The Darius Foroux Show: Master Your Productivity. Master Your Life.

I recently conducted a survey on my newsletter. 2,219 people participated. With 88% of the workforce admitting that they procrastinate at least one hour a day, it’s safe to say this is a widespread issue. This result is also in stark contrast with previous research that showed 25% - 75% of people procrastinate. It's more common than we assume. On this episode, I discuss the findings, give more background about the study, and talk about why we procrastinate. Here's a link to the study and the slide deck:http://dariusforoux.com/procrastination-study ---- Get 30% off Blinkist: https://blinkist.com/darius Want to get my free newsletter? Join here: http://dariusforoux.com

Do you know that feeling of being so busy that time flies with a blink of an eye? We’re so busy with all kinds of things—work, friends, going out, holidays, etc. But being busy is not a good thing at all. On this episode, I discuss my article Why I Stopped Being Busy (https://dariusforoux.com/being-busy/) and how I slow down time. I hope you find it useful. Get 30% off Blinkist: https://blinkist.com/darius Want to get my free newsletter? Join here: http://dariusforoux.com

Thank you for listening and subscribing to my podcast! I appreciate the support and I'm committed to delivering more value to you. It’s been a while since I did an episode about the things I’ve recently learned. So on this episode, I’m back at it again. I also share what I’ve learned from experimenting with video and audio over the last few months. I hope you enjoy the episode. Get 30% off Blinkist: https://blinkist.com/darius Want to get my free newsletter? Join here: http://dariusforoux.com

On this episode, I invited Jonas Salzgeber, author of The Little Book Of Stoicism, to join me. We talk about how we can use stoic ideas to live better. We also talk about creating things. Too often, we think “that’s already been done” when we want to write a book, create an app, or start a business. But that shouldn’t hold us back. Jonas’ first book became a best-seller on Amazon: https://amzn.to/2WdeD9e. He’s a good example of how hard work pays off. P.S. Don’t have time to read books? Try Blinkist, my favorite accelerated learning app, for FREE: https://blinkist.com/darius I use this app every day to learn something new. They create quality summaries of top non-fiction books. Read about how I use Blinkist here: https://dariusforoux.com/this-accelerated-learning-app-will-change-your-life/ Want to get my free newsletter? Join here: http://dariusforoux.com

Rick is the founder of Taser. He started the company in his garage. And now, it’s valued at 3 billion dollars. On this episode, we talk about how he started the company, dealt with failure, and his mission to change the world. He just published a book called The End Of Killing (https://amzn.to/2JBxfZZ). In the book, he shares a roadmap to a safer future. Rick is a highly driven individual. And I enjoyed talking to him. He brings a lot of value on this episode. Enjoy! Learn more about Rick: www.axonrick.com ----------- P.S. Don’t have time to read books? Try Blinkist, my favorite accelerated learning app, for FREE: http://blinkist.com/darius I use this app every day to learn something new. They create quality summaries of top non-fiction books. ----------- Get my latest book, The Road To Better Habits, for free. In the book, I will show you a simple framework your can use to transform your habits. Excited to transform your life by transforming your habits? Get the book here: http://dariusforoux.com/better-habits/

Are you working on a lot of things? Is your attention not on one thing? There’s a big chance that you will not achieve the best possible results. Or worse: You might fail if you try to achieve many things at the same time The reason is simple: Most of us believe that success happens all at once. Real life is different. Keller and Papasan put it well: “Success is sequential, not simultaneous.” Things add up. You learn one skill. Then another. You finish one project. Then another. Over time, your accomplishments add up to form an impressive feat. This is especially true for money. Most people earned their money over time. Few people make a big financial splash. Warren Buffett is the perfect example of sequential success. You can achieve big things with small actions, that build up over time. In this video, I explain how Buffet’s net worth grew exponentially over the years due to a simple concept: The Power of Compounding. Thanks for listening! P.S. Don’t have time to read books? Try Blinkist, my favorite accelerated learning app, for FREE: https://blinkist.com/darius I use this app every day to learn something new. They create quality summaries of top non-fiction books. ----------- Get my latest book, The Road To Better Habits, for free. In the book, I will show you a simple framework you can use to transform your habits. Excited to transform your life by transforming your habits? Get the book here: http://dariusforoux.com/better-habits/ ----------- Connect With Me Newsletter: https://dariusforoux.com YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/c/DariusForoux Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dariusforoux/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/DariusForoux Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/dariusforoux/

Does your reading list keep growing? Did you buy books that you’ve never read? It might be time to cross more books from your list this year than ever. If you’re reading less than you want, you’re not the only one. A few years ago, I looked at my Goodreads page and noticed that I had read only five books that year. That realization frustrated me. I love books, but since I graduated college in 2011, I’d been reading fewer books every single year. My work and life got in the way of reading as much as I wanted. Why read 100 books in a year? You read because you want to learn from other people’s experience. Otto von Bismarck put it best: “Fools learn from experience. I prefer to learn from the experience of others.” If you want to get anywhere in this world, you need to educate yourself, and to educate yourself you need to read—a lot. In this week’s video, I show you how I read 100 books using these 5 tactics: 1. Buy In Bulk: It costs money to buy books, and it costs you time to read them — I’m assuming you have both if you’re reading this. Everyone can make time. And if you don’t have money, find a way to make or save money. 2. A(always) B(e) R(eading): I read a minimum of 1 hour per day on weekdays and even more during the weekend and holidays. Find a way to read around your schedule and your life situation. Don’t make excuses like you’re tired or too busy. 3. Read Relevant Books Only: Have you ever read a book that’s supposedly amazing and you don’t get it? Well, read books that are close to what’s going on in your life. There’s a book for everything you can think off. 4. Read Multiple Books Simultaneously: There are no rules to reading so you can do whatever you want. At times, I’m reading 5 books at once. I might read 50 pages of one book in the morning and then read another book in the afternoon. 5. Retain The Knowledge: Knowledge is only good if you use it. To retain knowledge, you need a system that helps you do that. Thanks for listening! P.S. Don’t have time to read books? Try Blinkist, my favorite accelerated learning app, for FREE: https://blinkist.com/darius I use this app every day to learn something new. They create quality summaries of top non-fiction books. ----------- Get my latest book, The Road To Better Habits, for free. In the book, I will show you a simple framework your can use to transform your habits. Excited to transform your life by transforming your habits? Get the book here: http://dariusforoux.com/better-habits/ ----------- Connect With Me Newsletter: https://dariusforoux.com YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/c/DariusForoux Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dariusforoux/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/DariusForoux Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/dariusforoux/

You don’t need to be rich to be free or independent. Too many of us are held captive by money. Rich AND poor are both consumed by it. But that’s not freedom. That’s the money trap. On this episode, I share 2 tips that will help you break free from the money trap. To get over your fear of money, you need to do two things: 1. Acquire income producing skills 2. Save as much as you can You’re free to do any type of work you want. And when you have valuable skills and always improve yourself, you will never be out of work. In contrast, if you have a job, and become too loyal to that job, you forget about yourself. You _always_ work for yourself. Never forget that. You are responsible e for your own career. And you need to think about yourself first. I prefer to have an employee like that to someone who always does what they are told. The former is always trying to grow, the latter accepts the status quo. And then finally, save your money so you can quit any job you have. That’s freedom. You work because it’s you _want_ to make yourself useful. Not because you have to. Thanks for listening! P.S. Don’t have time to read books? Try Blinkist, my favorite accelerated learning app, for FREE: https://blinkist.com/darius I use this app every day to learn something new. They create quality summaries of top non-fiction books. ----------- Get my latest book, The Road To Better Habits, for free. In the book, I will show you a simple framework your can use to transform your habits. Excited to transform your life by transforming your habits? Get the book here: http://dariusforoux.com/better-habits/ ----------- Connect With Me Newsletter: https://dariusforoux.com YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/c/DariusForoux Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dariusforoux/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/DariusForoux Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/dariusforoux/

Price’s law is something that can truly change the outcome of your life and career. It can make you or BREAK you. On this episode, I explain why that is and how you can use it to become successful. The rule says: 50% of the work is done by the square root of the total number of people who participate in the work. I didn’t know about Price’s law until recently when I watched a lecture by Dr. Jordan Peterson, psychology professor, and author of 12 Rules For Life (https://amzn.to/2Iodkgf). Understanding the underlying idea of Price’s law can make your life a lot easier. Look at your current profession. Are you in a position to create substantial value? If the answer is no, move on to a different place where you CAN. Become very good at what you do. That’s the only way you can provide value. We must be realistic. There are no shortcuts. It takes time to be good—let alone be great. When you provide more value, you feel better, plus you’ll earn more. Not a bad side-effect of doing great work. Look, life is not symmetric nor linear. Only a few people in every domain are responsible for half of the results. Hence, find the domain YOU can be the important minority — you’ll also get the majority of the benefits. Then, let me know if your life isn’t better. Thanks for listening! P.S. Don’t have time to read books? Try Blinkist, my favorite accelerated learning app, for FREE: https://blinkist.com/darius I use this app every day to learn something new. They create quality summaries of top non-fiction books. ----------- Get my latest book, The Road To Better Habits, for free. In the book, I will show you a simple framework your can use to transform your habits. Excited to transform your life by transforming your habits? Get the book here: http://dariusforoux.com/better-habits/ ----------- Connect With Me Newsletter: https://dariusforoux.com YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/c/DariusForoux Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dariusforoux/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/DariusForoux Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/dariusforoux/

One of the best strategies to build a career is to acquire valuable skills. I learned about this concept from How To Fail At Almost Everything and Still Win Big by Scott Adams. He calls this concept Talent Stacking (I don’t like the word talent because it implies nature, I prefer skill because it implies nurture), and writes: “Successwise, you’re better off being good at two complementary skills than being excellent at one.” You simply have more chance of career success if you have more skills. Think about it. If you’re a one-trick pony, your opportunities are limited. But if you have multiple skills, you’re simply more valuable. And that’s what career success is ultimately about. It comes down to value. How much value can you give to people or organizations? “What Skills Will Make Me More Valuable?” 1. Productivity—My whole blog’s focus is on productivity for one reason: When you’re a person who can get shit done, you will always find a way. With solid productivity skills, you can learn anything. That’s why I think it’s the first thing we must learn because it makes developing all the other skills a lot easier. Put simply: Productivity is the mother of all skills. 2. Writing—The ability to translate your thoughts into words makes it easier to do our job. When you write in a clear and simple way, you can express yourself like very few people can. 3. Psychology—A basic understanding of why we do what we do can help us to understand ourselves and others. You don’t have to become a therapist. As long as you know the basics of psychology, you’re better at dealing with other people; and yourself. 4. Persuasion—This is the art and science of communicating in a way that resonates with people. When we’re good at persuasion, we are better at leadership, sales, holding conversations, public speaking, at anything else that requires influencing others. Influence is more about effective communication than anything else. 5. Personal Finance—We often don’t think about managing our money. But when we get closer to retirement, we think, “Why didn’t I start earlier.” The time to start managing your personal finance is NOW.  Thanks for checking out this episode! Get my eBook “Six Figure Pitching” for free. In the book, I share my 7 best email templates that you can use to increase your conversions, get published in top publication, and improve your email open rates. Get the book here: https://businessofblogging.net/six-figure-pitching/ ----------- Connect With Me Website: http://businessofblogging.net Podcast: https://dariusforoux.com/podcast/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dariusforoux/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/DariusForoux Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/dariusforoux/

I might as well ask you: “Can you ever be done with eating food?” “Of course not!” you would probably answer. Well, some people actually believe they can be finished with personal development. They stop reading books or quit going to the gym. These are the people who follow trends. We need to realize that life is built from fundamentals and that it does not consist of some popular thing that’s hot at the moment. Once we identify those fundamentals, we can start to improve and strengthen them to establish longevity. How? By repeating them. Over and over again. Then, over time, those fundamentals turn into a strong lifestyle. All you need is patience. And before you know it, you are the person who continually dedicates his life to becoming better. No temporal hot thing can seduce you. Nothing halts your improvement; you’re part of a process that ends when life ends. Thanks for listening! P.S. Don’t have time to read books? Try Blinkist, my favorite accelerated learning app, for FREE: https://blinkist.com/darius I use this app every day to learn something new. They create quality summaries of top non-fiction books. ----------- Get my latest book, The Road To Better Habits, for free. In the book, I will show you a simple framework you can use to transform your habits. Excited to transform your life by transforming your habits? Get the book here: http://dariusforoux.com/better-habits/ ----------- Connect With Me Newsletter: https://dariusforoux.com YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/c/DariusForoux Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dariusforoux/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/DariusForoux Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/dariusforoux/

Writing every day has truly changed my life. Through writing, you reformulate important life lessons in your own words. And because of this repetition, the wisdom of life becomes your second nature. That’s when you live the ideas. So even though you are writing and talking to yourself, you ingrain the wisdom in your character so that it becomes a part of your character. To me, writing is the most effective way to make the intangibility of your thoughts real. And that’s one of the greatest things in life. Marcus Aurelius, one of the most well-known stoic philosophers often wrote for himself. And I encourage everyone to do it too. On this episode, I share tips that you can use to get started with journaling every day. Thanks for listening! P.S. Don’t have time to read books? Try Blinkist, my favorite accelerated learning app, for FREE: https://blinkist.com/darius I use this app every day to learn something new. They create quality summaries of top non-fiction books. ----------- Get my latest book, The Road To Better Habits, for free. In the book, I will show you a simple framework you can use to transform your habits. Excited to transform your life by transforming your habits? Get the book here: http://dariusforoux.com/better-habits/ ----------- Connect With Me Newsletter: https://dariusforoux.com YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/c/DariusForoux Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dariusforoux/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/DariusForoux Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/dariusforoux/

How much time should I spend thinking instead of doing? It’s one of the biggest questions I struggle with. One side of me says “without doing you will never achieve anything.” Another side says “without thinking things through, you might end up doing the wrong things.” Thinking by itself is worthless because if you never do anything, what’s the use? And if you only act without thinking, you probably end up in jail or in a ditch. That's why this topic is so important. But most of us never even consider living by a thinking/doing ratio. I live by what I call “the 20/80 rule of effective thinking.” I think for most professionals in today’s age, that ratio of thinking vs doing is sufficient. Even though I'm a natural thinker, I need to remind myself to execute more than I think. Again, it’s not the ratio that counts, it’s the quality of your thinking. And ultimately, the quality of your thinking impacts the outcomes you achieve. Remember that poor outcomes in life are excusable but poor thinking and decision-making are not. How To Keep An Activity Log (article I talked about in the video): https://dariusforoux.com/know-thy-time/ Read more about Warren Buffett in Snowball by Alice Schroeder: https://amzn.to/2CopIbD ----------- Thanks for listening! P.S. Don’t have time to read books? Try Blinkist, my favorite accelerated learning app, for FREE: https://blinkist.com/darius I use this app every day to learn something new. They create quality summaries of top non-fiction books. Do you want to get my best productivity tips for free? I’ve made an eBook with 5 tips, exercises, and video training, that you can use to get immediate results. Curious? Get the book here: http://dariusforoux.com/productivity-secrets/ ----------- Connect With Me Newsletter: https://dariusforoux.com YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/c/DariusForoux Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dariusforoux/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/DariusForoux Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/dariusforoux/

There’s this idea in Eastern and Western philosophy that we must learn how to enjoy the present moment without getting distracted by the past or future. But that's hard because our natural state of mind is to be lost in thought. We are constantly thinking, stressing, worrying, and being preoccupied by a force that seems outside of control. And if that's not bad enough, there are many external distractions that mess with our head. On this episode, I share how I stopped being distracted and started living in the present. Thanks for listening! P.S. Don’t have time to read books? Try Blinkist, my favorite accelerated learning app, for FREE: https://blinkist.com/darius I use this app every day to learn something new. They create quality summaries of top non-fiction books. Do you want to get my best productivity tips for free? I’ve made an eBook with 5 tips, exercises, and video training, that you can use to get immediate results. Curious? Get the book here: http://dariusforoux.com/productivity-secrets/ ----------- Connect With Me Newsletter: https://dariusforoux.com YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/c/DariusForoux Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dariusforoux/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/DariusForoux Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/dariusforoux/

Laura has been writing about productivity since 2009. In her latest book, Off The Clock, she shares proven principles for getting more done so can have more free time. And we can use that free time to do the things we always wanted to do. Link to Off The Clock book: https://amzn.to/2EGaGhE Link to her website and podcast: https://lauravanderkam.com P.S. Prefer to get the summary of Off The Clock? Try Blinkist, my favorite accelerated learning app, for FREE: https://blinkist.com/darius