22 ONE-MINUTE Habits That Save Me 25+ Hours a Week

All right.

So, according to my publishers, I am the world's most followed productivity expert.

And so, perhaps unsurprisingly,

I'm totally obsessed with finding what are the small habits I can apply to

my life to save me a lot of time.

And so, I have gone through

and basically racked my brain

and my calendar and my life for what are like all of the different

things that I do

that take me less than about a minute every time I do them,

but that overall save me a ton of time every single week.

Habit number one, the first thing I do every morning

when I get to my desk is I ask myself one very simple question.

What is today's adventure going to be?

What this is getting at is what is the most important thing I need

to get done?

And this is super helpful because if you do it,

it will force you to prioritize like the one thing

that you really want to get done today.

And secondly, framing it

as an adventure rather than

as a task encourages you to approach it in a spirit of play,

which we know from the research improves our productivity

and our creativity and our well-being.

Once you have identified your most important task,

you take 10 seconds to stick it in the calendar.

If it's not in the calendar, it does not get done.

And this is by far one of the most powerful productivity habits out of

all of the ones out there.

It's just deciding what is the most important thing for you to focus on

and then actually creating a block of time

and sticking it in your calendar where you are going to do it.

Habit number three is when that block of time comes around,

you don't just procrastinate.

You instead start a focus timer.

However you do it, when you have a visible timer,

there is something magical about

that that keeps you on task

and stops you from wasting time doing random stuff

that does not matter.

Tiny habit number four is when you are working on anything,

put your phone face down and turn off notifications.

Bonus points, if you even put your phone in a different room where you

cannot see it because there is even some evidence according to the science around

this that like even just having your phone in the same room like it

creates like a sense of anxiety of like what's happening on the phone?

What's happening on the phone?

So the more you can get rid of the phone from your working environment,

the more time you will save.

Tiny habit number five is

that I have my phone on do not disturb at all times.

You can set people who are exceptions to the do not disturb rule.

So for me, if my wife is calling me, it goes through.

If my mom or grandma or brother or sister-in-law calling me,

it goes through.

But if there's almost any other notification from anything else,

it will not go through the do not disturb mode.

Again, this is magical and time-saving because every time you get distracted,

there is this thing called attention residue

that like makes it way harder for you to get back on task.

And so you just might

as well have your phone on do not disturb

or some kind of focus mode where notifications have been gotten rid of at

all times.

Tiny habit number five is to block all of your most offending apps at

night after 9:00 p.m.

There's just no need for it.

We all waste a huge huge huge amount of time scrolling Instagram,

browsing Tik Tok, even watching YouTube videos,

maybe even this one after 9:00 p.m.

when we really should be getting to bed.

What this does is

that it wastes hours

and hours and hours in our life in aggregate

because we end up scrolling at night for way longer than we should.

that ends up destroying our sleep,

which ends up reducing our energy levels the next day,

which ends up bleeding into reduced productivity and everything else that we do.

And the more you are using the damn phone at night,

I found at least for me, and I'm sure probably for you as well,

the less productive you are

and the more time you're just randomly squandering on social media algorithms.

Tiny habit number seven is to not have your phone anywhere near you

when you are in bed.

For me, the only thing I'm allowed to touch after 9:00 p.m. is my

Kindle.

So, I have my Kindle on my bedside table,

and I'm usually charging my phone across the room.

My wife is even more productive than I am

and so she even charges her phone in a totally different room

so that the phone doesn't even enter the bedroom.

That is like how you do it on advanced mode.

Habit number eight is to learn the keyboard shortcuts for everything

that you do on your computer.

It amazes me how much time people waste

when they are clicking around with the mouse where

if you know if you're using something like Excel

or something like notion

or something like Google Docs like

or something like Slack like whatever the apps

that you use most often are taking less than a minute to learn the

keyboard shortcuts for the stuff

that you do regularly on those apps is gamechanging

because it massively adds up over time.

Next up again related to keyboard shortcuts you should never be using your mouse

to open anything on your computer.

You can always do it with the keyboard.

Mac has a built-in spotlight functionality.

On Windows, you use the Windows logo key and type in what you want.

My favorite app is the app Alfred.

All of these apps basically let you do stuff on your computer using the

keyboard because anytime you reach for your mouse,

you are being slow and you are wasting seconds.

Which is why all of the pros who are really fast at using a

computer will almost always navigate with keyboard shortcuts

or using the keyboard.

So, taking a minute to learn those will save you small amounts of time

each time,

but that really, really, really adds up over years of using a computer.

On a related note, you can set up text expansion functionality.

There's an app called Text Expander.

Alfred has that functionality.

It's a functionality built into your iPhone.

If you go on the keyboard settings and text replacement,

so this is really helpful for things that you type in a lot.

So, for example, I have an text expansion shortcut for my email

and for my address

and for my phone number

and anything where if I have to fill out a form

and I find myself typing in anything more than once,

like my company's VAT number,

I don't want to go

and try and figure out what

that thing is or just type it out manually.

I'll just put in a keyboard shortcut like you know exclamation mark em

and then that boom text expands to fill my email address.

Next up we have voice over typing.

Generally most people are faster at speaking than they are at typing.

I'm a very fast typist.

I I type at around 156 words per minute

but I still speak way faster than

that.

And so using dictation tools to talk to my computer

and talk to AI tools is way quicker

and saves way more time than typing things out.

The app that I use for this

when I'm on the go is called Voice Pal.

Again, it's an app that my team and I have built for this purpose.

You hit record on your phone

and you walk around

and then you say whatever you want

and it asks you follow-up questions.

This is how I do all of my writing

and like first drafting

or like coming up with ideas.

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And now let's get back to it.

Next up, we have the capture habit.

Now, the habit here is from David Allen's book, Getting Things Done,

which is basically whenever you think of anything you need to do,

you just write it down somewhere.

You capture it into some kind of to-do list,

some kind of task management system.

The one that I use is on my iPhone, and it's called Things 3.

And I have the widget on my iPhone.

So, if I ever need to capture anything at all,

I just hit the plus icon and then boom,

I can type out whatever I need to.

Buy milk from 7-Eleven, save it, and then boom, it is done.

That takes like 5 seconds to do.

And it means I'm not relying on my brain to hold different tasks I

need to do.

It all just goes into the system.

When you're not having to spend brain space like remembering what you were meant

to do,

it drastically improves your life.

It like reduces your stress levels.

It means you're not constantly worrying about like, you know,

do I have something that I've forgotten that I kind of need to do.

>> The only problem is I can't remember what I've forgotten.

>> And therefore saves you a ton of time and additional stress every single week.

Next up, this is a fun one.

I found enormous value in using WhatsApp lists to organize my different friends

and like business associates

and family and contacts

because my WhatsApp is an absolute cesspit of just like zillions

and zillions and zillions of messages.

And so this is what it looks like.

I use emojis.

So I have the heart emoji for family members.

I've got two unreads there.

I have a Hong Kong emoji for sort of my real life friends in

Hong Kong.

I've got the UK emoji for my friends in the UK.

I've got this smiley money icon emoji for all of like my uh friends

like my creator and entrepreneur friends who have who I want to priority reply

to.

I have this little sparkle emoji for people in my team

because our business is called Sparkle Studios.

And then the final one is LBA

which stands for lifestyle business academy

which is sort of my online business school.

And so I'm part of a bunch of WhatsApp groups for

that where we help people out with stuff.

And so that's like the final one over there.

Now, this is amazing because immediately I can see that like, okay,

I just need to go through and just reply to 2, 3, 2, 4,

and four messages or just like read those to make sure there's no action

needed from me.

But if you look at my WhatsApp, there's actually like 294 unreads.

Now, of those, only about eight of them are things I actually want to

reply to.

The other 286 are messages I don't need to reply to.

Now, before I had these lists,

I would have this constant anxiety around like has something urgent come through the

WhatsApp that I haven't seen,

that I haven't replied to, etc., etc.

But now that I've got lists for everyone who is important,

it means I'm a lot less likely to feel stressed about this

and also I'm less likely to miss important things.

All right, the next habit is listening to things at speed multiples.

This is something that I've gotten a lot of hate over the years on

like Reddit and other places like

that.

Like I can't believe Ali Abdal listens to audiobooks at double speed.

It's like bro, these days everyone watches YouTube videos at like speed multiples.

Like Instagram and Tik Tok literally you can watch them at like speed multiples.

You could even if you really wanted to watch TV shows

and movies and anime at double speed

if you really wanted to.

But there is a lot of value especially

when you're trying to absorb information

and especially when that information is for exploration rather than exploitation like you're sort

of just getting the feel for a new topic.

Start with 1.5 and

then you go 1.6

and then 1.7 and 1.9

and over time you can actually train your listening speed to be able to

understand and retain stuff at two times speed 2.5 even 3

or 3.5x speed.

And that saves you

so much time especially

if you have to

or you want to do a lot of reading

or listening for your job

or your business or your life.

It is gamechanging.

Next up, we have the habit of double dipping.

Wherever possible, I like to try and do sort of multimodality multitasking.

Now, multitasking doesn't really work

when you're trying to do two things in two of the same kind of

thing at once.

Like if you're trying to do some deep work

and then you also reply to some Slack messages

and then you also reply to some emails.

All of those are sort of like the same kind of thing.

But if it's multimodality multitasking, like for example,

listening to an audiobook

while you are driving to work

or while you're commuting to work,

that is how I saved loads

and loads of time

because I got a lot of my business knowledge from listening to podcasts

and audiobooks at speed multiples

while I was driving to

and from work back

when I had a real job.

Whenever you can double dip

and you can do kind of more than one thing at once with different

modalities,

that is a thing

that ends up saving you a lot of time cuz you're just able to

do more in less time.

One specific example of double dipping that I love is walking Zoom calls,

which saves a ton of time.

So every day I'm trying to get 10,000 steps.

On average it takes about 10 minutes per thousand steps for most people.

So 10,000 steps requires you to walk for 100 minutes.

Now most days I have at least 100 minutes worth of Zoom calls.

And so wherever possible I will try

and take those walking rather than being at my computer.

This is gamechanging because

then I'm getting sunlight

and walking outside is nice

and I'm feeling good

and I'm more creative

and also I'm able to get the steps in

which saves me tons

and tons of time in my week.

On that note, another thing

that really helps is just getting a walking treadmill standing desk.

Again, when I'm doing non-filming days

and I'm doing lots of meetings

and stuff,

I will set up a walking pad treadmill underneath my desk

and I'll be getting in my steps

while I'm doing work.

And if you walk at like 3 km/h, 4 km/h,

you can be getting in like thousands of steps every hour

and you almost don't even notice it.

This is something I do when I'm gaming on my computer as well.

I'll often like just stand up on the standing desk and like, you know,

be walking on the desk

while playing Hogwarts Legacy

or World of Warcraft

or whatever the thing might be.

Next up is using recurring calendar blocks for important events.

So my wife and I have a date night once a week,

every Sunday evening, and that is a recurring block in the calendar.

She's on the calendar invite, I'm on the calendar invite.

It repeats every single week.

And this is amazing,

and it saves so much time in previously where we're having to sort of

coordinate with each other to get a date night.

So recurring calendar events save you a bunch of time in like logistical coordination.

For example, I have recurring calendar events for my gym sessions with my personal

trainers,

recurring calendar events for like lessons with my tennis coach,

recurring calendar events for events with my team.

You know, that's the thing

that most people are most used to

because you probably have like a team meeting at the same day

and at the same time every week,

but you can apply that same philosophy to your personal life as well,

which saves a bunch of time that would otherwise be spent on coordination.

Speaking of date nights, another thing I like to do,

given that I'm in charge of organizing our date nights,

is to batch my organizing for date nights.

So there's a general productivity principle called batching where you sort of uh do

similar tasks altogether so

that you're not like context switching.

And so if I'm booking a restaurant for a date night for like Sunday,

then while I'm there, once I've done that,

I might as well book a second one for next Sunday.

And then I might as well book a third for the Sunday after that.

And I might as well book a fourth for the Sunday after that.

My wife freaking loves this

because she likes the idea of like me having stuff planned rather than stuff

just happening at the last minute.

So then she's super happy

and then I'm happy

because I managed to make my wife happy in a very productive way by

batching the booking of the date nights in one like session.

Next up, I found it enormously helpful to schedule in stuff at 8:00 in

the morning.

So three times a week,

I have a tennis lesson at 8:00 in the morning.

Why is 8:00 in the morning an amazing time?

Well, it's an amazing time because if you want to do something at 8,

you kind of have to get up at like 7:30 or beforehand.

And forcing yourself to get up at 7:30

or beforehand is great

because it forces you to have an early night.

What you don't want is like

if you have a late night one time

because you haven't followed habit number three

and you've taken your phone into bed

and you're watching random YouTube videos at 3:00 in the morning,

you feel absolutely grim the next day

and then you don't want to feel grim for the following days

and so you then end up sleeping earlier.

And in general, if you want to be more productive,

if you want to get more stuff done,

going to bed earlier

and waking up earlier is an enormous hack compared to going to bed later

and waking up later.

Next up, we have the fun habit of hiring a cleaner.

I have been doing this for absolutely years

because I'm a strong believer

that if there is stuff

that you don't enjoy doing,

and it is possible for you to outsource

that thing for less money than your your own personal hourly rate is in

terms of how much money you make with your job

or with your business,

then you should totally outsource that thing.

And so, I've had a cleaner ever since I graduated university,

which was like 7 years ago.

And initially, that was a part-time cleaner who would come in like one like

a few hours every 2 weeks.

and me and my housemate would split the cost of

that because she also hated cleaning

and so that was just

that was just easy enough.

So that saved us a good amount of time.

But now that we're here in Hong Kong where hiring like a full-time domestic

helper is actually fairly affordable,

we now have someone full-time who takes care of all the household chores.

And that again just saves us an enormous amount of time every single week.

And then to add further to the privilege check, um,

one thing that is also helpful,

which is why I put this at the end, is hiring an executive assistant.

So there is a service that we use called Athena.

You just go on their website

and it takes less than a minute to fill out an application.

Athena then suggests some executive assistants that match your profile.

And so I have an executive assistant who handles my emails

and my calendars and any ad hoc tasks

that I need doing.

Obviously, this is a thing.

You need to have some money

and probably be a business owner for this to make sense for you.

But if you do have a business,

if you are a business owner

and you do not yet have an executive assistant

or a personal assistant

or a virtual assistant,

I could not recommend it highly enough.

And then the final bonus habit

that I would love to talk to you about is actually finding a way

to enjoy the things

that you are doing.

This is the core thesis of my book feel good productivity how to do

more of what matters to you

which is that when you find a way to enjoy whatever task

or project you are working on it makes you more productive it makes you

more creative.

It makes you less stressed

and it also gives you more energy to give to the other important areas

of your life.

And if you are interested in learning more about the science

and the philosophy behind this,

I have a video over here

which is actually the first chapter of my book

that is sort of like the introductory material.

And we've taken the audio book and we've animated it with some sick animation.

So you should totally check out

that video right over there

if you want to learn how feeling good is actually the ultimate secret to

productivity.

So thank you so much for watching

and I will see you in

that video.

Bye-bye.