Here's How to Get Sh*t Done When You Feel like Crap
An unconventional productivity strategy that'll make cold shower bros mad
Some days suck ass.
You wake up on the wrong side of the bed. You open your email and it’s full of customer complaints. Then you escape to social media and realize some flogger is talking smack about you in public.
So you go to the bathroom to do your business, and last night’s meal exits your orifices as if you’re giving birth to a baby girl and she’s stuck.
Now you go to the kitchen and realize there’s nothing to eat. Your significant other stands there and says “you left the oven on and our house could of caught fire.”
They lift out the quiche from the oven and it’s literally on fire. Crap.
This type of pain in the ass day is more common than any of us would like to admit. Life is designed to throw curveballs at us:
Medical issues
Micromanaging a-hole bosses
Arguments with romantic partners
Annoying clients that want more for free
Kids that won’t shut up and watch their cartoons like happily little vegemites
Average people let curveballs throw them off.
They forget about their goals or obsession. They seek escapism. They need to numb the slight pain with alcohol, junk food, or Netflix. In a way, many adults are babies in jeans and a t-shirt.
My belief is that your day can always get blown up by bullsh*t. Don’t be a deer in the headlights and get run over by a Mack truck.
A better approach when you feel like crap and everything is blowing up is to have a strategy to guide you.
Here’s my approach. Use it. Email it to the biggest procrastinator you know.
Expect chaos and make love to it
I run a popular writing challenge. The day before we start I’m inundated with emails that say something along the lines of…
“My dog died. I can’t make it.”
“I ran out of toilet paper. I can’t make it.”
“This takes 15 minutes a day. You lied. I don’t have time.”
“I can’t login to your website. I’m out. Too hard. Rah!”
These odd strangers somehow think life is a calm sea you sail through until you hit 85 and die. Wrong.
Life is f*cking chaos.
If the president’s not being shot in the head, then your car engine is blowing smoke on the way to your own wedding. These misfits above are surprised when chaos happens. Their problem is they believe in perfect plans. But…
Perfect plans are a fake g*ngbang procrastinators watch and get h0rny over.
Reality is different. The solution is to expect chaos. Even better is to make love to chaos. Get yourself into a daily state where you can pivot at a second’s notice. Have an outline of your day and expect 90% of it to go bad or never happen.
I’ve been forced to live like this.
I’ve got a 1 year old running around pooping every 5 seconds. My business partner’s screwed up his neck. I have two elderly parents to look after. My ankle is still busted. My neighbor is still causing trouble. And last week my in-laws house got broken into at 7 PM while they were out for 15 minutes.
You’re not a special snowflake. Expect chaos. Learn to thrive in the chaos.
Realize if you don’t build leverage backed by a system, then nothing’s changing
When you feel like crap it’s hard to get stuff done.
If you have no leverage then you have zero resources to help you. This is why the idea of leverage is crucial.
“Forget rich versus poor, white-collar versus blue. It's now leveraged versus un-leveraged.”
– Naval Ravikant
There are 5 main types of leverage:
Labor leverage (business)
Capital leverage (using money to invest & make more money)
Code leverage (AI, tech, software)
Media leverage (social media, writing)
Automation leverage (automating tasks with Zapier, etc)
Unless you build one of these types of leverage, you’re always going to be running on a productivity hamster wheel stuck in one spot.
Once you gain some or all of these forms of leverage, you still need systems to keep the flywheel spinning. Notion templates, operating manuals, and rules help to form the foundation of a system. Create them even before you need them.
Understand this: a big part of people not being able to deal with curveballs when they feel like crap is that they’re missing leverage and have no system to replicate it even if they build leverage.
Leverage helps artificially give your more time. And it helps you earn more money so you can pay for help to take over your work forever, or on days when you feel off.
Those who lack systems and leverage are the new poverty class.
Say no to shiny objects
I got an email this morning.
A big-name podcast wants me to jump on their show. But I have no book to promote and interviewers are mostly boring with their questions. So I said no without thinking. Then a big-name creator wanted to jump on a call with zero agenda.
I politely said no.
A few weeks before that, one of Will Smith’s team wanted to jump on a call. What the f*ck do I have to tell them? Nothing. And I don’t want the heat of chilling with the man famous for slapping another man for no reason.
Shiny objects are everywhere and they’re ready to murder your day.Most people say yes to shiny objects. They can’t say no because they’re bad at dealing with temptations. They chase every opportunity, therefore never going all in on one opportunity and becoming successful.
Getting sh*t done is resisting temptation. It’s making NO your default answer to every request no matter how good it is.
Nuke the to-do list down to one item
When bad days strike I use this strategy.
A to-do list is a fantasy. Most of them never get completed and we all know it. If tragedy strikes then I can drop everything and hide in a cocoon for a month.
Or I can nuke every item on my to-do list and focus on the most critical one – the one that moves the needle and creates the right lifestyle.
To-do lists aren’t a prison sentence. Getting one big priority done still feels like progress, and one a day when everything is going wrong, well, that’s a huge win.
Action creates momentum
Some people think you get motivated then take action.
I find I do the smallest possible action attached to a task and then suddenly I feel motivated and want to take more action.
You’ll probably never feel 100%. Just start. Enough with the excuses. If you can work through the bad days you become unstoppable. Nobody can beat you down or throw you off your game.
If you add in the powerful force of chasing an obsession, there’s no way you won’t become extraordinary.
Final Thought
99% of people don’t want to hear about this formula.
They’d rather make excuses. They’d rather call dudes like me on the internet “hustle culture,” then go back to bed and sleep in another 8 hours until they feel like facing the day. I don’t live for those people. They die at 25 and get buried at 75.
None of us are getting out of this life alive. You’re a 4000 year old primate in a human meat suit that’s decaying from birth.
May as well make something of yourself and get the most out of life, otherwise what’s the point? The pain and suffering of being human has to count for something.
Make it count. Make your move.
Tell me which of the above ideas you loved the most and why in the comments.
PS — Best way to get sh*t done when you don’t feel like it?
Join an environment that makes it nearly impossible to fail.
Example: The Fearless Writer Challenge
Click here to see what it’s all about
(Early bird price for next 24 hours only.)
Chaos or not - for me every day starts with the Sunrise.
A few minutes of peace
A flood of gratitude
Before fools rush in
I feel like I woke up on the wrong side of the end today. So yes, this letter is mine. Thank you!