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  • Uh, hey Marie.

  •   Yeah?

  •   Knock knock.

  •   Who’s there?

  •   A little lady.

  •   A little lady who?

  •   I didn't know you could yodel!

  •   Hey, it’s Marie Forleo and you are watching

  • MarieTV, the place to be to create a business and life you love.

  • Now, I have a question for you.

  • Do you ever have one of those days where it feels like youre doing a ton of things

  • but at the end of the day you didn't get anything really important done?

  • I can relate.

  • That’s why today I want to show you a simple three-step method to making progress on your

  • most important work while at the same time training your brain to be more focused.

  •   You see, were living in a time when we

  • are allowing our brains to be trained to underperform.

  • Weve become addicted to checking our phones.

  • Right?

  • To social media and all kinds of stuff.

  • And in doing so we are reducing our ability to stay focused and do the deep, important

  • work that were meant to do in this world.

  •   Now, youve got to ask yourself.

  • What do you want to say at the end of the day?

  • Yay!

  • I’m a few emails closer to inbox zero and I clicked like on everybody’s posts?”

  • Or do you want to say, “you know what?

  • I did two hours of really great work on my book or my website or my painting.”

  •   I mean, it’s a no brainer, right?

  • Of course the latter.

  • Now, what I’m about to suggest isn’t complicated and it is not time consuming.

  • But it will require you to take back control of your time.

  • Take back control of this beautiful brain and trust that your world will not immediately

  • fall apart if you don't immediately respond to every ding or every buzz or every question

  • or every request.

  • It’s just three simple steps and, I promise, if you use these three steps every single

  • day youll not only get more important work done, but youll start breaking the destructive,

  • addictive behaviors that are killing your brain and your happiness.

  •   Step number one is do creative work first.

  • Now, a big mistake that’s really easy to make in today’s world is to try and do all

  • the little things and knock them out first.

  • And then you have this fantasy that youre going to have all this time for the big, important,

  • creative work later in the afternoon.

  • But have you ever noticed that this rarely frigginworks?

  • Am I right?

  •   Amen, sister.

  •   I mean, ain’t that the truth?

  •   Did she bug my phone?

  •   Here’s why trying to do all the little things

  • first is a really terrible idea.

  • Because when you wake up you have this full tank of cognitive fuel.

  • But what many of us forget is that we only have a finite amount of this super powerful,

  • cognitive fuel each and every day.

  • And every single time that you make a decision or you resist temptation or exert any kind

  • of self control, you start to drain your cognitive fuel tank.

  • I want you to think about it kind of like this.

  •   “Oh, should I answer this email or keep

  • it as unread?

  • Oh, God.

  • Where should I make a reservation for dinner tonight?

  • Dammit, gotta reschedule that doctor’s appointment.

  • Oh, yeah.

  • You know what?

  • I really need a haircut too.

  • Why is he texting me?

  • Where’s that poo emoji?

  • Wait.

  • Heart emoji or poo emoji?

  • Ugh, heart emoji.

  • Oh, my goodness.

  •   So you decide.

  • Do you want to use that limited cognitive fuel on something really important and amazing?

  • Or do you want to blow your daily wad on a bunch of dumb crap that doesn’t really matter?

  •   Moving on.

  • Step number two.

  • Put your entire life on airplane mode.

  • So don't try and ignore your phone or ignore the emails or ignore the slack messages or

  • whatever else that you have that dings and rings and pops up.

  • That’s like me telling Kuma to ignore this slice of salami.

  • Ain’t gonna happen.

  •   Who can’t ignore the salami?

  • Who can’t ignore the salami?

  •   Remember what you just learned like two seconds

  • ago about that cognitive fuel?

  • Resisting temptation is one of the biggest cognitive fuel suckers.

  • It’s practically a guzzler.

  • You know what?

  • It’s like the Hummer of brain fuel.

  • So rather than resist temptation, just eliminate it.

  • And that means you have to put your entire life on airplane mode.

  •   Now, obviously turn off all the notifications.

  • So close all the tabs, close all the windows, turn off the apps, and especially for your

  • phone I suggest just turning the damn thing off.

  • However, youve also gotta shut off some people too.

  • And that means that you might have to tell your kids and your spouse and your coworkers

  • that for the next two hours or one hour or three hours that you don't exist.

  • Kind of like this.

  • See?

  • Nobody here.

  •   And then finally our favorite step is step

  • number three: write a onesie.

  • So wherever youre working what I want you to do is remove everything from your sight.

  • So make it super clean and super clear.

  • So no books, no notebooks, noto dolists.

  • Then here’s what I want you to do.

  • I want you to take out just a blank piece of paper, something like this, and then just

  • get a big, old magic marker and write the one task that you need to work on right now

  • on this piece of paper.

  • And we call this making a onesie.

  •   Youre talking about something like this?

  •   Oh, Jams.

  • That’s amazing, but that’s not the kind of onesie that I’m trying to teach you guys

  • about right here.

  •   What about something like this?

  •   Oh, Greg.

  • That’s fierce.

  • That’s a fierce onesie.

  • But that’s not the kind of onesie.

  • This onesie is just something a little bit different.

  •   How about this?

  •   Well, you know, maybe I can make an exception.

  • This is a very special kind of onesie.

  •   Now, when you are making your onesie you have

  • to remember to verberize it.

  • Now, if you don't remember that episode it is below this one.

  • But here’s the short version.

  • Don't just writeblog post.”

  • That is too vague and it’s not actionable.

  • That’s not a onesie.

  • Instead you need to use a clear, directive verb like this: “finish the blog post.”

  • Now this, my friends, is a onesie.

  •   Onesie!

  • Onesie!

  • Onesie!

  •   Yeah.

  • And what you do when you have your onesie, you put it right next to you like this.

  • Go there, little onesie.

  • And then for the next 30 minutes or the next two hours or whatever, you stay totally focused

  • on completing that one task.

  • And any time you start acting like a digital crackhead looking around for something to

  • click or double tap, the only thing youre going to see is this big beautiful one task

  • wonder: the onesie.

  •   In fact, we believe so much in the power of

  • the onesie that we felt like it deserved its own dance break.

  •   [Onesie song]

  •   And if you need a little reminder, rock on

  • with this Tweetable:  

  • Be a rebel.

  • Answer your creative dreams instead of your emails.”

  •   Now I would love to hear from you.

  • Let’s test drive your onesie right now.

  • In the comments below, write that one task that youre going to put on that one piece

  • of paper.

  • And remember to verberize it.

  • And to my mom who writes everything in all caps all the time, I love you.

  • This one is for you.

  • I invite everybody to join my mama and put it on caps lock and write that onesie.

  • Leave a comment below and let me know.

  •   Now, as always, the best conversations happen

  • at MarieForleo.com, so go over there and leave a comment now.

  • Once youre there be sure to subscribe to our email list and become an MF Insider.

  • Youll get instant access to a powerful audio training that I created called How To

  • Get Anything You Want.

  • And youll also get some exclusive content, some special giveaways, and personal updates

  • from me that I just don't share anywhere else.

  •   Stay on your game and keep going for your

  • dreams because the world needs that special gift that only you have.

  • Thank you so much for watching and I’ll catch you next time on MarieTV.

  •   Have you been thinking about starting your

  • own business?

  • Is fear, confusion, or overwhelm slowing you down?

  • We can fast track your growth and save you years of expensive trial and error.

  • Get the guidance you need to make your dream business come to life, guaranteed.

  • Learn more at StartTheRightBusiness.com.

  •   I had coffee!

  •   So anyway

  •   What about this?

  •   I’m gonna go home, Josh will be like what

  • the f*** did you do at work today?

  •   Please don’t fire me for touching it.

Uh, hey Marie.

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