I consider myself to be a productive individual. The military has taught me to manage time efficiently and accomplish a lot of projects throughout the day.
I have recently discovered Grant Cardone, a former car salesman turned real estate mogul. Cardone is an extremely wealthy individual. He was particularly successful on the TV show Undercover Billionaire, where he turned one hundred dollars into a multi-million dollar business.
Cardone actively preaches what he calls the 10X Rule, which says all your goals, plans and actions should be multiplied by at least 10. If you set a goal to make ten dollars, work to make it one hundred.
I was sceptical at first. I was already productive and consistently outworked most of my colleagues. What could this flashy billionaire tell me that would increase my productivity? After all, Cardone was never in the military.
I’m an experimental guy, and willing to try anything, so I decided to test Grant Cardone’s method for one full business day. I usually have a very busy schedule, so I expected his method to save me a few minutes here and there.
To my astonishment, I accomplished all my usual tasks for the day within an hour. During the next two hours, I accomplished all my goals for the entire week. I even accomplished many of the goals I had set for the following week! This all took about five hours and I went home early that day.
Before I tell you exactly what the method was, let me share some quotes directly from 10X Founder Grant Cardone himself. These influenced my mindset on productivity before my one-day experiment.
“FIRST YOU GOTTA SHOW UP, THEN YOU GOTTA SHOW UP.”
Showing up at work is not just a physical act, it’s a mental one as well. Grant Cardone says you should start working the minute you come into the office. Too many people show up to work and take a while to ease into the day. Showing up ready to work allows you to accomplish more than the individual who takes a coffee or cigarette break as soon as they get to the office. These people “show up”, but they don’t really “show up”.
“IF YOU’RE DOIN’ ANYTHING AFTER NINE O’CLOCK YOU’RE NOT BEING PRODUCTIVE.”
We all know people who claim to be so busy. They spend ridiculous amounts of time at the office “working” or talking about work. In one of my units, I shared an office with a captain who would tell me every day about how he “worked til 9 pm last night”, or how he had slept in the office. During regular working hours, he was easily distracted and spent most of his time socialising. Had he prioritized his work, he could have left work much earlier! Compare his example with a billionaire, real estate tycoon who says he won’t do anything after 9 pm!
“PLAN YOUR WORK, WORK YOUR PLAN.“
This mantra from Cardone resonated with me the most. Grant Cardone is a huge advocate for meticulously planning out his days, despite his seemingly chaotic energy. He explained that you should keep your eye on your main goals and generate a whirlwind of activity behind them. The underlying principle behind his planning was limiting your time. His most notable example of a time constraint was that he “wrote a book in two hours! Why!? Because I gave myself two hours to write the book!”
The Productivity Method
Grant Cardone’s productivity method centers around time constraints and maximizing your time.
- Start by listing out all your tasks for the day.
- Next, honestly evaluate how long it would take to accomplish them if you work at full throttle.
For instance, don’t plan to have something done by lunch; instead, estimate how long it would take you if you put your full effort into it. Be meticulous with your planning, down to two-minute segments. - Now that you know what tasks must be done and how long they will take, it’s time to organize them.
Make sure to write them down so you can stay organized.
The tricky part is working at 100% energy and moving quickly between tasks. This can feel overwhelming, but it gets easier with practice.
Cardone compared this to working out. If you’re feeling overwhelmed operating at 100% capacity “It’s cause ya don’t do it enough!!”
The Result
I came across what I call the Cardone method on a Tuesday, and decided to try it out on Wednesday morning. That Tuesday I spent an hour meticulously planning the next day. I aggressively put time constraints on every task I had listed. At 8 am on Wednesday, I “showed up” to the office, and I “showed up”. I had planned my work, now it was time to work my plan.
Armed with my schedule and a stopwatch, I got started. Some of the timelines I kept, some I missed, others I finished early. The experience was unbelievable. I felt something like an adrenaline high from all the productivity and accomplishment. Before I knew it, I had blown through everything on my list. Frantic for something to do, I made another list of things I had planned to get around to the week after. I scorched through that list as well. At 1 pm, I made another list and blew through those tasks as well.
Finally, I ran out of things to do. Around 2 pm, I went to see my boss to share the news with him. In six hours I had accomplished nearly two weeks of work. My boss was very curious about what I had done so differently and I put him onto the Cardone Method as well, and now he and I both have additional time to spend as we please on our own pet projects!!
