Living the Real

Five steps to taking the friction out of life

• Matt Boettger • Episode 13

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Today I talk about the ONE thing I learned in my college physics class that stuck with me to this day. As a bonus, learn the five "D's" that will lead you down the path of a more frictionless life! Who doesn't want to live life like a slip-and-slide!?

Download my PDF guide to learn what technology I use to help me live a frictionless life!

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[00:00:00]Matt Boettger: [00:00:00] Are we living the most real life possible. I asked myself this question all the time. Most of the time, the answer is, I just don't know. Sometimes the answer is definitely not. This is why, how this podcast I'm Matt  and welcome to the show. Before we get started just three small things first, please, please leave a review where all reviews are accepted like Apple podcasts.

[00:00:27] It's the main way by which this podcast gets into the hands of other people. Second, please consider supporting living the real through a small recurring donation, patrion.com/ltr or a onetime donation through Venmo or PayPal all in the show notes. Third and last. Please visit  dot com and sign up for my newsletter or you'll get updates on future resources like upcoming blogs, YouTube channels, guest appearances, and exclusive content on my living, the real method.

[00:00:54] Okay. On with the show

[00:00:56]and welcome to episode 13 of living the [00:01:00] real I am at bot Graham. Excited to bring this episode to you because I want to talk to you about friction. Man friction sucks. I remember when I was in college, I had to take a physics class. Now I say that as if I was like, didn't want to do it. I actually was totally obsessed with the idea of physics.

[00:01:18] And then I took the class and that totally burst every bubble. My entire life. I think it was people who want to be go into like med school and they're like, Oh, I want to be a doctor. And then they had their first, like, I don't know, biology class. It's so intense. It's med it's meant to weed out all of the med students who can't quite be med students.

[00:01:36] And I think that was me with physics. I got my degree in computer science, but I had to take some science classes to make me well-rounded. I took physics. I learned nothing. Probably because of me, not the professor, but there was one thing I learned and it's really appropriate for this episode. And this is the concept of the friction coefficient.

[00:01:55] So what I learned about this, I learned that when an object stands still. And I think we've all [00:02:00] experienced this on day to day basis. It just, we're just giving names to things that it's hard to get it, to move the slide on the ground like that initial a nurse at you need to push it, but then once it gives way and it begins to slide on the ground, it's easier to continue moving.

[00:02:15] And so there's a separate friction efficient. That depends on what you do. You can lower it or raise it to pay on how you, what the Carol is. And so this just. The grabbed hold of me for years and thinking about my life and everything through this, like friction coefficient of like, what were those things that I'm just pushing?

[00:02:33] And I can't get any leverage on and how do I lower that coefficient so that when I do move this thing in my life, whatever it is, this pain point in my life, I can do it with greater ease. And that's what it's today is all about. How do we deal with the friction points in our life? And do it in such a way that we actually can do it with greater ease, live a frictionless life.

[00:02:55] Now I know in reality, that's not going to be the case, but we can aim towards that. And I've [00:03:00] got some great tips on how I have been able to reduce the friction in parts of my life. And I want to share it with you because a lot of times we look at our things in our life, our circumstances, and we say, man, that is insurmountable.

[00:03:14] I just can't do it. There's no way. But what is that? It. That it, that thing that you call insurmountable is really not the insurmountable thing. It's the context, it's the environment. It's the way you're looking at it. This making it insurmountable. Right? How do I know this? Well, it's obvious because there are times in my life and I guarantee in your life where there was something that it.

[00:03:37] That was insurmountable. That was just, I just can't do it. And then days, weeks, maybe months later, all of a sudden it becomes accessible. All of a sudden becomes in the realm of the possible yet at the same time that it was the same is the same thing. It's just as big it's just as near it's just as long and tedious.

[00:03:56] Nonetheless, it's now something you can actually grab hold of why? Because [00:04:00] something happened by which you gained greater clarity. Something happened by which increased your specificity on what you needed to do to overcome it. And for some reason in your life, or you just willed it, you increased your focus, clarity, specificity, and focus.

[00:04:17] These are the things that make anything that is insurmountable. Being able to overcome to just knock down that barrier in front of you to bring healing into your relationship, whatever it is, these are the three, three things you need. So for those of you, this might be your first time listening to living the real, I'm all about this.

[00:04:37] How do we live the most real life possible? And we see things that are insurmountable. That is not real. We need a name, a spade, a spade, so that we can actually determine how we're going to do something in our own lives and achieve a success for ourselves and fulfillment for ourselves. Generally speaking, I have this framework called the three M framework.

[00:04:57] For those of you, haven't heard this before, [00:05:00] the three, what I call the main areas of your life by which if you do not attend to these three things regularly, and this isn't, it doesn't matter whether you're an individual or business. If you do not attend to these three things regularly, you will atrophy and you will not find fulfillment.

[00:05:15] And I guarantee you, you will not find longterm success as a business. What are these three things? They're M's. Margin momentum and maintenance margin momentum, and mate, the whole sub framework to deal with these each individual things to help you gain the margin, you need the momentum to move the needle forward in your life and to be able to take care of all the nitty gritty of your life in a welder and to have fulfillment.

[00:05:43] Right. The most important thing you can possibly have. So another thing I want to draw your attention to is the fact that it has three M's. I love this idea of alliteration. I have it all over on my living, the real website. If you can see it. And once again, today, it's the same thing. I want to talk just about five or 10 [00:06:00] minutes about the six D's right.

[00:06:03] To be able to add a frictionless life. And that's it. Here's my tips for you. If you're finding a friction, the first thing to do is you need to schedule to our block to deal with it. Just deal with it. Don't allow that to sit there in marinade, right? The second, and do any good for you. You got to deal with it right away, carve out some time you can do this two hours.

[00:06:22] It might take more, more than likely to take the less two solid hours, but which you can address this issue. How do you do it? The first thing you do is the first DZ dump, right? You don't dump it. You got to engage it. You dump, you dump everything you can about this issue, whatever needs to be done, you just dump free association.

[00:06:42] No restrictions. How I do this is I use a mind map. In a few moments, I'll tell you how you can learn more about how I deal with this stuff. So I have a mind map and I love it because I don't want to be restricted by a linear method, like an outline form. I don't like that because what I'm trying [00:07:00] to dump everything and just allow my mind to just wonder what are all the things that are overwhelming me.

[00:07:05] If I'm in this kind of linear system, like an outliner I'm forced to like, what's the next thing that's causing me friction. What's the next thing, instead of just allowing my mind to. A wonder naturally to all the places by which I'm having pain. And so a mind map. Easily and freely allows you to be able to engage that part of your mind.

[00:07:26] So get a mind map and I mind map, and I just dumped for about a half hour, let everything just, and I don't put any restrictions. I don't need to fine tune it at this point in time. Second D after I dump, I divide. What do mean by device. So I still have that mind map and I have all these little nodes of just craziness.

[00:07:44] Right. And I'd be in the dump, what I call and just be categories, general categories that are kind of frameworks of areas that I need to work on. Right. For example one, I'm launching a coaching program and I'll probably [00:08:00] return to this in just a few moments, but I was getting so overwhelmed by, I was, I was moving from the technology side of my coaching program.

[00:08:07] Like all the things I need for technology. And then there's the people side. I kept going back and forth and feeling overwhelmed instead of just dealing with those as separate entities. And focusing on one and then another. So put those in those categories. Once you divide and have a good division of categories.

[00:08:23] Now do the third D dissect. So you have to dissect, what does this mean? This is where you become specific and clear right there. If you have something on your, to do list, maybe the friction point is do your taxes, which sucks. Right. But you haven't done it. So is that a good idea? You do your taxes and his do taxes.

[00:08:43] Right. That has no clarity. What, what do you mean by do I have a, do I, do I get an attorney? Because I'm being sued? I have no idea what do means an hour. Now I have to do mental gymnastics to figure out what I'm going to do. For example, if you had two things, do taxes [00:09:00] and then take the trash out. Which one are you going to do?

[00:09:03] If you have to one, if you have to choose one of them. You're going to take the trash out. Why? Because it is specific and it's clear and it requires no overhead, you know, exactly what to do. So this is where you have to decide dissect every single thing to its most specific one step process. Right? Do taxes.

[00:09:22] It might be scan receipts. Yeah. In my shoe box and put in the 20, 20 receipt Dropbox folder. Right. That's specific and that's clear. Right. I know exactly where their seats are. They're in a shoe box. Cause if you don't know where they're at, then that's not the first action. The first action is find your stupid receipts, wander around the house, go through all your cupboards and your drawers and put them in the shoe box.

[00:09:46] And then tomorrow you can deal with scanning them. Does it make sense? You have to dissect this down because if you don't, you're going to create an uneven playing field. And that's not a good idea because what naturally gains specificity and [00:10:00] clarity are the dumb things in your life. Like get dog food and pick up some milk.

[00:10:07] That's just inherently specific. But the big things, like be successful, become a movie star or whatever it may be, or become an entrepreneur or become the best husband or wife. Those are important things that stain abstraction. And then when you have to decide whether you're going to do that one or take out the trash, you're going to take out the trash and that sucks.

[00:10:26] Because it's not the most important thing. So you gotta dissect spend the time, everything down to its very next action. No more than one action. Okay, dump divide the sect. Now it's time to decide, right? How do you decide that this or goes from clearly the mind map and now your personal trusted task management system.

[00:10:48] So this is where you put everything in to that task, made a system to govern and decide what you're going to do. So you have all the groups in. Maybe if one project sorted by different kind of groups, [00:11:00] and then you decide which group am I going to go after? This was the problem with me about a week or two ago, even a few days ago, I was waking up early in the morning.

[00:11:08] And almost feeling anxiety to go downstairs and start working because I kept competing between technology and people, and it felt too large. I'm like, forget this, Matt. You're not even doing your own thing, pick one group and be focused on it. And then of course I had the other problems I've been so kind of crazy lately that the next actions weren't clear and they weren't specific.

[00:11:29] And so that gave me in another round of anxiety. So then I knew right away. Okay. Matt time to carve out an hour of your day. And now reorganize these things, get this stuff clear, specific, so that when you wake up in the morning and you don't have anxiety, but you have confidence, you're ready to rock. And that's what I had to do, decide which chunk you're gonna do.

[00:11:46] And then the rest you have to defer out, right? So this is now we have dumped one divide to dissect three. The big one decide for five is defer. That means everything else you don't just throw away. [00:12:00] You've got to find a repository to keep this good gold presence. So when you're done with that group, you can immediately move to the next group.

[00:12:06] And it's right there in front of you. I have a very specific task management system. And I'm saying, if you ever do anything in your life with around task management, if you want some to organize your, to do's know, what's, what's available, what you need to do for the day. So you don't have to sit there wondering a row around what you need to do.

[00:12:24] You need a good one and how my first most important litmus test is that the, this system, whatever you choose must have a discriminating factor between a due date. And a defer or a start date. You need those two separate pieces of information available to you for every single task. Most systems only have due dates and adjust causes havoc in your life.

[00:12:48] Don't do that. Don't cause that problem in your life, because what you're gonna do is you're gonna use that due date. Little thing to tell you, well, I want to work on this tomorrow, so I'll set the due date tomorrow. So I'm reminded that is a really cute, [00:13:00] but here's the problem. You're going to have a muddy mix of, of real due dates.

[00:13:05] And fake due dates. And so the fake due dates are mixed in with the real due dates. And then you're gonna get burnt because you're going to start realizing that, Oh, I don't really care about due dates cause they're really just suggestions for 98% of the things I do that other 2% that is like real strong due dates are going to be sacrificed in trouble.

[00:13:24] So whatever system you obtain, make sure it has that separation. You're going to find so much more benefit from that. So defer all that stuff out, whether by time, or you're going to start that in the next month, or just put it someplace where it's available in a project to knock it out next. And finally, you just got to do it six.

[00:13:43] You do it every single morning. If you really did do these things, you dumped, you divided, you dissect. Now granted you have to review these things every week. And I have a whole system for this. How you do this. If you're doing this and deciding, and then deferring these things, do you have a good system in place?

[00:13:57] Now you can wake up in the morning and get going into [00:14:00] exactly what you're gonna do, the next smallest thing. And this is why I'm going to end on this. Do it. Snowball style, start small. I have not exercised in a long time. Going and training for a marathon is ridiculously stupid. What I need to do, and he starts small.

[00:14:15] I need to start my first. Goal. My next action for tomorrow morning is simply to put my running shoes on. That's it? No more, no less. That's what I need. So that can ramp up to something, right? I am reducing that friction coefficient, right train for a marathon that friction coefficient is high as 80 double hockey sticks.

[00:14:37] But if I could reduce it to put on my running shoes, I can do that. I may be working in the morning. And having coffee with my rain shoes on, but I knocked my goal out of the park and I'll take one step 1% better every day. If you do this, you're going to live a frictionous life. It's the sense of overwhelm.

[00:14:55] So you don't take them out of your day to spend two flipping hours just [00:15:00] keen through that problem by dumping. And I segment this stuff out, do not blur these. Just dumping and dumping dump, then divide, then dissect then decide which then defer all the other crap and just do it one thing at a time you got this.

[00:15:17] And so if you go to my website, living the real.com/frictionless. Living in the real.com/frictionless. I will tell you what I use to do this. It's an awesome tool. Five, six, seven different things. I can tell you what I do in a briefly, how I use it, and I hope it'll help you as well to live a more frictionless life.

[00:15:37] Okay. I hope you have a great week. It has a lot less friction in it, and I will see you next episode. Take care. Bye. Bye. Thank you for listening to this episode of living the real. If you want to check out more information, go to living the real.com and sign up for my newsletter. If you want to support this podcast, you do that at patrion.com/ltr as well as one time.

[00:16:00] [00:15:59] Payments at Venmo and PayPal in the show notes. See you all next episode. Take care. Bye bye.