This presentation is from Affiliate Summit West 2017 (January 15-17, 2017 in Las Vegas, Nevada). Session description: Keeping busy and being productive are very different. This session will demonstrate various techniques to focus, work on the right tasks and eliminate distractions to get more done each and every day.

1. Maximizing Productivity:
Tips & Tricks To
Getting More Done
Eric Nagel
CTO, FMTC
twitter.com/ericnagel

2. What to Expect
● Lots of Tips & Tricks
● My experiences
● 18 minutes of me throwing information at you, followed by 12 minutes of
the audience grilling me

3. What NOT to Expect
● All the answers
● Anything Earth-shattering
○ You already know what you need to do, I’m just here to remind you…
○ … and give you some new ways of doing them.

4. First Steps

5. Plan Your Day Before You Go To Bed
● The "Ivy Lee Method"
● 6 things - no more
○ Warren Buffett's "2 List" Strategy
● Prioritize them
● How?
○ Trello*
○ Asana
○ Google Calendar
○ Pen(cil) & Paper
http://www.goodhousekeeping.com/life/news/a40094/ivy-lee-productivity-hack/

6. Decision Matrix

7. Sidebar: Delegation
● If I can do it, anybody can do it
● The key is being good at following up...
○ … or at least appearing to be good at it
● Boomerang!
my referral link:
ericnagel.com/go/boomerang

9. Plan Your Day Before You Go To Bed
● Schedule tasks on your calendar
○ Break down if necessary
■ Take a task that’s huge and break it down into steps
■ Estimate the time for each step and get into chunks of 1-3 hours
○ Multiple Calendars in Google Calendar
■ “Scheduled Work”
● "Eat the frog"
● Pros
○ You don’t have to think about what you’re going to do
○ You’re limited on time to get something done & accept where it is,
without perfection
● Cons
○ If you need to put out fires, this is hard to maintain

10. Plan Your Day Before You Go To Bed
● Write them down
○ There's pain in copying something
that didn't get done today on to
tomorrow's list
● The Productivity Planner from
IntelligentChange.com

11. Working Your Plan
● Focus on 1 thing
○ Multi-tasking is dead!
○ Multi-purposing is real!
■ Need to put away 20 boxes of
Christmas decorations in the
attic? Skip the step mill at the
gym
● Set a timer & work for 20
minutes with no distractions
○ Duck Duck Go or Google “20 minute
timer”

12. Daily Rituals

13. Trello "_To Do"
● The underscore puts it first in my list of boards
● My lists:
○ Today
■ The 6 things I’m doing today
○ Later
■ Things I’m going to do someday
○ To Done Today
■ As I do things, I move them onto this list.
■ I use this list when giving an update to my team every morning
○ To Done
■ Things I did. This list can be long so make one per month
○ Someday
■ Ideas I have. I just have to get them out of my head
○ To Don't
■ Ideas I have but have eliminated as something I may do.

14. Trello "_To Do"

15. Trello "_To Do"
● What you should be doing is at the top of your "Today" list.
● If you're doing something that's not at the top
○ Move it to the top
○ Add the card
○ Or stop doing it
● Another method is to make a “Right Now” list which only contains 1 card,
and what’s what you’re doing today
● Keep a To Done list so you feel accomplished
○ If you do something & there wasn’t a card for it, make a card & put it in your To Done list
○ To Done lists can be archived by Week, Month, etc.

16. Trello "_To Do"
Helpers:
● Ultimello
○ Can sort a list based on card due
date
● Card Color Titles for Trello
○ Instead of just seeing colors, see
label names
● Card Aging Power up
Email to Trello
● Create a contact in Gmail so you can
forward emails right into Trello & have
them added to your "Later" list

17. Gmail
● Enable Keyboard Shortcuts
● Go to Settings > Labs and enable Auto-advance by Bruce D.
● General settings, change “After archiving, deleting, muting, etc. a
conversation” to “Go to the next (newer) conversation”
● Learn Keyboard Shortcuts
○ # - archive the message
○ ! - delete the message
○ l (lowercase “L”) - apply a label to the message
○ r - reply
○ a - reply all
○ f - forward message
○ ` (and shift-`) - jump between tabs in Priority Inbox
● Unsubscribe, don’t Delete
○ Takes longer, but pays off quickly

18. Slack
● Mute a Channel

19. Slack
● Set DND

20. Automate & Delegate
● Zapier
● IFTTT

21. Automate & Delegate
● Automate a Task that
takes you 8 minutes /
day
● Assume it takes 6 hours
to automate
○ (360 minutes)
● Day 45, you’ve saved 360
minutes
● By Day 365, 1 year after
investing 6 hours into
automation, you’ve saved
42-½ hours

22. Other things you
already know
(but don’t want to hear)

23. Exercise
● "The rest of my time will be more
productive if you give me my
workout time" - Barack Obama
● Personally, I have more energy if I
sleep for 6 hours and workout than
if I turn off the alarm clock & sleep
for 8 hours
○ More on sleep later
● I workout in morning
○ Eliminates excuses

24. Meditation
● I tried it; vertigo first time & fell asleep another time
● Headspace
■ Headspace is meditation made simple. Learn online, when
you want, wherever you are, in just 10 minutes a day.
■ First 10, 10-minute sessions are free
■ $12.95/month or $7.99/month 1-year pre-paid

25. Sleep
● A typical American gets around 6.8 hours of sleep
● Elite performers... sleep on average 8 hours and 36 minutes per night
But everyone’s different
● I perform best when I sleep 5-6 hours at night, and 20 minutes after lunch
○ Bed time
■ No phones
■ No TV in bed
■ No caffeine in afternoon
○ Nap
■ Set alarm for 22-24 minutes
■ Put on sleep mask

26. Sleep
How to get up after 6 hours?
● Put alarm clock across the room
● Drink a full glass of water before going to bed
○ It's the alarm clock you cannot ignore
● I use a "sunrise" alarm clock & often wake before the alarm goes off
● Set out clothes
● Drink 1 or 2 full glasses of water when you wake up
● Military Energy Gum (MEG)
○ Chew for 5 minutes

27. Limit your News
● “I had a revelation one day when I realized I didn't have to read
everything I found on the Internet.”
○ https://paulstamatiou.com/simplify/
○ “Wild Theory Suggests ‘Snow White’ is Actually a ‘Lord of the
Rings’ Sequel”
○ “A Brief History Of Food Emoji: Why You Won't Find Hummus On
Your Phone”
● The Week, http://theweek.com/
○ 10 things you need to know today
● Ozy, http://www.ozy.com/presidential-daily-brief
○ Presidential Daily Brief

28. Limit Distractions
● Facebook, Twitter, etc.
● RescueTime
○ Set Goals for the Day
○ Productivity Score
○ Weekly Email Summary
○ Detailed Reports
○ Premium:
■ Block Distracting
Sites
● Choose an amount of time you
would like to focus and
RescueTime will block access to
distracting websites.
■ Notifications
Problem:
Some productive tasks appear to be
distracting:
● Managing Facebook Ads
● Sharing things on Twitter

29. Wrapping Up

30. Done is better than perfect
● Sign painted on the wall of Facebook’s headquarters c.2010
This slide isn’t perfect, but it’s done.
http://lifehacker.com/5870379/done-is-better-than-perfect

31. Ambition
99u.com/articles/33407/ambition-holding-back-jealous-potential
● Is Your Ambition Holding You Back?
○ When you fear you aren't "living up to your potential" you're ignoring the progress you've
actually made.
● “Ambition… (i)s a constant voice nagging you to do more.”
● “There’s always more to do. There’s always others doing more.”
● Keep a To Done list!
● Don’t compare yourself to others
○ It’s a moving target

32. If There’s Time...

33. Environment
● Coworking, or working from a coffee shop, etc. you'll feel like somebody's
watching you.
● You want to appear to be productive, not be caught checking Facebook

34. Seinfeld Method

35. Resources
● http://99u.com/articles/7223/how-barack-obama-gets-things-done
● http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/genius-time-savers_us_584099f0e4b09e21702dbaf7
● https://wpcurve.com/personal-productivity/
● https://www.virgin.com/richard-branson/power-intention
● https://www.fastcompany.com/3062946/your-most-productive-self/this-100-year-old-to-do-list-hack-still-works-like-a-charm
○ http://jamesclear.com/buffett-focus
● http://99u.com/articles/6915/how-analog-rituals-can-amp-your-productivity
○ https://www.intelligentchange.com/collections/all/products/the-productivity-planner
● https://turbinehq.com/2014/productivity-hacks/
● http://99u.com/articles/33407/ambition-holding-back-jealous-potential
● http://blog.sewickley.org/stop-procrastinating-and-start-producing
● http://blog.trello.com/get-more-done-gamify-your-life
● Trello blog, http://blog.trello.com/
● Zapier blog, https://zapier.com/blog/

36. Questions?
Please fill out the feedback forms:
Session Session 3A
Maximizing Productivity: Tips & Tricks To Getting More Done
Eric Nagel
CTO, FMTC
twitter.com/ericnagel