Speaker 1: Hey friends, welcome back to the channel. As you guys know, I'm absolutely obsessed with trying to save time in any ways that I can because time is really our most valuable non-renewable resource. We can always make more money, but we can never make more time. And so in this video, I wanna talk through seven habits that I try my best to do every day and that saved me around three hours every single day. Coming in at number seven, we have a habit that saves me around 10 minutes a day and that is the capture habit. Now this is a strategy from David Allen's book, Getting Things Done, which is the Bible of productivity, that first came out in 2003. And the idea is that anytime you have a thought or you remember something that you need to do, instead of doing it there and then, you make it a point to immediately capture it and offload it to some other sort of system so that your brain is not having to think about it. So for example, if I'm in the middle of doing some work and I think, oh, I need to call my grandma, then what I'll do is that I'll either write it down on a piece of paper directly in front of me so I know I've got it captured, or more likely I'd put it straight into the app Things, which I use on my Mac. It saves a lot of time and it also saves a lot of headspace because A, you're not distracting yourself trying to go somewhere else and write down the thing. You're also not wasting time trying to remember what you think you've forgotten. The only problem is I can't remember what I've forgotten. And then when you have moments of spare time, you can just look at your to-do list and think, oh, cool. These are the things I've already captured and these are the things that I wanna do. And you can use any kind of app for this. You can use pen and paper, you can use Post-it notes, you can use Things, Todoist, Notion, whatever you want, whatever app works for you, Apple Reminders, Apple Notes, whatever the thing might be. It really doesn't matter as long as you have a centralised place where you can capture your thoughts and capture your ideas and then not have to worry too much about it and waste time having to think about it. All right, coming in at number six, we have a habit that saves me around 15 minutes every day and that is what I call the daily adventure. And this habit is basically where every single morning I ask myself when I sit down to work, what is today's adventure going to be? Now, this habit serves two purposes. The main purpose that saves time is that it encourages me to think about what is my most important task for the day. In the book, Make Time, for example, where I first got this many years ago when I read the book, they call it the daily highlight, where you just ask yourself, what's the most important thing I need to do today? And even if that's the only one thing that you do for the day, as long as you're doing this for 365 days, you're really winning and you're saving tons and tons of time and effort and also moving towards your goals over the course of a year. The second main benefit of this is that ideally the most important thing that you would do would be the first thing that you do that day when you have a little bit of spare time. So it removes that kind of cognitive burden of having to think about what was that thing I need to do again? And the third benefit and the reason why I call it a daily adventure these days rather than a daily highlight is because thinking about it as an adventure just makes it seem a little bit more fun. The single biggest productivity hack of all time is finding a way to enjoy what you're doing and finding a way to generate energy from that thing that you're doing. So let's say I've got this, I don't know, PowerPoint presentation that I need to finish that's like super important. I could think of it as my most important task or I can think of it as today's adventure. Maybe I'd have Harry Potter music in the background while I'm doing the thing to make it feel more fun. ♪ Harry Potter theme song ♪ Maybe I'd go out to a coffee shop or maybe I'd sit on a park bench nearby if it's sunny outside. Like there are different things that I can do to approach this activity that I have to do with a little bit more enjoyment, a little bit more energy, a little bit more like an adventure. All right, coming in at number five, we have another habit that saves me around 15 minutes a day and that's what I call the rainbow calendar. And basically the idea behind the rainbow calendar is that ideally every morning, I wanna be planning out my calendar for the rest of the day. And I like to color code things so it feels as if it's a rainbow that doesn't have too many gaps in it. Because the problem with gaps in the calendar is that at least for me, I find that the sort of person I am when I have a gap in my calendar and I don't know what I intend to do in that time, I inevitably spend that time doing something non-intentional like randomly scrolling Instagram or TikTok. And generally, it's not me living my best life when I'm randomly scrolling Instagram and TikTok. For the record, I have nothing against using social media. I'm a professional social media user myself. But what I want for myself is that the time I'm spending on YouTube or social media or whatever is time that I intend to be spending on YouTube or social media or whatever, not time that I've accidentally found myself spending on it because I didn't have a default activity that I wanted to do in that time instead. So for example, in my calendar, I literally have a block every day for breakfast, a block for work, a block for lunch, a block for a little break sometimes, a block for going to the walk to get coffee. Sometimes I have a block where I'm like, okay, I'll just do whatever in that block. But then I'm intending that that block is just for me to do whatever. I've actually tried this. I've run this experiment a few times where I've not time blocked stuff in the daytime. And I found that inevitably it's approached like 12 o'clock and I'm like, oh, you know, I don't have anything to do right now. And then I'll just end up scrolling Instagram. The more this becomes a habit and the more you follow your own intentions, at least for me, I find that it saves me quite a lot of time, i.e. around 15 minutes a day. All right, coming in at number four is a habit that saves me around 20 minutes each day. And that is what I call the five minute rule. Now, the five minute rule has two components. The first one is that if I'm struggling to do something, I can just get started for five minutes. So for example, filming this video, I was procrastinating a little bit from filming this video, but then I thought, you know what, five minute rule, I'm just gonna film the video for five minutes and then I can stop if I want to. But that's how we beat procrastination because the hardest part is getting started. It's like when you're like pushing a trolley in the supermarket. It's a bit of a push to get started, but once the trolley is moving, it just kind of carries on moving. And now, I don't know, we're 12 minutes into filming this video or however long it's been, I'm enjoying it now. It's not a thing that I need to procrastinate from. But the second aspect of the five minute rule is that five minutes is way better than nothing. Now, especially when you organise your life with your calendar, it's very easy to let on the hour be the only legit time that you can start something. Like, oh, it's 11.48 right now. I couldn't possibly do anything for 12 minutes until 12, so I'm just gonna wait until 12 and then I'll do my next thing. When I'm thinking in that kind of mindset, I'm wasting a lot of time doing things unintentionally in those 12 minutes. Whereas I find with the five minute rule, I tell myself, oh, it's 12.48. Okay, that's two lots of five minutes. I could spend 10 minutes working on something interesting. That could be checking through my emails. It could be replying to some friends on WhatsApp. It could be making a little bit of progress on my book. It could even be drafting a video. Like, there was a five minute blog this morning where I drafted a whole new video that I'm gonna do next. And people often ask me, you know, how did you manage to make videos while you were working full-time? All that stuff for the first three years of this YouTube channel. And really, a big chunk of it was the five minute rule. When I would have five minutes in between seeing patients, waiting for some blood test results to arrive, waiting for the tea to brew if I'm making tea for the nurses, I would generally get out a piece of paper and then start like drafting out a video in that time. And so using the five minute rule in this way saves me around, I'd say 20 minutes, maybe even more time every single day. Just a quick break from the video to tell you about our sponsor, which is very excitingly Huel. Now, I've been a paying customer of Huel since way back in 2017. I started eating Huel in my fifth year of medical school because I was finding that with like going to placements and trying to study for exams and building the YouTube channel and running my business, there were lots of times where I just didn't really have time to have a proper meal. And so since I started Huel, instead of defaulting to some kind of unhealthy takeout, I would often find myself thinking, you know what? Let me just take some Huel and blend the powder up with some water or with some milk and it would be a fantastic replacement for breakfast or for lunch. These days, my favourite product from Huel is the Black Edition. And the reason I love the Black Edition is A, because it tastes really nice. They've got a salted caramel flavour, which is sick. And also because it's got an incredible 40 grammes of protein for a 400 calorie serving. And so with my latest health goals, I've been working with a fitness coach to try and get hench. It's super handy to be able to eat Huel as a breakfast option. And it's healthy, it's vegan, it's got a bunch of really good micronutrients in it as well. Also, Huel is very reasonably priced. Like a meal with 400 calories comes out to about £1.68 per meal, which is super cheap compared to what the alternative would be if you were like me and ordering takeout instead, for example. Anyway, if you like the idea of getting these cheap and healthy and nutritionally complete meals in your diet, then click the link in the video description and then you can order your first delivery of Huel. And alongside that, they will send you a free Huel T-shirt, which are genuinely quite good, and also a free shaker type bottle thingy, so that if you don't have a blender, you don't need a blender, you get free stuff along with your delivery of Huel. So thank you so much Huel for sponsoring this video. All right, coming in at number three, we have a habit or a system rather that saves me at least 30 minutes every day, and that's what I call the focus phone. Now phones are an absolutely incredible device, incredible invention, but they're an absolute time sink when it comes to distracting us from the things that we actually want to do. Most of us do not intentionally spend a lot of time on our phone, we find ourselves spending time on our phone. So there are three things in particular that I do to help me focus more and waste less time on my phone. The first one is that my phone is almost always on some kind of focus mode. Now this happens automatically because I actually time block everything in my calendar. And so right now my phone is in work mode, which means I'm not gonna see any notifications except my girlfriend, my mom, my brother, and my sister-in-law. Those are the only four people whose notifications come through while my phone is in any kind of focus mode. And that means that when I want to open WhatsApp group chats, I'm doing it intentionally on my own time rather than on someone else's time. Secondly, what I do is I always keep my phone face down. There is something about having a phone face up in front of you that is just like a recipe for disaster and a recipe for distraction. And there's something about the phone being face down that makes it seem a lot less threatening and a lot less inviting as a device. And the third strategy that I found helpful is that when I have periods where I'm spending too much time on social media, I install a quick app called OneSec. But essentially what OneSec does is that anytime you open Instagram or TikTok or YouTube and you can decide what apps it is, it like opens up with this thing and it makes you take a breath and then breathe out again. And then it says, hey, would you like to go on Kindle or Audible in that time instead? Because you can set what kind of more intentional apps you want in that time. And usually by the time I've taken a few seconds to take a breath and breathe out again and ask myself, do I really want to be going on Instagram right now? The answer is hell no. And then I close Instagram. Now I like this app so much that I reached out to the guy who made it on Twitter and he's very kindly created like a free trial link just for us lot. So that'll be linked down below if you wanna check it out. All right, coming in at habit number two is another habit that saves me at least 30 minutes every day, sometimes 60 minutes, sometimes longer than that. And that is the alarm clock. And basically the idea here is using a physical alarm clock as my bedtime alarm clock rather than my phone. Now I've been on and off with this habit for the last several years, but I find that whenever I don't use a physical alarm clock and I think, oh, it's fine. My phone is my alarm. It's way easier than a physical alarm clock. And I have my phone charging on my bedside. Inevitably, I waste at least half an hour, sometimes an hour, sometimes even two or three hours before I sleep. And then even when I wake up in the morning, it's too easy A, to snooze the alarm, B, to cancel the alarm, and C, to then just lie in bed and just go on my phone for a bit, especially if I don't have anything that morning. And now we have habit number one, which saves me at least 60 minutes every day, sometimes more. And that is a simple rule that I am not allowed to watch TV unless it's with friends. This is a very controversial thing. I know some people feel borderline religious about, oh my God, I need to have my two hours of watching Netflix every night, because if I don't, then it's really bad for my health and all this. I call BS to most of that kind of stuff. I used to watch so much TV when I was younger. I used to watch quite a lot of TV at university. And then one day I realised, hang on, I'm wasting so much time watching TV. I think the average American watches somewhere between one and four hours every day of TV. For me, it was about an hour a day on average. And I realised that when I was on my deathbed, I probably wouldn't regret not having watched more TV. And so I tried this. I tried making this rule for myself when I was at university, no TV unless it's with friends. So when Game of Thrones would come out, we'd do a sick Game of Thrones nights, we'll invite people over, it would be super fun. And that would turn into a social experience. But it meant that I wasn't spending every evening after lectures catching up on Grey's Anatomy or the Vampire Diaries or The Office or watching reruns of Friends or whatever. And that freed up so much time in my life at university to build my business, to build my YouTube channel. I almost never watched TV when I was working as a doctor as well. I would do YouTube stuff in the evenings and all of that was way more fulfilling and way more intentional than sitting down and trying to watch TV, for example. Now, I know this is controversial. I know some people wanna cancel me for promoting toxic productivity and hustle culture and all that kind of stuff. All I'm saying is, try cutting out TV from your life for like a month and see if you miss it. And if you really miss it, if you really can't live without it, if it's really you living your best life by watching more TV on your own, sitting on your computer and watching Netflix, by all means, you're living your best life and you're living intentionally. But if in my case, I realised, hang on, I'm actually not proud of that time I spent watching TV. I'd rather go for a walk in nature, rather go for a run, rather go to the gym. So overall, these seven habits save me at least three hours every single day. I hope you found at least some of them helpful and you might try and incorporate them into your life. And if you're interested in more tips related to productivity, you might like to check out this video over here, which is 12 cheap purchases, i.e. under about $20, that have genuinely been able to boost my productivity. So that's the video over there. Thank you so much for watching and I'll see you later. Bye-bye.