5 Minutes to Success: Small Investments, Big Returns
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[00:00:00] Hello, welcome to the Productivity Genius Podcast. I'm your host, Kelly Fifield, and I apologize for the slightly raspy voice getting over a cold. So sorry if that's annoying. Okay. This week, I'd love to help you make progress on that goal or that project that you keep punting, that you wish you had time for, but you can never quite find the time.
So the way that we'll do that is with one mindset shift. and then three strategies, three like tactics that you can do to create some extra time. First, the mindset shift.
It's very common when we have a new project or a new goal that we want to work towards to think that we don't currently have any extra time for it, so we need to create some time. to work on that thing. it's super common to leave that and keep punting it to a place or a time when we have extra time.
That doesn't happen very often, right? So the mindset shift I would love for you to [00:01:00] consider is thinking that you are now going to put that new project or that new goal on your schedule first. Now, I know your brain just probably exploded like, Hey, there is no time in the morning for me to work on anything but the crap ton of stuff I have on my daily to dos.
But I'm not suggesting you put a 90 minute block to work on this thing. That would be bananas. That would be asking way too much. What I'm suggesting is five minutes. I'm dead serious. Now you might be thinking five minutes. That's not going to make any difference. This goal that I had is going to take hours and hours and hours to achieve.
There's no way five minutes. I could even make a dent. Five minutes is going to be. Huge. And let me explain why. If you start showing up and investing just five minutes towards this goal or this project every single day, there is going to be a chemical change in your brain. Your brain is going to start [00:02:00] operating differently because you're building evidence for your brain.
to start identify you as someone who is working towards this goal. Because right now, if you're not putting any time on your schedule, you're not creating any time for it. Right now, you think you are a person who wants to do this thing, who wants to do it sometime in the future, who can't find time for it, who isn't doing the thing.
But when you show up every single day consistently and start making tiny bits of progress. You are going to change your identity as a person who is working towards this goal. So, we're going to put five minutes on our schedule each day. And if you're not like at the point where you're actually scheduling out your day, still very easy to do.
Just five minutes. First thing that you do is to work towards that goal. You set a timer and you work on it for five minutes. That might be just planning, might be brainstorming, might be actually doing a task, might be just planning a few tasks, might be planning one [00:03:00] task. Five minutes. When the timer goes off, Be proud of yourself.
Say there I did. I invested my five minutes. I'm becoming a person who is going to get this thing done. And that's all you need to do. If you want to invest more time, totally fine. But just be careful about making the time that you think is important. Like maybe, maybe you're thinking, well, five minutes really is going to make a difference.
So I'm going to try to do 15 minutes or something like that. But your brain's going to resist 15 minutes a lot harder than 5 minutes. So I would suggest you seriously start with 5 minutes. We're just building the habit. We're becoming a person who is working towards that goal. That is the absolute best thing you can do to set yourself up for success. to achieve it. So just five minutes every day first thing in the morning. Of course, there's probably arguments going on in your head. Well, when I first get to my desk, I always have to check my email first. Cause stop it. You don't have to check your email first, or Hey, on your way to work, stop at a parking lot and do the five minutes of work there where you're alone in your car or get up [00:04:00] five minutes earlier or spend five minutes less getting ready.
Pull your hair back in a ponytail. you can find five minutes, whatever arguments your brain is offering. It's just freaking out because it already feels overwhelmed by the number of things that you're doing. And it's thinking it just can't handle one more, but of course it can handle five minutes. You're amazing.
And sure, you will make Some progress towards that goal, and that's great But really the main thing that is going to make it more likely that you achieve this thing is the way that you're identifying Yourself the way you're thinking about yourself as a person who shows up and works on this thing day after day consistently.
So that's the first thing is that mindset shift. Now, tactically, let's talk about a couple of ways that you can get some extra time back this week. One, start using AI. I know it can be a little overwhelming. There are so many options. Let's, let me just decide that for you. Chat GPT is the one you're going to use.
That's the first one you're going to use. It's insanely simple. There is nothing to learn. [00:05:00] Just download the app on your phone, sign up on your desktop and just start using it.
Dedicate yourself to check in with it maybe even set an alarm each day that whatever you're working on at that time, you're going to ask chat GPT to help you with it.
it's insane what you can do with this. You can ask it to help you create plans for things. You can ask it to create recipes, write out your social media. So just start using it. I'm not saying come up with an entire system.
Just start getting comfortable with it. The more comfortable you get with it, the more you play with it, the more likely you are to use it and the more time it's going to save you. So just stop resisting using it.
It's going to save you tons of time Just start getting comfortable with it. Before you know it, you'll be using it and it'll be saving you insane amounts of time. Second strategy I'd love for you to try implementing this week to save you time is stop checking your email so much.
They did a study and people check their email I think it's something crazy like, like once a minute or something like that. That's insane. The amount of [00:06:00] efficiency we lose by task switching is insane. is crazy. So if you're checking your email, if you have like, like turn that little bubble off, you have that little red bubble that's showing you the emails come in, turn it off.
It's not like you're going to forget to check your email, right? It's probably something you're remembering to do way too much. Turn off the notifications for it. Maybe set a timer if you're uncomfortable, if you think, Oh, I'm going to forget to check it, set a timer a couple times a day, but stop checking your email so much.
Stop checking Slack so much. Start cutting it back. I know that if you work in a company, there is an expectation that you're going to be in there, and that is a real thing. That's not something you can probably control, and you probably can't make huge changes in your company with that, but cut down the amount of time you are checking Slack and email that will instantly make you more productive.
Alright, you're not going to want to hear this one, but check your screen time. It is painful to look at how much time a lot of us are spending on our phones, myself included. I did this [00:07:00] for myself and I was like, what? What? What? Why Kelly? Why are you on your phone so much? And I don't even consider myself to be someone who's on their phone a lot.
I am on my phone way too much. If you look at your phone, it has such interesting data. about what things you're looking at. What's the first thing you look at? Um, it like, it shows you what apps and what things you engage with upon first picking up your phone. So it's interesting to see like, where am I going first?
Some of the things I'm investing my time on in there, I'm not mad about. I'm not, I think it's a good use of my time. Like I spend a, uh, there's a lot of time listening to podcasts and things like that. I'm totally cool with that. But some other things like Instagram, no, we are cutting that Instagram time down to Almost nothing.
I do communicate with a few friends on there. So that I'm okay with but for sure I can cut that time back So you could get back hours
now before you go in and look at your screen time. I invite you to look at it with compassion and with. the excitement of the [00:08:00] opportunity you could be finding in there. Don't beat yourself up about it. That'd be a very easy thing to do. Instead, see it as an opportunity. Oh, wow. I am investing a lot more time than I realized on this or that.
And That is such a great opportunity for me to see that because now I can switch that to either working towards this project or goal or just investing that time with one on one time with my family and friends.
Okay, so to recap, the mindset shift, we want to put five minutes on our schedule first thing in the morning to work towards that project or goal we've been punting. And then the three strategies for getting time back in our week this week are start using chat GPT to save you time. Stop checking email and Slack.
So frequently you are losing tons of productivity by task switching so much. And three, look at your screen time, look at it as an opportunity for a place where you can recover some time.
If I was [00:09:00] going to choose just one of those four things, the mindset shift and those three tactics, I would say, choose the mindset switch. It will make an enormous difference.
And before you know it, you will be making progress on that goal or project.
If I can help you with anything, reach out to me on Instagram. at productivity genius coach, and I hope you have an amazing week.
