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Successfully get 2 new subscribers to Toil + Profit and you’ll receive your digital gift card. Reply to this newsletter with the emails I should be on the lookout for, once they are subscribed I’ll send you your gift card!

Pro Tips
- Forward this issue and people can subscribe easily via the link at the bottom.
- Sending this to more than 2 people increases your chance of getting the conversion of 2 new subscribers.

3 Step Process

• 🗂️ SORT - Organize things and get rid of waste.

• 🧹 SWEEP - Make things clean and tidy and use the time to investigate further waste.

• ⚙️ STANDARDIZE - Make systems, visual aids, color code, force a layout.

But organization is a compounding force, meaning that REGARDLESS of where you start organizing, you’ll create immediate benefit. This will snowball into further opportunities (both in terms of time & focus available to organize other things, and growth in organizational skill to make the organizing more and more effective).

SORT 🗂️

Simply index all the things in the immediate zone of focus.
• Essential things are grouped together for further standardization.
• Waste is identified and removed.

— EXAMPLE 📱

Grab your phone and then a pen and paper; jot down the following…
• Notifications that are not useful → Note if you either don’t want the notification, or if you should remove the app all together.
• Scan your home screen for “Red Dot Icons” on the Apps → Note if you either don’t want the red dot (because it doesn’t actually notify anything important), or if you should remove the app all together.

SWEEP 🧹

Now that you have things generally indexed you’ll begin thinking through where that index of things truly belongs and what else can be categorized. As you “sweep” you’ll begin to discover more things to group together or eliminate.

— EXAMPLE 📱

Continuing with your phone, begin scanning your home screens…
• Apps that are not useful at all → Delete
• Apps that are rarely useful → Remove from your Home Screen (they’ll stay in your App Library)

STANDARDIZE ⚙️

Creating systems for the things that you have organized ensures that your organization will stay in place; you now have a baseline system that can be gradually improved. This is particularly important for things that impact multiple people (team environment at work or household environment). If you create organization and then someone else ruins the system because it has no standardization… that is your fault. Fix it.

Naturally, this is easier when the system involves only you. And it’s even easier when those systems are implemented with the toggle of a button, like in the example below…

— EXAMPLE 📱

Time to hop into settings…
• Turn off notifications for the apps that you don’t want ping-ing you (your list)
• Turn off badges for the “Red Dot Icons” that you don’t need (your list)
• Make a couple scheduled Focus Modes to help you stay in the flow regularly (check out the previous T+P issue if you need help)

From now on you’ll have less interrupting your daily flow, and less to organize. This will immediately benefit you and you’ll begin finding MORE things to devote organizational energy to.

🌟 TOP PICKS & BEHIND THE SCENES

Atomic Habits - How simple changes aid compounding.

Essentialism - How focused energy enables you to get more results.

Ploductivity - How to stay dedicated to simple disciplines.

Simplified Organization - A top recommendation from my wife for all wives & moms out there (shout out to you, Lovey 😘).

Pro Tip: Find SOMETHING to Eliminate

Nothing thrills me more than finding something to eliminate, because it means that I am: • Removing waste
• Increasing focus on the things that really matter
• Creating less work for myself as I actively manage less
• Enabling the opportunity to add something else that matters more

I do this by having an active eye every week for things to remove.
• What notification do I not need?
• What email publication can I unsubscribe from?
• What paid service can I live without?
• What furniture or other possession can I sell or give away to someone who needs it?
• What steps can be combined so that elements are eliminated and a process is simpler?
• What can be automated so that it never has to be done ever again?

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