Shadowing Practice: 1,000 hours of productivity advice in 14 minutes (science backed) - Learn English Speaking with YouTube

In this video, I'm going to go over 1,000 hours of productivity advice.

⏸ Paused

Speed:

305 sentences

If sentences are too short or too long, click Edit to adjust them.

In this video, I'm going to go over 1,000 hours of productivity advice.

You see, I've spent the last three years reading hundreds

and hundreds of productivity books and tons of articles on flow state peak performance

that has allowed me to go from focusing one hour per

day to entering a flow state for eight plus hours a day every single day for the past few years.

Now, this isn't going to be a video where I walk you through Pomodoro

or time blocking for the 50th time because I know you've heard that before and you don't want to hear it again.

Everything I'm about to go over is based off the neuroscience of peak performance and flow state.

And it's the same system,

so I've given to several five to six figure per month entrepreneurs.

So we're going to split this into three parts.

What productivity actually is and how you measure it.

How to kill mental resistance so you can actually do the work effortlessly.

And how to actually focus for eight plus hours a day consistently without burning out.

So the first thing we need to really go over is what actually is productivity.

And how do you know if you're actually being productive?

Because this is something most people get wrong.

Most people think it's about the work hours.

Most people think it's about how many tasks you complete every day.

But really, it's not of that.

It's really about something called work efficiency.

And to explain this so you actually understand it,

we've got a couple of things inside our day.

We've got the total work hours,

which is obviously how long we work for.

We've got the dead time or the shallow work,

which is a time we're not really productive.

We're half working on a task.

We're getting distracted.

We're thinking a lot.

We're not really focused.

Then we also have something called work efficiency.

This is the time out of your total work hours that you're actually efficient inside the day.

And the real sad thing about this is the average knowledge worker

and the average entrepreneur really only focuses for 11 minutes per day.

And sure you might say to yourself,

okay, well, I focus for eight plus hours a day.

But if you did, I guarantee you wouldn't be watching this video because you wouldn't have a problem.

You wouldn't have a problem with scaling your business either.

You'd just be able to do it.

And so the goal isn't to work as many hours as possible.

It's to first make every hour we work as efficient as possible.

Then we can start to progressively overload our focus hours

and really start to maximize the amount of time we're working for each day.

But the problem most people face is they first try to work as long as possible,

not really caring about how long they focus for inside their work sessions.

You're doing it completely wrong.

And I did this for ages in some of my old business.

I'd work and work and work,

but the work I was doing was very inefficient.

And to make sure you understand this,

we've got two types of entrepreneurs, right?

The first person works 12 hours a day.

He focuses for two out of those 12 hours,

sometimes more if we're being a bit generous.

And so basically, if he's only focusing for two hours out of the 12 hours,

he's got a work efficiency of 16%.

Then we have another entrepreneur who only does four hours of work per day,

but it's efficient for every hour he works, so four hours.

So he has a 100% work efficiency.

Now, out of these people,

who do you think is going to make the most money online inside the business?

Who do you think is going to make the most progress as fast as possible?

Well, it's obviously going to be the person who works four

hours he's gonna have more free time he's gonna have more

results inside his business compared to this other guy who just can't focus at all

and so if you're sitting here

and you're the type of person who works with 12 hours a day

or tries to

but you're not efficient please take a step back do not

try to do these hours try to maximize your focus hours

first now how do you actually do this well we're going to cover this later inside this video

but the main thing you need to do is first find your focus baseline

so if i zoom out for you um this is actually part of a different video I've been making.

So if I zoom out,

there's tons of different things.

Like, as you can see,

I need to really organize this mirror board.

But we have something called our focus baseline,

which I'm pretty sure is over here.

So we have our focus baseline,

which is basically how long we can focus for without dropping off or losing focus on Saturday.

So let's say our focus intensity that we can currently do is three hours, right?

So these on the side represent hours.

So we're going to do three hours per day.

Now the correct thing to do would be to slowly increase this every single week, right?

So week two, we go to four hours and then we start to drop off.

Then a week after we go to five hours and we start to drop off.

But the problem most people face is let's say for example,

they have a focus baseline of one hour

so they go here then they drop off what they try

to do is by day two they try to go to five hours

and then they drop off now your brain's not going to be able to do

that

because your brain's focused muscle is just like a regular muscle

you train in your gym you can't just go from doing

one kg bicep curls to 100 kg bicep curls in one

day it's not how it works you'll severely injure yourself

if you do so what we want to do is progressively increase this over time

100

so we've got this like momentum where day one we go

101

from one hour then week four we go to five hours

102

or eight hours that's exactly how you increase your focus hours

103

and if you take one thing from this video it would be

104

that okay so let's get back to the video

105

so the next thing we need to really go over is mental resistance now

106

that you understand how to actually be productive

107

and what you need to really focus on you need to really understand your enemy which use mental resistance.

108

This is the biggest killer of productivity.

109

And just before you go into a mental resistance,

110

I just want to say,

111

if you are an entrepreneur and you're struggling to focus on your work

112

and you know if you can enter flow state more,

113

you'll be able to scale your business faster.

114

Click the first link in the description to my free committee

115

on school where you get a free flow state course

116

and a free one-to-one coaching call with me where I help

117

you enter a flow state for at least eight hours per day, okay?

118

Just so you know, mental resistance is basically the force that stops you from doing the work every day.

119

So it's the force that tells you to go on your phone instead of doing the work.

120

It's the force that tells you that work is hard,

121

that you don't really need to do it,

122

that you can just give it a few days before you start.

123

And so when we think of procrastination or we think of losing focus inside the day,

124

a lot of times it is just mental resistance.

125

It's not actually a problem with ourself,

126

it's a problem with this mental resistance showing up.

127

Now there's three kind of ways this can show up inside your routine and your life,

128

which I found.

129

The first thing is the challenge to the school ratio.

130

Now this is actually regarded is the most important flow trigger

131

or the most important thing that makes you enter a flow state

132

and it's developed by someone called Mihaly Csakmiha who's known as the godfather of flow state or peak performance.

133

Now if you don't know what flow state is,

134

flow state is basically the state where we fill

135

and perform at our best and time will speed up before the most efficient and it's basically where we reach peak performance.

136

To reach peak performance or reach flow state,

137

what we need to make sure we're doing is having an equal challenge compared to our skills.

138

If the challenge or the tasks that we're doing exceed our skills,

139

then we'll feel overwhelmed and we'll start to procrastinate.

140

We'll feel anxious, just like it says here.

141

Now, if this opposite and our skills are where the challenge,

142

then we'll feel bored and we'll go to distractions, right?

143

So we need to really be in this middle ground where we enter the flow channel.

144

That's where we enter our flow state.

145

And specifically, you want to make sure there's a 4% increase in challenge compared to your skills.

146

Now, this is the biggest reason people have the mental resistance

147

because sometimes you just don't know how to complete the task you're doing.

148

And so you feel overwhelmed and you go to your phone.

149

And what I want to do first is analyze where we're at in this graph.

150

Are we feeling anxious?

151

Does the challenge exceed our skills?

152

Does the skills await the challenge?

153

Then what we're going to do is just align it correctly.

154

If the challenge awaits our skills,

155

then lower the intensity of our work sessions.

156

Work for less in solid work sessions.

157

So instead of doing one hour work sessions, do 30 minutes.

158

Then break down the task into very simple steps to complete.

159

Instead of just having the task outlined in your to-do list

160

and it looks very scary to do have the steps to

161

complete it have sit at desk open a specific document do the work on a document then quit the document

162

that is how you should be planning your day anyway

163

if it's the opposite

164

and tasks are very easy to do then you want to

165

increase the intensity of your focus sessions to work for longer

166

and also create challenges for example it used to take me around five hours to edit a video

167

when i used to do it like a few years ago right

168

so i've been doing youtube for a few years now

169

and i think around two years ago what i tried is

170

i tried doing it in around one hour right instead of

171

setting a five hour timer i would set a one hour timer

172

and it might sound a bit crazy

173

but i was basically able to get every single bit of

174

that task done in one hour it might have took like one hour

175

and 15 minutes i can't remember but i remember getting done much quicker

176

and i could quit my entire like work day very early

177

so that's the importance of this you just want to increase the intensity of your focus sessions

178

and just create challenges to increase the excitement,

179

increase your focus on a task.

180

The next thing is understanding the four-stage flow cycle,

181

which is struggle, release, flow, and recovery.

182

Now, this is the natural stages we go through

183

when we're trying to focus on a work and we're trying to enter a flow state.

184

Our brain will try to go through this automatically,

185

as long as the conditions for flow state are met.

186

So struggle is the main one we need to understand.

187

And this is basically where you get the mental resistance to do the work.

188

We get that feeling, are we don't want to do it we'd rather scroll on our phone

189

but the very important thing is this only lasts for 15 minutes

190

and after that you've reached the release stage where everything feels very easy to do

191

and the prefrontal cortex

192

which manages your thoughts starts to tone down your cortisol levels start to drop as well

193

and you feel very relaxed then you reach flow state then you do recovery

194

and i've got a graph for this actually

195

that i want to show you the cognitive resistance during the task

196

when you start it is always going to be at the

197

highest in the first 15 minutes then it starts to drop off this is a very important concept

198

because neuroscientists haven't really found a way to get through this

199

all you really can do is just push through it

200

and you just really need to visualize this graph as you're working

201

because if you forget this your brain will just think the mental assistance is going to stay at

202

that level for the entire time you work

203

but no it starts to drop off after 15 minutes okay

204

so that's the second thing the last thing we have is the amygdala

205

so the amygdala is a structure inside the brain

206

which basically is known as our threat response system it kind of keeps us safe

207

208

if you think to thousands of years ago this would have

209

been like the main safety mechanism we can't really survive without this you know

210

when you touch like a hot stove or hot pan it's the force

211

that kind of causes you to not touch it anymore

212

if you didn't have this amygdala we would just keep touching the hot stove

213

and probably die you know so we wouldn't survive without this

214

but the problem with this is

215

when we start work a lot of times this amygdala will start to go haywire

216

and you'll start to find that tasks very hard to do

217

and it kind of relates to that mental resistance

218

so just realizing this and knowing

219

that this is actually a function inside the brain to keep

220

you safe is very important you need to always have this

221

inside your mind every single time i'm working on a hard task

222

and when i'm talking to my clients

223

and they're working on a hard task i get them to

224

visualize this get them to visualize this structure inside the brain

225

because it is literally part of our day-to-day life it's part of our system okay

226

so that's mental resistance

227

and really to make this very simple for you we've already

228

gone over a few things here the first thing is to bind it to our challenge to ratio

229

and then we want to realize

230

that the resistance goes after 15 minutes of the task and what you can also do by the way,

231

it sets smaller timers to get past this.

232

So instead of setting a one hour timer and a task was very scary to do,

233

set a 15 minute timer and that will feel a lot easier to go through.

234

Then you want to have a deep work ritual that our brain associates with the work to make it easier.

235

Now a very good thing the brain can do is it can start to associate actions we find positive

236

so for example making coffee drinking the coffee doing breath work

237

going on like a walk inside of nature it can start to associate those actions with doing the work

238

which is a negative experience and so

239

when you start to think of work you think of all these positive things like drinking the coffee going on

240

that walk and becomes a lot easier to do so

241

if you have some habits you can do right before work

242

that is obviously healthy not just scrolling on your phone or like eating junk food or playing video games,

243

make sure you do that inside the day.

244

Then the fourth thing we can do is start to change our belief systems to associate work with a positive experience.

245

So naturally when we do work,

246

our brain will start to associate a negative experience with that because it's hard.

247

We don't want to stare at a computer for four hours a day.

248

We don't want to like work on this task because it requires lots of energy, right?

249

And our brain loves to conserve energy.

250

It hates using energy and so it doesn't want to use energy on things that don't give it an immediate reward.

251

What we want to do is just make sure we change our belief system,

252

start to have different affirmations and do one visualization a day where we start to think that the work is actually easy.

253

And once we start to do this,

254

we'll start to change our beliefs and our brain will basically realize that the task is easier to do.

255

So the last thing we need to go over is really just consistency with focusing for long hours.

256

And if you're an entrepreneur watching this video,

257

maybe you have a team already.

258

Maybe you are just making a few thousand a month.

259

Maybe you're making 10k per month.

260

Maybe you're making 100k per month.

261

You've probably had those days where you're very consistent with focusing for long hours, right?

262

You can do it for eight hours in one day,

263

but then the next five hours,

264

you just struggle to do it.

265

And the reason this happens is because your brain is a very huge resource hog.

266

Like I said, our brain loves to conserve energy.

267

It hates using it.

268

And so really, when we have those days when we can't focus,

269

this is the only reason.

270

We could focus, but our brain just wants to conserve the energy and doesn't want to go through that work again.

271

And to really get through this,

272

you need to realize that you can't go from flow state back into flow state straight away.

273

You can't go from focusing to focusing again.

274

you need to go through some kind of recovery

275

because inside a flow state and when you're focusing you're using tons and tons of neurochemicals using norepinephrine dopamine endorphins

276

anadamide oxytocin serotonin and these are the most potent neurochemicals inside our brain

277

and so when we complete our work we don't have any neurochemicals left to do it again

278

so we need to go through some kind of recovery

279

so the first thing you need to start doing is prioritizing active recovery at times you start to lose focus

280

so for me this is 11 a.m

281

and 3 p.m those are the times I'll start to lose focus

282

and then when I say active recovery I basically mean actions

283

that involve movements that recover the neurochemicals so it could be exercise,

284

cold showers, nature walks, stretching and there's tons of other ones

285

but you can just research this on google if you want to but the ones I do are cold showers,

286

breath work and exercise and just do those at the times you start to lose focus

287

and energy and I guarantee you'll feel like just like you did in the morning

288

when you're doing super focused work in the afternoon okay

289

and also make sure your progress basically increasing your focus time over a few weeks

290

and this will just really help with obviously increasing your focus baseline

291

so you don't stay at like three hours a day

292

and you can go to eight hours a day consistently

293

so this is the entire system

294

and over the past few years these are the most important

295

lessons I've ever learned about productivity neuroscience after taking a bunch of different courses

296

and reading hundreds of books on this now if you are an entrepreneur

297

and you're making four five k per month maybe you're making 50 k per month

298

and you just find you can't focus in your work

299

and you know

300

if you could enter flow state consistently you would be able

301

to scale your business just like these people here have done

302

click the first link in the description to my free committee

303

on school we got a free flow state course right here

304

and a free coaching with me where i'll basically help you

305

enter a flow state for at least eight hours a day okay have a major rest of your day man peace

TRENDING

What is the Shadowing Technique?

Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.

☕ Buy us a coffee

ShadowingEnglish remains 100% free thanks to your support. Server and AI costs are high — your coffee keeps us going! 🙏

Donate via PayPal

ShadowingEnglish.com – English Shadowing Practice

Speak English fluently using the Shadowing technique. Listen to native YouTube videos, repeat sentence by sentence, and build real pronunciation and fluency — used by IELTS learners worldwide.

Shadowing Practice: 1,000 hours of productivity advice in 14 minutes (science backed) - Learn English Speaking with YouTube

Popular

Context & Background

Top 5 Phrases for Daily Communication

Step-by-step Shadowing Guide

What is the Shadowing Technique?

Shadowing Practice: 1,000 hours of productivity advice in 14 minutes (science backed) - Learn English Speaking with YouTube

Download App

Context & Background

Top 5 Phrases for Daily Communication

Step-by-step Shadowing Guide

What is the Shadowing Technique?