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Compounding requires consistent efforts in one direction one day at a time for years. 90% never experience compounding because they are distracted 90% of the time.

You feel unfulfilled and unproductive even after working the entire day because you keep yourself busy in work, you don’t actually put in the work.

There is a difference!

If you work a lot and still don’t get anything done you are stuck in what I say ‘Blur loops’

You are stuck in one of these Blur loops:

You sit to work → Get a notification → Check the phone → End in an infinite loop of social media until you get frustrated

You pick up your phone to check OTP → Open Twitter → Instagram → Snapchat → WhatsApp → Get lost in nowhere → Feel like doing nothing

You go to YouTube to find a solution → Find an attractive thumbnail → click on it → Get high on information → Switch back to work with no drive to work → Switch back to YouTube

Your brain once distracted wants to stay distracted!

Distraction is a drug for your brain. You give it a bit of distraction and now that’s all it wants. It turns into a monkey mind.

Now you can’t expect it to focus!

You need to block everything away and get your mind at peace to be able to focus on things that matter the most.

When you are focused and immersed in one task at a time you will realize it doesn’t take more than 4 hours of work every day to get your work done. You will get done with all major tasks in 4 hours of undistracted deep work.

“If you wake up at 7 and do not touch your phone until lunch, you will get 80% of your work done”

Wake up - Brush your teeth - Drink water/coffee - Get to work. Do all your fancy morning routine after you put in some undistracted work. This has always worked for me.

Follow these 3 steps to get out of blurred loops and get real work done:

1. Nail 4 hours before Noon

What can you do to put in 4 hours of undistracted work in the morning?

Don’t touch your phone until 12 and see how you get all your work done. Doing this alone will make you happy and productive and you will still have an entire day left when you can do 5 different things that you wanted to experiment with.

This is a superpower and this is in your control.

For you, this window might make sense at night when everyone is asleep.

It doesn’t matter ‘WHEN’, all that matters is ‘4 hours of flow’

Your past doesn’t matter

Your future doesn’t matter

It’s just that moment and your focused mind.

1 second at a time towards your goals.

Don’t let anything or anyone take it away from you.

If you are not yet clear about your goals or work you should do - Read my post on chasing clarity.

2. Use tools to your advantage

“Using new tools every day makes you feel productive, using the right tools every day makes you productive.”

Find tools that block distractions.

Finding it hard to stop scrolling?

Keep your phone in black-and-white mode. Find how to do it for your phone on the Internet.

Finding it hard to not watch YouTube videos?

→ Use ‘Unhook’ - A Free extension that blocks your YouTube recommendations

You cannot afford to not use social media until noon?

→ Use social media on your PC, not your phone!

Do you work but still don’t feel productive?

→ Use apps like ‘Forest’ to visualize your productivity.

You can use 100 different tools but the biggest tool is your determination and it is within you.

Without it, you will never be motivated to use any tool.

3. Segment your work

It is easy to feel overwhelmed when you have multiple things to focus on.

Ideally, you should only work on one thing but the world is not ideal.

When you have multiple things to work on you need to segment your work!

When you are working on X don’t jump randomly to Y. If you keep jumping from X to Y and Y to X, you will not get anything done!

Don’t think about Y when you are working on X and vice versa.

• 2 hours for X

• 2 hours for Y

and you will still have enough time left to explore Z and W that you might have.

You can get one layer deep and can even prioritize tasks in ‘X project’ and focus on one sub-task at a time.

You get the point!

Find your 4 hours!

Be loyal to these 4 hours and it will give you everything you need!

-Akshat