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  • - Hi, my name is Matt,

  • and I'm a certified productivity expert.

  • If you wanna maximize productivity in your day,

  • you need to remove friction and increase efficiencies.

  • That's why I give myself no more than four minutes

  • to prepare for work.

  • Some people put butter in their coffee

  • because it provides long lasting energy.

  • I cut out the middleman and start my day

  • with a stick of butter.

  • My daily journaling practice is an essential part

  • of my morning routine.

  • I start by using my 37 step micro minute planning process

  • to map out every minute of my day in detail.

  • To the untrained eye it's tedious.

  • But to a certified productivity expert,

  • it's my intellectual property that allows me

  • to monetize my work in a way

  • that separates myself from the competition.

  • And now that it's 5:00 p.m, it's time to get to work.

  • Okay, so truth be told,

  • that is not at all what my days look like.

  • But if you're a subscriber to this channel,

  • you already know that.

  • While I'm not a certified productivity expert,

  • I am somebody who likes to geek out about productivity

  • and talk about it on this channel and dive into ways

  • that we can be more efficient with our days.

  • And one of the ways that I like to keep it real

  • is by showing what my actual days look like.

  • And so in this video,

  • I wanna share a productivity vlog with you.

  • This is what my days actually look like.

  • I walk you through everything from organizing my to-do lists

  • to planning out phone calls and everything in between.

  • And so I just wanna show you that productivity

  • isn't always what it seems like,

  • and you don't always get done

  • what you think you're gonna get done.

  • And so let's get into it.

  • (soft music)

  • (chuckles)

  • So this is how my hair looks when I wake up.

  • No, it does not always look perfect.

  • This is it.

  • So it's just after 5:30 a.m.

  • I usually don't wake up this early.

  • You know, most of the time I'd wake up between 6:00 or 7:00

  • but Natalie has been waking up around 4:00 a.m

  • because she has been working with clients

  • in the United States, we're currently in Sydney.

  • And so I wake up a little bit early, which is fine,

  • 'cause I'm a morning person anyway, so.

  • Time to start the day.

  • (soft music)

  • All jokes aside,

  • I do try to make my mornings as easy as possible

  • to build momentum.

  • So I typically prepare my clothes the night before work

  • and I grind up my coffee the night before,

  • so I can start brewing right away.

  • (soft music)

  • (phone rings)

  • It sounds like you're on an airplane.

  • I'm doing a vlog, so say hi to YouTube.

  • - What up YouTube.

  • - Mark, so tell people what it's like to work with me.

  • - "Ugh Mark, I have this idea, we need it done tomorrow.

  • I hope that works."

  • #slowgrowth

  • So I've got a really busy day plan today.

  • I have six phone calls scheduled in for the morning,

  • try to batch all of them for one day.

  • And so it makes for a bit of a crazy day.

  • And so first thing I got 30 minutes here,

  • so I wanna quickly check my email,

  • see if there's anything urgent in there.

  • Go through my to-do list as well as my calendar,

  • just to make sure I'm across everything

  • that's happening today.

  • You can see the entire week from a bird's eye view here

  • in an app that I use called Teux Deux.

  • So I typically like to keep my to-do lists

  • each day to around three to five,

  • I would say primary items

  • like the most important tasks for the day.

  • But sometimes on a day like today,

  • there's a bunch of small things that I need to do

  • and I don't wanna forget about them.

  • And so that's why you'll see a list like this

  • that's a little bit longer than normal.

  • So you can see right at the top,

  • I've got phone calls from 7:00 a.m to 12:00 p.m.

  • I've got a little bit of a break in between there.

  • Filming productivity vlog, that's what I'm doing right now.

  • Write newsletter.

  • So I've written this week's newsletter

  • for my personal newsletter.

  • And then I'm gonna write next week's review,

  • Slow Growth newsletter.

  • That's a new little project I've been working on.

  • Review social assets, import productivity vlog,

  • send out trial projects,

  • that's for the people that I'm planning on hiring.

  • Just sending them out the test project to see how they do,

  • to see if they can kind of fit within the style

  • that I'm trying to create for Slow Growth.

  • And then finally talk about Slow Growth newsletter

  • in this video.

  • That's what I'm gonna do right now.

  • So over the past three months in secret,

  • I've been working with my team to develop a newsletter.

  • I wanted to make a self-development newsletter

  • that I would subscribe to it.

  • So my standards were insanely high with this thing

  • and I am so proud of what we've been able to create for you.

  • Start your week every Monday with Snail Mail.

  • In this once a week newsletter, you'll get original articles

  • on self-development and productivity,

  • as well as a digest of inspiring articles

  • from around the internet.

  • And yes, it's free.

  • It is, if I do say so myself, really freaking good.

  • I just wanna be able to provide

  • some really great self-development advice.

  • And yeah, I subscribed to it.

  • I think you should too.

  • Go check it out in the description below.

  • But yeah, you can see my day today

  • is really just booked up with lots of phone calls.

  • I've got six phone calls today.

  • These phone calls are with Slow Growth candidates.

  • So I've gone through this crazy process

  • where we got about 2,000 plus applications

  • in for some jobs that we're hiring for Slow Growth,

  • I'm really trying to build a creative team

  • to help me make really awesome self-development content.

  • And so that's been so much work.

  • This has been my life for the past really month or so.

  • Last week I got on about 25 phone calls.

  • This week you can see I've got about nine or 10.

  • But it's also a really exciting process.

  • I thought that I would hate this

  • 'cause I'm kind of like, I don't know.

  • I work by myself often.

  • I don't do a lot of phone calls.

  • But speaking with other people, you know what it, it's good.

  • It's good for your soul.

  • And it's been great to talk with other creatives

  • and people that I've been inspired by.

  • And so, yeah, I'm excited for today actually.

  • I think it's gonna be great.

  • Hello.

  • Hey, how's it going?

  • Oh no, I'm just talking to myself.

  • Yeah, I know, this is just the role. Yeah.

  • Sometimes what you have to do is you gotta film

  • the role of yourself saying anything.

  • So let's talk about productivity for a moment.

  • So the two most productive things that you can do

  • when you look at your to-do list is to select an item

  • and either delete it or delegate it.

  • Deleting it is something

  • that's pretty easy for me, you know.

  • As somebody who's intentional,

  • I really like to think through what I'm doing

  • and making sure that I'm not just spinning my wheels

  • or doing something just to do it.

  • And so that comes naturally to me.

  • But delegating something,

  • it's something that I haven't done as much of.

  • Now, it's easier for the skills that I clearly don't have.

  • Whether it's something like design or coding for a website,

  • it's easy for me to hire for those things

  • because I don't know what I'm doing.

  • But when it comes to all the other elements

  • of making a video.

  • I find that in the past,

  • I haven't been really great at delegating it.

  • But I have also found that's really limiting for myself

  • just because when you delegate somebody,

  • when you find somebody who's amazing

  • who can do the job better than you.

  • Let's say it's a video editor or an animator,

  • they make what you're doing better.

  • And they also allow you to free up your time.

  • And so being productive is like allocating your time

  • and your resources appropriately.

  • And so that's something that I'm just getting into.

  • I think for the longest time,

  • I've been a little bit hesitant to do it

  • because yes, I'm a bit of a perfectionist.

  • I have very high standards for everything that I make,

  • as you might know, from watching my channel.

  • And so it's been something I've been hesitant to do,

  • but it's something lately that I've realized I have to do,

  • if I wanna reach my goals,

  • if I wanna create the things that I wanna create

  • without burning out.

  • Because I can certainly try to do it all myself,

  • but that's, I've tried to do that before,

  • and it usually doesn't work out well.

  • And so that's why I'm having all these phone calls,

  • that's why I've been doing all these interviews,

  • that's why I'm building the team at Slow Growth.

  • Because it's something that I really believe in.

  • And I think if I can pull together the right team members,

  • we can make something amazing together.

  • And yes, I might even be more productive in the process.

  • So that's kind of where I'm at right now

  • in terms of how I view productivity.

  • Deleting something is great, doing it yourself is okay.

  • Delegating something, that's where it's at.

  • (soft music)

  • Okay, so for lunch today,

  • I have some delicious leftovers from a local spot

  • in Bondi called the Char.

  • So this right here, some peri peri sauce.

  • Oh, so good.

  • Is it healthy?

  • I don't care.

  • I'm working hard.

  • I get to reward myself.

  • And right here,

  • I've got some beautiful leftover chicken and some,

  • is it called tahini?

  • Tahini, is that right?

  • Is it tahini?

  • Tahini, don't know how to spell it.

  • No, that's not tahini.

  • What is that?

  • tabbouleh, is it tabbouleh?

  • It's tabbouleh.

  • Tabbouleh, as everybody knows

  • is traditional in the Arab world.

  • So yeah, I'm pretty cultured, what can I say.

  • I eat tabbouleh.

  • Okay, real talk for a minute.

  • My wife Natalie, obviously from Australia,

  • from Sydney originally.

  • She would tell me about the wonders

  • of the Australian chicken shop.

  • I was like, yeah, I know.

  • Like we've got chicken shops, like that's of course.

  • Yeah, we've got chicken.

  • We do roast.

  • We do it.

  • We don't do it in America.

  • Like coming to Australia,

  • one of my favorite things are the chicken shops.

  • The chicken is unreal, the stuffing.

  • You go into one of these chicken shops,

  • they've got like 40 chickens.

  • To a vegan, this is gonna sound horrifying.

  • To a carnivore like me, this is what I dream about.

  • They do cheesecakes in cups.

  • It's amazing.

  • Like I'm like, how come cheesecake

  • hasn't always come in a cup?

  • Where has this been my whole life?

  • So when I get really busy,

  • I do tend to order out quite a bit.

  • I try to eat as healthy as I can when I order out.

  • This meal is relatively healthy.

  • It's not awful.

  • (soft music)

  • So right now it's almost 1:00 p.m,

  • which means I have about an hour left of work

  • to do before I wrap up for the day.

  • I know this because I started setting an alarm.

  • And so there's my alarm right there, 2:00 p.m stop working,

  • with a little love heart emoji.

  • So I started setting this alarm clock

  • because when you're waking up early,

  • you can have a tendency to work until the typical time

  • that most people finish up work around 4:00 or 5:00 p.m,

  • maybe 6:00 p.m.

  • But when you're waking up at 5:00 a.m,

  • that would mean that you'd be working

  • for 12 plus hours a day.

  • And that's not sustainable.

  • To me working 12 hours a day consistently

  • would be the fastest way to lead me to burn out.

  • And so what I've started to do

  • because I am so passionate about my work, I love my work.

  • I've set this alarm clock 2:00 p.m, 3:00 p.m,

  • depending on upon what time I start.

  • And it's a reminder for me to put the laptop down and say,

  • okay, that's it, that's enough for today.

  • I've gotten as far as I possibly could in one day,

  • let me rest and relax for the rest of my day.

  • Let me show you guys my to-do list

  • to see how I actually did today.

  • Did I get all the things done that I set out to do?

  • I did not get a chance to write the newsletter today.

  • Just one of those things where it's hard to get

  • in a creative mindset to write

  • when I am doing all these phone calls

  • and really activating an entirely different

  • part of my brain.

  • I'm probably just gonna push that to Thursday,

  • that way it's matched up with the right YouTube video.

  • I feel like that's...

  • Like I can get into a state of flow

  • where I write the newsletter.

  • It'll help me kind of get into that flow

  • writing the YouTube video.

  • Import productivity vlog footage,

  • that's what I need to do right after I finish shooting

  • this little shot here.

  • And I talked about this little growth newsletter

  • in this video.

  • If you guys haven't yet subscribed

  • to my new newsletter for Slow Growth, go check it out.

  • Go to slowgrowth.com/newsletter

  • or click the link in the description below.

  • It's one of my favorite self-development newsletters

  • that I subscribe to.

  • And I think it's gonna be your favorite as well.

  • So I think that's it.

  • Yeah, I think I'm just gonna import this footage

  • and wrap up my day.

  • Thanks for watching my friends.

  • And I will see you next time.

  • Bye.

  • (gentle instrumental music)

- Hi, my name is Matt,

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