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7: When I think about being productive,

9: I think about a concept that's usually talked about

11: in the realm of video games, actions per minute,

15: or APM, as a lot of people like to say.

17: In real-time strategy games and MOBAs

20: and in other games, like Don't Starve, every second counts

24: and learning how to move and act as quickly as possible

26: can mean the difference between victory and defeat,

30: between, well, starving and not starving.

33: In other words, move fast or get left behind.

36: But the sheer volume of actions you can perform

38: is only half the battle.

39: If there's no plan behind the actions,

42: no greater vision ensuring each movement is the right one,

45: then, well, you're just wasting energy,

48: or possibly even worse.

50: So today we're gonna dig into

51: how you can effectively plan and prioritize your work,

54: both on the small scale,

56: so you know how to best plan each work day,

58: and on a larger scale,

59: turning an eye towards the weeks and months head.

62: Now, both of these are important to master

64: in a general sense,

65: but even more so when you're working from home

67: and are much more responsible

68: for how you manage your own time and energy.

71: When all that management is on you, it's crucial

73: that you're able to set the right priorities.

75: Like, for example, should I have prioritized

77: building an entirely new set for this video?

80: Well, probably not.

81: But, hey, this is a learning space.

83: You see this tastefully selected amp?

85: See this vintage camera from the antique store

87: that doesn't actually work

88: but really ties the set together?

90: Yeah, this is a learning space,

91: not a judgment space, Derick.

93: So let's start learning and let's kick that off

96: with how to properly plan your day.

98: At the most basic level, I plan my day

100: by creating what I call a daily list.

103: Now, I do this on the whiteboard in my office

104: but you can do it basically anywhere.

106: You can use a paper daily list

107: or even rely on the due dates in your task manager.

110: But whatever method you use,

112: there are a few things you should keep in mind

114: when you're doing your planning.

116: First, realize that the due dates in your task manager

119: may not paint a perfect picture

121: of what you should actually do today

122: or, indeed, what you can do today.

125: Now, I say this because I know that I am guilty

128: of continually allowing my intentions

130: to eclipse my abilities and if I don't stop myself,

134: I will often write down way more tasks

136: than I can realistically get done in any one given day.

140: So try your best to keep this list limited

142: to what you can actually do and when you fail,

145: you will inevitably fail sometimes,

147: make an observation of it

149: so you can plan more accurately for the next day.

152: And realize that it might actually take some time

154: to get better at this, as our brains really aren't built

156: for making accurate time estimates.

158: In fact, researchers have found

160: that people typically will give nearly the exact same answer

163: when they are asked to give estimates

165: for the best case case scenario

167: versus an average case scenario.

169: Now, of course, by definition,

170: the average case will always take more time

173: than the best case.

174: Like if we're talking about driving to work,

176: which is probably something

177: that you don't actually have to do right now,

179: but let's just use it as an example here,

181: the best case would mean hitting every single green light,

184: it would mean never encountering any traffic at all,

187: and an average case wouldn't look like that at all,

189: but naturally we tend to conflate the two.

192: Now, one thing that can help you plan more accurately

194: is breaking down your tasks into small chunks

197: and then scheduling those chunks.

199: This strategy is called time-boxing, or time-blocking,

203: and to use it, you slot your tasks

204: into small time blocks on your calendar.

207: Now, this doesn't work well for everyone,

209: some people feel like it kinda boxes them in too much,

212: makes them feel too much like cogs in a machine,

214: but a lot of people do find

215: that it helps them avoid procrastinating during the day.

218: That's a big problem, especially when you work at home.

220: I like to think about it this way.

221: When you're planning your day, you are in planning mode

224: and once you start working, you move over into robot mode.

228: At that point, your job is simply to execute the plans

231: that were made earlier,

232: so the more accurate those plans are,

234: the more likely you are to stick to them.

236: Now, if you don't want to go

237: the uber-granular way of time-boxing,

240: I would suggest at least listing your day's tasks out

243: in the order you're going to do them.

244: And for most people, I think you would be best served

247: by planning to do your most difficult,

249: or dreaded, task first,

251: especially when you're working at home.

253: When you're at work,

253: you can often procrasti-work a little bit

255: by answering your emails

257: or doing other little, small tasks first,

259: but eventually you're gonna run out of tiny things to do

262: and you're gonna have to tackle

263: that really big, dreaded task.

264: But at home, well, how do I put this?

268: There's always something to clean.

270: There's always something to organize.

271: And, honestly, I am not too proud to admit

274: that I have literally convinced myself

276: that I needed to hang a picture

278: before starting a video script.

280: And that is because, quite honestly,

282: my robot mode is more like trained monkey mode.

286: I am easily distracted by shiny things,

288: so a strong, ordered plan always helps me to stay on task.

292: With that said, let's get a birds-eye view

294: and take a look at long-term planning.

296: So, like I mentioned at the beginning of this video,

299: a high number of actions per minute

301: only matters if those actions are guided

303: by a strong game plan.

304: And since most of your overall goals are long-term ones,

308: you need to know how to look beyond your daily schedule

310: and effectively plan for the weeks and months ahead.

312: So here are just a few techniques

314: for keeping track of things on a larger scale

316: and even dealing with things

317: that don't have strict due dates.

319: First, I want to show you a great method

320: for breaking down large projects into manageable pieces

323: and then tracking their progress.

325: It's called the Kanban Method

327: and it's employed by teams everywhere around the world

329: to get all sorts of huge projects done.

331: At its core, Kanban uses cards and lists.

335: Cards keep details about individual tasks,

337: while the lists indicate the stages of the project.

340: So as you work on tasks and move them to different stages,

343: their respective cards get moved through the lists as well

345: so you always have accurate birds-eye view

347: of how things are going.

349: Here's just one example of Kanban in action.

351: This is our video project tracker,

354: which we, of course, keep in Notion.

357: Now, normally it's in list view,

358: but I can also switch it into a Kanban view

360: and this lets me see which videos are being researched,

363: which videos are in the writing stage,

365: and which videos are being edited.

366: And as each video progresses,

368: it moves through each of these stages

370: so, again, I can see where it is

372: and what needs to be done next.

373: Next, for a more complicated example,

375: let's take a look at the Trello board that we used

377: for the website redesign we did a couple of years ago.

380: Now, this was a huge project

382: that had hundreds of tasks and tons of considerations,

385: design, typography, code optimizations, SEO, you name it,

389: so there was a lot more going on in its respective board.

393: But the general idea was still the same.

395: Cards moved through their lists as they got worked on

398: and we could always see the general state of the project.

401: So that's just one technique that you can use

403: to plan more effectively for your long-term projects.

405: And, of course, there are a lot more

407: that we could talk about, but to keep this video short,

409: I want to move onto the question of prioritization.

412: How do you decide what to work on

413: when you're looking at things on a larger timescale?

416: Well, as it turns out,

417: my friend Martin has a system for that,

419: so let me just ring him up real quick.

421: Oh, hey, Martin! - Oh hey.

422: - So a couple of months ago, I made this video

424: about something that I dubbed the Martin System

427: and people liked it.

428: And as it turns out, you have yet another Martin System

431: to share with us.

432: - I do like making systems.

434: Let's see, basically my kitchen system

436: of organizing my Todoist.

438: - And how is this different

439: than the normal kinda category-based system

442: that I have been using forever?

444: - Yeah, so I had my Todoist set up like categories before,

446: 'cause you know I do a bunch of stuff,

448: podcast work, writing work,

450: all sorts of extra different things,

452: server stuff and programming.

453: And what I found was that every single day,

455: I had to look through six or seven lists

458: to figure out what I wanted to do that day,

460: which was cumbersome.

461: Eventually, the lists became full

462: and I stopped wanting to look through them.

464: So I've switched it now.

466: I've got four lists everything goes in,

468: regardless of category,

469: and they're all based off of the kitchen metaphor

472: putting something on the back burner.

474: So obviously one of the lists is the Back Burner.

478: That's where everything goes when I'm not focusing on it.

480: It's not important right now, it might be at some point,

483: but I shouldn't be doing it today.

485: And to compliment that, I created three lists,

488: one of which is Vitamins.

491: Everyday you take your vitamins.

493: So this is stuff like check my email.

495: This is stuff like check the publishing schedules,

498: make sure we're on track.

499: Stuff like that you do every day, it's a small task.

502: You just do it real quick.

503: - Now are these gummy vitamins?

505: - Well, obviously they're gummy vitamins!

506: I hate other vitamins.

508: I hate-- - Just checking.

509: - And I hate the chalky ones, so it's gummies

511: all the way down.

512: Anyway the next list is the Front Burner.

516: It's the stuff that I'm currently looking at,

519: the most important stuff.

520: So if I'm prepping a podcast

522: that we need to record next week,

523: that's on the Front Burner.

525: If I'm fixing a big bug, that's on the Front Burner

527: because I want to wake up, say okay, what do I got to do?

531: Oh, those two projects are important today.

532: I should get to them.

534: And the last list is the Oven list,

537: so I'm going off the assumption

538: that I'm running some sort of oven timer.

540: Basically, these are scheduled items

542: that happen every once in a while,

544: like backing up image files or running through a process

550: or checking email statistics.

552: Something that might happen every month

553: or every other month or every year.

555: - Checking our Amazon has three backups,

557: make sure they're fine, all that kind of stuff.

558: - Yeah, stuff like that.

560: I don't need to think about that on a daily basis,

561: but, much like an oven timer,

563: when it goes off, I should probably see what's going on.

567: I shouldn't forget about it.

568: - So Todoist obviously has the today list,

570: it has the next seven days, and then you can make filters

573: to have next two weeks so theoretically,

576: you could just use the classic categorization approach

580: with due dates.

582: What made you feel that that wasn't good enough

584: that you needed to build

585: this kind of Kitchen System instead?

588: - That would be because of my,

590: and I presume many people's, completely inability

593: to understand how long something might take

595: or how much time one has in a day.

598: So I'd set all of these things due optimistically.

601: They don't all have a due date

602: of I'm gonna do it all on Tuesday,

603: these 10 tasks, I'll get 'em out of the way,

605: and the week's gonna look great.

606: But that's not how it works.

608: What happens is I'd accomplish maybe three of them,

611: if I'm really lucky,

612: 'cause something else important was going on,

614: and then I now have seven things

617: that are overdue in Todoist.

618: Now, I can take the time to reschedule them

620: but what tends to happen with me

622: is that I just keep rescheduling the same things

625: over and over because they're just not important,

628: I've got a huge list of things that are overdue

631: or due today, and I know now by now

633: that I'm not going to do them all.

635: - Yeah, that makes sense.

636: All right, so quick recap time.

638: On a daily scale,

639: make sure you're creating a daily plan for yourself

641: each and every day that you work.

642: Try to keep this limited to the tasks

644: that you can actually get done

645: and be observant about anything you don't get done,

648: so you can become more accurate over time.

650: Again, aim to bring your intention

652: and your ability into alignment.

655: Additionally, aim to tackle your most difficult task first

658: and use time-boxing if you need.

660: On a longer-term scale,

661: experiment with techniques like the Kanban Method

663: to map out your projects

664: and make sure you're always maintaining an accurate view

667: of how each piece of them is going.

669: And finally, find a way to prioritize what you're working on

672: and if the way you've been doing it

673: in the past isn't working,

675: then look for a method that does work

677: or invent one of your own.

679: Martin's Kitchen System is a great example of this

682: and it's also a great example

683: of how taking a novel, creative approach

686: to solving a problem can yield great results.

688: And if you want to improve your ability

690: to creatively solve problems,

691: then you might want to take some of your free time,

693: which you should have more of now,

695: if you're now planning effectively, and check out Brilliant.

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750: Thanks as always for watching this video.

751: Hopefull you found it useful,

753: hopefully you got something helpful out of it,

755: and if you did, definitely hit that like button

756: to feed the YouTube algorithm with more tasty, tasty data.

760: Also if you did enjoy this,

761: especially if you enjoyed the conversation I had

763: with Martin in this video,

764: then you might want to check out our podcast as well.

767: I'll have that link in the description down below.

769: And you may be interested to know

770: that our most recent episode was about working from home,

773: so check that out if you want some additional tips.

775: Beyond that, you can subscribe right there,

777: if you're not subscribed already,

778: to get new videos whenever they come out,

780: click right here to get one more video on this channel,

782: and, as always, you're gonna want to smash your face

784: into your phone screen

785: 'cause your fingers aren't as effective

787: for clicking those boxes, so make sure you do that.

789: Beyond that, go do whatever you want,

791: I'm not your dad, but I will see you in the next video.