10 Proven Strategies to Boost Productivity & Create a Clear Plan for Achieving Your Goals

Do you feel unproductive? How can you boost your daily productivity? Today, Jay talks about how to become productive without feeling burned out. In a world where productivity often leads to burnout, Jay offers practical and transformative strategies to help you achieve more while reducing stress. Whether you're feeling overwhelmed by an endless to-do list or struggling to manage your time effectively, this episode provides the tools you need to reclaim your focus and energy. Jay shares the importance of creating a workspace that fuels productivity and how subtle changes, like scent and sound, can enhance your environment. He also highlights the significance of workplace trust and how identifying whether an issue is people- or system-related can save you time and energy. He wraps up with insights on "monk mode," a method to achieve deep focus in the midst of distractions, and encourages listeners to experiment with these principles to find what works best for them.. In this episode, you'll learn: How to focus on one task at a time for better productivity How to identify key drivers of success How to lean into your momentum for maximum output How to use a 'to start' list instead of a to-do list Tune in to discover how to be productive without compromising your well-being, and walk away with actionable tips that you can implement immediately. With Love and Gratitude, Jay Shetty What We Discuss: 00:00 Intro 02:29 Burnt Out Already? 04:03 Tip #1: Doing One Thing at a Time 10:10 Tip #2: Clean Your External Space 12:40 Tip #3: Create a To-Start-List 14:17 Tip #4: Give Yourself Positive Validation of Task Completion 18:51 Tip #5: No Email Until 10AM 19:47 Tip #6: Goal of the Day, Goal of the Week 22:03 Tip #7: Know When is Your Most Productive Time 23:41 Tip #8: Create a Space of Workplace Trust 26:21 Tip #9: Focus on What’s Causing Success or Failure 27:42 Tip #10: Lock Into Your Task See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Jay Shetty?

  This episode is brought to you by Mazda. Confidence isn't something Mazda finds, it's something they practise. That's the thinking behind every Mazda. With proactive safety features designed to help keep you more aware, more connected and more engaged with the road ahead. It's why Mazda has been named Consumer Reports' safest new car brand and has won more 2026 IIHS Top Safety Pick Plus Awards than any other car brand as of July 2026. Visit www.iihs.org to learn more. A lot can happen when an accident doesn't. Visit MazdaUSA.com to learn more. Consumer Reports does not endorse products or services. This episode is brought to you by AG1. Are you feeling September reset too?

• 0:45Jay Shetty?

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• 1:28Jay Shetty?

  and it's clinically shown to enrich the gut microbiome. For a limited time, save 20% on your first subscription order of AG1 Next Gen or AG1 Pro at drinkag1.com/onpurpose. That's drinkag1.com/onpurpose. This episode is brought to you by Vinted. Value can be found anywhere, even in the clothes sitting untouched in our closets. That's where Vinted comes in. Vinted is a secondhand marketplace app where you can sell clothes you no longer want and get more value out of them. Whether you're running out of space, moving, or simply updating your wardrobe. Listing items is a quick and simple process and once something sells... Vinted creates a prepaid shipping label for you.

• 2:12Jay Shetty?

  And the best part, there are no seller fees, so you keep what you earn. It's a simple way to clear out your closet, be less wasteful, and maybe make some extra money along the way. And if you've been thinking about a wardrobe refresh, this can make it feel a little more worthwhile. You're not just letting go of clothes, you're getting more value from what you already have. Give your clothes a second life with Vinted. Download the Vinted app for free to start selling with no seller fees, so you keep every dollar you earn.

• 2:42Jay Shetty?

  Mental health is now talked about more than ever, which is awesome. I mean, I don't have to tell you that it's a primary focus of On Purpose. But on a day-to-day basis, many people don't know where to turn or which tools can help. Over the past couple of years, I've been working with Calm to make mental wellness accessible and enjoyable. Or as I like to say, fun and easy. Calm has all sorts of content to help you reduce anxiety and stress, build mindful habits, improve sleep, and generally feel better in your daily life. So many bite-sized options from the most knowledgeable experts in the world, along with renowned meditation teachers. You can also check out my seven-minute daily series to help you live more mindfully each and every day.

• 3:24Jay Shetty?

  Right now, listeners of On Purpose get forty percent off a subscription to Calm Premium at calm.com/jay. That's C-A-L-M dot com forward slash J-A-Y for forty percent off. Calm your mind, change your life. Sometimes your productivity is hampered because you're not solving a people issue and you're trying to solve a task issue. And sometimes your problem is you're focusing on people when actually it's a system issue. So ask yourself, should I solve the system or do I need to solve a relationship?

• 3:57Speaker 01

  The number one health and wellness podcast.

• 4:00Speaker 02

  Jay Shetty. Jay Shetty. The one, the only Jay Shetty.

• 4:06Jay Shetty?

  Hey everyone, welcome back to On Purpose. I'm so excited to welcome you to a new episode. It is great to have you here. If you're focused on developing yourself, building your mindset, strengthening your habits, you're in exactly the right place. I just want to thank so many of you that I bumped into recently as I've been out and about. It means the world to me when you come up to me and tell me your stories and share your experiences of listening to the podcast. It really makes my day and I love giving you a big hug, saying hello, fist bumping wherever we are. And I want to thank you for your reviews. I want to thank you for your stories. I want to thank you for the clips you make on TikTok.

• 4:50Jay Shetty?

  Keep the energy spreading. Remember, when you share an episode of On Purpose, you could be helping someone else go through a breakup. You could be helping someone find their passion. You could be helping someone build a habit that might change their life. And I'm so grateful that you're a part of this mission and a part of this movement. Now, today's episode is a theme that I think we all struggle with. If you want to be more productive and less burnt out, this episode is for you. If you want to achieve more, if you want to build more, if you want to create more, if you want to use your time more wisely, this episode is for you.

• 5:32Jay Shetty?

  If you've been wasting time, if you've been feeling like your priorities keep going to the bottom of the list, if you feel like even at this point in the year, you're so far away from your goals, this episode is for you. Now, I'm going to share with you some tips and tricks that have helped me along the way to have better time management, have better energy management, and have better stress management in order to be productive but also be effective. I think for a long time, we went down this toxic productivity route where everyone was stressed, burnt out, overworked, overwhelmed. And when you end up in that space, it's really hard to pivot.

• 6:16Jay Shetty?

  It's really hard to figure out how to get out of it. And you almost feel like, what was the point of being that productive? And at the same time, all of us want to create, we want to build, we're meant to grow as humans. And if we're not growing, we feel like things are falling apart. So I want to share with you some really practical steps that you can apply starting today. That are going to transform the way you work, live and love. Now I want to start off with probably my favorite principle of all. That has transformed my stress levels, my mindset. And it is the art of solo tasking or monotasking.

• 7:00Jay Shetty?

  Doing one thing at a time. I've found that when we do one thing at a time, whether it's eating, whether it's brushing our teeth. Whether it's talking to someone, whether it's browsing the internet, whether it's watching a video. When you do one thing at a time, your stress level drops. When you do one thing at a time and you're absorbed and immersed. Your quality of effectiveness increases. When you do one thing at a time, you feel a sense of accomplishment and completion. This is a really interesting thing in today's day and age. We live in a world where our lives are constantly incomplete.

• 7:45Jay Shetty?

  We have books that we read a page of, a couple of, and they're incomplete. We have a show that we started that we even forgot about. And then when you go back on to it, you're like, oh my gosh, I actually started the show. I was on episode two halfway through, but I forgot I started it. We live in a world of incompleteness, so much of what we start never ends. No, I'm not saying that we have to finish everything we start. But if we focus on one thing at a time, chances are our completion rate is going to go up. Now, what does that do? The completion rate going up makes you feel more successful and accomplished. It makes you feel you got to the end of something. It makes you feel like you got somewhere, you went on a journey.

• 8:28Jay Shetty?

  Otherwise, an incomplete journey is imagine you're like, you know what, today I think I'm gonna fly to New York. I'm gonna actually, you know, halfway on the flight, I'm gonna decide I actually wanna go to Atlanta. Okay, when I'm on the way to Atlanta, right, so that incompleteness is what creates inconsistency, instability in our lives. And we often don't make that connection of just how incomplete things have become. How many of you have a task that's been incomplete for three days and you completely forgot about it? Or how many of you had notes on your phone and you were writing some notes about something? You got distracted from a message, then someone sent you a TikTok link, and then after that, someone sent you a YouTube video, and then after that, someone sent you a link on Amazon,

• 9:11Jay Shetty?

  and now you forgot that note. So our incompleteness, and this idea of doing one thing at a time, allows us to feel more accomplished, it allows us to close the loop in our minds, it allows us to not have this constant state of distraction. Now, research shows that when one switches from task A to task B, their one hundred percent attention does not automatically go to the new task. Some people remain stuck at the original assignment. This is from the research. Now, it says that this is attention residue, and it's strongest if task A was unbounded

• 9:55Jay Shetty?

  or low intensity in nature before a person made the switch. Even if you complete task A before switching, part of your attention will remain temporarily on task A. So what we're saying is that if you don't complete task A, if you don't finish task A, and you move to task B, you could find that forty percent of your energy is still trying to solve task A. And now sixty percent of your energy is going to task B. Now, let's say you go to task C. You've left forty percent behind. Now that sixty gets split up again. You've got forty percent in task A. You've got thirty percent in task B. And you've got thirty percent in task C.

• 10:38Jay Shetty?

  So you're only giving your leftovers. You're giving the residue to the next task. So your attention is getting more split and fragmented. Whereas what we think happens is, oh, I was giving a hundred percent of my attention to that. Now I'm just gonna move it over. It doesn't work like that. So when you have lots of tabs open. When you have your email, your text, your WhatsApp all open on your laptop screen and you're able to switch between all of them. It actually creates this challenge. This research I found from the great book called Deep Work by Cal Newport. And in the book, it says, the principle of attention residue works like this.

• 11:20Jay Shetty?

  Every time you switch from task A to task B, some of your attention remains in task A. Concentrating on the new task is harder. So you lose some productivity when switching tasks. One task at a time, complete the task. I promise you, you will feel like you have so much more confidence, so much more assurance. And when it comes to the end of the day, you're not looking at your list going, that's still incomplete, that's still incomplete, that's still incomplete. Because the mind always over amplifies how far you have to go, not how far you've come. Right? Generally, so we have to switch our perspective. When you're halfway up a mountain, you could either look down and think,

• 12:03Jay Shetty?

  wow, I've come a really long way, or you could look up and go, oh, my gosh, I've got so long to go. And what we need in this mindset is actually, I may have a lot more left to do, but I completed a lot today. I hope that idea of completion really resonates and sticks with you. Because I see the incompleteness in our minds causing so much stress and anxiety. And that's what happens, right? If something's left incomplete, if something's left undone, that's what causes you stress. That's what causes you anxiety. So the reason why doing one thing at a time is important is because you can complete it. Now, I'm not saying this has to mean you complete every book if you're bored by it, or you complete a TV show if you're bored by it.

• 12:45Jay Shetty?

  It's just interesting how much of our life has become perplexed by incompleteness. Principle number two. Cleaning your external space and what does that mean? I don't mean that everything has to be perfectly tidy. What I mean is that when you come to your work desk, you have what you need there. You're not constantly getting back up and down going, oh, I forgot the posting notes. Oh, I forgot the highlighters. Oh, I forgot to download this app. Oh, I didn't really have the latest version of ChatGPT, whatever it is, right? Whether it's analog or digital, it's there. Where's your water bottle? Is it there? Where's your little snack? Where's your nuts that you need to nibble on? Now, of course, you can get up and go and get those things and it's good to move around during the day.

• 13:28Jay Shetty?

  But overall, is your space set up for success? Or is the first thought when you come to your desk, oh, oh, hate working here, hate being here. The first thing when you get into your bedroom, oh, it's just too hot in here, like set it up for success. Right? So cleaning your external space can have massive impact on your productivity. One of the things I think we underestimate is scent, sight and sound. When you walk into a space, what scent makes you feel that way? So when I walk into my workspace, I want a candle or a diffuser that has an energizing scent. Because I know I need to bring focus.

• 14:11Jay Shetty?

  We don't use the sense of smell enough in order to motivate our mind. Use that, figure out a diffuser, figure out a scent that when you smell it, you're like, okay, it's time to work. It's time to focus. Now a sight, what's something you wanna see? I have this, I have some art pieces in my office that have phrases, reminders. I have quotes on my table, I have little quote books that I can just flick through to get motivation. I'm surrounded by the energy and it's right there so that I can get do it. I know that if I'm feeling a certain way one day, I can pick up one of my books. I can pick up one of my affirmation cards, I can read it out to myself. And then sound, are you someone who likes to work in silence, chatter or music?

• 14:56Jay Shetty?

  A lot of us don't even know that, we don't have the self-awareness to recognize it. I'm a silence worker or I'm an instrumental music worker. I like lots of instrumental beats, I'm happy to have them on in the background, it gets me to lock in. Or I like silence. I really don't like working when there's chatter or background conversation and background noise. It doesn't work for me. So figure out yours.

• 15:21Jay Shetty?

  Number three, don't have a to-do list, but have a to-start list. And what I mean by that is, a to-do list is a list of everything that you need to do. A start list is like, well, where's the most important place to start? Right? So when we have a to-do list, like, for example, I could have on my to-do list, write a chapter of my book. Now, that's quite a big thing on my to-do list, but how, what's my to-start list? Okay, to start, write out what I think the chapter breakdown is gonna be. Right? Let's say on your to-do list, it says to complete a presentation. Okay, but to start, what do you need to read? So your start list almost makes it so easy for you that you just lock in,

• 16:06Jay Shetty?

  rather than you look at the item on your to-do list. Now, this takes an extra step when you're planning. When you're planning, you may have to sit down and think to yourself, okay, I have this to-do list, okay, what do I need to start? So it's an extra step in advance. But then, when you wake up and you look at your to-start list, you know exactly what to get locked into. I think this has been a game changer for me, because so often you look at your to-do list, and maybe a to-do list is work on that, you know, gotta finish off that project for work, or maybe the to-do list is, obviously for simple things like laundry or whatever, that, that's different. I'm talking about things that you've kind of been putting off for a while, things that get stuck on that to-do list for too long,

• 16:49Jay Shetty?

  things that are always there, almost, it feels like. Have a to-start list, not a to-do list.

• 16:59Jay Shetty?

  This episode is brought to you by Indeed. I know how important every hire is for a business. If you need to make the right hire, this is a job for sponsored jobs. Indeed sponsored jobs helps find quality candidates when you need the most. You can reach who you need based on whatever criteria you're looking for, like skills, certifications, or location. In fact, people are finding quality hires on Indeed right now. In the minute I've been talking to you, companies like yours made 27 hires on Indeed, according to Indeed data worldwide. Spend less time searching and more time actually interviewing candidates who check all your boxes. Listeners of this show will get a $75 sponsored job credit at indeed.com/podcast.

• 17:42Jay Shetty?

  That's indeed.com/podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Need to hire? This is a job for Indeed sponsored jobs. This episode is brought to you by Whole Foods Market. If you're talking about quality food, you can't forget Whole Foods Market, who've been holding themselves to the highest standards since they opened in 1980. That means you'll see thousands of organic products across their stores, from the produce department to the aisles. It also means you'll never see certain ingredients. They've banned artificial sweeteners and colours, high fructose corn syrup and more, so you can shop with peace of mind. Shop Whole Foods Market in-store or online. This episode is brought to you by State Farm.

• 18:26Jay Shetty?

  We talk a lot about intentional decision-making, and that extends to the practical stuff too, like making sure your coverage actually works for your life. State Farm is there to meet you where you are, and they know how sweet it is to feel good about your decisions. Talk to a State Farm agent today to learn how you can choose to bundle and save with a personal price plan. Like a good neighbour, State Farm is there. Prices are based on rating plans that vary by state, coverage options are selected by the customer, availability, amount of discounts and savings and eligibility vary by state.

• 18:59Jay Shetty?

  This next one applies to that as well. How many of you on your to-do list cross things off? How many of you will put a cross next to it or put a line through it? Now, this is really simple, and you may be like, Jay, that's not gonna work. I believe it all works, and I'll tell you why. It's because you're constantly in communication with yourself, and our body and mind picks up on subtle cues very strongly. There are subtle things in society that have been so hardwired. For example, if you see a cross next to something, you generally think it's wrong from school. If you see a cross next to something, it generally means don't enter,

• 19:44Jay Shetty?

  do not go here, caution, right? That is a symbol, it's an emblem for something. Now, you may not process that logically. You can differentiate between a cross on your to-do list and a cross at a, you know, at a, at a traffic signal or a sign or, you know, when they have those train crossings. You, you can tell the difference logically, but subtly... When you're not processing it that intentionally, you're getting a negative impact. So what I want you to do is swap your crosses for ticks. Put a big tick, put a colored tick, put a green tick. Seeing color, seeing a certain symbol color gives us a certain emotion and we devalue how much these things work. We undervalue how powerful these things can be.

• 20:29Jay Shetty?

  Right? We just think, oh yeah, it's just, you know, this is just pseudo stuff. It's like, yeah, sure, maybe, maybe there isn't something massively scientific about it. But the idea that you're learning to give yourself positive affirmation, a positive validation of completion, a positive sense of self. I think it will make a big difference. One of the most well-known tools, which I only recently realized, I was lucky to learn when I was very young and just how many people never actually got exposed to it when they were young. And I, I wanted to share it with you and if you know it, that's great. If you don't know it, then I really hope that this changes the way you work. It's called the Eisenhower matrix or the Eisenhower box.

• 21:15Jay Shetty?

  And Eisenhower's strategy for taking action was organizing the inbound of a task. So on your to-do list or a task that comes through, there are four ways of defining them according to Eisenhower. The four ways are either urgent and important. These are things that you will do immediately. There's important but not urgent. This is stuff that you'll have to schedule to do at another time. Then there's urgent but not important. This is ideally something that someone else can do. It may require you to do it, but not with the same amount of intentionality and focus.

• 22:00Jay Shetty?

  And fourth, neither urgent nor important. And these are tasks that you actually want to get rid of. Now, when you start doing this, you, and I want you to do this, and again, it's, it's almost like you'll think, well, why do I do that? Why don't I just get on with the task? Because you might find when you do this for the first time. A lot of the tasks that you're spending time on, maybe neither urgent nor important. I analyze every one of my meetings at work this way. We often go around the team meeting and my team will be filling me in on things. And I'm asking myself, how much of this was urgent? And how much of this was important? And how much of it required me? And so, ask yourself, is this urgent and important?

• 22:42Jay Shetty?

  Let me do it immediately, because often what we do is we trade what is important for what is urgent. And I think that's one of the biggest misses in productivity and time management. We get a request that's urgent for someone else, that's another thing. Not only is it not important for you, it's not urgent for you, it's urgent for someone else. And we drop what we're doing. And being able to say, hey, I'm gonna get back to you in five minutes. I've just got to finish something off. Hey, I've been working on that, what time do you need it by? Right, when do you need it by? And in what condition are you looking for? We're looking for it to be, like, are you looking for it to be complete?

• 23:26Jay Shetty?

  I think these qualifying questions help you to plan it out, help you to factor it out. One of the big ones of this, this is the next principle, but this applies to the next principle very strongly. No email until 10 a.m. A lot of us, we get to work and the first thing we do, and I remember I used to do this as well, was I used to open my email. You're starting your day off with a few things. First of all, it's reactive. You haven't started proactively on what you need to focus on. You start reactively with what everyone else wants to focus on. Therefore, it's urgent to someone else, even if it's not urgent and important to you. And thirdly, you get distracted down a rabbit hole and you focus on things that you don't even know are of value to what you're trying to do.

• 24:11Jay Shetty?

  Set a time, no email for the first thirty minutes of the day. No email for the first hour when I get into work, I'm gonna focus on my project. So I'm gonna focus on what I need to deliver. I'm gonna focus on what I need to build. That's how you wanna plan your day out. Right, that's how you wanna focus. One of the next productivity tips that's made a big difference in my life is something I called goal of the day and goal of the week. I knew the goal of my day today was to script, research and record two incredible solo episodes. This is one of them, right? That was my goal of the day because I'm traveling for the rest of the day today. I'm flying to London. And so my goal of the day is to get to London safely and do that. And that's it. Have a lunch in between for work and, and that's, but, but that's my goal.

• 24:56Jay Shetty?

  My goal is simple. It's the podcast, it's the solos, it's being present with all of you. That's the goal of the day. No matter what happens, I have won if this goes well. I think what we often do is we have 10 goals of the day. We have 10 goals of each day and it's almost impossible. Now, this doesn't mean you don't do more tasks. I've done more tasks today. I haven't had the luxury of only doing two episodes. I've got a lot of other tasks to do today, but I'm very clearly in my mind saying to myself, this is the win. Because what happens is that every day will feel like a loss when you look at it and you look, I didn't get six out of 10 things done. But maybe you got two of the most important things done in those four things you got done.

• 25:41Jay Shetty?

  We don't properly weigh things for what their value truly is. We overvalue something and we undervalue something else, or we give everything the same value and no tasks. Like to me, recording my solos today and doing a bit of housekeeping, they're not of the same value to my work. They're not of the same value to my life. They are of different value. And so the goal of the day has to be based around what you value today. Some days, the goal of the day will be to get the dishes done tonight. Someday, the goal of the day will be to get the laundry done and that's totally fine. But know your value. Set a goal of the day and set a goal of the week and pursue that.

• 26:25Jay Shetty?

  Don't pursue this endless feeling of, I just wanna check everything off my list. I just need to get everything done. Because you could get everything done and 10 more things are going to appear. But if you've done the big things, if you've done the big goals, goal of the day, the goal of the week, you're going to feel a sense of accomplishment. The next principle is know your best time to be productive and put the most important activity at that time. This is another self-awareness tip.

• 26:55Jay Shetty?

  If you know when you're most powerful, lean into that. I know that I'm at my best energy in the morning. I'm far better all the way up until one or two P M. That is my golden time. That is my most impactful time. So I'm going to place all my most important activities in that nine A M to one to two P M slot. Then other things I'm going to add later on in the day. What I find is a lot of us will find our best stuff. We're doing it at the hardest times. So many of us are trying to do our best work at the worst time during the day for us. So get a sense of it. Observe yourself, audit yourself over the next week and ask yourself, what time of day was I most productive? What tasks do I find easiest?

• 27:41Jay Shetty?

  What builds my confidence? Am I better when I start with the hardest thing at the beginning of the day? Or the easiest thing at the start of the day? Know your best time and schedule accordingly. And this applies to the next rule, which is lean into beast mode. You have to follow momentum. Sometimes I'm on a streak where I'm just writing and it's really flowing. And I realized to myself, that's the wind of the day. I'm going to switch some of my tasks and focus on that. Sometimes I'm in a recording mode and I can tell I've really locked in and I'm like, all right, let me just lean into this. Right? And I think a lot of us don't follow our momentum. We don't follow that desire and energy when it's flowing, it's flowing, go with it and lean into it.

• 28:23Jay Shetty?

  Now, if you work in a workplace with other people, the biggest blocker to productivity, people think is chatter or noise. And that is there, there's some truth in that. Because one of the principles that I'll talk about later actually refers to that. But the one I want to talk about right now is actually one of the biggest causes of inefficiency at work is a lack of trust. When people have a lack of trust, you have to ask them three times for that document. When people have a lack of trust, you have to navigate a meeting so carefully that you're de-energized after the meeting. When people have a lack of trust and chemistry, there's likelihood of being more conflict or competitiveness.

• 29:07Jay Shetty?

  We have to try in our workplaces to create a space of workplace trust. And what that is, is to make sure people don't feel intimidated and you don't feel intimidated. And I know this is so hard because sadly you're around people who have their ego up, their barrier up, their boundary up, you've kind of got into the same place now. So what do you do? And I've been there before as well. I remember being in workplaces where I really felt that it was backs up against the wall and I really didn't feel like people like were were warm, right? Not just to me, to each other. Sometimes people are warm to me and not to other people and that made me uncomfortable. So what do you do?

• 29:48Jay Shetty?

  I can honestly say that leading with integrity, leading with respect, leading with your best self, communicating effectively, always going higher, no matter how hard it is, will ultimately win the trust of the right people. It's always better. Don't get stuck in office politics. Don't get brought down by it. Don't get trapped by it. Don't get ruined by it. And the way you do that is by constantly engaging with on purpose, you know, reading books that inspire you, being around people maybe outside of work or people at work who do move you and motivate you. But recognize that sometimes you're trying to solve tasks and everything else, but it's a people issue.

• 30:31Jay Shetty?

  Know what's a people issue and know what's a task issue. This is a huge rule for productivity. Sometimes your productivity is hampered because you're not solving a people issue and you're trying to solve a task issue. And sometimes your problem is you're focusing on people when actually it's a system issue. So ask yourself, should I solve the system or do I need to solve a relationship? And figure that out and that will save you so much time, money and energy. I've only got a couple more that I want to share with you. This next one is called the Pareto Principle. And it's a concept that's based on this idea

• 31:10Jay Shetty?

  that eighty percent of your business success is actually based on twenty percent of business, right? So. It's almost like saying that eighty percent of your revenue is based on twenty percent of your clients. Eighty percent of your success is based on the twenty percent of people you actually know at work, not the other way around. What we often do is we often get lost focusing on the eighty percent as opposed to the twenty percent. In essence, we don't focus on the root of our success and failure. We get distracted. And so it's a reminder that figure out what is really causing success or failure and focus on that.

• 31:53Jay Shetty?

  So ask yourself, what is your twenty percent? Here are four questions I want you to reflect on. Number one, what is your twenty percent? What is the thing that actually drives the eighty percent? Then what's your eighty percent? What are you focused on eighty percent of the time? And is it really leading to anything? Third question, where are you spending your time? And fourth, how can you reprioritize? How can you recognize that you want to focus on the twenty percent that is life-changing, that is building, and not get lost in the eighty percent? Now, the last method I want to share with you is monk mode. I remember so much of our meditation training during my time as a monk was about finding that silence and that stillness and going inward.

• 32:37Jay Shetty?

  And in the workspace, this monk mode is this idea that how can you find that feeling of being locked in? How can you find that feeling of being so focused that you're not distracted by everything else around you? And research shows that in-person conversations ranked as the top source of distraction at work, forty-seven percent, followed by phone calls, twenty percent, and chat platforms, fifteen percent. One of my team members does this, and I see it work wonders for her when we're all chatting away. She wears headphones. Right, she wears headphones and they're noise cancelling and she's locked in, doing her work and I see the amount of focus she has and how productive she is because of that.

• 33:22Jay Shetty?

  And I see a couple of my team members actually doing this. And so I recommend it. If you're struggling to disconnect, it's great to have them on. It's not rude, it's not antisocial, you can always join into conversations. And people actually admire it because people can see how locked in you are. So I wanna know which principles you're gonna test, which ones you're gonna try. I hope that this helps you be more productive and effective and also lowers your stress levels. And I'm sending you so much love and positive energy. Remember, I'm always in your corner and I'm forever rooting for you. Thanks for listening on purpose, I'll see you soon. Thank you so much for listening to this conversation. If you enjoyed it, you'll love my chat with Adam Grant

• 34:03Jay Shetty?

  on why discomfort is the key to growth and the strategies for unlocking your hidden potential. If you know you wanna be more and achieve more this year, go check it out right now.

• 34:14Speaker 03

  You set a goal today, you achieve it in six months. And then by the time it happens, it's almost a relief. There's no sense of meaning and purpose. You sort of expected it and you would have been disappointed if it didn't happen.

• 34:26Speaker 04

  Now, more than ever, we need someone on our side. But Rob Whitman? Whitman's votes drove up costs, cut Medicaid and risked three hundred fifty thousand Virginians' healthcare to pay for tax breaks for himself and his donors. He's not on our side. Shannon Taylor will fight corruption, cut taxes and bring down costs. This November, vote for Shannon Taylor. She's for us. Paid for by HMP, the HouseMajorityPac.com. Not authorized by any candidate or candidate's committee.