Shiny Object Hack, by Alex Dee: Does it fit into what you’re doing? Can you make it fit into what you’re doing? If not, then move on!

What to Focus on Hack, by Alex Dee: Are you hunting antelope or are you hunting field mice? The real question is, are you focusing on something to get you a 10 X return versus the type of clients where putting in the same time you only make 10%?

Micro-Goals Hack, by Alex Dee: For day-to-day goals, it’s better to lower your expectations! For example, for people who don’t write a lot and want to write a book, they may deal with what some call writer’s block. Well, I believe there’s no such thing as writers block. What it is, is a performance anxiety that you impose on yourself. It’s about your ability to follow the system that allows you to create plans and get in the flow so you can get results!

A great system to follow is to start by asking the question, can you write two sentences, or just write two words? From there you eventually move into, can you write a paragraph, and then can you write a page. What this does is allow you to build momentum and achieve some wins! This allows someone to be able to create a step by step process that to complete a book. This goes back to the idea of having a vision for your goal and then a detailed step-by-step for your achieving those goals!

When you look at IBM, in their heyday they had one of the largest sales results of any other company out there. What was interesting though is that it was one of the lowest quotes per sales agent of any company. Their idea was, let’s make sure that the sales guys get momentum and be able to build from there, which is a really ironic pairing of light quotas with high volume of results. But it’s extremely effective in getting people to start. You may be thinking this will surely bring the volume down because they hit their goals and then start producing, but what ends up happening as you’re able to get that momentum and it gives you a taste of success. This makes you want more, so it leads to much higher results as they have a few wins under their belt, and they can lead to the Next level! The winning combination is selectively small goals, where they can win on a daily basis, along with higher volume for quarterly and annual basis. This is the hack for winning both short and long term on your goals!

Another process to follow, in this case for coming up for movie ideas, is ed helm from Pixar! He said most of the movies you see today that are hits, started out as complete crap. They started with an idea and they had to redo the entire thing to make it what it is to sell! So, the system of starting with an idea and then throwing it away and starting over and throwing that away and doing it over and over is now a part of their usual process to getting to a hit movie. This is the area of focus!

Why Focus is Harder Today – Solitude Deprivation, by Cal Newport: One of the biggest hacks for focus is solitude. The definition of solitude is freedom to be with your own thoughts. In the world today with social media, solitude is non-existent unless it’s intentional! Back in the old days before social media, you had a time to be free with your own thoughts. Whether it was driving home or waiting in line at the grocery store, or if you were out and about working out, you had solitude. But now even if you’re working out and at the top of the mountain you have your Air Pods in! Unfortunately, that is not solitude! One of the things that has changed is we now have what’s known as solitude deprivation. Solitude deprivation means we basically have no time to be alone with our own thoughts, and that is what gives us our ability to focus on what are Inner voice is telling us about we want to focus on. You need to have the ability to literally shut off everything, and to focus on your solitude! From there, you have some time to focus on what’s going on inside of you, instead of what’s going on all around you and allow you to get to that state of focus.

How to Avoid Attention Residue and Solve Solitude Deprivation – Deep Work Hack, by Cal Newport: There’s been all kinds of studies done on this but this one is called attention residue. Basically, if you’re putting focus into something that’s difficult, when you take that attention off of it to focus on something else, that is called Attention Residue! Even if it’s for one minute, it creates an attention residue where you now have less attention then you had prior to you switching your focus to the new thing. This is what leads to a huge lack of performance because a lot of it’s just residual that leads to constant attention residue!

Don’t have multiple windows open. It’s like having a timer. You think you’re doing good but then realize it’s costing you massive performance issues while creating anxiety. That’s why the best performers are the ones that are able to concentrate on a single task for a long period of time and are able to knock that task out.

So, what is the opposite of attention residue and what do we do instead? We call it deep work. Deep work is when you’re going to focus on something for an extended period of time and turn off anything that could cause attention residue until you knock out that project! In fact, a few of the examples of Charles Darwin when he was writing his book he would go for walks or laps around his yard. He set aside five or six rocks so that he didn’t have to think about it. Every time he did a lap, he would knock over a rock and It would allow him to walk until all the rocks were knocked over. Then he was done. He got into the mental state where he could be able to apply his deep work. There are all other types of hacks, such as setting time restrictions on your apps and not allowing for you to jump on for certain periods of time. Overall, it’s been able to set aside your phone and certain other things when you’re applying deep work, so you can have more concentrated focus. This is the best way to avoid attention residue.

Solve a Particular Problem and Productive Meditation Hack, By Alex Dee: One of the best ways of being able to create focus is to do what we call productive meditation – which is to go for a walk and before you leave, set the intention of you are going to solve the problem! As you walk, try to focus just on the problem and when other things come up in your mind, go back to the problem. When you first start this is going to be incredibly challenging, just like doing pull ups for the first time. But, just like a muscle, as you practice this strategy, your ability to focus on the problem and solve it becomes stronger and stronger. You’ll start training your brain to be able to go on a walk and think about a problem and usually you’ll be able to make tremendous progress on the problem, as well as increase your capacity to focus on any one thing for that period of time.

How to Stay Focused Hack, by Gabor Mate – It’s easy to lose focus, to succumb to distraction. The question that helps return to the present is simply: “is what I’m doing right now aligned with my life’s calling?” Your calling is what lights you up and inspires you the most! It’s freedom for everyone, including myself: politically, socially, emotionally, and spiritually! If I am being compelled to distract myself from emotional unease, I am not free! Then again, if I’m harshly judging my distractibility, I’m not free either. The freedom always comes from the renewed awareness of choice: My choice, in every moment.

How to Create a Focus Daily Ritual – Planting Weeds vs. Planting Seeds Hack, by Jay Shetty: Many of us actually have a daily plan but have such a hard time holding onto it. You may jump online to consume some good educational content, and the next thing you know you’re watching videos of Justin Bieber’s mom. Or we have a full day’s lesson even though we only accomplish 20% – 30% most days. Our main challenge is whether it’s the consumption of content or the things that are coming up? We all want to live that meaningful life, but how do you do that? It really comes down to your daily practice or your daily ritual. One of the things that I do every day is to start my day with intention! I write down all the things that I need to do for that day! Whether it’s time for family, working on projects, taking a hike, for whatever else that might be. And then I asked myself a simple question: Are these activities planting seeds in my life or are they planting weeds in my life? What I mean by weeds is, am I doing this out of a selfish competition, which would not be serving me, or am I planting seeds from which comes impact, purpose, love, connection and power; all the things that actually matter and have meaning in my life? Based on that, I can decide what activities I’m going to do so I can plant more seeds and invite all of you to come join me as gardeners of our own lives. By doing it every day, it helps me to make sure I don’t confuse things that are weeds and driven by ego! That’s why I highly recommend doing the intention every day so that way you’re making sure that each day the people, places, and projects you’re working on in your garden each season have meaning!

Focus, by Alex Dee: We already know that one of the key principles to being successful is the law of focus! Whatever you focus on, the energy expands. That energy can be money, love, abundance, whatever you want it to be. But what’s the hack then for staying focused?  

The Hacks for staying focused are:

1. Attention– Giving something you want attention! How do you do that? You get intentional and create the time on your schedule. Let’s say I want to build my online business and get out of the workspace. I know I need to focus on learning a new skillset, so I put my attention to it. Now everyone says, “but I don’t have enough time.”

Here’s the key and write this down! Time is not something YOU HAVE! Time is something you create! You do so by creating your schedule!

2. Tracking is the second hack, and it’s just as important as attention! You always measure what you want to focus on! If you’re losing weight, you’re tracking calories and exercise. If you’re tracking business, you’re tracking sales and expenses. Another example is if you’re an entrepreneur and want to be focused on being productive, you track your time, in 15-minute intervals, for 2 weeks! You get to see exactly how you spend your time and what things you can cut out and delegate! Always track what you want to focus on. This makes sure your focus stays in place. It also lets you know how you’re doing, which keeps your focus on that task or goal so you can see the improvements.

Remember, the root for focus is attention, and the root to attention is tracking!  Then you can use those measurements to make the changes and develop the right habits around what you want to focus on to hit your goals!

Who to Focus on Hack, by Sean Stephenson: Coast Guards are trained that when there’s an accident, with lots of people in the water, you can’t save everyone! So, who do you save? You save the ones that are swimming towards the boat! Focus on those that want what you have, who see the vision, and are actively working towards the same path!

What to Focus on in Life Hack and Personal Resilience and Emotional Intelligence Hack, by Yuval Noah Harari, author of Sapiens. Nobody really knows what the job market will look like in 2040, hence nobody knows what to teach young people today.

My best advice is to focus on personal resilience and emotional intelligence! Traditionally, life has been divided into two parts: A period of learning, followed by a period of working. In the period of learning, which is usually your 20s and 30s, don’t trust adults too much. In the past, it was a safe bet to trust adults because they knew the world quite well, and the world changed slowly. But our 21st century is quite different. Whatever the adults have learned about economics, politics, and relationships may be outdated!

Similarly, don’t trust technology too much! You must make technology serve you versus you serving it. So, you have no choice but to really get to know yourself better. We are not living in the era of hacking computers; we are living in the era of hacking humans! Once the corporation’s governments know you better than you know yourself, they could control and manipulate you and you won’t even realize it!

By the time you’re 40, you don’t want to change. You want stability. But in the 21st century, you won’t be able to enjoy that luxury. If you try to hold on to some stable identity, some stable job, some stable worldview, you will be left behind, and the world will fly by you.

People will need to learn to become personally resilient and emotionally intelligent to sail through this never-ending storm, and to deal with the high levels of stress.

The only challenge is that it’s tough to teach someone how to be personally resilient and emotionally intelligent! The only way to do it is to go through the process of life’s challenges and overcome them as we all do. Death, loss of a job, heartbreak… the key is to realize in each case, we are resilient for having gone through it and surviving. We become emotionally intelligent by documenting the process and journaling what we learned about ourselves by going through the process! This process is called our transformation. When we document it, we’re learning and raising our level of emotional intelligence, thereby becoming more conscious of who we are!