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Let's be honest with each other here.
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You're not actually supposed to be on YouTube right now.
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Right?
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Now you probably have some huge assignment
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that's staring at you from your desk right now,
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but the thought of doing any work
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on that assignment right now
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is the last thing on your mind
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because you have literally no motivation to do it.
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And if you're feeling that way,
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well you're not alone.
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I feel that way all the time.
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And despite all the years I have put
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into productivity research
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and all the videos you see on this channel,
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at least once a week
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I run into a situation where I have to do something
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and I have basically no motivation to do it.
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So this is a pretty common problem.
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And despite those immortal words from Shia LaBeouf
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constantly ringing in our heads ...
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Just do it!
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A lot of us continually deal with it.
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Now within the realm of productivity,
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there are both long term fixes and short term fixes.
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And for a problem like this,
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a problem of motivation,
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long term fixes would be things like
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building better self discipline
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or building strong habits
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or creating a better study space.
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But today I wanna focus on the short term fixes.
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If you have something that you need to get done today,
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but you're feeling completely unmotivated,
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what can you do?
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Well today I'm gonna go through a four step process
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that I go through every single time
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that I'm feeling this way.
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And through personal experience over several years,
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I have learned that doing these things really does help,
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even if my brain tells me that,
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this time I really am having an off day.
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This time it's not going to work.
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When I actually take the time
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and put in the effort to put these things into practice,
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they really do help.
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And the first one on the list is to simply
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go outside and go for a walk.
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This is probably the simplest practice on the list.
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But it's also the one that my brain
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always tries to convince itself that it doesn't need to do.
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Because when I have a lot of work to do,
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the thought of getting up from my desk
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and going outside,
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seems like a huge waste of time.
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But every single time that I do it,
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when I'm feeling unmotivated
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or I'm dealing with brain fog,
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it always helps to raise my motivation levels
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and clear my head.
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Now I could send you all sorts of scientific evidence
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about why this is true.
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For instance,
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Dr. John Ratey's book, "Spark,"
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goes into all sorts of detail about how exercise
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raises your cognitive abilities after you do it.
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And there are also studies that show that Vitamin D,
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which you get primarily through sunlight exposure,
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can help with symptoms of fatigue.
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And there's also the Japanese concept of Shinrin-Yoku,
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or forest bathing,
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which asserts that exposure to nature,
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you know forests and trees like this,
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can have all sorts of health benefits.
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But the main thing I want to share here
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is my personal experience with this practice.
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Because my ability to focus is always
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100% of the time improved when I choose to go for a walk.
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Or to be more accurate,
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whenever I choose to go outside and do any kind of exercise.
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Could be playing basketball or skateboarding.
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The reason I chose to focus on walking here
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is that it's easy.
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You don't need any equipment.
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You don't need a basketball.
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You don't need a bike.
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And you can even do it if it's cold.
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As they say in Norway,
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there is no such thing as bad weather,
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only bad clothes.
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Now let's go back to the studio.
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So once you've gone out and finished that walk
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and you brought your mental energy up just a little bit,
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the next thing on the list to do
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is to decide on one specific task to work on.
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If you have a to do list with multiple items on it,
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put it away.
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You need to commit to a single task
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and you don't want that to do list
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to be a temptation to jump to something else
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once it gets difficult.
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It's all about committing.
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Imagine a hamster ball with three different hamsters in it.
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If all those hamsters
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are trying to go their own little separate direction,
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then that hamster ball is going to go nowhere.
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But if they all decide to go in one direction,
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well they're probably going to trip all over each other
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because hamster balls
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were not designed for multiple hamsters,
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but luckily your brain is not a hamster ball.
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And when you decide on one specific direction to go in
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and you commit to it,
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you make progress.
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Now you can make this commitment purely mental.
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But I also find that it sometimes works
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to pull out a scrap of paper
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and write down the task that you decide to work on,
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so that way it can be sitting next to you on your desk
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and constantly reminding you if you start to forget.
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And if you want an electronic solution,
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there's also a chrome extension called momentum,
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which basically replaces your new tab screen
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with a cool wallpaper
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and it lets you decide on one singular focus
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that you can type in and then set.
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Alright onto step three in the process.
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Once you've decided on that one task
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you're going to work on,
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the next step is to clear to neutral.
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This means to clear up your work space,
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your desk,
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and your desktop on your computer,
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and setting that space back to a state
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where it's prepped for that single task
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you decided to work on and nothing else.
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Anthony Bourdain talks about a similar concept
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in his book, "Kitchen Confidential."
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He talks about how a chef that he used to work with
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went up to one of his line cooks
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and ran his hands across the cooks really dirty,
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crumb-filled cutting board,
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put it up to his face and said,
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this is what your brain looks like.
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Work clean.
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Every chef knows the value of mise en place.
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Did I get that right this time?
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- [Offscreen Male] Yep. - Yes!
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Which is a French term that essentially means,
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everything in its place.
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When your work area is organized
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and set up for the task that you have decided on,
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you are going to work on that task a lot more effectively.
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Again remember that hamster ball.
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Finally,
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to actually get yourself into the process of doing the task,
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utilize what I like to call,
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the low effort hack.
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This is a useful little mental hack that I use,
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on pretty much,
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a daily basis.
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Because usually when I feel mental resistance to a task,
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like researching for a video
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or writing a video script,
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that mental resistance is usually because
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of how difficult it is to do the task well.
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If I'm writing a video script,
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usually I feel resistance writing the next paragraph
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because I feel like it needs to have a better word play
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or a funny reference.
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And when I'm researching,
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I know that it's gonna be difficult
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to actually find the scientific studies
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that will back up what I'm trying to say.
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But,
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and this is where the whole low effort thing comes in,
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what isn't difficult
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is just writing what's on the top of my mind right now.
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If I can't come up with a joke or a reference
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that will make the segment I'm writing funnier,
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that's fine.
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I'll just write what's in my head right now
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and I'll come back and make it funnier later.
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And it's the exact same story when I'm referencing research.
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If I really don't want to go find the exact source
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or that one fact that I'm trying to reference,
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then I won't.
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In the script I'll put in brackets and all caps,
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reference that one study and figure out where it came from,
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and then I'll do that later.
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Now doing this means that you're creating something
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that you're gonna have to come back and fix later on.
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But that's okay.
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Remember the blank page is the enemy.
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It's far easier
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to come back and fix an imperfect mess later on,
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then it is to create something perfect
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from scratch on the first try.
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That imperfect mess
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gives you hand holds that you can grab onto.
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Additionally,
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another huge benefit of starting from a place of low effort,
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is that sometimes
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you just need a little bit of a warm up
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to get yourself into a place
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where you're really creative and in the zone.
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Back when I was a teenager,
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my dad had a weight training schedule for me and my brother.
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We had to work out at least three times a week.
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And sometimes I'd come down into the gym with him
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and I'd say,
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dad today is an off day,
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I really just want to go light.
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I'm not feeling it.
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And I will never forget what he told me
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on one of those occasions.
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He said that sometimes you hit your PRs,
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your personal records,
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on off days.
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And I'm actually not making this up,
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this really did happen.
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One of those days I came down to the basement,
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I said dad,
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it's an off day.
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So he had me go through a longer than normal warm-up period
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and on that day,
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I actually hit a PR.
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In fact I think it was actually 2 25,
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which if you're a weightlifter
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you know is two plates on each side of the bar,
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and that was one of the mentally,
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most difficult PRs for me to hit.
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It took me a really long time to get.
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So that should serve as an illustration.
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Even if you feel like today is an off day,
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just use that low effort hack
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and put some time in.
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There is a big difference
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between your state of mind before you start working
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and your state of mind once you're in the flow state
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once you're immersed in your project.
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The trick is just getting yourself there.
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So one of the things I've been working on for a while now,
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kind of behind the scenes,
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is a brand new design for my website,
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College Info Geek,
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which is where you may have seen
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some of the articles that go along with the videos I make.
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Though,
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I should probably say,
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we've been working on a new design
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