¶ Intro / Opening
What if I told you that one of the reasons you're not more successful is because you're not doing things that actually work , because they suck ? I think one of the hardest things to understand is oftentimes the things that get us the best results are also the things that make us feel the worst at times .
On my phone . Right now I'm looking at my rolling MITs . It is on Google Tasks , which is an app on my phone , and MIT stands for Most Important Task , and essentially at all times I have a rolling list of tasks that I believe are really , really , really important . And it's boring and it sucks and it's unsexy , but it is necessary .
Welcome to Next Level University . I'm your host , Kevin Palmieri .
And I'm your co-host , Alan Lazarus .
At NLU , we believe in a heart-driven but no BS approach to holistic self-improvement for dream chasers .
Our goal with every episode is to help you level up your life love health and wealth .
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Today , for episode number 2045 , I'm doing something I never thought I would . We are going to do an episode . Well , first of all , it's called what If you Hate it ? Because it Works . Alan and I were having a conversation before this and I said dude , you know , prepare yourself because I'm about to say some outlandish stuff .
I said what if we did an episode and stick with us ? Please Don't tune out right now ? What if we did an episode on to-do lists ? And he said brother , you know , I want to do that . I've been waiting , I've been waiting to do that episode . All right , well , I'm ready . Now I'm ready . Last week I had a day where I don't the only call I had .
You and I were supposed to record three episodes . I think we only did one or maybe two , but it was at like three o'clock in the afternoon , so I had from 9am until 3pm with no calls , no distractions . It was like 75 degrees out .
I had the window open , I had my music going and I was literally just going down my to-do list saying all right , I got to message this person Done , I got to do this . Okay , done , I got to update this , done . I felt so good . After I felt so good , I texted Alan . I said hey , man , I need more blocks like this because I get so much work done .
It's awesome . Here's the downside Now it's a new week and the fact that I did all of those things now have created three things under each one of those things that need to be done . The to-do list got small for the weekend and now it is growing to a larger size than
¶ The real reason to-do lists matter
it was before . But I think I've heard so many people say , yeah , to-do lists suck , tracking habits sucks . I don't want to do it . I don't want to do it , I don't want to do this , I don't want to do that , and I think that's where so much of the gold is buried . I don't want to have a to-do list either .
The only reason I do is because I don't want to forget something more . That's really all it is . I don't want to have a to-do list . On a scale of 0 to 10 , my desire to have and check a to-do list is a 2 .
On a scale of 0 to 10 , my desire to have a client say , hey , what happened with blank Because I completely forgot about it , is way lower than that . There's way more pain associated with that and I think sometimes it's .
You are trading the lesser of two bads and I think to do lists aren't sexy but they are super useful if you can stick with them long enough , if we're talking strictly about success and achievement and again we talk a lot about the inner game and the outer game on this podcast .
¶ Amateurs adjust, pros trust systems
If the frame of this episode is from the frame of external achievement , a to-do list is necessary . I often tell my clients I want you to be . I say and at the beginning of hearing this quote you might think that I said it wrong , but I'll explain . Amateurs run the system , professionals let the system run them . It makes it sound like I did it wrong .
An amateur tweaks the system and says you know what I'm going to move that , move that , move that move that A professional has a system that's set up and executes no matter what Rain , sleet , snow or shine . It doesn't matter if it's nice out , it doesn't matter if you got a phone call , it doesn't matter if you are hungry .
A professional runs the fucking system . Now your level of tenacity and intensity and persistence with your systems does not have to be to the level that ours is . I want to make that as clear as possible . I really mean that .
But if you do want to succeed in business or in your career at a very high level , if you want to succeed in fitness at a very high level you can't say I don't really feel like squatting today , I don't really feel like squatting today .
You set up the system and squatting is on there , with certain rep ranges , and you've got to find a way to get it done . Does it mean it's perfect ? No , but it means you get it done On the days you're feeling good , go above and beyond . On the days you're feeling terrible , hit at least the minimum , hit the bar right .
¶ Four tools for peak productivity
So the four things that I have my clients doing to stay on the rails the first one is peak performance tracking . It's a habit tracker . It's metrics and habits based on your goals and priorities . Number two is to-do lists . They all have a to-do list and it's a prioritized to-do list based on what's urgent , important and significant .
And I can go into that if we want to . The third thing is the calendar . Gotta , use a calendar , gotta . You're not going to see successful people without a calendar . It's very , very rare . There's a couple creative endeavors where that's possible .
But the successful people that I study , that I coach , that I learn from , that I've mentored , been mentored by all these people I've met all over the world . The most successful people are dialed in on their calendar . They have a calendar and they're dialed in . The fourth one is your dreamliner , your journal .
It doesn't have to be a dreamliner , but it has to be a journal . You have to have some feedback loop of self-reflection . And the MIT list , the most important task list , the to-do list I mean , of course , I've always wanted to do an episode on this because I think that the least sexy stuff is the most important .
It's not sexy , which is why so few people do it , which is why it's so valuable .
¶ What do you lean on when overwhelmed
Yeah , yeah . I think it's always a good thought of when you're super overwhelmed , what do you run to , cause you know it'll kind of save you . Okay , what if we just did that all the time ? What if we just did that Not all the time ? What if we leaned in that direction ? For me , when I get super overwhelmed , the thing I lean on is my to-do list .
I lean on it so hard because I will forget stuff . I'm human and there's a lot going on and if I don't have it somewhere that I look at daily . I used to be the guy that had like a dozen notebooks . It still helps for me to have one , because it's hard to if I'm on like a coaching call and I have multiple windows open .
I don't want to have to pull up my to-do list and like type it out right there , but I think I probably should . I probably just should say like , look , I'm going to put this on my to-do list right now in front of you .
Well , I have it on my phone on purpose so that I can do that A lot of times , even when we're recording . I'll throw something on here , but you use .
Google Tasks ? Yeah Well , I just have a Google Doc that has checkboxes . I don't know , I never really fell in love with Google Tasks .
No stress , there's a bunch of other ones Trello , Google Tasks .
Just like an old school Google Doc . I know Apple has one Old school Google Doc right in front of me .
Here's what I would say , and again , everyone do whatever they want , but this is what I would say is pick something simple , don't do this crazy . I rate each tasks from zero to 10 and all that Like listen , keep it simple . Keep it as simple as possible . Simple . If it's complex , you will not do it .
When the team flew in a couple years ago for Next Level , lie Taryn helped me find gifts . She's like you should really do a gift bag for people that's just not naturally where my of them and there's like a cloud that you can do and I use that for my to-do list for a long time and I loved it .
And then it got to the place where it was like every time I fill up a page then I have to erase the whole thing and then start over again . It's like is that really going to be feasible ? So I stopped doing that and then I was using a regular notebook for a while . But I think that that is important .
Whatever it is you're doing , okay , let's just assume it's not going to be sexy , let's just start there . Okay , well , it's not sexy , which means it's probably already going to be relatively challenging and there's going to be extra resistance . To Alan's point make it as easy as you can .
You don't have to pay for a software if you don't want , but what's going to be the easiest for you ? I used to do post-it notes everywhere . Then it's like okay , I'm already a mess , I can't do that . That's not going to work for me . But when you find something that works . I'm willing to bet , if you how many items do you have on your- .
I'm embarrassed to say so many .
I love that we can bring people behind the scenes , because I'm embarrassed to say how many too . They're not all of the same importance level , but I have . It actually doesn't show me the amount . I have to actually count them . Are you counting them right now too ?
¶ How we actually use our lists
Yeah , I have 30 , I have 38 . Honestly , all things considered it's not terrible . I have 38 , and then what I do is I take a big three usually and say , okay , I'm going to try to get these three done , and then when those three go , I bring three back up and rinse and repeat that forever . Alan's counting 60 .
Oh yeah , you , why don't I do it ? Okay , before anyone judges 38 and 60 , we're not doing 60 items a day . No , these are FYIs . That's why I call it a rolling MIT list . I pick at least three per day that I knock off . And that's why in the Dreamliner it says says top three mit's .
I cherry pick the top three each day and then , if I get those three done , I'll do more , but not all of these . And then every now and then I'll go through this and I'll be like , oh , did it , did it , did it , oh , did it .
I literally just did that as I was as I was looking I was like , oh , I don't need to do that anymore . Sometimes it's just about the reminder , yeah , and you go in and it's kind of already been done because something else happened . It feels good . That's the other thing too . You get such a dopamine hit when you see something and again , you judge me .
If you want , I would suggest you do the same thing . Sometimes I'll literally look and I'll be like , oh shit , I forgot , I got to send that thing to Alan . I will put it , I will type it in Send that thing to Alan , and then I'll do it and then I'll check it off . It wasn't on the list , but I want to give myself credit for it .
Feels good , man , you're the realist . That's what's up I got to , to jump in , oh shit .
Okay , okay , better face buzzer . I used to be prepubescent . I didn't have any facial hair . You put better face buzzer . 100% Nice , hey , real quick . Yeah , I waste way too much time trying to shave here . You use shaving cream and a razor . I used to Because for me , I only had to shave once a month .
Yeah , yeah , shave once a month , yeah yeah , now it's a week goes by and I it's like what the hell is going on here . So I got you I norelco , one blade , simple . I want one of those . Now , those suck , are they terrible ?
you don't need it , you don't have that much hair , I want a nice shave . Okay , no , never mind , don't listen like every day . I mean look , look't , listen to me , I got a nice shirt on .
The kid buys a new shirt . Everything's about this shirt .
I need a nice shave . I need it to be something that happens at least every four or five days , minimum once a week . But I can't spend 30 minutes a week on my fucking face . Know , and again I can . I just choose not to . Okay ,
¶ Next Level Dreamliner: The planner, agenda, journal, and habit tracker to rule them all. Get a copy:
hello , hello , hello . Nlu listener , thank you , as always , for listening to next level university real quick . I just want to jump in and let you know about the next level dreamliner . This is a journal that I use every single day . Achieve your dreams 90 days at a time . It breaks down your dreams into goals , milestones and daily habits .
We hope you enjoy it . The link will be in the show notes . Another example get Dan Heath on book club . If that doesn't happen , I'm not going to stress about it . I mean it's a reminder . Oh yeah , I got to send him a message . That would be sweet . It would be great to have the author on book club . That'd be great . We did it once . It went well .
Let's do it again . But I don't Not all of these are that important Like I might not get a better razor or face buzzer for another three months , but I won't forget it's . It's it's peace of mind of knowing these things are on there . Now there's some on there that are time sensitive , that need to get done . Topic for May meetup .
I have to decide on a topic for the meetup .
So the quick mode which is in a week or two , two weeks . So you do three a day . You take three .
I put three in my dreamliner a day and I cross those off in the dreamliner and then this is just sort of like when I'm at the gym and I think of something , it's oh , let me just throw it on my tasks , but I don't always get all three done same yeah sometimes I get three done and then I do another three . Sometimes I get 10 done .
Sometimes I get 10 done .
¶ Why the list is never “Done”
Sometimes I get one done .
I got 10 done the other day for sure . Yeah , it's awesome and it's awesome , and it creates 15 other things that happen eventually , which is good , that's progress . It just doesn't . So you'll . You've heard Alan say this many times and I don't disagree with it .
I just know when you used to say it , I was like I don't know , I don't know if I agree with it a with it 100 , you never really get done the to-do list , because when you do something , it's like a domino . It's like , yeah , one domino falls over , but it knocks over another domino that knocks away .
That's progress , that's good , that's not a bad thing necessarily used to think that you'd reach a point where you were like good well , if you had , if you just started a to-do list today , it might only have three things on it , so you might actually get everything done .
So yeah , I think it depends on where you are , I mean yeah , but there's infinite things you could do . Like you're never gonna finish your , I know but , but , but finitely , if I let's say I only had seven things and I had five hours to do it , I I could get all those done .
And then my to-do list would be naked Fair , but then you'd just fill it with more important things . Like more things , yeah .
So there was days in the past where you'd be done For my own mental health .
Yeah , probably it's heavy . What heavy ? What do you think now ? Like there is no done for anyone out there watching or listening , like you're , if you're an adult with goals , like there's no no , there's , there's no done , there's no finish line . There's never not going to be a time when you could .
That's why I have 60 on here , because at least three or four of these are really urgent .
How many of those are garbage ? How many of those will end up getting canned , do you think ?
At least 30% . I mean , one of them says Emilia's Spotify Duo , who cares ? You know what I mean ? First of all , that's going to save us money , baby , I know , but it's not going to save us as much money as the other stuff I'm doing . I promise you that , yeah . No , that's fair , right .
So it just gets to a place where , okay , one of them says um , ksa triangle digital asset , knowledge , skills , awareness . It's a digital asset I've wanted to create for a while . It hasn't happened yet . It I might eventually do it , right , but I don't want to forget about it .
So I clean this up every now and then , but and again , I know this is depressing . Seriously , I'm not trying to be mean . There's never going to be a time where you go to bed done .
You choose to stop . I want people to be able to feel accomplished .
You can definitely go to bed feeling accomplished . That's important .
That's important .
Agreed , agreed , but you'll never be done . No , like fairy tale land where you're good now , okay , I'm good now . There is no . I I think the whole retirement idea , I I think we should have a conversation with that at some point , because there isn't really that either . I mean , it's not like you're done , you still feel weird .
I feel weird talking about retirement as a 36 year old man , so it's like I don't know I don't plan on I don't plan on doing it , but I also don't hate my fucking job , so I understand why . Why ?
people understand what that means Really . I have a couple clients that help people plan for retirement I know you do as well and retirement just means you have a nest egg that creates an income for you so you don't have to work . It doesn't mean you don't work , you still do things things right , luckily for us .
This is you can . This is easy to do , not easy , but like you can . You can speak long into your yeah , your age .
It's like golf as long as you take care of your voice .
Yeah , me and you're gonna get on the , get on the links one of these days .
Take some swings for no , no , no never golfing fan . No .
Same . But I don't know , Maybe one day I'll have hobbies . You know , hobbies and interests .
If I was going to do that , I'd play basketball or snowboard , or something that I really love .
Well , you can't , you're not going to be able to snowboard into your 90s . I'm not up to mine . Well , yeah , who am ?
I to put that . I was on with an 82 year old man earlier . He had me on his podcast . He was fucking awesome . That was really cool man . That was really . He seemed like he was just getting started . It was great . It's great he had such a good attitude .
Yeah , I always talk about bruce I'm telling you , I'm saying he's weight training right yeah , bruce is stronger than I mean he .
He does dumbbell presses with the 50s and the 60s . Man's 80 years old , that's awesome .
That gives me hope , I know some people in their 20s who can't do that . 100% , 100% .
All right , what's your next level lesson before we get out of here about to-do lists ? Good sir .
You never know how much you might grow and evolve , because I know that in the beginning this would have been a topic you would have thought was dumb or boring or whatever .
But you've evolved a lot in the last few years and you are becoming someone who believes in productivity and to do lists and you've embraced a lot of the boring shit that's just completely necessary .
Like you want to buy a home , you're going to have to pay a mortgage , most likely Right , Unless you have five hundred thousand dollars cash , which is very rare for anyone who's even reasonably young . Like life sucks and that's okay . It's supposed to suck , it's just it can get so much better when you embrace the suck and do the things that make it better .
Yeah , we're adults Like we're not kids anymore . You can't just frolic
¶ Hard stuff now or harder later
.
I'm not going to go all the way to Alan's end , cause I don't . I don't want life to suck . I'm not going to go all the way to Alan's end . Usually I'm somewhere in the middle . That's always my thing .
I think it's going to be challenging , and trying to avoid the challenges of life are just going to create more challenges ultimately , and they're probably going to be worse . Oh , you don't want to exercise ? Okay , cool . My grandmother fell and broke her hip and almost died . Is Bruce going to fall and break his hip ? Most likely not .
No , no , he's taking , he's doing the stuff . And again , I saw mom and me with this weekend love them . But I think about that all the time . I think about that all the time . That's one of the reasons I'm trying to be active now is because when I get older it's gonna be harder .
So , yeah , bruce has the quads not gonna . Not gonna fall , not not as likely to fall uh , not as likely to fall .
Got some quads on him , no , doing legs , no , no , he's got . He's got knee issues , but I mean he's still carrying the 60 pound dumbbells across the gym , like that's something that most 80 year olds can't do .
So I think if , by avoiding certain resistance , you create more resistance later on by doing something unsexy like a to-do list , I think it just makes life so much better . And if you could do a cycle of it , if you could do okay , I'm going to make a to-do list , I'm going to put five things on it .
Okay , cool , today I'm going to try to get those five things done . All right , I got all those five things done . I you know what . That really that kind of felt pretty freaking good . All right , let me try that again tomorrow and see what happens .
I think when it starts to get bad is when you put three things on and you accomplish zero , and then the next day you put five things on and you only accomplish one . It's like , oh , this is , this is really starting to build up here , but what would have happened to all those things if you didn't put them on a to-do list ?
You wouldn't even know they had to get done and you're quite literally setting yourself up for failure there . So I don't think it's super sexy . I still think it's somewhat boring .
But again , if we only talked about the sexy stuff , we would have ran out of topics a long time ago and we also wouldn't be at all successful , because a lot of the exercises in the gym look really freaking good . That's not how you get jacked . That's not the way it goes .
Can I say one more thing ? I know we got to go yes yes , please .
¶ Everything you love requires effort
I think this is a good metaphor . People love their animals . I have pets , fur babies , right ? Maybe you want horses , maybe you want dogs or cats , maybe you want a farm . They take a lot of work . Emilia has a bunch of plants . She loves plants . A lot of our listeners love plants . Okay , everything that you love in life requires work , lots of work .
So it's great Tucker , tilly , tariel , cats , dogs love it , but there's , they're a shitload of work . It's pet foods not free , right . So everything in life has a downside . It's pet foods not free , right . So everything in life has a downside .
Everything A to do list is the downside of being a productive adult , and it's necessary , and I don't mean to just scream into the mic at people , but I think it's easier to just accept that than to try to avoid it for the rest of your life and try to stay a child out there and you have a to-do list Shout out to you . Yeah .
You're a productive child with a to-do list , and that's cool as shit . Now are you going to be made fun of ? Yes , most likely Will . Most of your friends put you out on an island . Unfortunately , probably yes , but in 20 , 30 , 40 , 50 , 60 years , you'll show them .
You'll show them .
And that's what matters . Okay , as Alan mentioned , we have a meetup on the first month of every Thursday . I think it's one of our mid-tros . I get to check in . We're going to do new mid-tros . There's a bunch of stuff going on over here .
We don't know what we're talking about because Alan hasn't decided yet , because it's on his to-do list but it's too far down so he hasn't done it yet .
If you're looking for a group of like-minded humans who are into personal development and want to be more successful internally and externally , not just externally , both internal and external we have a private Facebook group called Next Level Nation . We'll have the link in the show notes . As
¶ Outro
always , we love you , we appreciate you , grateful for each and every one of you , and at NLU we have family . We will talk to you all tomorrow . Keep it productive . Next Level Nation . Thanks for joining us for another episode of Next Level University . We love connecting with the Next Level family .
We mean it when we say family . If you ever need anything , please reach out to us directly . Everything you need to get a hold of us is in the show notes .
Thank you again and we will talk to you tomorrow .