3 top tips from Lucas Root:
1. Break down your day into time chunks that you can keep track of easily.
Maybe it’s an hour, an hour is a good place to start. Most people can keep track of their hours throughout the day.
2. Come up with a plan for what you’re going to accomplish in that hour.
Have a very, very simple plan for every single hour throughout the day. And take a moment to either write it down or say it out loud at the beginning of that hour every hour every day. That’s it. Very, very simple. That alone will make dramatic changes in your life. So you know it’s noon, “I’m going to take my lunch break.” Say it out loud. “For the next hour, I’m going to relax, not think about work and eat food done.” You will find you have more energy at 7pm, just by doing that every single day.
3. Take notes
Write down the things that are on the list inside your head. Do it all the time, as often as you can tolerate. Most of the people that are in the productivity space, and I respect their opinions tremendously, say that a physical pen and paper is far more effective for this. So if you can carry around a notebook and a pen, do it. If you can’t, electronic tools work.
Connect with Lucas here: https://lucasroot.com/
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
People, brain, productivity, state, minutes, productive, Lucas, chunk, work, uniform, hour, theta, sleep, downloading, management techniques, prepared, starts, tool, pomodoro technique
Debra Chantry-Taylor 0:03
Welcome to another episode of Better Business Better Life. I’m your host, Debra Chantry-Taylor. I’m passionate about helping entrepreneurs and their leadership teams get what they want out of business and life. On the show, I invite successful business owners and expert speakers to share their successes. They are open and honest about the highs and lows of business and also life as a business owner. We want to share those learnings with you to inspire you, but also to help you avoid some of the common mistakes. My hope is that you take something from each of these short episodes that you can put into action to help you get what you want, not only out of your business, but also your life. So good morning and welcome to another episode of Better Business, Better Life. Today I am joined by Lucas Root who is based in the US. Where are you in the US, Lucas?
Lucas Root 0:21
I live in San Diego, California. Which is a lovely city filled with amazing things to do and wonderful people to spend time with.
Debra Chantry-Taylor 0:32
Brilliant, okay, and so, I was gonna. Sorry go.
Lucas Root 0:36
Well, I don’t actually work in San Diego. So it’s funny people, like, they’ll say, you know, where do you live? I’ll be like, I live in San Diego. And they’ll be like, what do you do there? And the answer to that is, is actually rather funny, because the truth is, I don’t do anything in San Diego except live. And I would love that to mean that I’m fully retired. But that’s not what it means.
Debra Chantry-Taylor 1:00
So what does it mean? Where do you work? How do you work?
Lucas Root 1:03
Yeah. So I, when I started my consulting company, I specifically chose to go after clients that don’t necessarily need me to be on site all the time. Which is great. The Pokémon Company is my largest and best known client. I’ve been with them for six and a half years, they do not require me to be on site. And so I moved to San Diego because I get to live anywhere I want.
Debra Chantry-Taylor 1:30
That’s fantastic. Hey, I was I was looking at your one sheet before we kind of came on board, and I’m just gonna read out your bio here. Like it’s really interesting. So for over 17 years, Lucas Root led numerous teams on Wall Street. And after establishing a consistent track record of success, you started your own consulting business, which we’ve just spoken about. Lucas worked with strong brands with a well-funded great idea, who don’t quite know how to execute. And since early 2019, Lucas had the wonderful opportunity to speak to numerous audiences in North America, Australia and Europe, you can now add New Zealand to that, as well as partner with both businesses and VCs for mentoring.
Lucas Root 2:04
I love it! You know what’s going on. Like now.
Debra Chantry-Taylor 2:10
We’re finally open to the rest of the world again, which has been, which is a huge relief. Yeah. Yeah. It’s been a tough couple of years. But anyway, so yeah, it really interesting backgrounds. I mean, obviously, Wall Street, I think most people are pretty familiar with Wall Street, tell me a little bit about that.
Lucas Root 2:29
It’s more or less exactly what people think it is. It’s an incredibly high-pressure environment, there’s a lot going on all the time, it never stopped. It is 100% easy and in fact, happened to me, it is 100% easy to allow the culture of Wall Street to just take over your life. And, you know, maybe that’s a bad thing, maybe it’s not. It’s a decision that every person needs to make for themselves, it turned out that for me, it was not so great.
Debra Chantry-Taylor 2:58
But you still managed 17 years, it can’t have been all awful.
Lucas Root 3:03
It was not all awful. I learned a lot, I met a lot of great people. The work that I was doing, I was Operation strategy on the back end of mergers and acquisitions. So, the work I was doing allowed me to be in the room with people who have decades and decades of experience, very smart, very accomplished people. And I’m there in the room, serving them, helping them execute a vision that they have. It was amazing. It was just amazing how much I was able to learn from these really incredibly intelligent, accomplished people. And one of the things that I learned from them is that I didn’t want to become one of them.
Debra Chantry-Taylor 3:46
Good, good thing to know.
Lucas Root 3:49
You know, you can have tremendous amount of admiration for somebody, and also not want to be them.
Debra Chantry-Taylor 3:58
Yeah, that makes perfect sense. So, tell me, we always like to start the podcast, just getting a little bit of a sense of who Lucas really is. So, can you share with me what you would consider your professional and personal best so far in your life?
Lucas Root 4:11
Well, before starting my consulting business, I actually started three different real estate businesses. Each of them succeeded to some extent and failed to some extent. They, they were very successful in that they made a lot of money for a lot of people. They failed in that they didn’t make any money for me, and they didn’t last. Right. So, I had, I had three failed businesses before I started my consulting business. So, walking into leaving Wall Street, leaving the security behind and I was making good money and there’s a lot of security in that. You know, I was a sought-after worker. Walking away from that security and stepping into a business with three failures under my belt was a really significant challenge. It was, it was really something that I, I should have been terrified that I was not, but I probably should have been terrified of it.
Debra Chantry-Taylor 5:08
I believed because I was looking at your profile and looking at the book, you actually written a book and it talks about failing forward. Right. So, I’m assuming you’ve taken those lessons that you’ve learned into your consulting and working with other businesses.
Lucas Root 5:19
Yes, I have people that say to me, often, it’s not a failure if you learn something. And while I agree with the sentiment that, that learning is the goal, I think it’s silly to not call it a failure, it still was a failure. It may not have been a bad failure, it may not have caused damage, right? It’s not like falling off a cliff without a parachute. And sending the paddy wagon over to pick you up off the bottom right. It’s yeah, that’s, that’s a bad failure that causes damage, like, but failures are still failures, even when you learn from them, even when you walk away better and more capable of managing your life, including situations just like that. Because of it, it’s still a failure. And, and those failures created the opportunity for me to be the man that I am today. And I love that, and I really appreciate that.
Debra Chantry-Taylor 6:15
And then I must say, I’ve had a couple of business failures myself. And so, I have, I’ve been there and I know exactly what it’s like and yet absolutely took some lessons from it, fortunately, not too much damage. And I think we do learn a lot from those mistakes. But I actually quite happily talk about those failures with my clients. Because if they can learn something from it as well, and that’s fantastic.
Lucas Root 6:35
Oh, yeah, learn from mine. So, you don’t have to make them yourself.
Debra Chantry-Taylor 6:40
So what about a personal best? What do you think is your sort of personal best so far? In this world?
Lucas Root 6:45
I don’t want to be too terribly sappy. But the truth is, I’ve been with my wife for 15 years, we have an amazing relationship. It is a personal best.
Debra Chantry-Taylor 6:53
Yeah, that’s it. That is fantastic. And I guess she’s based in San Diego, is she?
Lucas Root 6:58
Yes, absolutely.
Debra Chantry-Taylor 7:02
Brilliant. Okay, such as something
Lucas Root 7:04
She does something in San Diego, unlike me. She makes something in San Diego.
Debra Chantry-Taylor 7:10
So we’re gonna talk a little bit about, I know that you know so much about so many things. But the topic we’ve chosen today is about productivity, right? So, I’m really keen to hear from you, you know, what are your, what would you, what is productivity, first of all, in your opinion?
Lucas Root 7:26
So I think most people think of productivity as getting a lot of work done, which is included, but I like to use a broader definition that gives you the capacity to approach productivity from a perspective of building yourself up. To me, productivity is getting the most of what you want out of a chunk of time for that thing that you want. For example, if you’re going to go to sleep at night, you might as well have a productive sleep. So you’re not doing work while you’re sleeping. Like you’re, you’re, you’re sleeping, you’re resting like it’s the opposite of work, but but you can still be productive in that when you’re sleeping, you’re getting high quality sleep. Yep. That’s productivity to me.
Debra Chantry-Taylor 8:14
Okay, now, that makes a lot of sense, I actually have a little Oura ring that I use for tracking my sleep. So I’m a bit of a sleep nut and making sure I do get good quality sleep at the end of it. So where do people fail in productivity?
Lucas Root 8:29
Three things. Number one, I think people use productivity wrong, they really try to use it only for work. You should, you should not you should try to have productive sleep, you should try to have productive time with your family, you should try to have productive meals, you should try to have, you know, productive mornings. So the first thing is they try to use it as a very, very specific and very focused tool. And instead, I think productivity is more like a magnifying glass. It is not a specific focus tool. It is a tool for specific focus.
Debra Chantry-Taylor 9:07
Okay, tell me more about that.
Lucas Root 9:09
Yeah, it productivity as a tool for specific focus, it allows you to focus in on when you use it. Well, it allows you to focus in on what you want out of a chunk of time.
Debra Chantry-Taylor 9:22
Okay, so tell me, how would one even start to look at their current productivity decide, you know, because it’s a mindset as well, right? You’ve got to actually have this mindset that you want to become more productive. When would you even start and tell me a little bit about what you have done to improve your kind of personal productivity across your life?
Lucas Root 9:41
Too much. I’ve gotten so far off the deep end, it’s ridiculous, but it’s also great and I’ve been able to simplify my message down into something most people can consume. The first is, productivity your day. It actually starts the night before. Your day doesn’t start in the morning, it starts in the evening. Most people spend very little time thinking about that there’s a reason for this, your brain keeps track of things. It keeps track of lists of things that you need to work on, it keeps track of what might be about to happen. And if you don’t prep your brain, your central nervous system whose job it is to make sure that you’re prepared for the worst-case scenario at all times, like a bear might come through the wall right now, it is theoretically possible, it’s not going to happen. But it’s theoretically possible that a bear could attack me right this instant. And it’s your central nervous systems primary purpose to make sure that you’re prepared for that so that you survive, so that you can propagate the species like is very simple. Your brain needs to keep track of risks and potential risks and all of the things that might happen to you over a period of time. And if you don’t prep your brain for a good restful night of sleep, then when you wake up the next morning, you’re already a step behind. Because your brain spent effort while you were sleeping, worrying, instead of just resting. So your day starts the night before. Next, as soon as your morning starts, and this is really valuable. You have a brain state that’s happening when you wake up. It’s it’s called theta brain state. And this brain state is an incredibly powerful tool. However, making decisions takes you out of theta brain state. Okay, you were talking about mindset, it’s mindset and brain state. Theta brain state is a Maximizer, for downloading information. And I use the word download intentionally. It’s not for learning, because learning actually takes three separate steps. It’s information ingestion. And then the filing of that information, putting it in different places, right. And then finally turning the information that’s been filed into a skill. So learning is actually three steps, but the download process, it can happen in a bunch of different ways. And when you’re in theta brain state, your brain is primed for downloading. Example. Have you ever noticed when a great storyteller starts telling stories to kids, they go into a kind of stupor? It’s the coolest thing to watch in the world, the name for that brain state that they’re in when they’re listening to that story is theta brain state. It’s their download brain state. They’re downloading that story, almost in the same way as if you take a USB drive and plug it into your computer.
Debra Chantry-Taylor 13:01
Okay.
Lucas Root 13:03
It’s variable.
Debra Chantry-Taylor 13:04
So what should one do with that theta state in the morning, that’s I’m guessing getting up and jumping straight into your emails is not a great use of that time.
Lucas Root 13:10
It is not a great use of that time. It depends on what you really want out of your life. What I do with my theta brain state in the morning, is I read books, I read nonfiction books, because I want to bring in information. That’s what nonfiction books are for, right? I want to bring in that information that’s going to be valuable to me in my life. But again, making a decision and the theta brain state, theta brain state is the opposite of decision-making brain state. And so if you don’t know what you’re going to do, when you wake up the night before, then you have to make decisions about what you’re going to do when you wake up. And this is why morning routine is such a powerful tool for people who are incredibly high productive. They know when certain brain states happen to them. Theta brain state, for example, alpha beta, is like, when you’re in creative mode. It happens in different times of the day. And everybody has it happened differently except theta brain state. It’s always true when you wake up, you’re in theta. So people who know when certain brain states happen, they maximize the activity for that brain state for that time. So don’t make a decision when you wake up. You have to make the decision before you go to bed. You wake up you have the book sitting right there, you get up you start reading, no decision just read.
Debra Chantry-Taylor 14:39
Right. So that’s why it starts the night before. So in terms of so going back while we step so yes, getting your book ready and going right since I wake up, no decisions to be made. There’s my book, I’m gonna start reading. What else do you do in the evening to make sure that you can be completely switched off and not having to make decisions in the morning?
Lucas Root 14:57
I do the same thing. I do this Same thing in the evening, as I do during all of the other brain state change times throughout the day. Number one, I write down a list of the things that are in my mind that need to get out of my mind. Sorry about that. So, I write it and what whatever that list is, it doesn’t actually matter. But I write down the list of the things that are in my mind that need to get out of my mind. Because again, your brain is going to worry about the things that are on the list. But as soon as you write it down, it’s taken care of it’s solved. Like you don’t have to worry about it anymore. So, I write that down. Number two, I write a schedule. Now from a very high-level perspective, I write a schedule for the entire day. But I also write a very specific schedule for what’s gonna happen over the next chunk of time. So I’m getting ready for bed. I know I’m gonna go to bed for seven hours, and let’s say 15 minutes, I write a schedule down that says, for the next seven hours and 15 minutes, I’m going to be sleeping. It sounds silly. It really does. It sounds absolutely absurd. But it’s so easy to do. And the difference that it makes in your sleep quality is actually noticeable.
Debra Chantry-Taylor 16:21
Because the brain is prepared and knows that for the next seven hours and 15 minutes, you’re going to be sleeping. I love that. I had never even considered that. Okay, because I did do it. I actually do write my scheduler each night private events that I don’t have to worry about things, but I had never considered the sleeping time as being part of that schedule. Yep. Cool. Yeah, that’s very cool. I’m yeah, I’m excited. Okay. And so,
Lucas Root 16:43
It makes perfect sense, right?
Debra Chantry-Taylor 16:44
It does make perfect sense that you said it, but I hadn’t even considered it so. So you’re basically you’re getting everything out, you’re writing your list, you’re preparing yourself for that seven hours, 15 minutes off. For me, it’s gonna be eight hours of sleep. And then you’ve got your day planned out in terms of what you’re going to do the next day, you’ve got your book by the side of the bed. So you wake up in the morning, you’ve had your seven hours, 50 minutes sleep and you read your book, then what?
Lucas Root 17:09
Yeah, so it depends on the day, after I’m done reading my book, My schedule is different day over day. On my workout days, I put on my workout clothes, and I head straight out the door. No coffee, you know, just workout clothes, head straight out the door. I’m a habit kind of guy. So I get up at 5am every single day I do my reading. And on my workout days, I do my workout at 5:30. And there’s just no break in that. Like it has to be that way. Because I just like to have my habits. That’s also, that’s also the reason I get up at 5am Because I like to have my habits. So on my workout days, I head out on my non workout days, I start brewing my coffee, go about my morning, take a shower, you know, shave, get my hair done, whatever, like get dressed. Getting dressed as important, it’s another piece of productivity that I think a lot of people pay a little attention to. Okay, I think of clothing as a productivity uniform. So think about it. When you used to play on a high school sports team, you put on your productivity uniform. And it wasn’t necessarily your game clothes. But there’s nothing special about the polyester shorts that we used to wear when we were playing. Am I wrong? Like just as easily have been cotton shorts, we were just wearing polyester, who the hell knows why. But it was different from what we were wearing before we got out on the field. And our body recognize that change. So it’s a productivity uniform, it’s a it’s an environmental stimulus to help your body move into the next state the next phase that it’s going to be in and it recognizes that change. So the same is true. When we approach every piece of productivity throughout the day. When I want to be work productive. I wear my work productivity uniform. And for me, it’s always a collared shirt. Because there’s something about this, that’s just reminding to me that that’s what I’m focused on right now. When I’m done working, one of the things that I do is I take off my work clothes, even if they’re not dirty, even if I’m not stinky. It’s not about that. It’s about moving into the productivity of the next phase of my day spending time with my family or going out for a run or going for a walk in the park. Like I can go for a walk in the park and a collared shirt. I can spend time with my family and a collared shirt. I change it because I want to be peak productive for the thing that I’m doing at any given time.
Debra Chantry-Taylor 19:55
That’s interesting because I think I did the whole COVID thing and working from home. I used to get up every morning and still put on my usual dress and my makeup and my hair and to be prepared. The one thing I haven’t considered is actually taking it off at the end of the day. Yeah. So but it does, prepares your brain for different parts of your work and your life and going right now in this phase.
Lucas Root 20:17
Same thing when we go to bed, most people wear pajamas. Is there you know, I love this undershirt. It’s a fantastic undershirt. Is there anything special about pajamas that’s different than this undershirt? Yeah, but but we move into our pajamas, because that’s a productivity uniform. And the irony is most people use that productivity uniform. And it works well for them. And they’ve never connected it to the fact that it helps them be more productive at the thing they’re doing at that time, which is getting good quality sleep.
Debra Chantry-Taylor 20:52
Yeah, pretty cool. So great. So we’ve got the different sort of ways of preparing the mind for what you’re about to do. Tell me a bit more about the alpha beta states, because I mean, the theta state is obviously that first thing in the morning, very important for downloading information. But you said alpha and beta was more about the creativity. So and that occurs at different times. Is that right?
Lucas Root 21:12
Yeah. So people, people really should spend some time studying brain states. The most productive people in the world all have spent some time they’re not necessarily experts, but they’re functionally, you know, let’s say they’re functional experts. They’re experts in understanding the way that their brain works in different times during the day. And this is something I think it’s it is worth buying two or three nonfiction books about brain states of having that be your theta, your theta learning for a couple of weeks. Study the brain states.
Debra Chantry-Taylor 21:47
Sorry to interrupt, is there a particular book that you would recommend that you’ve found really helpful?
Lucas Root 21:52
Yeah, I can, I can send that over to you.
Debra Chantry-Taylor 21:55
Perfect. Great. Thank you.
Lucas Root 21:57
Yeah. Great question. Thank you. So yeah, so alpha, alpha brain state is the decision making brain state. Okay. Beta brain state is the stressed brain state. Now, the combination of those two, which could be like you’re in executive functioning, and you’re drinking coffee, for those of you who don’t know, coffee is a stressor. That’s not a bad thing. Stress is not a bad thing, like we go work out working out is a stressor, like stress is not actually a bad thing. It’s a tool. We use coffee fairly well, in most of our societies, it’s a tool. You use the combination of decision making brain state and stress brain state to be really focused at getting work done. Okay, now, it depends on what kind of work you want to do. I don’t recommend trying to be in a combination decision, stress brain state, when you’re trying to spend time with your family, that’s probably not the best way to do things like just I’m just saying, saying,
Debra Chantry-Taylor 23:19
This is a reading from experience, right?
Lucas Root 23:21
I have learned that from experience you want to move into a relaxed brain state, you don’t want to be in the in the stress brain state, like it’s not useful, right? That you’re training your brain in the wrong way, it’s like don’t do that. But the combination of those two brain states puts you into get things done mode. Now, there’s a cost for being in that get things done mode. And this is why a lot of people associate productivity, and it’s why I use a broader definition. A lot of people associate productivity with time management techniques. And there’s a good association there, but they’re not necessarily the same thing. Time management techniques are a tool to increase your capacity to be productive, they are not the same. Okay, time management techniques that I know of that people like to use Pomodoro technique. It’s a great one. Let me tell you why. Yes. First, as I said, being in that productive brain state, the alpha beta combination. What it does to you is it actually has a cost. It uses internal brain resources, actual chemicals in your brain that need to be reset over time. The average person needs to stop being focused. And these numbers are studied and fairly well established at 32 minutes plus or minus seven. One standard deviation is seven minutes, two standard deviations is another seven minutes. There’s a magic number that I’m about to drop that correlates with 30. Two Minutes minus two standard deviations of seven, it’s 18 minutes, which is the maximum length of time for a TED Talk. It is a magic number, there’s a reason they chose that 18 minute number, it’s because the vast majority of people can stay focused for 18 minutes.
Debra Chantry-Taylor 25:19
Make sense? Okay. And now I have another revelation. TED talks are designed that way.
Lucas Root 25:24
They really are. They’re designed by smart people who know how the brain works.
Debra Chantry-Taylor 25:27
Fantastic. Okay.
Lucas Root 25:31
So 32 minutes plus or minus seven. Now, I think most people should be comfortable designing their day around one standard deviation away from 32 minutes rather than two. that magic number is 25 minutes. Now, if you’ve studied the Pomodoro Technique, you’ll notice that the Pomodoro technique uses 25 minute time chunks. There’s a reason for that. The way the Pomodoro technique works, I use a different technique, because I know where my productivity starts to wane, right. But the way the Pomodoro technique works, which works for most people is very simple work for 20 minutes, take a five minute break, work for another 20 minutes, take a five minute break, do that four times in a row, and then take a 20 minute break. And that all adds up to two hours. Okay, so what you can do is you can chunk your day out in two hour chunks. So for this two hours, I’m going to do a whole crap ton of emails for this two hours, I’m going to do a bunch of really awesome creative work. And then you use the Pomodoro Technique inside that two hour chunk so that you never lose your capacity to be deeply focused during your work chunks, those 20 minute periods.
Debra Chantry-Taylor 26:54
I think this has some merit for people like me who might be a little bit on the ADHD scale as well. So I’m not very good at keeping focus for a long period of time. And it sort of makes sense to think about how you can be focused in the right mind state without Yeah, without losing that.
Lucas Root 27:13
Okay, I’m gonna rewind, and talk about what I talked about before going to bed, I do the exact same thing at the beginning of each work chunk, the exact same thing is always the same. I write down a list of the things that are in my mind. And then I write down a plan for what’s going to happen in the upcoming work chunk. And I do that for each of those 20 minutes, I actually use different chunking. But but let’s go with Pomodoro because it’s simple, and people can look it up. I do that for each time chunk that’s coming up. So you’ve got that five minutes of rest. And people are like, Well, what do I do with that five minutes of rest? Well, this is one of those things you do with that five minutes of rest, here are the other things that I do with that five minutes of rest. Number one, as soon as you’re done with the 20 minutes of work, stand up, put on some music and dance for one to two. Not kidding, I don’t care if you’re a good dancer or not stand up put on some music and dance for one to two minutes. The worst dancer you are actually the better this works.
Debra Chantry-Taylor 28:21
It’s gonna be fantastic for me then.
Lucas Root 28:25
It’s amazing. Dancing will stop your brain from being in focus mode instantly and it’s 100% effective. There’s nobody in the world that this doesn’t work for. Except maybe professional dancers. But if you just can’t get yourself to dance shadow boxing with the sound effects works just as well. Okay, great. Shadow boxing you got to bounce around, you got to jab you got to punch you got to do some upper cut shadow boxing works just as well as dancing. But dancing is my go to I think most people are willing to dance. So dance for one to two minutes, go to the bathroom, even if you don’t need to. Yep, walk in, close the door behind you. Take a moment to allow your body to know that you’re in there. There’s a reason. Remember, your brain prepares for what might happen next. And if you don’t go to the bathroom often enough and you find yourself like sprinting to the bathroom occasionally. Trust me when I say this, it will happen eventually. You can’t keep it off like you there’s no stopping your body from going to the bathroom. Why you can slow it down but eventually it’s happening. If you do that, if you try to hold it back, your brain will get into this mode where it thinks that it needs to prioritize your body’s needs over the needs of the moment. And it’s not wrong, because you’ve been teaching it that you’re going to ignore your bathroom urges until the last friggin second. Yep, so this is a retraining technique, you’ve got this five minute break, you dance for to two minutes, go to the bathroom, even if you don’t have to. And now your brain gets used to the idea that it doesn’t need to worry about it, you’re going to go there. Get a drink of water, even if you don’t need to fill up the cup, take at least a sip and then be like, You know what a SIP was enough. I really don’t need to drink this whole glass right now. But it’s the same thing. It’s helping your brain, your central nervous system know that it’s not going to get dehydrated over the next half an hour because you just had water in your hands. And this is removing barriers from super deep focus.
Debra Chantry-Taylor 30:54
Awesome, I’m loving it. I’m gonna be dancing in my next break for sure. And I must admit I’m terrible about with the bathroom, I can often kind of work for hours and hours on end. So I think I really probably should go to the bathroom. Okay, well, we could talk about this all day long. This is fascinating. I haven’t done much I mean, I’ve got a little bit of knowledge about the brain, but setting up to this level of detail. Sadly, we’re running out of time,
Lucas Root 31:17
I’ve gone way too far off the deep end.
Debra Chantry-Taylor 31:21
So if somebody because of obviously starting this stuff, you don’t want to kind of overwhelm yourself and try to do too much all at once. What were the three key things that you would say for somebody who perhaps feels like they haven’t been particularly productive in any area of their life, or we the three key things you say they should start with?
Lucas Root 31:38
I love it. Number one, break down your day into time chunks that you can keep track of easily, maybe it’s an hour, an hour is a good place to start. Most people can keep track of their hours throughout the day. Number two, come up with a plan have a very, very simple plan for what you’re going to accomplish in that hour, for every single hour throughout the day. And take a moment to either write it down or say it out loud at the beginning of that hour every hour every day. That’s it. Yep, very, very simple. Just that will make dramatic changes in your life. So you know it’s noon, I’m going to take my lunch break. Well actually say it out loud. For the next hour, I’m going to relax, not think about work and eat food done. You will find you have more energy at 7pm Just by doing that every single day.
Debra Chantry-Taylor 32:39
Okay, beautiful. And the third and final?
Lucas Root 32:43
For the for the next hour. It’s 7pm. For the next hour, I’m with my family, we’re going to be eating dinner. I’m not going to think about work. I’m going to enjoy my time. Beautiful. Third and final take notes. Yep, take notes. Write down the things that are on the list in your inside your head, do it all the time, as often as you can tolerate.
Debra Chantry-Taylor 33:10
Sure. And do you recommend doing that sort of physically with a pen and paper? Do you have? Do you use an app? And what would you say is the best way to do that? For you?
Lucas Root 33:19
I do quite well yeah, I do quite well, using electronic tools. So whatever electronic tool works best for you, I use OneNote I use it well I use it a lot. It’s a great tool for me. Most of the people that are in the productivity space, and I respect their opinions tremendously. They say that pen and paper actual physical pen and paper is far more effective for this. So you know if you, if you can tolerate carrying around a notebook and a pen do it if you can’t, well, electronic tools work.
Debra Chantry-Taylor 33:55
Yeah, right. I use reMarkable it’s been one of my finds in the last year. I love it because it’s an electronic notepad that has no distractions, no connections, nothing that actually is effectively a notepad without having to carry a notepad. Yeah. Okay, great. Hey, um, wow, honestly, this has been really amazing. For me, hopefully for listeners as well. I’m gonna taking a few things out of here that I’m definitely going to start doing some things I was doing. I didn’t even realize why I was doing them. So now I’ve got some structure around that as well. Now you have reasons, well, that Yeah, well, actually just the whole thing of a uniform and taking the uniform off at the end of the day. And that has been my I don’t do that. And I think that will actually prepare me to go right edgy I’m home. And we’re in a different place now which is great. You’ve, you’ve written some great stuff around some of these things, haven’t you? If you want to find out more about you and the work that you do? How would they actually find you, Lucas?
Lucas Root 34:48
Best place to find me is my website lucasroot.com. Or if you’re an avid social media user, you can find me pretty active on Instagram my handle there is @lucroot because Lucas Root was taken.
Debra Chantry-Taylor 35:05
Okay, beautiful. And to just before we finish up, tell me a little bit about the work that you do because you work with a bunch of fortune 500 companies, what is the work that you do with those companies.
Lucas Root 35:18
So the clients that typically hire me are brands who don’t execute, which is a really neat way of saying they stay really super focused on the thing that they think they’re great at. So for example, the Apple Company is a really powerful marketing company. Most people think that they’re a technology company, they’re not really, they outsource the technology that they build. And, and they’re great at putting together their requirements and selling that idea that packaged idea they sell it to the world as this is the thing that we’re going to give to you ease of use, or really great looking thing on, you know, when they got really popular with the their iPod, or their iPod. Yes. God, it’s been a long time nobody. iPods like blew up. You remember the white year? Yeah, that and it was like that was the thing. The funny thing is, if you go back and look at those commercials, you’re like, how does that have anything to do with technology well doesn’t. They’re not really a technology company. They’re really a marketing company that takes technology that some other people are really, really good at making and brings it to you. And they’re great at it. I have so much respect for them. The Pokémon Company, my client is similar to the Apple company in that they’re super, super focused on building a story. It’s not a customer story. It’s not a brand of marketing. They’re building characters and a character story. You could think of them very, very much in the same vein as Disney right? Disney’s focus is building a story and selling that story. Now, a big difference between Disney and The Pokémon Company. Disney executes all of the other things around their business that has to be done and they do their own manufacturing. They do their own distribution. You know, they have flagship stores all over the place where you can go into a Disney store and buy Disney stuff right from Disney employees. Pokémon doesn’t do any of that, which is cool. They stay really, really focused. And they hire people like me to help make sure that all that other stuff gets done and gets done well.
Debra Chantry-Taylor 37:49
Okay, great. Well, hey, as I said, people can get ahold of you at Lucasroot.com and on Instagram @Lucroot. You have shared some amazing tips and tools are really appreciate it. Thank you so much for your time, and I look forward to connecting with you online.
Debra Chantry-Taylor
Professional EOS Implementer | Entrepreneurial Leadership & Business Coach | Business Owner
#betterbusinessbetterlife #entrepreneur #leadership #eosimplementer #professionaleosimplementer #entrepreneurialbusinesscoach
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