This is the show for creative entrepreneurs who have a message to share and want to live a life of freedom. Learn how to grow your network and net worth. Hear from exciting guests and more. My name is Dylan Schmidt and Welcome to Digital Podcaster. I get asked a lot about my productivity, I've been working from home for years. So I'm gonna share five key pieces that are staples in staying motivated and productive. Number one getting dressed for work, it gets me in the right headspace, it helps me feel just a little bit more confident, I'm just not going to feel at my best if I feel kind of grungy, right, I come in to the day clean, ready to go, I've got my water, I've got my coffee, I got like my my rituals I do right, that leads me to number two, which is setting up a dedicated workspace. So there's a dedicated area where my brain has that cue of this is where I go to work. Now occasionally, I'll take a laptop and do some work outside or I'll do it on the couch. But 80% of the time, I'm doing work at my desk in my dedicated workspace. And if I find myself going a little stir crazy sitting here, it's usually because I haven't taken enough breaks. And that leads me to number three, which is taking breaks throughout the day. I'm big on staying focused, I'm big on productivity, I want to be efficient at what I do. What I've been doing for years is the Pomodoro Technique where I basically work 45 minutes on and then take 15 minutes off, let me explain a little bit more 45 minutes on where I'm working in the flow, deep work. 15 minutes off, I'm not looking at a screen, I'm usually stretching, laying down with my dog Wednesday, outside, just getting some sunshine, something like that, like not screentime and not doing what I would normally be doing. Sometimes I'll fold laundry, sometimes I'll start laundry, doing the dishes, putting dishes away just to get my brain out of what I'm normally doing. And it's funny because sometimes it's so hard to take a break because I'm in it, I'm in it, let me just finish this. And those are always the times where by the end of the day, I get even more burned out naturally, everybody can't just stay at 100% and not go down in energy, what the brakes do the scheduled breaks, they allow the concentration and focus to go back up. It makes me better at the beginning and end of my days, which are vitally important because life is more than just work. So by being able to take breaks, I'm able to do more, and my quality of life is bigger breaks are absolutely needed. We're not machines. Number four is setting realistic goals for each day. I think it was Tony Robbins who said this, most people underestimate what they can do in a year and overestimate what they can do in a week. We're bad at setting realistic goals, especially when we're working from home, we get frustrated, because we think we're doing too little. And then that usually turns into doing too much. And then we get overwhelmed. It's a moving target really trying to figure out what's realistic for each day that I can actually do based on my schedule based on how long something might take us. Because if you look at your own to dues for that day, and you were like alright, well, from this time to this time, I'm going to do this from this time to this time, I'm going to do that. You're guessing how long something might take you. So you also have to build into like, what's the actual time it's going to take you? And that's depends on the task, right for making a podcast, you could be like, Okay, well, I'm gonna give myself an hour, and the hour turns into three, or I'm going to do this. And next thing you know, you're like, well, actually, I went through and updated all the cover art for the past 20 episodes, or I made 20 topics for the next, you know, 20, episodes, whatever. And those things all drained from the goal if you don't have a cold start with. So setting a realistic goal of what do I want to get done to date so that when the day is over, I'll be like this was a success. And it's usually two to three things at most. If I look at what my goals are today, what's a win is wrapping up some content clips, projects, recording this podcast, and then writing and scheduling an email to go out tomorrow to the Digital Podcaster newsletter. Anything else on top of that is nice, but it's not going to be needed for me to go and tomorrow being behind or anything like that, right, trying to set it up. So tomorrow, I'm in better shape than I was today. Even though I'm in good shape today, because I haven't been putting stuff off. But it all comes back to setting realistic goals. And then number five, the last one I want to talk about today is making time for yourself at the end of the day. Because we're not machines, we have to be able to relax and unwind after a long day of work. Making time for yourself at the end of the day was something that I struggled with for a while because it kind of felt like you know, there is no off switch, right? So whether it's reading a book, going for a walk or just spending time with your loved ones that's vitally important for you to be way more productive also gives you better content because I found if I'm always on I'm always creating there's a dwindling effect of the creativity I have It's hard to relate to people if I'm just constantly on so those are the five I would say core principles of how I stay motivated and productive. Working from home. I hope this helped you. If it did, please, if you weren't just leave a simple review of the podcast on Apple podcasts or Spotify. That's all I got for you this week. I will talk to you soon.