As he sat across from me having his “morning” coffee at 2 pm, I could feel my brain firing on all cylinders, trying to solve the rubrics cube in front of me.

How does this guy live the way he does? Make great money, yet refused to do anything if it meant depriving him of his fun? I mean, from what I saw there was zero productivity, the guy was a successful procrastinator

Turns out, it comes down to 3 easy to remember steps for creatives like us

 

After blowing me off for days, my new acquaintance, Anton, finally agreed to have coffee with me and so, I wasted no time

I pulled out my notepad and began firing of

Who, What, When, Why, and How’s

While his advice wasn’t exactly inspiring, his technique – better yet, his pattern was. When I first spotted it, I wrote it down on a separate piece of paper, towards the end of our first cup of espresso Anton would inquire about it, when I flipped my notepad for him to read, in

You see, everyone has something to teach us. It’s no so much what they say, or how they say it, it’s about how their decisions are formed

Learning how they make decisions, learning if they’re motivated towards, or away from things (pain vs pleasure principle)

This is the grandest lessons I tend to get from meeting people — in essence, it puts into perspective the whole watch what they do, not what they say thing.

The way it appears is

Recipe (Task) Chef (Person) Technique (Formula)

 

The Formula he follows is

• Be honest about your strengths
• Give yourself a BIG target, and a starting point
• Squeeze your time

I wanted a closer look, so I bargained with him to allow me to shadow him, and it helped me better illustrate what his productivity formula taught me

It looked like this

Be Honest About Your Strengths

During our first convo, a lot like during our time together I noticed if he didn’t know something, he would flat out say he didn’t, and would often jot it down in a note for himself to research later

Before he started any project he would look at what was the bare minimum needed to start, and how close he and his resources were to that standard

Give Yourself a BIG Target

Once he had his starting point, he’d dream, and dream BIG.

One project he started when I was with him was the expansion of an E-commerce business, the founder (a friend) had asked him to help with increasing their sales by at least 10% a month

Anton’s plans had his goal at doubling them

The way he saw it, if he went hard for double, his worst-case scenario was 10%

Squeeze Your Time

This was by far the most useful thing I learned from him. He did an exercise that I now do to this day, especially when I’m stuck with my productivity

He would just start writing…

Just write, anything, and everything. Like a mental vomit for 33 minutes and 33 seconds.

I watched him write the words blah, blah, blah, blah, blah

Over and over, writing blah, blah, blah, blah, blah

And with that momentum carrying him, by page 4 he had started writing what would go on to be the sales copy for ads, the new sales processes and even some onboarding and job listings for staff

He put himself in a flow state and over-delivered from the start, his productivity just didn’t flow like what you and I are taught was “normal”

Related: Are You Scrappy Creative? Here’s A Collection Of FREE Resources For YOU (Series)

Recipe (Task) Chef (Person) Technique (Formula)

 

Let’s be real, how often do we start off super excited about an idea, we take notes, we do some research and somehow, end up fizzing out after days or weeks

Maybe we tell ourselves, “I’ll get to this next Monday”

How many times have we had an idea, only to discover an old note on our phone about this very thing…

So now, I just start writing

Without rhyme or reason, and every single time, it over-delivers

• Sales
• Campaigns
• Promos
• Content
• My To-Do List
• Strategy
• And a bunch more that used to take me days — even weeks, I can now tackle in hours

We cover more on processes like this in our weekly issue of Growth // Codex (see below). If you’re a creative that’s not afraid to tackle problems and hate fluff, we look forward to meeting you

Right now, the main takeaway is Focus, FOCUS on what you’re doing

If you’re ever just sitting there, it’s easy to draw a blank, feel foggy

I mean, you’re essentially staring at a blank screen. There’s a saying, I learned while stationed in Kentucky

“It’s easier to steer a tractor once it’s moving”

Get moving, Rogue

Here’s to escaping average 🤙

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