MBA2729 Q&A Wednesday: How Can I Be More Productive?

Some people think being productive means adding more to their to‑do list - longer lists, more boxes to check, endless tasks to cram into the day. But the truth is, that approach often leaves you overwhelmed and no closer to what really matters. Are you stuck in this cycle, too? In this episode, Omar answers Frank’s question and explores what productivity really means. He digs into why simply piling on tasks doesn’t work, and what you should focus on instead. You’ll hear practical strategies to cut the noise, rethink how you use your time, and move closer to the results that matter most. Productivity is not the same as being busy. Listen to Omar break it down in this episode - click play at the top and start shifting the way you work today. Recommended episode to explore:MBA310 Must Read: Essentialism By Greg McKeownTo submit your questions, visit 100mba.net/q. Watch the episodes on YouTube: https://lm.fm/GgRPPHiSUBSCRIBEYouTube | Apple Podcast | Spotify | Podcast Feed Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

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  Today's episode is supported by Cash App. When it comes to Bitcoin, you may be surprised to learn that it was invented way back in 2008. But you still haven't made the jump to Bitcoin yet? Cash App makes it easy. When you buy Bitcoin on Cash App, they hold real Bitcoin for you, one to one, and you can withdraw it anytime. It works more like real money and less like something locked in an account. No extra steps, no restrictions, just access and control when you need it. With Cash App, you can actually do that. For a limited time, new customers can get $10 added to their balance. Just use code BITCOIN10 when you sign up. And, don't forget this part: send at least $5 to a friend in the first two weeks. Terms apply. Cash App is a financial services platform, not a bank.

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  Banking services provided by Cash App's bank partners. Bitcoin services provided by Block Incorporated brand. For additional information, see the Bitcoin disclosures at cash.app/legal/podcast. Small business owners, listen up. You started your business, but you can't do it alone. And that means you have to hire people to help. That's where Justworks comes in. Justworks is the payroll, benefits, and global hiring platform to unburden your brain from all the complicated small business stuff. They handle the things you can't afford to get wrong, so you don't have to worry. So you can focus on the parts of running a business that you enjoy, knowing everything else is running smoothly. You don't have to worry when it just works.

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  Everyone thinks productivity is about doing more. But the truth is, if you want to be truly productive, you have to do less. Less? Yeah, less. I haven't lost my mind, and I'll explain why doing less makes you more productive in today's lesson. I'm going to show you how to become dramatically more productive. I'm going to show you how to cut out the noise, how to focus, how to prioritize the essentials in your life, and finally, work on the things that actually matter the most and move the needle in your business and in your life.

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  Welcome back to the $100 MBA Show. I'm your host, Omar Zenhome, where I deliver practical business lessons three times a week, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, to help you start, grow, and scale your business.

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  Before we jump in, can I get 30 seconds of your time? We love guiding you on your business journey, and we want to help even more people build their dream businesses and lives. So if you could hit the follow button on this podcast app, it would be greatly appreciated. It's completely free, and it helps us out more than you know. Thanks. I'm not going to bury the lead here. Here's the biggest mindset shift that changed my life. Productivity is not about more. It's about focus. One of my favorite books of all time is a book called 4,000 Weeks by Oliver Berkman. And here it is. I grabbed it from my bookshelf. 4,000 Weeks is called 4,000 Weeks because that's the average lifespan. Yeah, only 4,000 weeks. It really makes you think, wow, we have a very limited time, brutally limited.

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  And pretending otherwise is what makes you burn out. You fall behind, and you feel consistently overwhelmed because you're trying to get so much done, everything done every single day. And you are suffering because you physically cannot do everything. So the only real path to real productivity is becoming incredibly selective about what you do work on. So it's not about how do I get more done? Instead, it's about how do I get done that is worth doing? When you start thinking this way, your productivity goes through the roof, not because you're working harder, but because you're finally working on the right things. One of the most productive habits you can build is to regularly look at your to-do list.

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  This is my to-do list. I actually have a special notebook that goes through all your to-dos, right? And when you go through your to-do list, you need to ask the question, what here is actually essential? Not useful, not nice to have, not I should probably do this, essential. And I learned this from a book called Essentialism by Greg McKeown. He calls this The disciplined pursuit of less. If you have 10 priorities, you have no priorities. If you have one to two priorities, you have a lot of power. Now, side note, I actually have found in my experience that it's very important to only have one priority in each bucket of your life. So say, for example, in 2026,

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  you want to improve different areas of your life. Let's say health, relationships, business. Those are buckets of life. You should have only one priority, in my opinion, in each bucket. So a priority for business, a priority for health, a priority for relationships in this example. Now, the reason why I like one and not one or two is because it allows you to focus. It allows you to know what to say no to, because if it doesn't align with that one goal, with that one priority, then it's a no. It's easy to focus, but when you're competing with one or two or three priorities, it gets kind of confusing. And honestly, you just slip into old habits again. Now, when you do this, you cut your to-do list like in half. Maybe even sometimes by 80%. And you see better results because your best work requires you to focus.

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  It requires you to focus your time, your energy, your clarity, and honestly, your emotional bandwidth. You need to only worry about one thing. And when you overload yourself, when you overwhelm yourself, all that focus disappears. So let's say you want to grow your business. There are hundreds of things you can do to grow your business. You can improve your product. You can redesign your website. You can start running ads. You can optimize your sales funnel. You can hire support. You can build content strategy. You can start doing partnerships. You can improve onboarding. You can do PR. You can add new features. You can join masterminds. You can throw events. I can go on and on and on and on. Doing all of them is exactly the least productive thing you can do.

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  This is going to get you the best results. How do I know this? Because I've been doing this for 15 years. And I'm going to give you concrete examples in a moment. But when you have total focus, intense effort, you get incredible results. So say, for example, you're starting a new year. And in the first month, January, you focus on just hiring one. One rock star team member who will level up everything for you. Maybe it's an EA, maybe it's a creative director, maybe it's a manager of some sort. By just focusing on this is all I gotta get done. This is all that's going to happen. I know that if I do this, that domino is going to impact everything else. I get that done. It's focused and I get it done within a month because that's all I'm doing.

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  Maybe the next month I say, okay, let's get in more sales by overhauling and optimizing our sales funnel. Only focus. February is over, March rolls around. Let's focus on upgrading the onboarding of our product, of our business, so that we can improve retention. Only thing we're working on. One focus equals real progress. Many focuses, right? Shallow results. You're not really going to get any results that are actually going to make it worth your effort. Listen, you're gonna do the work, you're gonna do the work. You might as well go all in, focus, make it happen so you can get the best results possible. Today's episode is supported by Rosetta Stone. I absolutely love Rosetta Stone because it's helping me learn Italian faster than I can ever imagine. Why do I want to learn Italian?

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  Well, who doesn't love Italy? But of course Nicole's family is Italian and I love to have some quick Italian conversations with her mom. And Rosetta Stone just came out with Rosetta Stone Sapphire, their biggest launch in over a decade. One of the coolest features is chat missions, which turns conversation practice into a game. With chat missions, you're put in interactive scenarios and given three objectives. A mission to accomplish, like asking how much something costs, ordering a cold brew coffee, or getting a wifi password. Along the way, you get real time corrections and feedback to help you sound more natural and confident. It's a supportive way to build confidence before putting your language skills to use in real life.

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  I've been using Rosetta Stone for over two years and I actually can have some small Italian conversations with Nicole's mom now. Just the other day, she asked me, when are you traveling? And I said, dopo domani mattina, which means after tomorrow morning. She was incredibly impressed that I was able to answer in Italian. How could you put a price tag on a happy mother-in-law? If you want to take your language skills to the next level, don't wait to try Rosetta Stone Sapphire. The $100 For your listeners can get 20% off the Rosetta Stone Sapphire subscription when they sign up today. This gets you access to Rosetta Stone Sapphire in 25 languages. Support for today's episode comes from Square. You probably know Square is the thing you tap your card on at your favorite coffee shop, restaurant, salon, or local store. But for the person running that business, Square is a whole lot more than a way to get paid.

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  Every new project you say yes to creates a chain reaction of 10 to 50 more tasks for you to do. Let me give you an example. You decide to host a networking dinner next month. As soon as you make this decision, you are instantly putting a bunch of stuff on your plate. You're gonna have to find a venue. You're gonna have to negotiate pricing. You're going to need to start inviting people to the event. You should create a registration page. You need to figure out how you're gonna collect payments. You gotta market and document what's happening so you can put it on social media. You need to design an agenda. You need to create reminders. You need to manage RSVPs. You need to coordinate with the restaurant. You need to show up early. You need to be on all night in the event to make sure that everybody's having a great time.

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  You have to have to do follow-up and surveys. Even if you hire help, even if you get your EA to do it, you must hire this person to do this. First, you gotta train them. You gotta communicate your vision. You gotta make sure that they're on top of it. You gotta review their work. You gotta prove their decisions. I can go on and on, because I know this like the back of my hand, because I've done it so many times. And once you say yes, you start to open up that Pandora's box of 20, 40, 50, 70 hours of work that you did not account for. If you feel totally overwhelmed after what I shared with you, don't worry, there's a cure. And the cure is your default answer to every opportunity should be a no. Now, I know that sounds strange because you want to say yes to opportunities, you want

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  to grow, but remember, you have a single priority. And the only way if that no is going to be a yes, is if it aligns with that priority, right? Your yes should be earned by what's going to move you forward in your business. So you need to start with a priority that becomes like the strategy, like, okay, this is what I'm going to focus on. And anything that doesn't align with this needs to be a no. I want to share something with you that I call the paradox of productivity. The more you do, the less that gets done. Really? And I'll tell you why. Because quality work actually requires a lot of space, a lot of time, a lot of mental clarity. You need to recover.

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  You need long periods of uninterrupted focus. You need single tasking, not multitasking. You need emotional bandwidth, like I mentioned before. When you cram your schedule, you're not productive. You're actually exhausted because actually managing multiple things in a day in itself is exhausting. The truth is that real productivity shouldn't feel busy. Real productivity feels quiet, it feels calm, it feels deep. It's one meaningful thing that you're working on, done well, that moves the needle forward. So if you want to be more productive, I want to give you my system. I call it the one thing productivity system.

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  And the first step is you start with one outcome that matters the most to you. Ask yourself, what is the one thing that if I completed in the next 30 to 90 days, it would transform my business? It would really level it up? It would really solve a big problem that I'm facing? The second step is you build. Build your entire schedule around that thing. Block 90 minutes in your schedule for deep work. These are deep work sessions that you do daily. And you could do five of these sessions a week, at a minimum, I would say. And that will actually make a whole lot of difference in your progress. Those 90-minute blocks of deep work of only focusing on that one thing, that one challenge.

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  Third step, super important, ruthlessly cut everything else. You cannot focus and prioritize something and get something done if you don't remove things. You have to say no to other side projects, other shiny ideas, optional meetings, new commitments, all that kind of stuff. Anything that is going to take you away from this priority is going to detract you and detract from your progress. Listen, I'm the first to say that this is the hardest step, saying no to everything else. I get ideas all the time, great opportunities, great products I can create, opportunities to make more money, get more customers.

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  But I know that if I chase these side quests, it's going to distract me and it's going to make my main thing, which is this podcast, less impactful and my progress will be impacted. Here is the math, here is the reality, here is the truth, I'm just going to give it to you on a silver platter. When somebody is focused and only working on one thing, they're incredibly dangerous. You cannot compete with somebody like that if you are doing multiple things, if you are splitting your attention, your time, your resources on several things at one time. This person that is in your space, your competitor, is just focused and doing one thing, they're going to beat you every day of the week because that's all they do. And that's why step four is so important.

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  You've got to protect your focus like it's money. Why? Because it is. In fact, I believe that your time is more valuable than money because you can't make more time. Like we mentioned, 4,000 weeks is all we get. And step five, embrace unfinished tasks. One of the things I learned in this book, 4000 Weeks, Oliver Berkman says that you will die with things undone, things unfulfilled. Just accept it. That's the human condition. Do the things that matter and leave the rest. This is not theory, guys. This has actually been the secret to every major success and leap in my life. When you focus, you get results. My first career was a teacher.

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  I was an educator for over a decade. And I focused on that. I got certifications. I became a master at teacher training, at management. And that's all I worked on. That's all I studied. That's all I did. And at age 25, I became the chair of the department the university was working at. I was one of the youngest chairs ever. And I managed 30 people twice my age. And that's the power of focus. When I left my career in teaching, I started a podcast. This podcast, The Hundred Dollar MBA Show. I focused on that. I fired all my clients. I only worked on making the best podcast possible. Back in 2014 is when we started. And then in six months, we won Best of Apple, which is one of the best podcasts. It's awarded to about 12 podcasts a year.

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  We won it the same year as Serial and Startup and The Tim Ferriss Show. And the reason why we were successful is because all we focused on is this one thing. We gotta make an incredible show. When Nicole and I built Webinar Ninja, our software company, we spent 10 years focusing on building a great product, a great ethos and customer service culture. And after 10 years of building so much value, we got acquired. We got to sell the company and it changed our life. Now I'm doing the same thing. All I'm focusing on is helping people start, grow and scale their business with our media, with our podcasts, with our videos. I'm just putting out there everything I know in the best way I can. This is all that matters to me.

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  Every time you choose one thing and give it your serious attention, everything changes. Focus is your advantage. If you take anything away from... Today's lesson, it's you don't need to do more to be more productive. You actually need to do less. You need to focus so that you can create better products, better content, better work. Productivity is not about squeezing as much as possible into your day. It's about protecting your most valuable asset, which is time, to do your best work. Stop trying to complete the entire to-do list when 80% of it are non-essential things. Start choosing the few things that actually help you achieve the one goal you need to achieve

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  in this season, in this quarter, in this month, in this year. If this episode has helped you, share with someone that you know is feeling overwhelmed, feels like they're never productive enough. You know who I'm talking about? Reach out to them, let them know you're thinking of them, and send them this episode. Before you go, I want to leave you with this. You become more productive the moment you start accepting the truth that you'll never get everything done. So you must choose what you want to get done so you can get ahead. When you master that, you stop drowning in tasks and you start moving with intention. You start saying no by default, and you only say yes to things that are essential to you and your goals.

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  And you're going to watch your productivity just go through the roof. These practices, these things that I've shared with you today have changed my life, and hopefully they'll do the same for you. If you found today's episode helpful and you want more practical business lessons to help you start, grow, and scale your business, the best thing you could do is subscribe to this podcast. Hit subscribe or follow on your favorite podcast app, the one that you're using right now, whether it's Apple or Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts. By hitting subscribe, you get our next episode automatically, and it's the best way to support the show. It's absolutely free, and it's a way for you to commit to growing your business. And now that you've subscribed, I'll check you in the next episode.

• 19:13Speaker 01

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