There are two kinds of people.

There are people who execute.

And there are people who don't.

They are the equivalent of trying to power-bang a hot babe with only a semi-hard dick. They accomplish nothing and yet they still feel exhausted, even though they set their minds on the right thing.

For most of my young life, I certainly was the latter. Today, I am an executing machine. I get shit done. Therefore I decided to write up this handy post on how to become amazing like me.

This article will teach you how to get more shit done, how to do so more consistently, and how to achieve better results in the process.

A little disclaimer: A lot of the solutions involve throwing money at problems to make your life go smoother. If you don't have money, fix that first. 10 years ago I was broke, lonely, burned out and depressed. Today I am rich, lonely, burned out and depressed while sitting on a beach.

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  • Picking a task is a task in itself

Deciding what to do and how to proceed, picking from a multitude of possible options, all with innumerable possible outcomes - that in itself is already a task. And a demanding one, too.

Picking tasks, deciding what to do, making strategic decisions, blocking out noise and nay-sayers - all of this costs loads of mental energy. (Mental energy being a concept we will encounter throughout this piece of advice.)

Picking a task is already stressful. So stressful even, that some people experience what is called "analysis paralysis" - getting stuck in analyzing mode because there are too many unknown variables to satisfiably predict the outcome of a decision. If you are more smart than brave, you are prone to this.

Deciding what to do always incorporates a great deal of fuzziness, randomness, and heuristics. Tuning out that fuzziness is emotionally taxing and burns up mental energy a lot quicker than one might think.

This is one of the core reasons most people are content with being followers instead of leaders - operating in a smaller decision space is less stressful and less scary.

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  • Establish a framework that does most "what next?" decisions for you.

Good matrices for this type of decision are the Eisenhower Matrix or the Kanban Framework.

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  • Try Kanban: Stop starting, start finishing. (Read: Kanban in Action)

If you work in software engineering or any kind of project that has some kind of a management approach, you may have heard about "Kanban", which is a framework/tool for visualizing work. It's main appeal is that it allows you to keep your to-dos from stacking up.

While originally developed by Toyota for efficiently building cars in a country where storage space is scarce, the Kanban approach is applicable to life.

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  • One central tenet of Kanban is to "start finishing".

Example: The last step of the production is to paint the car red. Therefore, the first thing you do every day is paint the unpainted cars and ship them off, so there is no unfinished vehicles standing in your lot. You never keep more paint or cars on-site than you can process in a reasonably short amount of time.

The lesson is this:

  • Always start your day by completing tasks that work towards completing a goal.

If you can pay off a small debt: pay it off. If you can finish a task: do it.

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  • Always pick the task for the project that is closest to completion.

Of course, there are situations where you may have to take a different approach. But having a ready-made strategy to tackle big workloads will save you a lot of time.

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  • You need mental energy to start a task. Don't waste it on bullshit.

Here is a little secret about motivation: Starting a stupid, tedious time-waster of a task costs you just as much mental energy as starting an equally tedious but productive/lucrative task. Even worse: If you are like me and have some form of ADHD, there "energy cost" of certain tasks might be totally out of whack.

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  • Be aware of what drains you and find ways around that.

I can spend hours upon hours dealing with difficult clients and be fine and dandy, only to be more or less spent for the day when I have to sort through a stack of papers or stand in line at the post office.

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  • Your mental energy is a form of currency. Think of it like a resource, similar to money or time.

If someone suckered you into doing a bullshit task for them - and hence made you waste time and energy in the process - they basically stole from you. Worse: You let them. If you can outsource menial, tedious, and boring tasks by throwing money at someone to do them for you: do so.

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  • If you make more in an hour than it costs to have someone fix this problem for you, let someone else do it.

This is of course provided you make a significant amount of money. The first investment I made, once I started to have a somewhat significant cash flow, was to hire a maid and a personal assistant. Even if you are not yet in "having an assistant" levels of income, hiring one early gives you a chance to

Instead of driving somewhere, I take an Uber and hammer out some emails while I drive. Or I use the time to take a nap, or listen to music and enjoy the scenery. The point is: I am not wasting mental energy that I might need elsewhere later.

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  • Minimize the stuff you own - but invest where it counts.

Tyler Durden in Fight Club was correct when he said: "The things you own end up owning you." However, I disagree about the part where he advocates losing all your stuff in order to truly be free. You can absolutely own some cool shit and still be reasonably free - trust me.

If there are objects in your life that you (have to) use every day and you can afford to spend the money: Don't skimp. Get things that work well and bring you pleasure every time you use them. The things you use should work and give you energy, not be a cause for headaches, and not require emotional self-regulation or constant attention.

If you cook every day, get some nice pans or a foreman grill, or a dishwasher. If you like to lift every day, maybe build a home gym. If you work from home on a computer, get a powerful workstation and a healthy, comfortable chair.

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  • Get quality sleep.

Of all the things I talked about so far, getting quality sleep is something you can fix quickly. Get into bed early, stay away from screens or wear blue-light-blocking glasses. Take magnesium two hours after dinner. Have a good book on the nightstand.

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  • Don't let toxic people run your life.

So far, we have only been talking about activities and stuff. But by far one of the biggest factors blocking you from getting shit done is other people. Other people constantly demand your energy, your time, and your resources. Be it your bitchy girlfriend who nags you into watching some bullshit movie with her or that loser-friend who can not get laid and constantly whines to you without ever doing anything to solve his problems. Or your annoying roommate. Or your mom.

Since no man is an island, I advocate against cutting toxic people out of your life entirely - but you should question how much time you spend with them.

Also, don't forget: The most toxic person in your life is probably yourself. So before going around blaming other people's toxicity for your failures, take a good, long look into a mirror.

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  • Fix your emotional problems.

This is probably a no-brainer, but I can't help but wonder how this gets neglected so often. Don't expect yourself to go anywhere if you are carrying a huge sack of emotional baggage. All of the things I mentioned so far are infinitely harder when you have to lug around all the accumulated trauma of your past.

Here is the problem though: Even if you can bring yourself to drop the bag for some time, unleashing great power in the process, you will find yourself picking up that sack of crap in no time - usually once your life gets a little hard and because you crave the comfort of something familiar.

Carrying emotional baggage around is a habit. A habit similar to drugs.

Therefore, pause for a moment every few days. Take some time to take the bag of your shoulders and take good long look at one thing in the bag. Just one. If you look at it long enough, it will start to shrink.

The next day, the bag will feel lighter. And eventually, it will just be that: an empty bag.