i accidentally discovered a glitch in human productivity

Overview & Introduction

00:00All right. Hello and welcome to this training. As you can see from the title, what we're going to be talking about today is how I accidentally discovered a glitch in human productivity. And as you can see from the overview, what we're going to be talking about more specifically is first the overview itself, the day everything broke, the glitch I found by accident, how to exploit the glitch every single day, the review, and then finally your action items for the day or the next few days.

00:25So before we get started, if you want to work with me one-on-one, make sure to book a call from the link in the description. If you want this document along with this training, make sure to join the free community again from the link in the description.

00:35And if you want weekly emails on how to improve in every area of your life, meaning health, wealth, love, and self, then make sure to join the newsletter again from the link in the description. With that out

The Day Everything Broke

00:47of the way, let's get started and talk about the day everything broke. So, for about 2 years of my life, I was doing everything right. At least that's what you would think. Like, if you looked at my routine on paper, you would have said, "This guy has it figured out.

01:00He's waking up at 5:00 a.m. He's got a full productivity system. He's tracking his health, his business, his relationships, his personal development, all of it neatly organized with systems and checklists and daily rituals. And I was completely stuck."

01:14And I want to tell you the story because there's something hiding inside it that completely changed how I think about productivity. Something I didn't find on purpose. Something I basically tripped over by accident. And if you're someone who's doing a lot but not really seeing the results you think you should be getting, this might be the most important thing you'll hear all year.

01:35So, I was waking up at 5:00 a.m. every single day. And for anyone who's done this, you know how easy it is to undersleep. if you went to bed just 30 minutes later than usual. Uh so sometimes I was underslept immediately I would jump into my morning routine then going straight into my to-do list which was very always very full like genuinely packed because I had convinced myself that being productive meant getting absolutely everything done every task every follow-up every little admin thing every workout every meal prep every relationship checkin every piece of content all of it every single

02:12day. Now, the sheer volume of what I was trying to manage on a daily basis was honestly staggering sometimes when I look back at it now because I wasn't just working. I was trying to optimize every single domain of my life simultaneously. Health, wealth, love, spirituality, personal growth.

02:27And each one of these had its own set of habits and tasks and systems attached to it. So, my days were basically just backto-back execution from the moment I opened my eyes until I collapsed at night. And the tricky part was that it did feel productive.

02:42Like genuinely, I was checking boxes, completing tasks, I was getting things done. And from the outside, it looked like I was crushing it, right? And the actual results were very, very small. The tangible outcomes in my life and work were weirdly flat.

02:59And on top of that, I was constantly tired. not necessarily physically uh but mentally drained in this lowgrade way where my thinking always felt a little foggy, a little shallow like I never had the space to actually think deeply about anything because I was too busy managing the system I'd built around myself.

03:20Now the system itself had become this massive thing like layers of routines, trackers, to-do lists, schedules, review protocols and all of them on different apps and every single day basically required a significant amount of energy just to start with operating the system before I before I even started doing the actual work which is something I didn't see at the time because I was so deep inside it but the friction was actually enormous and It's hard to explain unless you've been there.

03:50But the weight of maintaining all of that like the cognitive overhead uh of that of just knowing everything that needs to happen today and needs is in quotes, right? Was like carrying a backpack full of rocks while trying to sprint. Like you can still move forward, but you're burning three times the energy for half the distance.

04:11And I was completely blind to it because I've been doing it so long that it just felt normal. like this is what being disciplined looks like. I I thought this is what a productive person does. And if I'm not seeing results, it must mean that I need to do more.

04:25Like I need to optimize harder, add more, wake up earlier, add another system, which is exactly the wrong conclusion. And what

The Breaking Point That Changed Everything

04:36the breaking point actually looked like was way more mundane than you might imagine. And in a way that's what makes it so important because the thing that changed everything was genuinely unremarkable at the time. So let's talk

The Productivity Glitch I Found By Accident

04:50about the glitch I found by accident. So one day and I remember this clearly. I woke up and I looked at my system. All the routines and tasks and checklists opened up all the apps uh for the day and I just didn't use them. Not as like a bold decision of my own like a courageous decision or some kind of an intentional experiment.

05:08I just couldn't bring myself to really start doing the things because the friction was too high. There were too many moving parts and something in me just went not today. So I closed it and I decided to just wing it and manage my energy appropriately and just focus on whatever felt like the most important thing for the day.

05:30And where it gets weird is that because of because of that day, the day I abandoned my entire productivity system, it turned out to be one of the most productive days I had had in months. And I don't mean productive in the in the sense of checking boxes, but I mean I actually moved the needle forward uh on the things that mattered like I did deep work.

05:53I had ideas that had been stuck for weeks that suddenly came through uh clearly and by the end of the day I had this unsettling feeling like wait what what just happened and I first at first I wrote it off as a fluke like okay I had one good day it doesn't mean anything but then I noticed it kept happening every time I simplified or skipped this the heavy system my output actually doubled and the quality also went up dramatically And every time I went back to the full system, my output quality dropped back down.

06:27And after a few weeks of this pattern repeating, I couldn't necessarily ignore it anymore. Something real was going on there. The pattern was consistent and kind of disturbing because it meant that the thing I'd been building and refining and trusting, the thing I thought was making me more productive was actually the thing that was holding me back.

06:47And the question that started forming in my mind was a simple one. What if the system is the problem? Like what if the friction, the cognitive overhead, the constant managing of all these routines and tasks and trackers is basically eating up the exact mental resources I needed to actually produce great work.

The Addition Bias And Why We Always Add Instead Of Subtract

07:08So I started digging into this and what I found basically confirmed exactly what I was experiencing because there's this researcher named Leidy Clots who wrote a book called Subtract where he presents this fascinating finding that humans have a deep cognitive bias towards adding.

07:25Meaning when we encounter a problem our default instinct is to add something to add something to our life. a new habit, a new tool, a new system, maybe a new relationship rather than remove something even when subtraction is objectively the better solution.

07:39And

Cognitive Load Theory Explained

07:42this connects to what cognitive scientists call cognitive load theory, which basically says it says that your brain has a fixed amount of processing power available at any given moment. And every single task, decision, system, and open loop you're managing is really consuming a portion of that bandwidth.

07:59So the more stuff you're running simultaneously, the less processing power is available for the actual deep thinking and creative work that produces real results. And this is the glitch right there. Every low value task on your to-do list, every maintenance routine, every tracker you update, every small decision about what to do next, all of that is stealing cognitive resources from the high leverage work that actually moves your life forward.

08:25And you can't feel it happening in real time because it's invisible, but it is there. And it just shows up as that vague feeling of being foggy or drain or not in the zone or having quote unquote mental fog. So once I understood why it was happening, I basically rebuilt everything from scratch.

08:43And the principle was simple. Make it as simple as possible and as quick as possible to use. So, subtraction first, ruthless elimination of anything that wasn't directly producing results. And what I ended up with was something radically simpler.

08:59Basically, a system that was maybe 30% of the original moving parts that did 10 times the actual work for me because now my brain had room to breathe. It had room to think. It had room to actually process and access the deeper cognitive states where the real output happens.

09:17And I'm talking about stripping it down aggressively. Like I removed entire categories of daily habits. I deleted most of my recurring tasks. I stopped tracking things that felt important but weren't actually moving anything forward. And each time I removed something, I'd wait a week to see if my life got worse.

09:35And almost every time it got better or at least nothing changed, right? which tells you how much of what we call productivity is really just busy work and just habits that we saw on YouTube or on any other social media platform for that matter and we thought, hey, I need to add this to my life.

09:51And at the end of the day, we end up with like 30 habits and and tasks and things that we think we need to to do every day to feel good. And what was left after all of this cutting was essentially just a handful of high leverage activities and habits.

10:06the things that when I did them consistently in a focused state actually produced a measurable outcome in my work or in my life and in my subjective well-being and everything else was either eliminated entirely or bashed into a single low energy admin block once a week which obviously freed up an enormous amount of cognitive bandwidth for the work that actually mattered.

10:31And the thing that nobody tells you about subtraction is that the value isn't just in the time you save. It's in the mental space you create. Because when your brain isn't constantly managing 47 open loops and microtasks, it naturally drops into a deeper, clearer operating state where ideas connect faster, your decisions become easier, and the quality of your thinking just overall goes through the roof.

10:54And that state was available to me entire the entire time, and it is to you. I just couldn't access it because my own system was blocking the door. And the beautiful irony of the

The Irony Of Adding More

11:05whole thing is that I spent years adding more and more to my productivity system, thinking that that's what would get me unstuck when the actual exploit, the actual glitch was really removing things, right? Until my brain could finally do what it was designed to do.

11:21And now that I understand this principle, I see it everywhere. and my clients and people I talk to and basically anyone who says, "I'm doing everything right, but nothing is really changing." And the answer is almost always that they're doing too much.

11:33And the system they built to help them is really the very thing that's keeping them stuck. Or at the very least, they're doing a bunch of things that they shouldn't be doing or are not helping them in any way. And look, some people will hear this and immediately start simplifying on their own, and that's great.

11:51But if you're someone who wants to collapse the timeline and make a complete transformation in your health, wealth, relationships, and self, I work with a small number of people onetoone to do exactly that. And you can book a free call with me using the link in the description below.

12:03And even if you're not sure whether it's the right fit, the call itself will give you more clarity in 30 minutes than you'd get in months of trial and error on your own. So just allow yourself to take that step and at the minimum, you'll walk away knowing exactly what's been eating your

How To Exploit The Productivity Glitch Every Day

12:19bandwidth. Now, with that said, let's talk about how to actually exploit the glitch every single day. So, now you understand the glitch, the fact that you're most likely doing too much and your brain can't access its deeper gears because of it.

12:33And the real question is, how do you actually apply this every day? Because understanding the concept is one thing, but restructuring how you work and think is something entirely different. So, let me walk you through the exact process I use now to exploit this every single day.

12:48And it's way simpler than you than you might think.

Step 1: The Ruthless Productivity Audit

12:53So, the first thing you need to do, and this is honestly the hardest step, but it is the first one. It's hard because it requires you to be brutally honest with yourself. And that is to audit everything you're currently doing and ask one question about each task, habit, or routine.

13:08Is this directly producing a result I can point to or does this just feel productive? And I mean to be I mean you I I want you to be ruthless about it, you know, because your brain will try to justify everything. It will say, well, I might need this later or this is important for my development or whatever.

13:28And in most cases, that's just the addition bias cloth talks about your mind's natural resistance to subtraction. And what

The Three Categories That Simplify Everything

13:37helps is really sorting everything into three categories. Things that directly produce results, client work, deep creative work, revenue generating activities, things that support those results, meaning basic health, key relationships, essential admin, and then everything else.

13:53And that third category, everything else, is where 60 to 70% of most most people's daily lives are. And most of it can be eliminated or done once a week without any negative consequences. And it takes a certain amount of courage to actually cut things because we've been trained to believe that more effort equals more results.

14:13And letting go of habits and routines that feel virtuous can really trigger anxiety. But the evidence will speak for itself within the first week because the mental clarity you experience when you stop managing 30 daily tasks and start managing five is genuinely shocking.

14:26And if you're scared to cut something permanently, just remove it for a week and see what happens. I I can bet money that in eight out of 10 cases, absolutely nothing bad will happen and you won't even miss it. You won't even feel a difference.

14:43Which tells you everything you need to know about how much of your system was actually serving you. Now, once you've

Step 2: Protecting Your Cognitive Space

14:49stripped it down, the second move is really protecting the space you've created because the natural tendency is really to slowly fill it back up with new tasks and new systems and new habits and new relationships, which is the addition bias creeping back in.

15:01And you have to treat that open space as sacred as the most valuable asset in your entire productivity system because that space is where deep work actually happens. It's also where real thinking lives and where the real results come from. So practically this means saying no to things more often.

15:20defaulting to subtraction when a new problem comes up instead of adding another tool or routine and checking in with yourself every week to make sure that the system hasn't started bloating again because it will try to and that's mainly because that's just how the brain works.

15:36It wants to add things. It's easier to add than to subtract because when you subtract, you have to prioritize. Now,

The Five Minute Rule For Productivity Systems

15:44the rule I follow now is pretty simple. If my system takes more than five minutes to set up for the day, then it's too complex because the whole point of that system should be to do work. It should be so light that you barely notice it's there.

15:59Meaning, it should free up maximum cognitive bandwidth for the actual work that matters. And this is basically the second law of thermodynamics that applied to your life. And we've talked about it before because entropy says that every system naturally moves towards disorder over time.

16:16Unless energy is deliberately applied to maintain it. And your productivity system is no different. It will always drift towards complexity, towards more tasks, more tools, more layers. Unless you actively resist it, which means simplification isn't a one-time event.

16:30It's an ongoing practice of fighting the natural tendency of everything to become more complicated. And what most people don't realize is that every single thing you add to your system increases the total entropy you have to manage because each new element interacts with every other element creating exponentially more potential disorder.

16:54So the real cost of adding one more habit or one more tracker isn't just the time it takes to do it. is the invisible maintenance energy your brain spends keeping the whole system from falling apart and that's that's energy that could be going straight into the work that actually matters to you to creative deep work.

17:13So not only are you increasing not not only is entropy going to increase over time by more tasks appearing, more habits appearing, more systems, more apps etc. But each one of those exponentially create more entropy because they connect with each other essentially.

17:31They interact with each other. And so in the

Step 3: Single-Focus Deep Work Blocks

17:37third piece is what you actually do with the freedom space because subtraction on its own just gives you time. But the real leverage comes from using that time in a specific way which means single focus deep work blocks where you pick one thing, the highest leverage thing, and you then pour all of your now freed up cognitive resources into it for 60 to 90 minutes without switching.

18:01And I

Why One Task Per Block Beats Multitasking Every Time

18:03can't emphasize this enough. One thing, not three things, not a few priorities, one thing per block. Because the research on cognitive switching costs is very clear. Every time you shift your attention from one task to another, your brain pays a tax.

18:17And that tax isn't small. It can take up to 25 minutes to fully re-engage with the original task after an interruption. So every switch is essentially resetting the clock on your focus. And when you combine subtraction, meaning fewer things consuming your bandwidth, with single focus depth, meaning all available bandwidth is now directed at one high lever target, the output compounds in a way that can be hard to believe until you experience it because you're basically concentrating all of the cognitive energy that that used to be spread across 30 tasks into one task.

18:53And the results reflect that concentration. Now, most people find it that they only need two or three of these blocks per day to produce more than they used to produce in a full week, which means you actually end up with more free time, more energy, and better results simultaneously.

19:07And I know it sounds like it shouldn't be possible, but it's the direct consequence of exploiting the glitch.

Why Boredom Tolerance Makes Simplification Permanent

19:16Now the last piece is really important here because what will happen is you might you most likely will have a lot of free time after you implement this. And the last piece is really learning to tolerate boredom because and having some boredom tolerance because when you simplify your life it can feel empty at first like uncomfortably empty or in other words uncomfortably peaceful and your brain immediately interprets that emptiness as a problem as something being wrong because you've spent years basically equating busyiness with progress.

19:51So when you suddenly have more open space in your day with nothing scheduled, nothing to check, nothing to manage, every instinct in your body screams, "Fill it. Add something." You're falling behind. And this is

The Trap That Pulls You Back Into Complexity

20:04exactly the trap I think that pulls people back into complexity because the discomfort of having less to do is so unfamiliar that most people reflexively start adding more and adding more things again. And it usually happens gradually, like a new habit here, a new tracker there, a new morning routine they saw on YouTube, another habit that they think they should do.

20:26And within a few weeks, they've rebuilt the exact bloated system they just escaped from. Not because they needed any of it, but because they couldn't sit with a feeling of having space. And what I had to learn, and what

Boredom Is The Signal You're Doing It Right

20:40you'll have to learn, too, is that boredom is the signal that you're doing it right. It means your brain finally has room. It means the cognitive bandwidth is available. And if you can just stay in that discomfort for a few days without reaching for something to fill it, well, something incredible happens.

20:56Your mind starts using that space on its own. Deeper ideas start to surface. Connections form that couldn't form before and the quality of your thinking generally overall shifts in a way that makes all the grinding you used to do look almost comically inefficient.

Review & Actions

21:13So with that said, let's go over the review. We talked about the overview, the day everything broke, the glitch I found by accident, how to exploit the glitch every day, the review, and your action items for the day or the next few days. First, this week, write down every single task, habit, and routine you do daily, and sort them into three categories.

21:32Directly produces results, supports results, and everything else. And then eliminate or batch everything else into one block per week. Then rebuild your daily system from scratch with a maximum of five core activities. And if your system takes more than 5 minutes to set up for the day, keep cutting until it doesn't.

21:49And then for the next 30 days, do 160 to 90 minutes single focus deep work block per day on your highest leverage task and track the results so you can see the compound effect of subtraction plus depth working together. With that said, I hope this was valuable.

22:06If it was, let me know in the comments. Give this video a like and subscribe to the channel if you want to see more. Again, if you want to work with me oneon-one, make sure to book a call from the link in the description. If you want this document along with this training, then join the free community from the link in the description.

22:21And finally, if you want weekly emails on how to improve in every area of your life, meaning health, wealth, love, and self, then make sure to join the newsletter again from the link in the description. Thank you for being here. Thank you for the support and I'll see you in the next