5 ways to boost your output without burning out🧯

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Rise and shine, Inbox Hackers. Rise will suffice if you had a rowdy weekend.

Today’s Main Thing is hacky as heck. But if you use even one of the hacks, you will get more done this week without feeling burned out or bad about yourself. Especially if you use tip #4 → lie to yourself.

Then, we’ll wet our beaks in Monday Marketing News. First up is your appetizer…

Appetizer: This gritty Under Armour ad has a good premise (ruin other athletes’ dreams), but fails to drive the point home IMO.

The Main Thing

How I Get So Much Crap Done

People tell me I’m more productive than most folks.

My Grammarly numbers below are some proof, I guess:

Currently, I write eight newsletter editions per week (Inbox Hacking & a history newsletter). Plus, a couple of articles weekly. 

What’s my secret? I’ve got several. Some come and go. So, I’ll give you my top 5 ways I get so much done, including writing the Greatest Marketing Newsletter on The Planet (the one you’re reading, in case that’s unclear😁).

5 Ways to Get More Done Without Burning Out & Becoming Miserable

Results may vary. But these little things make a big difference for me every week. 

To paint the picture, in case you’re new to Inbox Hacking. I have the luxury of working from home and don’t have a pile of bills that younger folks have because I’m 51 and a minimalist.

Those factor into how I get so much done (without working more than 27 hours a week). 

Here we go…

#1 I go to bed early and get up early (5 AM). That applies every weekday and probably 75% of weekends. Best to keep the routine daily or you risk falling off the early-wake-up wagon. 

The best thing about rising so early is your brain is fresher and the world’s quieter. 

And there are no hacks for making yourself get up. Forget Atomic Habits. Good book,  and other gurus have nice tips. But. Bottom line is you have to decide to get up early. You. James Clear won’t give you a wake-up call. 

It’s a habit you have to build all by yourself, one drowsy decision at a time. 

#2 Setting a minimum and maximum number of hours to work per day has helped me not get burned out. My minimum is four hours most days. I get most of those four hours in before 9:45 AM. 

My max is usually seven hours. But the beauty of this technique? As long as I hit my minimum, there’s no pressure to hit the max. For me, the temptation is stronger to go over the max hours. So, it’s best to be realistic when you write down your min and max before starting work.

#3 Walk. Or run. Exercise, what a brilliant tip, right? Don’t care if you’ve heard it a million times. A walk or slow jog clears my head. Good for my ticker, too, they say. Gets me out of the house. Even though I love working from home, it’s unhealthy to not see other people all day long.

You can get a lot done while walking too. Make audio notes to yourself. Like ideas. Topics to write about. Notice what’s happening around you to build an endless library of tiny stories you can use. A story is any event that results in a change (Storyworthy author says). 

But I say it’s also any event you can tell about that makes people smile, chuckle, or be shocked at how crazy human beings are. 

#4 Lie to yourself. Everybody needs a good reason to work hard. Why bother being productive if there’s no ‘WHY’?

Thing is, it’s hard to know your real WHY at first. So, just make up a reason.

Plenty of good reasons are out there to make you want to be more productive, build cool stuff, and earn big money. Pick a reason and go with it until you find a better one or one you know is your legit WHY.

Being able to provide for your family is as worthy a reason as any. Also, simply not having to worry about spending too much at dinner with your mate is another good reason to work hard.

#5 The best uses I’ve found for AI. One is letting it write bullet and numbered lists. I never let it write more than a sentence. I’m the writer here, not GPT or Claude. Those precious little robots can add tidbits. That’s all. 

But there’s no harm in letting a bot fill in the blanks in a bullet list titled: “7 Kinds of Lawn Tools” or “Key Things to Add to Your Resume.” 

I also let Claude proofread my writing even after Grammarly checks it. This lets me proofread manually a bit faster when it’s my turn to proof it. Do all three of “us” still miss errors sometimes? Yep. I’m human.

As I said, tip #4, might be my favorite. It fires you up to use the other tips.

Onward to Monday Marketing News, including the hottest app right now.

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Shane McLendon - Copy Kingpin

“We're all chasing wallets, and I think we need to be chasing hearts.” Terence Reilly (Stanley Cups genius)