Brian Tracy’s Guide To Exponential Improvement
I was procrastinating the other day when Rob shared a video on Twitter.
It promised a growth rate of one-thousand percent more productivity.
I figured that that promise was enough to listen to the ten minute video, and I’m glad I did. I’ve posted the video below, and after that I’ll give my cliff notes version and thoughts.
Momentum principle: Try making a tiny improvement. Try and change by a small increment every day. If you become more productive by a tenth of a percent every day, then over time you’ll become exponentially more productive.
It’s almost impossible to double your productivity in one go. In a hundred goes it’s easy.
The 1000% Formula Routine
Read something positive and uplifting every morning for the first hour you’re awake. It’s beneficial if you read something to do with the field you want success in.
After you’ve read for your hour, plan out your day. Write all the major things you need to do for the day, including one to three major goals for the day.
Then organise your list by priority.
Then, start on your first and most important task of the day. Do that with concentration and keep going until it’s done.
Then repeat the process for the second-most important thing on your list.
When you’re not working, listen to productive audio. Brian Tracy says to listen to audiobooks in your car. I don’t drive to work, but I listen to audiobooks while I’m eating and I’ll watch video courses and interesting lectures as well. You could do this when you exercise or whatnot.
Another tip is to, after working, ask yourself what went right and what you could change for next time. Don’t think about what you did incorrectly, because that’s dwelling on negatives. Instead, write down what you can do to improve and frame it based on your current successes and victories.
Finally, you have to treat everyone with a positive frame of mind. Treat your friends, family and customers as if they are important. This creates a positive feedback loop in the way that people treat you.
One Book Per Week
Tracy says that a PhD. Consists around of the reading of thirty to fifty books. One book per week in your field is the equivalent of a PhD. In a year.
(Read also: Get a Free University Level Education.)
My Commentary
I think that this is a pretty good framework to build productivity. In the video Brian Tracy gives specific percentage increases to each action, which seems a bit sketchy. He doesn’t say where he gets those figures, and I think that it’s a bit of a misnomer.
The general point is that if you set a few decent habits in terms of your productivity and then commit to being incrementally better each day, you’ll achieve big results over time.
Just like yesterday’s article, this process is about long term success as opposed to short term success.
Funny Side Note
Interestingly enough, check out the comments on the above YouTube video. It’s pretty enlightening. On a video about long term habit building and success, you have three commenter types that completely miss the point (or otherwise ignore it):
- The guys who are spamming their scam links for quick money
- The guys who are joking and otherwise saying, “I could never do this”
- The hater-types who are saying why the formula is wrong. They’re using small details to obscure the larger point
Final Thoughts
This isn’t the usual blog-fare, but I figure that Brian Tracy’s 1000% formula video is pretty interesting and it’s a useful guide for some productivity hacks that aren’t going to cause you distress or cost you money to do.
Obviously, habit building is a better productivity tool than relying on life hacks. This video is an example of the former, and should help you.
As always, thoughts are welcome and if you’ve got some good habit building tips, drop them in the comments!