio in the early morning.
Instead of sitting around merely in an idle state waiting to get to your destination or desired distance on the treadmill you can harness this time for productive means!
This might sound like an overly simple concept that's hardly worth discussing but that really isn't the case, as this time be it an hour or two a day quickly adds up over the course of the week, month and year.
If you spend an hour in the morning and evening commuting to and from your workplace from Monday through Friday that's 10 extra hours you've just gained for productivity in a week by utilizing your dead time...That's 40 hours a month!
40 hours a month can net you a ton of new information, ideas and output.
Don't take my word for it, Elon Musk - founder of Tesla, SpaceX and co-founder ofPayPal understands how these blocks of time add up.
Musk purposely works longer days than his competition to ensure he's able to outwork and out-innovate them.
While his competition works 8 hours a day he works 10 hours a day.
Once again, that's an extra 10 hours a week or 40 hours a month.
40 hours a month is an entire work week!
"SJ, what can I do while I'm driving or spending time on the subway or treadmill?"
There's a few dead time habits I recommend implementing, but as always select or create habits that fit based upon your own personal goals.
My Dead Time Habits To Increase Productivity
1 - Listen To A Podcast
Download and listen to a podcast aligned to your goals, podcasts are free and can be downloaded onto your phone or iPod.
A few recommendations of mine include:
- the time ferris podcast
- joe rogan podcast
- Muscle for life podcast
- Empire flippers
- TropicalMBA
2 - Listen To A Audiobook
Sign up to Audible and listen an audiobook each month. Today 99% of the great new releases and old classics you'll find have an audio version available via Audible.
Hell, if you want to learn how to burn fat effortlessly and get shredded but hate reading you'll benefit greatly from picking up the audio version of my book, 'F.U. Fat' from Audible here.
3 - Guided Meditation
I recommend either YouTube or the Headspace App for a quick and effective way to clear your head while you're on the go - this is my
Favourite habit to implement when on the subway.
Why perform a guided meditation? You'll find yourself thinker clearer and will reduce your levels of anxiety and stress.
4 - Practise Stoicism
It's time to conquer those BS reasons and thoughts you have in your head about why you won't or can't conquer your goals...
Instead of defining our goals we're defining our fears and the worst case scenario for each...
Draw a line down the middle of a horizontal piece of A4 paper...
- On the left side right down your goals
- On the right side define what the worst thing that could happen is if you failed or came up short on this goal.
Would you lose your job?
Would you lose your house?
It's at this point that you'll realize your fears are irrational and that the worst case scenario is not that bad!
5 - Read
"If I have seen further than the other man it is only by standing on the shoulders of giants!" The more you learn the more you can ultimately earn so get reading.
If you don't have the time or patience to read big books then I recommend joining the (free) ignore limits book club and reading my book summaries.
6 - Review Your To-Do List
You must have a to-do list every day.
Read, review and plan your actions while you're in transit based upon the tasks on your list.