Leveling Up | A Guitarist's Self-mastery Journal

[Dan Arnautu]

Hi there!

My name is Dan, and I am here to bring you with me on the journey of wiping the slate clean and remodeling myself from scratch. Whether it is in my career, social life, health or spiritual life, I am here to show you what I have learned until now, what I'm working on and where I'm going. 

I think you will be able to find valuable golden nuggets of information here regardless of your current life situation, age, way of thinking etc. as this will be an all encompassing journal of how I strive to achieve mastery in all the facets of my life worth mastering.

 

The journal will be split into 7 topics, 1 for each day of the week, just so I can bring you the most value and just so I can go into details on each topic.

     

THE WEEKLY STRUCTURE OF THE JOURNAL

 

Monday | Fitness/Nutrition  

My journey towards achieving my maximum muscular potential 

 

Tuesday | Spirituality    

 Entries on my meditation practice, my mental state, mood, emotional labour I encounter etc.      

 

Wednesday | Career/Business  

Entries on how my music career is evolving and making a transition towards entrepreneurship 

 

Thursday | Storytime              

Here I share lessons I've learned from past events, bad or not, and emphasize how they may help you

 

Friday | Habits                   

Entries on instilling good habits, getting rid of bad ones and applying different self-help concepts into everyday life

 

Saturday | Student Life         

Entries on my life as a philosophy undergrad and as a student in general (lessons, insights, benefits, struggles etc.)

 

Sunday | Wrap-up of the week

 

I will try my best to be consistent with the journal. I know that the entries can take as little as 10 minutes to write if I wanted to, but I am still caught in the trap of perfectionism. I usually prefer not to post at all if it's not a quality entry. I'll see. Maybe on the more busy days I will just write in a stream of thought manner on the topic at hand.

This journal may naturally evolve and change. Maybe at some point I will add things like ”quote of the day” or things of the sort. Who knows? 

Feel free to give a like, post a comment or ask me questions. This would be a great source of motivation for me to keep being consistent with the journal and share more valuable information with you.

Edited June 15, 2017 by Dan Arnautu
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[Dan Arnautu]

Career/Business 

Day 1 | Wednesday |Guitar Teaching

 

I remember that when I was little, the last thing I wanted to do in life was teach. I realized that came from a skewed perspective on my part. I was confusing correlation with causation. I thought that just because most of my school teachers were doing the same thing everyday, in the same format, just punching the clock and dealing with brats everyday, that that was the way it had to be as a teacher.

But, as soon as I got my first mentor and real guitar teacher, oh boy did it look like a 180 degree shift. You could not put a boundary between this guy's work and his passion. There he was, playing his guitar all day, having fun, going out with his students and making them close friends and ”allies”. He did not see teaching guitar as a job, but as a work of art, his deepest passion and as his way of making an impact on the world.

His business looked like it was an automated fulfillment generating machine. He earned all the money he needed and wanted while not working in the real sense for even 1 second of his life. His work was and still is location independent and he gets to interact with his ”once idols, now friends” on a day to day basis. He is able to take vacations whenever he wants, for as long as he wants and how often he wants etc.

 

I quickly told myself that: ”Oh my god, living a life like this is really possible for me". The whole paradigm of ”money is hard to make" quickly shattered before my eyes. 

 

Right now, I just launched a prototype website and will soon try to get experience as a teacher by teaching beginners. I actually believe that I would be able to teach and coach intermediate to intermediate-advanced players but I would rather not bet on it and get a feel for the field first. I consider my communication skills to be much more developed than that of most guitar teachers out there. One thing that helped me a lot with this is that I got to refine and still get to refine my communication skills on my road towards getting my philosophy degree.

My current goal is to be able to make a stable income as a guitar teacher alone and then find out ways to be able to cover all of my expenses with passive income sources. Also, after I will start generating a good income from guitar teaching I may shift my focus towards other projects and keep teaching part-time or create online courses. Who knows?

 

Teaching may become a full time thing after I finish college for about maybe 4-6 years, as it is a business and it's hard to get it off the ground. Though, I never feared hard work, and neither should you if that work is a play and gets you closer to the life that you want to live.

 

"Spend each day trying to be a little wiser than you were when you woke up. Discharge your duties faithfully and well. Step by step you get ahead, but not necessarily in fast spurts. But you build discipline by preparing for fast spurts.... Slug it out one inch at a time, day by day. At the end of the day--if you live long enough--most people get what they deserve."

 -- Charlie Munger

 

Edited June 15, 2017 by Dan Arnautu
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[Dan Arnautu]

Storytime

Day 2 | Thursday | Making peace with your past...

 

It's funny. When I was younger, I always felt like I did not fit in any group and felt that there was something wrong with me. I was always picked last in the football team and I was rarely invited to parties by my school mates. My only refuge was in food, TV Shows and video games.

I was not antisocial in any way though. I happily engaged in conversations and I was not oblivious to how attraction and relationships worked. Although, I did not have enough self-awareness at the time to observe my own neediness, and thus got friendzoned a lot.

I've been bullied pretty harshly until I was in about 9th-10th grade, when I started to respect myself more.

Why am I saying all these things?

Well, I haven't thought about this whole situation at all in the past 3-4 years. I'm starting to see that I did not let these things define me as a worthless human being or whatever other label you could attach to it.

I did not let being bad at sports limit my possibility to achieve a great body. I used to be the fattest guy in my social circle. When I was about 14 years old, I started working out and I was also the weakest guy in the gym. I couldn't even push the empty olympic bar and neither could I curl 10 lbs dumbbells. People laughed, told me to give up, told me that I won't get any results. I encountered a lot of resistance, even from my parents, saying to cut the crap and go back to who I was before. But I did not listen to them. I knew that if I put in the effort, the payoff will come eventually. 

5 years later, now I am proud to have a very healthy and strong body. 6 pack abs, 3D deltoids, increased vascularity and a sharp jawline. The whole package. Most of the guys in the gym envy me now and come to me for advice. This is not to brag, but to prove a point. I've pretty much achieved the fundamentals of what I wanted regarding my health and physical appearance. But, I know there is more work to be done, and I also can use the know how I gathered to help other people achieve the body they desire too. 

Remember, once people start to notice your real life results after a long investment of time, in anything, the same people that once ridiculed you will come to you for advice. Do not blame them. This is the nature of the process. You will encounter homeostasis, and the key is to recognize it as homeostasis and push forward until the resistance dissapears and you get to a new default level.

This is just one aspect of the overarching situation. There are many more facets to this, but I will let that for another storytime.

 

“The past can't hurt you anymore, not unless you let it.”  -- Alan Moore

 

Edited June 15, 2017 by Dan Arnautu

[Dan Arnautu]

Habits

Day 3 | Friday | Fluctuating Sleep Patterns

 

Last year I did have a habit of waking up at 6 A.M. everyday and going to bed at 10 P.M. everyday. It really worked at improving my life. I did not encounter great energy fluctuations between days anymore, I was much more productive an my overall well being increased.

That was the case until I was thrown off track by deadlines and late night meetings with people. The habit lasted for only a few months.

Right now, my sleep schedule is very hectic. Sometimes I go to bed at 4:00 and wake up at 14:00 and on other times I go to bed at 00:00 and wake up at 6:00. Needless to say, my energy levels fluctuate a lot right now. On one day I feel like I can conquer the whole world and on other days I feel that I don't even have the force or willpower necessary to even get out of bed and want to just sleep all day. This, of course, affects my next night's sleep.

I will try and instill this habit back this summer, after all my exams are over. I think it's one of the most important habits to have, but it's important that I find a compelling reason to look forward to waking up at 6:00. I'll see about that.

One thing that I found helps instill this habit is going through one night without sleep so you can fall asleep the next day at any hour you want. Some other things worth doing is making it hard to turn of the alarm (e.g. Alarmy for iOS) or being accountable to do something if you don't wake up on time (e.g. paying someone 5$)

Nothing more to say about this. Action counts here.

So, this is Dan! I'm signing out. Have a great day!

 

“Early to bed and early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise.” -- Benjamin Franklin

 

Edited June 17, 2017 by Dan Arnautu

[CreativeInertia]

The sleep schedule thing is something I am also currently dealing with . Right now I'm unemployed, and have been going to sleep sometimes even at 6am. It's pretty ridiculous, since I'm very aware of the consequences. But I'm starting at my new job soon, so hopefully this issue will sort itself out ....

Well anyways, good luck!

 

 

[Dan Arnautu]

@CreativeInertia Good luck to you too!

[Dantas]

@Dan Arnautu

Great stuff Dan.

[Dan Arnautu]

@Dantas Thanks bro!

[Dan Arnautu]

Student Life

Day 4 | Saturday | The Guitarist and The Philosopher. Where do they meet and why? - Part I

 

This is by far the most asked question I get regarding my career and trajectory in life. What the hell was the logic behind going for a bachelor's degree in philosophy after studying the guitar for more than 7 years and knowing that music will be your industry of choice for the rest of your life?

Today, let's see how I got into university in the first place.

Before we begin, let me tell you, this is definitely a legit question, but the answer is not black and white. The answer needs a little bit of context. This will be somewhat of a longer entry, but I assure you it will be worth your time if you decide to read it.

In Part I will adress everything that happened before I even thought about going for a degree in a domain opposite to music.

Let's go back to the month of July, 2015. I had just finished both highschool and a private music school in my hometown. In highschool, my specialization of choice was music theory and in the private music school, my specialization of choice was the electric guitar. I found myself sitting and pondering if college would be a good option for me to pursue further or if I should just stick to some bands and start making some money and not waste time around.

Before I graduated in 2015, I found out about the ICMP (The Institute of Contemporary Music Performance) from London (a good thing to note is that I come from a small county from Romania called Botoșani, so the decision to go there meant studying very far away from where I normally lived) and started to think very hard about going there.

I came to the conclusion that a compromise was needed here. I said, ok, so I don't want to waste 3 years of my life in college, but I still don't feel prepared enough or experienced enough to start my career. Let's see if there is a middle way.

The ICMP has a program called the Higher Diploma which is ”an intensive one-year course that will enable you to develop your performance ability, musical vocabulary and personal qualities alongside like-minded musicians”. That seemed like a good fit for me and I also had some friends there. You could also apply for a scholarship to get into the Higher Diploma program. I said, ok, if I don't win that scholarship, I'm gonna either wait for one more year and try again or I'm gonna start my own music career without any degree.

The situation looked like this. The scholarship was put on display in a contest format. The guy who nailed both the audition and the interview got the cake (the fee for the degree was about 6500 pounds, so the scholarship was pretty substantial). I managed to make it into the finals, but I kind of screwed up the interview and I think that was the reason I did not win the scholarship. The ICMP still offered me a paid spot with a discount of 500 pounds and with no audition required because I've already proven my skills to them.

But, I knew I could not afford that.

I was pretty bummed out by the thought that all my friends will go to college and in the meanwhile I will just sit on my ass waiting for a whole year in order to try for the scholarship again. That was how I felt, until I decided to...

You will find out what happened after those beginning events next week, on Part II. Stay tuned.

No quote today either, as the story is not over, but still, I'm gonna leave you with my scholarship entry for the year I applied:

 

 

Edited June 17, 2017 by Dan Arnautu

[Dan Arnautu]

Wrap-up of the week

Day 5 | Sunday | Rollercoaster Week

 

For the past 2 years I've been pouring huge amounts of information into my system which needless to say is really hard to integrate in a short period of time. It's like I have some sort of a spiritual or informational hangover and lately I've been experiencing extreme mood swings, irrational anxieties, and involuntary self inquiry.

I'm working on getting more willing to let go of my need to know. I thought everything was so certain until now. Now I can see that nobody knows anything about this existence and that that naturally should make one uncomfortable, insecure and scared. It's really tough when you need to give up all the crutches and how Nietzsche says it, you need to become your own center of gravity, ”to become God”.

I need to develop more emotional tolerance to uncertainty if I want to go on, but it's not easy. Though, I am willing to go through it. It's just a phase in my overall development.

My spiritual development especially started to kind of skyrocket and it's pretty hard to control it. It's somehow manifesting itself, not giving me any time to breathe, to integrate it. I feel like I'm going too fast, like I'm going directly for the big boss instead of going easy towards it. I need to find my own pace and my own point of balance. 

I'm starting to see the world with fresh eyes. I look at everything in awe. I don't know what any of this is. Nobody knows. We know how to use it, but we do not know WHAT IT IS. This is an extremely humbling realization and also threatening to the ego. 

It's easy to be comfortable with the present moment when there is complete certainty in everything, but it is much harder to be comfortable with the present moment when there is complete uncertainty. A funny thing a philosophy of mind teacher told me was: "Even up until now, we do not have a definition for what a tree is. We literally DO NOT KNOW WHAT A TREE IS.” Let that sink in. Let it humble you. Let it show you that you are only a speck of dust in all of existence and there is a much higher intelligence at work.

 

”Don't be phased by the illusion.

Now, you would say, that is very well, but I can't bring myself to that. I start to shake and I can't stop it. It is not to do with my will. And no amount of gritting my teeth, clenching my muscles, exercising my willpower can get rid of the shakes when I am really scared.

That's true. But, you must remember that the secret to all of this is not to be afraid of fear. When you can really allow yourself to be afraid and you don't resist the experience of fear, you are truly beginning to master fear. But when you refuse to be afraid, you are resisting fear, and that simply sets up a vicious circle of being afraid of fear and being afraid of being afraid of fear and so on. And that is what we call worry.

Worry is simply a chronic condition and people who worry are going to worry no matter what happens. Because, when one possible threat is exterminated, they will immediately discover another. Because worry is an infinitely skinned onion.”

-- Alan Watts

Edited June 18, 2017 by Dan Arnautu

[Dan Arnautu]

Fitness/Nutrition

Day 6 | Monday | Cutting Phase

 

*Cutting = Lowering the bodyfat percentage while maintaining muscle mass

This is my third cutting phase to date.

I've been cutting for about 2-3 weeks now and it's going very well. I'm able to eat fulfilling meals because I push my first meal by 6-8 hours after waking up (intermittent fasting). I usually just drink black coffee and sparkling water until I get hungry enough to break my fast with a piece of fruit.

Stats 2 weeks ago:

• 66 kg (16% bf)
• 80 cm waist

Current stats:

• 64.4 kg (13-14% bf)
• 76 cm waist (dropped a lot of water and glycogen in the first week)

My current goal is to get to 9% bf again and then start bulk up to about 70-75 kg, or until I get to 15% bf again.

Intermittent fasting helped me a lot in being able to go out, eat pizza and drink with my friends while still leaning down.

I am going to post a pic below of what I looked like previously at a body weight of 60 kg (at about 10% bf). This is to prevent further arguing of most people that say 60 kg is too low of a body weight for a guy my height (1.75 m). That is true for guys that haven't been training on hypertrophy for a sustained period of time. I let you be the judge. The picture below was taken on the 18th of September, 2016.

This was Dan! I'm signing out. Have a great day!

 

”Fall in love with taking care of yourself. Mind. Body. Spirit.” -- Unknown

 

Edited June 19, 2017 by Dan Arnautu

[Dan Arnautu]

Spirituality

Day 7 | Tuesday| My Spiritual Practices - Sadhana

 

I've started integrating both a meditation and a mindfulness habit about 1 year ago, but after some time, I was kind of jumping on and off. Right now, the consistency seems to be pretty good, and I am also trying to be conscious for most of the day.

My practices include:

• Going through my 3rd Headspace (guided meditation) program, the Mind Series.
  • I've already finished the Take Series and the Discovery Series, which lasted in total about 3 months.
• Listening to Practicing The Power of Now  when I am out and about and also trying to keep inner body awareness for most of the day.
• Keeping awareness in the muscles I am training when working out (3x a week)
• Doing Yoga on rest days
• Looking for signs of defensiveness when interacting with other people
• Avoiding and defusing arguments
• Not blaming
• Cleaning up my diet
• Constantly checking my body for shallow breathing
• Using Pranic Breathing  when I feel intense emotions (anxiety, uprising panic, too much excitement etc.)
• Actively instead of passively listening to music 
• Avoiding multitasking
• Being immersed fully in the task at hand

This entry is meant to be an overview, I may go more in detail on each practice in the following weeks.

 

"Whatever happens, the question is, are you becoming a better human being - more stable, more joyful, more clear within yourself?" -- Sadhguru

Edited June 20, 2017 by Dan Arnautu

[Dan Arnautu]

Career/Business

Day 8 | Wednesday | Tough Summer 

 

My life situation is gonna get pretty hectic soon. My plans for the summer are to:

• Get my driver's license
• Prepare for 5 exams that I need to take in September (accumulated failed courses from the last 2 years)
• Go to a 3 day Metal Festival to see my favorite band
• Sell my computer / Buy a laptop
• Maybe travel to Spain for a month 
• Continue to take guitar lessons with my teacher over Skype
• Start to teach guitar myself
• Hit 9% bodyfat again

I also wanted to start to create youtube content and blog posts, but I think just may be too much for a summer. I'll see what I can do and cannot do.

Right now I also need to figure out how I will transport all my stuff from my rented apartment to my hometown (441 km).

Big thing I need to transport:

• 2 Guitars
• Desktop PC
• Audio System 
• 1 Monitor
• Miscellaneous stuff

Too bad I don't have 4-6 hands, haha. I might need to deliver all the stuff, but the delivery services here are pretty poor, so I might end up either without my stuff, or with broken stuff.

Even with all of these things, I am glad that I get to take care of them early. I almost finished college and am barely 19. I also believe that I am already pretty prepared to handle life. I've learned a lot more than I could have imagined in only 2 years. I've learned how to be independent, how to be more assertive, how to make friends in a city where I don't know anybody and I got a lot of free time to read, practice and grow myself.

There is only 1 more year to go and the easy part will be over. I am pretty hyped about that.

 

"The beautiful thing about learning is that no one can take it away from you." -- B.B. King

 

[Steph1988]

@Dan Arnautu Nice playing!   how much hours a day of practice do you do? and what do you focus on most of the time?

i'm curious i do about 2-3 hours a day about half of it i practice songs over the record and the other half focus on technique.

 

[Dan Arnautu]

@Steph1988 Right now I don't practice a whole lot.

For the first 2-3 years of my musical journey I had periods where I usually studied for 6 or more hours a day, but that was because I enjoyed playing a lot and everything was still new to me. Right now, I can go and had gone sometimes months without practicing. My guitar teacher keeps me accountable to learn though and that is a good thing.

As for what I focus on most of the time, the situation is like this. I told my teacher what my problem areas are and what my goals are, and was up for him to design a strategy meant to get me where I want to go. I just do what he tells me and see the results pouring in. It's a very important thing to check your ego at the door, admit you don't know and make an effort to be "coachable". I also had many bad teachers and can therefore recognize a gold mine when I see it (as in a good teacher).

Also, keep in mind that how much I practice and what I focus on is irrelevant for your situation. If you would copy exactly what I did, you may get smaller results, bigger results or none at all. Each one of us has different problem areas and goals and therefore there is no ”one size fits all” program that will make you an awesome guitarist.

If you hit a plateau, find a good teacher that knows what he is doing and let him make a plan for you according to your goals and needs. 

Hope this helps. Good luck!

[Steph1988]

@Dan Arnautu Ye planning on taking lessons again next year.

i'm on one of the hardest plateau's now which is the alternate picking problem its quite a tough problem. the first years i made immense progress playing Van Halen songs/guns n roses that kind of stuff thought nothing could stop me in my tracks.

But there is an inevitable plateau idd so maybe you could help me out a little bit,

I'm learning this song now :

so i don't know if this is the style you play but how would you tackle 4:20 to 4:26?

Damn that's hard.

Thx in advance i hope i'm not interrupting your journal too much.

[Dan Arnautu]

@Steph1988 I'll hit you up with a DM.

[Dan Arnautu]

Storytime

Day 9 | Thursday | From Rags To Riches

 

People always seem to assume that just because I NOW have a lot of material stuff (e.g. expensive desktop pc, expensive guitars, gadgets like ipods, tablets, bluetooth headphones etc.), that I may have been a spoiled teenager or that I may not know what it is like to be poor or not have money. In fact, a surprising thing that most people don't know about me is that I know what it's like to be at the bottom, maybe a lot more than most people.

When I was younger, at one point my dad was unemployed for about three years. He was laid off because of an economical crisis at the time in my country and there were no jobs anymore. I went through this period without hot water, heat, internet (this in particular being on and off) and pocket money. My father also got into a depressive state (actually more like full blown depression)and sometimes lashed out on me or my mother. I was put in a very difficult spot. My mother also later was diagnosed with cancer, which only deepened our external problems. Thankfully, she recovered fully and is now happier than ever. I try to spend as much time as I can with her, because, like they say: ”90% of all the time you will ever spend with your parents is spent before you turn 18”.  So, I try to make the most of it while I still can (even though I already got past that age).

I remember my mother crying in the kitchen because she was left with no money after paying for my birthday party. She thought I could not see her, but that was the moment when I decided that I would need to work hard and get my financial situation handled as soon as I get out of school. They deserve much more than this for all their hard work. Also, in instances when I got sick, I remember I felt very guilty when I saw that my mother needed to put off maybe bill payments in order to be able to afford medication.

After all this pain and turmoil, luckily my dad got a handle of the situation and found a job in Belgium. This meant that we could resume a normal life again: we could afford basic utilities again, replace faulty equipment and get pocket money again etc.. Slowly, I started to save the money he was sending me every month and start to buy the things I needed and wanted one by one.

I also sold a lot of stuff to be able to afford the things I have now. Funny enough, even though I consider myself a pretty soft spoken and introverted guy, I think I would make for a pretty good salesman. I sold a guitar so I would be able to buy some PC components I needed; I flipped stuff I did not need and bought a second monitor; I bought a highly underpriced guitar with the money left from that and flipped it later for double the money etc. This process went on and on and on, my equipment thus getting better little by little, selling what I no longer needed, negotiating with my father for stuff I wanted to buy, finding offers among my friends etc. Writing this now, I realize that I do enjoy flipping and selling a lot. It may be of great help to me in the future.

Anyway, I think the takeaway here is, as cheesy as it may sound, do not judge a book by it's cover. You never know through what difficult situation someone may be going, or have gone through. Also, the following goes along with a previous journal entry: Don't let whatever happened to you define who you are right now.

Don't let tough situations make you bitter about life and make you feel bad that you had to go through them. In retrospect, it may not have been the thing you wanted for yourself at that moment, but it may have been just the thing you needed in order to grow.

This was Dan, I'm signing out! See you on my next entry! Have a great day!

 

”Never give up. Today is hard, tomorrow will be worse, but the day after tomorrow will be sunshine.” -- Jack Ma

Edited June 23, 2017 by Dan Arnautu

[Dan Arnautu]

 

JOURNAL STRUCTURE UPDATE

 

I think I was a little too ambitious with the journal structure. At first it seemed like it had a very good structure, but in practice, on some days I was not feeling like talking about a particular topic, and I thought that if I can not write what lingers on my mind in the moment and keep it for another day, what is the point of having a journal?

I will give this journal a little bit more flexibility, which will help with the consistency and the quality of the entries. Also, I will substitute "days" with "entries", as I saw that I may not be able to put up an entry everyday. For example, yesterday I had to move back home, so did not have the chance to put up an entry. If I had put it up today with yesterday's date, it would have just thrown off the whole schedule. If it would keep going like this, I may be talking about something as if it happened today, when it actually happened 7 days ago. I don't like that.

So, what is the new structure? Well, as I work on a ton of different stuff, there is a lot to talk about. I think entries might be more diffused and others might be more focused on a particular topic. I am gonna give free reign to whatever comes up in my head in the moment, and then adjust the structure as needed if it's too hectic.

Or, I might just use one single concept around which all topics will revolve (e.g Problem-Solution or describing an experience and telling the insights learned from that experience).

 

[Dan Arnautu]

Entry 10 | The Productivity Project

 

I really want to get a grasp of how productivity works and to how much of an extent it can improve my life. I picked up some books on the subject and currently I started to work on the following things:

• Assessing the reasons I want to be productive
• Making productivity tie in with my core values, like: growth, balance, responsibility, autonomy, competency, wealth, wisdom and learning
• Clearing misconceptions about how productivity works
• Implementing some techniques like The Rule of 3
  • The rule of 3 basically tells you to pick 3 tasks that you want to get done by the end of the day and/or the end of the week 
    • Why 3? Because the number is high enough to include all high priority tasks and low enough to not put yourself in the position of tackling a daunting laundry list
• Identifying my high (those that have the highest return on investment) and low impact tasks (the opposite of the first ones)
• Finding out how to tie in meditation and mindfulness with productivity, or as the author says, finding out how to work at a pace between the monk and the stock trader 

How will I go about becoming more productive?

I am going to:

• Waste less time
• Wake up earlier
• Go to the gym earlier
• Ingrain in my mind the fact that productivity is not about how much you work, but about how much you accomplish.
• Automate repetitive tasks 
• Give a greater focus to High Impact Tasks
• Try to balance the 3 factors of productivity in my life: Time|Energy|Attention

 

"Common sense isn't always common action. Just because you know something to be true, doesn't mean you'll act on it - but that is exactly what you need to do in order to become productive" - Chris Bayley