Edition #3

Hi All!

Here is your weekly serving of practical guidance and inspiration to ensure you live your life with purpose. Feel free to forward this along to friends and family. Enjoy!

I wanted to give a quick shout to the 10 amazing individuals who have joined us since last week. Thanks for being here and welcome to the Never Idle team!

Read Time: 7 Minutes

Master Your Mindset

Transform Your Environment, Transform Your Mindset

I moved to Austin, TX during the peak of the COVID pandemic in March of 2020. I had lived my entire life in New Jersey prior to that and came down here with no friends and only my wife (fiance at the time).

Texas re-opened quicker than most areas of the country and the world but those were still some lonely times. What should have been an exciting new time for us in a new city turned into hunkering down in our apartment looking to pass the time, with much uncertainty about what was to come.

When restrictions were lifted, I was eager to go meet new people. As a big soccer/football player my entire life I joined a local men’s league and met my team, which would become my friend group.

For the next 1.5 years, we played, went out, drank beers, and got to know each other. I thought I had finally ‘found my people.’ But as time passed and a few big situations occurred (I’ll spare you the details but it included a divorce of one of the couples and a huge blow-up in Mexico) the friend group started to dissipate. I was back to being friendless in this city.

That turned out to be a huge blessing! It gave me the space to realize I needed a change in my life. Our entire group centered around alcohol and going out and I didn’t want to do that shit anymore. My situation suddenly provided me with the opportunity to build my own environment. A new positive one. So that is exactly what I did.

Here are the 5 core tenants I used to build it (short version here):

1) Cut Out Toxic People

This one is pretty self-explanatory from the story above. If you are spending time with people that have shitty habits and negative mindsets you will have shitty habits and a negative mindset. It’s that simple.

Cut out people that don’t make you better. Life isn’t a popularity contest. Attract the right people — the people that want to help you and see you grow — and flip the double bird to the rest. It can sound harsh, but life is too damn short to waste time with people that don’t help you become your best.

2) Set Up Systems

For me, this was building out a morning and evening routine that set my days up for success.

What did this look like?

I start with the evening routine because this sets me up for a productive morning. The quick and dirty version of it is something like this:

Evening:

• Finish up essential creative tasks

• Follow the 3-2-1 method as best as possible (stop eating 3hrs before bed, stop hydrating 2hrs before bed, stop using screens 1hr before bed)

• Prioritize my tasks for the following day (I have a great method for this that I’ll show you in the Hone Your Habits section below)

• Unwind and/or reflect for 45mins to an hour

• Read - 10pgs or 1 chapter of a book right before bed

• Go to bed at the same time each night and Sleep 7hrs+

Morning:

• Wake up at the same time each morning, shower immediately

• Hydrate (20oz of water)

• Take supplements and eat breakfast

• 20mins to 1hr quick creativity burst

• Journal

• Coffee

• Start work

• On non-work days or slow work days my creativity time will be longer and more focused (2hrs+)

This is nothing fancy. It is what works for me. It doesn’t have to be followed to a T or followed at all. The key is to build systems that YOU can stick to and sustain that promote a healthy lifestyle.

If you can do that, job done.

3) Designate Space

When you are working, have a space for it. When you are sleeping, have a space for it. When you are cooking, have a space for it.

Too often we use our space for too many things and we being to train our minds to associate that space with the wrong actions. You don’t work in the kitchen, you cook there. You don’t watch TV in bed, you sleep there.

See what I mean? Train your mind to associate that key task with that one space.

Small apartment or area? Need to have a multi-purpose space? That’s fine. Make time-based connections for that space instead. i.e. Use your office for work from 9-12, then it becomes your home workout space for an hour from 12-1. When you’re done, it returns to an office space.

Designate space but be flexible to work with what you have.

4) Organize

I am not an organized person. I have trouble keeping spaces clean and tidy. But I became intentional about organizing in a way that worked for me (and my wife’s help doesn’t hurt 😅). This applies to mental organization as well.

Even if this isn’t your strong suit, take the time to do these 3 things at the bare minimum:

• Clear unneeded clutter from your workspace. Even if you don’t realize it, this clutter can highly distract you from doing focused work.

• Keep a calendar and/or schedule to remember important tasks. Mental notes don’t count. Mental clutter is what we are trying to avoid here.

• Prime environments that you use regularly for the next use. Just finished cooking? Go ahead and eat your meal while it’s hot but then come back and clean up the kitchen. The next time you have to cook, your future self will thank you for priming the environment ahead of time.

5) Spend Time In Nature And On The Move

I do some of my best thinking when I am on a hike. Surrounded by nature and wheels in motion — it is liberating. This is obviously good for your physical health as well but we are discussing mindset here. The calming essence of nature can do wonders for your mental health, especially after a stressful day or week.

Get outside and just breathe in the fresh air. You don’t need a plan for this if you don’t want. Just go explore and let your mind relax and enjoy. It’s like a free reset button.

Your environment is critical for thinking at your best.

• Become aware of those you spend a lot of time with. Are they taking you where you want to go?

• What systems do you have in place to set your day up for success?

• Are you using the space you have to be productive and effective?

• Can you organize your space and thoughts, even just a little, to remove mental clutter?

• Are you getting enough fresh air to just think, relax, and reset?

Hone Your Habits

The Tomorrow Note

This is the little habit I use to prioritize my tasks for the day. Variations of this technique are widely used by productive people. Here’s how to use it:

• Every night as you wind down from using screens, use your last 5mins to open up a note (could be Apple Notes, Notion, Evernote, Excel, pen and paper, etc) and write down the 1-5 things that would allow you to make progress tomorrow.

  • Put them in priority order

  • What’s the thing you have been putting off? Put that #1.

  • If they are time-consuming limit them to 1-3. If they are quick yet effective, feel free to list 4 or 5.

  • This is your ‘Tomorrow note.’

• When you wake up this note now becomes the ‘Today note.’ Do everything in your power to work on these critical tasks and make progress. Don’t put them off because they are challenging. The whole point is to get effective, lever-moving things done.

  • But don’t beat yourself up if they don’t all get done. If you wrote down 4 and 2 get done, that’s progress. Progress is what you are aiming for here.

• Before you wind down again, reframe it back to the ‘Tomorrow note’ and write down your priority tasks or roll over unfinished tasks to prioritize for tomorrow. Repeat.

Remember, this is not a long to-do list. This should NEVER get over 5 tasks long. Be critical about what you include here. Only include things that drive true progress toward your ideal lifestyle.

Fun fact: I used this habit to get this newsletter started and now use it to plan my content, writing, and publishing schedule on a weekly basis. It works!

As you hone this habit, you will become excited to attack these tasks and before you know it your progress will supersede what you thought was possible. Remember the goal is to never be idle. Progress. Just make progress!

Words of Wisdom

You can complement this weekly newsletter with short reminders, ideas, and thoughts about personal development by following me on Twitter.

Thanks for reading! And always remember…

Slow and steady. Never Idle.

Until next week,

Austin Sargent