Thanh Thinking time

If there’s one thing that led to exponential growth in my personal life and at AE, it’s being young and Asian.

Hence, Asian Efficiency.

In all seriousness, it’s a new thinking tool I’ve learned about two years ago that I want to share with you today that will change your productivity game. It’s called Thinking Time.

This was something I learned from Keith Cunningham, a business coach who has a net worth of hundreds of millions. and Other entrepreneurs in my network. As the name implies, it’s time carved out for thinking. It’s one of the most powerful tools you can have to solve problems and I owe my biggest wins over the last year to this.

For example, in the trailing year I’ve been able to:

Take two weeks to Tokyo, and then completely disconnect from all business. and When I returned, we generated more revenue that when I left.
My dad needs a business class ticket to Vietnam in order to see his parents if they become ill.
Every Saturday, I have a massage/cupping/acupuncture or a float-tank session to take good care of myself.
My first executive assistant is available to me today.-To-Day and You have the freedom to use your time.
These were impossible before I implemented Thinking Time. This tool took my Productivity Score to new heights (take the quiz to see what’s yours).

You may notice that I have a lot of things on the list. “cost” money. Thanks to Thinking Time I’ve been able to leverage my time much better which resulted in making more money that I’m reinvesting in either myself or the business.

I am Asian Efficient and can achieve my goals quicker by being Asian Efficient. and With a higher success rate. This is what I’ve been obsessed with all my life. How can I make things happen faster? How can I make sure that I get exactly what I want? How can you make my life more easy? and More convenient?

What will make me happy?

Happy people are productive, as I like to say.

Happy people working

This is where the big challenge lies: optimizing your business. your life: we ignore the time to think about what’s actually important on a regular basis.

As life gets busier, that’s when we need Thinking Time the most. That’s when we need to be able to take a step back and actively think about what we’re doing next and How to make adjustments.

I’m not talking about doing a weekly review and You can keep track of the following things by creating a checklist.

Thinking Time is a creative process that requires you to start from scratch each time. and Ask questions about everything.

Don’t confuse this with reflection. Lisa, a Dojo member, said it this way:

“Reflection is looking backward whereas thinking is about looking forward.”

Lisa, that’s a great comment.

(You may recognize her as one our star students at Escape Your Email. She used to spend seven hours a day on email and After taking our course, she was able to free up more than 6 hours. Here’s her case study.)

When you’re going for a walk or sit still on the couch, that’s reflecting. You can let your imagination run wild when you allow yourself to be enlightened. your mind wander, that’s reflecting.

Thinking is very different. It’s when you try to solve a challenge or problem and You will need to think for a long time before you can come up with an answer. So you can think clearly and effectively, it is important to have a clear mind. your The brain works fast to solve the problem. It is not about performing a Google search for how to fix or do something. It’s about understanding. your Problem and Finding solutions.

What you’ll often find is that the problem you’re facing is actually not a problem, but a symptom. This is something I’ll clarify with you on podcast episode 162 of The Productivity Show that’s coming out in about a month but here’s a simple example.

Many Asian Efficiency readers are plagued by procrastination. They just can’t seem to get started on important stuff even though they know they should be doing it. You’ve been there.

Download it immediately AsianEfficiency Finisher’s Fastlane – Increase your productivity and Focus

Procrastination and Urgency

They believe that the problem is “procrastination” Procrastination can be a sign of a more serious condition. It’s the symptom of a lack of clarity. You have complete clarity. your Goal andProcrastination, or vision, rarely manifests itself.

If it’s not lack of clarity, it’s usually related to energy. This could be due to a sleep or diet problem. One client of mine blamed his procrastination and inability to achieve his goals. As soon as he told me that, I knew right away that procrastination wasn’t the real problem. I suspected “procrastination” This was a symptom.

After looking deeper, I discovered that the guy had poor sleeping habits. The guy was sleeping 4–5 hours a night and Every morning, I feel cranky. When you don’t get enough sleep, the most common symptoms of that are procrastination and Being easily distracted.

He immediately reacted to my suggestion that we work on his evening ritual. “Thanh, why would I need to do this? This doesn’t help me get this important work done.”

After explaining the reasoning behind it, he was willing to try it. He set up his evening ritual and began sleeping on time. and getting a good 7–8 hours in every night. I checked again a few days later.-He had a profound transformation when he was there.

Procrastination wasn’t an issue anymore. He was now able to concentrate on the important things he wanted to do. We eventually got there because we didn’t address the symptom but fixed the root problem.

(And if you’re curious about how to get better sleep, we have an audio program on that.)

I could easily have taught him my favorite anti or the Eat That Frog technique.-procrastination technique, and It would have helped him. But it wouldn’t fix the real problem. It was a band.-Aid solution

(As a side note-Note: You can also be a teacher. and coach, I will often give these solutions to people to give them momentum while we’re addressing the root problem at the same time. By the end of it they’ll have the real problem fixed and They can also learn new tools that they can use whenever the symptoms come up in the future.

Don’t get me wrong, the quick tactics and Techniques work. They work. I still use them. and then whenever I’m procrastinating and I have to do something. I’ll use one of the tactics outlined in our Finisher’s Fastlane Course as a Band-aid.

In the back of mind, I also know that I either need to address the clarity around my work or look at what’s wrong with my energy. This is especially true if it occurs more than three times. That’s when the 3 Times Rule will kick in that we teach in our courses. When something happens more than 3 times, it’s a sign of a systemic error so we need to address it at its core.

I hope by now you realize that a lot of things you deal with on a daily basis aren’t really problems. These are symptoms. Thinking Time has helped me to understand that they are symptoms. “problems” I thought I had weren’t really problems.

This powerful tool has made me feel like Neo from The Matrix. I can see with clarity what’s happening with other people and For me, it’s possible to take a step back and Analyze what is the most productive and effective move for you going forward. It’s kind of like being able to catch yourself on a cognitive bias before it kicks in and derails you.

Reflection

If you think you have a problem…think again.

I’ll bet you my precious MacBook Pro that it’s not a problem but a symptom.

Once you have clarity, and Once you are certain that you have identified the root cause of the problem, the hard part is coming up with a solution. It’s just the process of getting to the real problem is hard.

I’ll walk you through a process on this in episode 162 on our podcast The Productivity Show that’s coming out in a month. I’m also finalizing a mini-You can learn more about this in our private community, the Dojo and This training library will soon be available.

For now, here’s what you can do.

Write down three problems that you are looking to solve.
Accept the fact that every problem you list is a symptom. It’s not the real problem but a symptom of something else.
Think for 15 minutes about the root cause. your problems. What causes this symptom?
Keep questioning every assumption that comes up until you can’t anymore. That’s probably what the real problem is.
What can you do about the problem?
Try it right away. I’m confident that you’ll uncover a lot of things you’ve never thought of.

Subscribe to the podcast now to be sure to get the Thinking Time podcast episode. Open up your podcast app, search for “the productivity show” and Get your subscription now. In case you’re wondering, my favorite podcast app is Overcast.

Update: The podcast episode has been posted.

Next week I’ll show you how I plan my week. This is a system I’ve been fine-You can watch the changes in my work at AE over the past twelve months. If you’ve ever wondered how a CEO plans a week, stay tuned. It’s very atypical but you’ll get to see The behind-the-Scenes of my planning system, which allows me to have more time and Finish every day at 5pm (without stress).