What Social Media Isn't Telling You About 'Productivity'

What's something that, at one point in your life, you believed to be 100 percent true...and now you no longer believe?

I'll go first. My limiting belief was about what it means to hustle/work hard.

I used to think that staying up late to finish something was the best solution to getting things done. Or that I needed to work 12+ hours a day on my dreams if I ever wanted to see them realized.

I thought that if I wasn't willing to work until all hours of the day and night, I wasn't a true "hustler" -- or I wasn't cut out to be an entrepreneur. This misconception was aided by all the social media culture surrounding entrepreneurship that made me feel like crap if I wasn't doing something for my business every single second of the day.

If I tried to work nonstop, like social media had me believe was a necessary condition of entrepreneurship, I always ended up exhausted and resenting the work instead of enjoying it. Worst of all, I STILL fell behind on my damn work! Always!

Now, I realize that for me, working myself to death isn't the key to success.

I don't work all day, every day. The Rich20 team works 12-6 Monday through Friday. Sometimes we work a bit later if we're launching a product. Sometimes we don't come in until 1 p.m. We don't typically work weekends.

And yet...business is improving 10x. Counterintuitive, right? Burning the midnight oil by working until 2 a.m. or 3 a.m. is not the best strategy.

If I'm working on something -- unless it's ABSOLUTELY mission critical...like a crucial business meltdown -- I'm much better off shutting down the work for the night and getting up refreshed in the morning.

Cramming doesn't work.

Didn't in high school, doesn't now. And most things (read: 99% of tasks) aren't so time sensitive that they can't wait the extra 6-8 hours for you to recharge and be at your best.

Realizing this has stopped me from going deep into the "red zone" like I used to. I make far less mistakes, feel more refreshed and don't hate my life.

The cool thing is that by working fewer hours -- although I spend less time in the office -- I force myself to really prioritize the important things. More importantly I allow myself to DE-PRIORITIZE the unimportant things (or delegate them).

All of this improves my life and makes me a lot happier -- which actually improves the quality of my work when I am here at the office for those 5-6 hours per day.

Once I decided to reject the idea that 24/7 work was the only way to become successful in business, I opened up an entirely new world of possibilities for myself.

Limiting belief DESTROYED.

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I hope you enjoyed this article!

If you're curious to know how I got started, and how you can begin your own journey to self- employment, you should enroll in my free mini-course on making more money. It'll take you step-by-step through the process of creating a new business using skills you already have.

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