Focus on embodying the identity of the person you wish to become, as every action is a “vote” for that identity. Building this body of evidence and pride makes maintaining habits more resilient and natural.
Dedicate regular time (weekly or annually) to reflect on your values, goals, and how you spend your time. This “thinking about what to work on” is the highest leverage activity for ensuring your efforts are optimally directed.
Actively create conditions where desired behaviors are obvious and easy, and undesired behaviors are difficult and invisible. This reduces reliance on willpower and makes habit formation more inevitable.
To establish a new habit, scale it down to something that takes two minutes or less to do. This helps master the art of showing up consistently before attempting to improve or optimize the habit.
Understand that progress often accumulates unseen, like an cube heating up, until a “phase transition” occurs. Don’t give up prematurely when immediate visible results aren’t apparent, as the work is being stored.
Practice failing publicly and keep striving, learning that persistence matters more than always winning. This builds mental toughness and confidence to tackle new challenges without self-sabotage.
Give yourself permission to pursue “magical outcomes” and “go for it” without talking yourself out of it first. Let the world tell you “no” and adjust, rather than self-limiting your potential.
Experiment broadly to discover tasks or areas where you have a natural aptitude or skill, then double down and work hard on those. This makes you highly competitive and effective.
Recognize that working harder on the wrong thing is less effective than working on the right thing. Dedicate time to strategic thinking and reflection to ensure your efforts are directed optimally, as you cannot outwork someone working on a better thing.
To build a habit, make it obvious, attractive, easy, and satisfying. The more these forces work for you, the more likely you are to stick with the desired behavior.
To eliminate an undesired habit, make it invisible, unattractive, difficult, and unsatisfying. This increases friction and consequences, making you less likely to engage in the behavior.
Realize that doing anything new involves inherent uncertainty, as knowledge is about the past and decisions are about the future. Focus on your current situation (A), ultimate goal (Z), and just the very next step (B) without needing to plan everything.
Rehearse visually and emphasize the positive aspects of upcoming events, or retrospectively highlight wins. This trains your brain to focus on constructive details and fosters a positive outlook.
Be aware of how much your desire for an outcome is driven by ego (e.g., social status, praise). Strive to “get it right” rather than “be right,” fostering an environment of open feedback and learning.
Adopt a mindset that you are not inherently right, but rather continuously striving to become “less wrong.” This fosters humility, openness to learning, and a willingness to adjust your beliefs.
Recognize that consistent, regular effort builds capacity and leads to sustained progress, while intensity often makes for a good story but lacks long-term impact without consistency.
While identity can be a powerful driver of habits, clinging too tightly to a fixed identity can hinder growth and prevent adaptation to new information or circumstances. Be willing to evolve your self-perception.
Understand that progress, both physical and mental, requires “unlearning” old identities and ways of thinking. Be open to adjusting your self-perception and methods as new information or situations arise.
Don’t be beholden to specific professional or social labels; instead, focus on the lifestyle you desire and the impact you want to make. This opens up a wider range of possibilities and prevents self-restriction.
Focus on activities that yield more output per unit of effort and “keep working for you once it’s done.” Examples include creating evergreen content or recorded interviews that provide lasting value.
Ensure your small daily actions are “accumulating” and oriented towards a larger, long-term outcome (e.g., 10 years). Avoid spending time on trivial things that don’t add up to significant progress.
When something isn’t working, don’t just try again the same way; “try, try, try differently.” Experiment with various approaches (iterations) to find what works better instead of banging your head against the wall.
When a strategy or habit is producing good results, avoid changing or tinkering with it prematurely due to boredom or desire for novelty. Continue doing it until it genuinely stops being effective.
Experiment with a number of small things, double down on what works, and then keep doing it until it stops working. Avoid common shortcuts like insufficient experimentation, lack of full commitment, or giving up due to boredom.
Put yourself in positions for good things to happen by consistently creating valuable “surface area” (e.g., sharing work publicly) and building a large “margin of safety” (e.g., financial flexibility) to handle unexpected life events.
Recognize that your thoughts are downstream from your consumption, so to generate better, more creative output (e.g., writing), prioritize reading and consuming high-quality, relevant inputs. Reading is like filling the car with gas, writing is driving.
When reading, actively look for ideas relevant to your current projects, highlight passages, and immediately transfer them to a project-specific document. This integrates learning directly into your work and makes notes actionable.
As opportunities increase with success, continuously raise your standards for what you say “yes” to. Regularly reassess and say “no” to things you previously accepted to maintain focus and prevent overcommitment.
Consider the optimal order for actions to maximize long-term benefits, such as aiming for a significant achievement early in a career to gain lasting status or advantages. This leverages early efforts for future gains.
Design your work so that different projects and platforms feed into each other, creating a synergistic network where efforts accumulate and amplify. Ensure everything points to each other to maximize reach and growth.
Focus on areas where external forces (e.g., internet growth, audience building) are naturally working in your favor. This makes your efforts more effective and provides a powerful advantage.
Understand what “season” you are in (e.g., earning, family, creative freedom) and optimize your habits and focus accordingly. Avoid trying to force old habits into new life stages, as this creates friction.
View habits as automatic solutions to recurring problems in your environment. Regularly evaluate if your current solutions are optimal and brainstorm better, more enjoyable alternatives.
When trying to build a new habit, ask “What would this look like if it was fun?” Brainstorm many enjoyable ways to achieve the desired outcome, as fun increases stickiness and persistence when things get tough.
Be mindful of the potentially detrimental effects of excessive news consumption and social media browsing. Consider opting out or severely limiting engagement to protect your mental well-being and focus.
Implement regular, dedicated time (e.g., monthly date nights) to foster important relationships, ensuring deep connection and conversation beyond daily logistics and tasks.
Find ways to make the progress of your habits visible and immediate (e.g., habit trackers, marking Xs). This counteracts the delayed gratification inherent in compounding processes and helps maintain motivation.
Understand that many crucial aspects of life (e.g., relationships, health, focus) are ongoing, not one-time achievements. Embrace this continuous effort rather than seeking a “finish line” to maintain sustainable engagement.
When creating content, aim to distill complex information into its most useful and actionable essence, making it highly valuable and respectful of the audience’s time. The goal is to make other resources irrelevant.
Provide sticky, memorable “soundbites” for easy recall and daily application, but also offer deeper, nuanced explanations (e.g., in books) for those who need a more thorough understanding.
Focus on consistently performing the fundamental, obvious actions in any domain first. This approach ensures you achieve the majority of results before getting bogged down in complex optimizations.
When learning a new subject, cast a very wide net for information (broad funnel) but apply a rigorous selection process (tight filter) to identify only the most meaningful and useful pieces. This ensures high-quality insights.
Strategically leverage your existing resources (e.g., time, audience, status) to acquire new, compounding advantages over time. This helps build momentum and puts you in a much different position.
Sometimes, procrastination indicates a lack of genuine desire for a goal. Pay attention to what you naturally gravitate towards and what you avoid, as this can reveal your true interests and priorities.
Build your reputation by consistently producing high-quality, useful, valuable, and actionable work, with a primary focus on the reader’s or user’s needs rather than cultivating a specific image.
Position products by addressing timeless desires, clearly stating their purpose, using an ownable/unmistakable phrase, and including an element of contrast or surprise. This helps products stand out and resonate with audiences.
Prioritize protecting your time over squeezing out marginal returns in investing. Consider simple, diversified strategies like index funds to achieve wealth without consuming excessive time and effort.
Prioritize creating content and using formats (e.g., books, blog posts) that have a long “half-life” and persist over time. This ensures your work provides enduring value and continues to work for you long after its creation.
When creating a product or content, analyze 3-4 star reviews of existing offerings to identify what people like, what’s missing, and where you can provide unique value. This helps in understanding market needs.