I get pissed off when people talk about how hard they work. In most cases, that’s just complete bullshit. Go work at a farm for a day. Or go chop wood for a day, and you’ll see what hard work is.
Now for most work we do, which is the office type of work done on the computer, don’t BS me with the 70h week bullshit. It’s so far off the mark it’s not even funny.
Nobody is putting in 70h focused hours a week. At least not longer than for a week or two.
Do you see how I used the word “focused” in the sentence above? This is the golden nugget.
Focused hustle is not you sipping coffee or eating a sandwich when you work. It’s not you checking your phone every 15min. It’s not you switching the Youtube song because you don’t like it. It’s not you going to the toilet.
Focused hustle is you being immersed on the task. Complete Zen, there’s nothing else. Just you and the task you’re focusing on. Nothing else even exists.
That’s how real stuff gets done. Important decisions. Mad creative accomplishments. Serious learning of new skills. You need focus for that, not getting back to Sammy on IG.
And if you truly want to create something significant, be it start a business, learn a difficult skill, or improve an area of your life significantly, you’re going to need that focus. And you’re going to need it consistently, day after day. For months and years to come.
Now, here’s a harsh truth. If you’ve never tracked your time or planned your day, you have absolutely no freaking idea about how productive you are or how much you can or cannot accomplish.
And then you put in “70h weeks”, and you think you’re being super productive and that you hustle so hard. Yet there’s no progress. So sales. No 6-pack. No results. Same old story, and the old misleading feeling of injustice. You’re working so hard, yet there are no rewards.
I mean think about it. Let’s take a classic office job for example. You have your lunch 1-2pm, right? And are you really focused and productive just after that big lunch? So it doesn’t make sense to count that hour after lunch as actual work, since you’re NOT getting much done.
So it’s not really 8h of work but less. And then over the course of the day, you spend an additional half an hour on FB, and 20min checking IG and you end up on about 4-6 productive hours.
There are a ton of examples like that. But the number of hours put in simply do not equal focused hustle. Focused hustle is a completely different currency, unfortunately, unknown to most.
An example of a work-day I am proud of lasts for about 10h (with a long break), where I manage to put in about 6 and a half focused hours. That’s much closer to reality.
If you’re mega focused and on point, you can get about 6h of focused hustle in about 8 hours of work. Guess what, you need breaks, you need to eat, you need to piss, etc.
Personally, I try to get in 4-6 focused hours per day, 6 days a week.
This is sustainable and drives results. A mid 6 figure company was born in less than a year. And lots of other cool stuff… but I don’t want to brag or justify anything here. If you’re still reading this, then something clicked. If not, well, nobody cares.
So how can YOU start putting in focused hustle that drives results, day after day?
Plan your day. Plan your day the night before, and be very specific. What are the top 3 things you want to accomplish? Make it specific, measurable. Chunk it down. Eliminate distractions; put your phone out of reach and on airplane mode. Ask people to hold you accountable, create habits and systems that will keep you engaged…
There’s a ton of things that need to be in place for you to be truly productive on an elite level. It’s an art really. But the most important thing is definitely to TRACK YOUR TIME.
That’s it. If you track your time ruthlessly you just created a feedback loop that you can improve over time. This is the one thing that if done will enable all the rest in due time. Track how much time you actually spend on working, and measure results. And then tweak and improve along the way.
You can use apps such as HubStaff to help you. This also takes screenshots every few mins, so you can later review if you were actually working or just surfing Youtube. You can also just manually record it, but keep in mind you will be VERY inaccurate in the beginning.
I guarantee your mind will be blown in a week. If you do it properly, you’ll probably realize just how much time you waste and how little of actual focused hustle your putting in.
But that’s actually great news. At least you know, and you can course correct along the way.
If you struggle with this, drop a comment or hit me up. I’ll do my best to answer with something helpful.
Wishing you dope and focused hustle,
Bostjan
P.S
If you’re already getting good results, then tracking your time will put your work on steroids. Please make the world a favor and do it.
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