00:00Hello, everyone. I'm sure you're surprised or even worse, confused. This channel is all about fires
00:04and the tools and strategies required to achieve fire. So what exactly is a productivity tool doing
00:08here and how is it connected to fire, right? So probably that's your question. Well, there's a
00:12good reason and please stick with me for a bit and I'll try and explain. You see, a lot of
00:17people
00:17think that to achieve fire, you need some superhuman intelligence or sometimes incredible luck
00:22or most people that I talk to, they think that only people with huge salaried jobs actually make
00:26it, right? But in my personal experience and in the experience of many others who have walked this
00:30path, the real key is not intelligence or luck. It is discipline, right? Discipline to track your
00:35expenses, discipline to invest consistently, discipline to focus your time on what truly
00:39matters and discipline to stay your course no matter what the temptations are. And that's where
00:44the productivity comes in, right? Being intentional with your time is just as important as being
00:48intentional with your money also, right? So early on, when my fire journey started over 80 years ago,
00:53I was lazy and unorganized, but I soon realized that to achieve fire, it's just not a goal, but I
00:59would
01:00have to completely redo my mindset and habits, right? That's when I built and started using this simple
01:05powerful tool to manage my goals and tasks. Now I'm ready to share this with you. In this video, I'll
01:11explain what this tool is all about. And then to make the deal even sweeter, you can download the free
01:15Excel or the Google Sheet version of this tool at the end of the video. So let's get started.
01:21Before we begin to discuss the new tool, let's just talk about what people usually use, right?
01:25Which is the good old linear to-do list, right? This is all too familiar to you, I'm sure. We
01:29all
01:30probably used to a to-do list before or even some continuing to use one. Typical to-do list is
01:35just
01:35a long list of tasks one after the other. I'm not saying this is not useful. However, after using this
01:39approach for a few months, you would automatically begin to realize that it comes with a set of
01:44limitations. The biggest drawbacks is basically is that, you know, since the list is written
01:48sequentially one by one after the other, there's no real sense of priority. Everything looks equally
01:51important. And then it also creates a false sense of productivity. You check off for 10 small tasks,
01:56and then you feel like you've achieved a lot of things. But the real big stuff, the real stuff
02:00that really matters are still untouched, right? And sometimes you miss a chance to delegate or
02:04eliminate some of the tasks that don't really belong on your plate, right? And you might have also seen
02:08that personal bias always comes into the picture. Like you tend to do the tasks that you'd like to do
02:11the
02:11most, but the most important ones are usually the ones that you don't like to, right? So that's the
02:15problem. So most importantly, I think the linear list does nothing to help you build habits or
02:20conscious memory around your time and decisions, right? So it's definitely time for a better system.
02:25And this is exactly where the new tool, I've named it Focus 4, comes into picture.
02:30This is not my invention. The tool is actually based on a very well-known but underused productivity
02:34method called the Eisenhower matrix. I've kind of refined it and then adapted it into a practical
02:40Excel format that anyone can use. I call it the Focus 4 because you group your tasks into
02:44four clear categories based on urgency and importance. Let's take a quick look at the
02:47tool itself. The tool is pretty simple. It basically has these two axes. The x-axis is
02:52basically stuff that are urgent and not urgent. And then the y-axis covers tasks that are important
02:57and not important. So naturally you have these four quadrants and these four quadrants is the
03:01game here. The first quadrant is the important and the urgent, which is the urgent and the
03:05important. These are your fires, right? Your deadlines, your crises. So they demand your attention
03:10right now. And these are things that you should do first. But if you're always stuck here, you never
03:14move forward. That's also the problem. The second quadrant is the urgent, but not important. These
03:19feel important, but they often are not. Meetings that could have been emails, distractions or
03:24favors that derail your day. These are items you should try and delegate or even minimize if possible.
03:29The third quadrant on the top, not urgent, but important. This is where the magic happens, right?
03:33This is where your long-term goals, dreams, and planning comes to life. Learning to invest,
03:38building your side hustle, working on your health, all these things that move you closer to the fire,
03:42right? So these are items that usually get sidelined and ignored. So schedule these and ensure that you
03:47time box these items and have a clear date by when you will plan to complete this.
03:51And the last quadrant, which is not urgent and not important. These are typical time-based
03:55is these distractions and habits that don't really serve you well. When you consciously recognize these
04:00tasks and put this on your list, you kind of build an habit to completely avoid them. And this is
04:05the
04:05tool that I'm talking about. It's the Microsoft Excel version of it. There's also a Google Sheet
04:09version of it for people who are on the move and who want to update this using their mobile. And
04:13for
04:14people like me who like to write things, there's a PDF version also. So you can actually take a printout
04:18of this and then write your tasks and manage it that way as well. So it's pretty simple. It's
04:23self-explanatory. You can write as many tasks and then slot them into these four quadrants. And that's how it
04:29works. I've taken the liberty and added a fifth category here called the black hole. I'm sure
04:33this happens to you. You spend the entire day doing something. And at the end of the day, you realize
04:37that you haven't managed to get anything done and you wonder, where did all the time go? Well, that's
04:41what this category is for. This section is where you document activities like, say, excessive social
04:45media, browsing, playing video games, et cetera, that completely eat away your productive time and
04:50things you should avoid like hell. So this section is where you document such activities so that you
04:53consciously avoid those. Believe me, once you start doing this, this will completely change the way
04:58you operate and function. Well, this is not something very revolutionary. Like I said, it's a
05:03simple tool, but a powerful one. I'm saying this completely based on my experience for the past eight
05:07years of using this tool. If you're still not fully bought on this idea, I would say, give it a
05:12chance,
05:12use it for a month or two, and I'm sure you would absolutely love it. Like I said, this tool
05:16is free to
05:17download. You have the Microsoft Excel version, the Google Sheet version, also the PDF version. So you can
05:22download all the files from our community website and I'll give a link in the description. You can
05:26also buy it from the buymecoffee.com site as well. Personally, I'm eager to see how this works for you.
05:31So I would love some feedback from you on your thoughts, or if you think this is crap, that's
05:35also fine. Please leave that feedback in the comment section as well. Well, that's all I had,
05:39and I'll share a few more tools that I currently use in the upcoming videos. So thanks for watching,
05:44and I'll see you in the next one. Take care. Bye-bye.
05:46If you genuinely found this video useful, please consider subscribing and liking the video,
05:49and I will see you soon in another video. And until then, take care and happy trading.
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