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Since we all have the same amount of time in our day how do some people seem to get more done than others? Why are some people more productive than others?
If you want to get more done in less time – and what solopreneur doesn’t? – our guest for today has your number.
Willem Van Zyl, productivity coach and expert, joins us to talk about his productivity coaching business, his suggestions for implementing new habits and creating lasting change as well as what makes a good coach a good coach.
Listen in for all of that and more on episode 401 of The Solopreneur Hour.
More About Productivity and Willem Van Zyl
Willem was born and raised in the countryside of South Africa. He moved to Capetown for university and began working in software development before he even finished his degree. He parlayed those experiences into a job with an online education company after graduation. It was to be the ideal training ground for his current work in productivity.
After some time in online education he created his own software development company, a firm he built for 8 years before venturing into productivity and coaching. Today he’s transitioning from his firm into coaching on the subject of productivity full-time.
On today’s show Willem explains why and how he became interested in productivity, why video game music is a killer way to get into the zone, and how to create a new habit by tying it to an existing one.
In this episode you’ll hear:
- If someone is good at something does that mean they’re good at teaching it too?
- Why you need to have a scientific mind for business.
- Willem’s coffee and nap technique for being productive during a long day.
- How to eat your frog first thing in the morning, and what that means.
- Can limiting the time you spend on a task make you more productive?
- And much more!
One of the most frustrating things for Willem about his software development company was trading time for dollars. It’s very hard to scale that type of a business and have it run without your hands in it. That frustration coupled with his burgeoning interest in productivity opened his eyes to the possibility of being a productivity coach.
While trying to build teams and manage clients and projects, he became interested in how people work and what makes someone productive but the same thing doesn’t work for someone else. So in his free time he studied it: he read all the books he could find, experimented on his own and documented the process.
As he found what worked and what didn’t, he also saw an opportunity to create passive income with coaching. He could write books, offer courses, etc…all things he couldn’t do with his software development company.
One of the things he discovered that enhances productivity for everyone is listening to video game music. If you hope onto YouTube you can find the soundtracks of numerous video games, including this one called the Elder Scrolls Oblivion IV soundtrack. Listening to that soundtrack or any other from video games helps your mind focus in on the task at hand. Video game companies have designed their soundtracks specifically to do this!
Another trick Willem shares on this episode is to eat your frog first thing in the morning. If you aren’t familiar with the phrase it is from a Brian Tracy book called Eat That Frog. And the idea is that if you tackle your most impactful yet often least enjoyable task in the morning it will set you up for greater success the rest of the day.
Now before you can eat your frog you need to know what that frog actually is. Willem typically has his clients write down everything they do every day for a week, then together they review the list.
After reviewing it they decide what tasks the client really has to do that no one else can, what can be delegated, what can be automated, and what can be deleted. Typically Willem has found people only have 3 or 4 high value activities they must do every day.
Now if you do this and you find you don’t like some of those activities you must do then have a frank conversation with yourself. Ask yourself what sort of plan you can put in place so you do the task. If you can do this consistently for anywhere from 2 to 4 weeks you will have created a new habit.
The trick is to attach this new habit to an existing one. So if you are getting in the habit of emailing your list and you already write a blog every Monday then attach the habit of emailing your list to the existing habit of writing your blog post every Monday.
Those are just a few of the productivity tips you’ll hear from Willem in this conversation! Listen in to hear our thoughts on what makes a good coach, why incremental progress across the board is so much more beneficial than massive progress on one task. Plus plenty of interesting tidbits on his life in South Africa! Check it out on this episode of The Solopreneur Hour
Selected Links and Resources From This Episode
Willem Van Zyl’s website
More About Willem
Willem’s gift to you
Be More Focused at Work by Listening to Video Game Music, Willem’s blog post
Willem Van Zyl on Twitter
Willem Van Zyl on Coach.me
The One Thing, by Gary W. Keller and Jay Papasan
Eat That Frog, by Brian Tracy
Coffitivity
The Solopreneur Hour on the Twitter
The Solopreneur Hour on Instagram
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