In the last few years, I’ve built over 50 websites from scratch. Today, I can easily live off passive income with the total traffic exceeding 2,000,000 page views each month.

Traffic on my websites (12 months). Screenshots from Google Search Console.

I did it all by myself. No freelancers, agencies, or employees.

Not that I’m one of these self-proclaimed super humans, but I know I’m productive. I work ~6 hours a day, and as a one-man army, I can match whole teams of programmers and marketers.

Here is my complete 5-step framework that helps me achieve whatever I want:

1. Picking the Right Goals

You can be productive in nearly everything, but it won’t matter unless you pick something meaningful.

There was one thing I was incredibly productive at. I’ve spent WAY over 10,000 hours learning, mastering, and grinding it.

But that thing was a niche MMORPG game. And of course I had a lot of fun, but I was playing over 12 hours a day. I believed I’d make a living as a streamer once this game explodes in popularity. But guess what, it didn’t.

So, how do you pick the right goals?

  1. Unless you’re aiming to invent something, make sure it’s realistic and doable. You don’t want to waste months on something that’s impossible. Always double-check, but don’t overthink it. You want to start, not spend months pondering “should I?”.
  2. Pick something you genuinely care about and have a solid reason behind it. Or at least find this reason, as it’ll make your journey easier. By the way, money alone rarely cuts it as a motivator, especially if you’re not struggling with it. I mean, providing a better life for your kids can be a strong motivator, but wanting things you don’t really need (like a supercar or a luxury watch) might not have the same effect. Find something deeper, like “I want to learn this skill to help others”.
  3. Avoid goals that are out of your control. Always prefer “I will release one quality video each week” over “I will get 10,000 video views each week”. This way, you’re less likely to get discouraged too soon. After all, views are beyond your control, no matter how good you are.
  4. Don’t underestimate yourself, but don’t overestimate either. Being too easy on yourself can breed laziness, while being too harsh can lead to quick burnout. Aim for balance. I’d suggest starting easy on each habit and then gradually ramping up to use more of your potential.
  5. Make sure you stick with it. Real progress rarely happens overnight. Plan your actions and time, so you won’t find excuses to quit earlier than you wanted.

2. Learning How to be Efficient

Let’s say I have to read 50 books. It’d probably take me at least 500 hours.

That’s because I’m a slow reader. But if I ever needed to read 50 books for some reason, I would prioritize improving my reading speed before diving into the task.

Some claim you can learn speed reading in a few hours and boost your pace by over 500%.

But I don’t want to be that optimistic. Let’s say I spent 15 hours on it and boosted my reading speed by 100%.

So yeah, initially I lose 15 hours by not doing the thing I have to do. But looking long-term wise, if I doubled my reading speed, I can read 50 books in just 250 hours. So I’ve spent the total of 265 hours = 235 hours saved.

To improve your efficiency:

  1. Cut out all distractions. Block the unnecessary notifications and all the apps and websites that aren’t related to your work. In my work hours, I’m blocking all the news portals, games, and social media with Cold Turkey and I put my phone in the drawer.
  2. Improve your workflow. Make sure your devices aren’t slowing you down, and you use tools that improve your productivity and make the work more satisfying. For example, I generally prefer Notion to Obsidian, but for most of my notes I use Obsidian because it’s faster.
  3. Learn from the best people in your field. See what tools they use and how they work. These tools are not necessarily the best, but I’m sure you can get some cool inspirations.
  4. Prioritize. There is a huge chance that up to 80% of your work doesn’t really matter. Avoid shallow work and focus on important tasks that lead to results.
  5. Take breaks. Avoid burnout and let yourself rest and comeback with more energy. I recommend the good old Pomodoro Method. For work, I use 55 minutes sessions and 5 minutes breaks.
  6. Analyze your performance. There is no improvement without actually knowing what to improve. Once in a while, try to record your work or if you’re working on a PC, consider a software like RescueTime. Before I started this, I wasn’t even aware I was spending over 1 hour of my work time on reading news every day.

These strategies should help, but don’t obsess over them. The ironic thing is, people who are constantly trying to improve their productivity aren’t productive.

3. Implementing Habits and Self-Discipline

To convert your goals into reality, you have to take action. Even the fanciest desk setup won’t make you a programmer by itself. The best shoes won’t make you a marathon runner if they stay in a closet. You get the point.

The best way I know to achieve any goal is by having a solid plan and sticking to it every day for a long time.

To implement habits:

  1. Define what actions you need to take to get the desired outcome. For example, if you want to lose weight, a good habit may be: “Walk at least 6,000 steps every day”. Be specific and use something you can measure. “Read books for 30 minutes” is way better habit than “Read books” before if you don’t really like it that much, you’ll read for 2 minutes and think it’s done.
  2. Take it easy, especially when you’re just starting out. Being ambitious is great, but don’t push yourself too hard because you might get discouraged. Remember, reading 20 pages a day consistently for 365 days will result in more total pages read than reading 400 pages for two weeks.
  3. Set reminders. Some people say you need to do something consistently for at least 14-30 days to develop a habit. I disagree, because it’s a huge oversimplification. Everything depends on you and the habit. Once you develop many habits, it’s easy to forget something important. That’s why I suggest using a habit tracker. I use GamifyRoutine, which (as a gamification app) also help with rewards and accountability – it’s just more fun and satisfying to use and do boring chores.
  4. Plan out your day. You should know not only how often you’ll do the task, but also when. This way you’ll avoid doing all of them at the last possible moment of the day. To do this, you can simply make a calendar with time blocking and plan everything hour by hour (provisionally).
  5. Review and adjust. Sometimes your habit won’t get you closer to the goal. And that’s fine. All you have to do is to track your progress (i.e. once a week or every two weeks) and, if needed, make some changes.

To stick with habits:

  1. Have the meaning behind it. It’s way easier if you know why you do what you do. For instance, if you’d force yourself to meditate everyday just because someone told you it works, you would probably find it pointless after a few days. Even if it boosted your focus for the rest of the day, I bet you wouldn’t notice that or at least associate it with this habit.
  2. Reward yourself. Let’s be honest, grinding just for the sake of it isn’t that fun. But you know what keeps MMORPG players in their favorite games? These guys know the whole content, so there is not much new to be discovered. But they are getting feedback for what they do. They are rewarded. I mean, you can say reaching the goal is the reward itself. Sure, but sometimes it takes years. I reward myself constantly, and it encourages me to do the tasks even if I don’t feel like it. I get virtual points in GamifyRoutine for every daily task and session I accomplish, and then I’m grinding towards bigger (daily and long term) rewards. They don’t have to be fancy or something. Sometimes I grind just to watch a movie, or buy a new hoodie I wanted. But even then, it works.
  3. Use the power of accountability. We’re social creatures. Most of us like to impress and share good news with people. We try to avoid failure because we don’t want to disappoint others or be seen as incompetent. Being obsessed about what others think of us generally isn’t a good thing, but it’s another story. The story for today is, we can benefit from all of this. Find an accountability buddy you’ll regularly share your progress with, and consider telling your closest people about every habit you want to develop. This may help you stick in the harder moments, when you consider quitting.

4. Loving what you do (even if you don’t love it yet)

Nobody had to push me to play games for 12 hours straight. That’s because I loved it.

But we don’t like everything, right? You can learn how to be self-disciplined and master the art of doing hard things. If you want, I recommend reading “Can’t Hurt Me” by David Goggins.

But I think it’s way easier to just enjoy what you do. The good thing is, even if you don’t enjoy what you do, you can learn how to make it more fun.

To start loving what you do:

  1. Join the community. Find people who do the same stuff. Whether it’s losing weight, programming, trucking, or gardening. Doesn’t matter, you’ll probably find at least a few adequate communities on Reddit, Twitter/X, or Discord. In my experience, being around passionated people can make you passionated as well.
  2. Adjust the content you consume. You probably spend at least an hour a day on watching YouTube or scrolling social media platforms. I do as well. The trick I used to start loving my job (trust me, there was a moment I HATED programming) was to immerse myself in relevant content. I unsubscribed from all the irrelevant creators that were grabbing too much of my attention (i.e. Gaming content) and replaced it with the thing (programming, in my case). This way I had an illusion. But avoid getting into an absolute filter bubble.
  3. Try to be the best. No matter what you do, once you try to give 100% and improve as much as possible, it’s way more exciting. Last year I found myself completely burnt out of programming, but thankfully it was exactly when I was reading “So Good They Can’t Ignore You” by Cal Newport. I decided: “from now on, I’ll give my absolute best into every project I make”. And it worked. I stopped feeling like a mindless grinder, and started making things I was proud of. And I still am. Doing the best job possible is incredibly rewarding and it can help you start loving the thing. Plus, your work’s outcome should improve, so it’s a win-win. I prefer quality over quantity, especially in this age of AI.
  4. Compete with others. In my brightest gaming years I’ve witnessed an interesting phenomenon. People who get into the absolute pinaccle of the game, often quit it or significantly reduce how much they play (unless they make money from it). And it’s understanable. Once you lack serious competition, you can become lazier and have less drive for improvement. I’m performing best when I want to win against my competitors. It’s a good method, but always remember to keep the rivalary clean and healthy.

5. Improving Focus and getting into a Flow State

Last but certainly not least.

Once again I mention something from Cal Newport’s book, but this time it’s going to be “Deep Work”.

Work Produced = (Time Spent) x (Intensity of Focus)

Of course this formula is oversimplified, but it’s here to show you that focus is as important as the time you spend on your work. If your focus is 0, even if you spend 8 hours, 8× 0 is still 0.

To improve your Focus and enter a Flow State:

  1. Plan in detail and break down tasks into small pieces. Constantly wondering “what do I do now” prevents you from entering a flow state. You need to have a detailed, easy-to-follow plan. I know making such a plan takes time, but it’s worth it. So next time you prepare your to-do list, consider changing “Learn history” to something like: “Read pages 115-128 of XYZ book”, “Listen to the XYZ podcast”, “Complete at least 3 quizzes to test what I already know”.
  2. Ensure you have optimal working conditions. I’ve already written about cutting out the distractions, but some of them are not that obvious. For me, it’s good to keep a relatively clean desk and not to have too much stuff on it. Otherwise, I’d constantly be tempted to reach for my smartphone or grab the notebook. You should also ensure you’re comfy (i.e. it’s not too hot in your room) and no external sounds distract you. If you constantly hear your neighboors, a mower, or anything that prevents you from focusing, consider getting good ANC headphones or block the noises with other methods. I usually listen to some chill lo-fi beats while using this speech blocker simultaneously (I like the “Comfy” preset).
  3. Get the feedback more often. When we see our work turns into effects, it’s easier to continue. Sometimes we have to study for a test, but there is no guarantee we’ll pass it, the time might be completely lost. But when we play even the most repetitive, but rewarding game, we may subconsciously think we’re doing something important because it’s giving us feedback. To implement similar mechanism in work or studying, I suggest breaking your tasks into smaller pieces, looking for an accountability buddy, and using gamification.
  4. Opt for challenging but not too hard. I know this one is not always possible, but when it is, go for it. Easy work tends to bore us more quickly, but something that is too hard may lead to procrastination. From many people experience (myself included) it’s easiest to focus on tasks that are somewhat challanging but aren’t so hard we have to stop our work every 2 minutes.
  5. Don’t multitask. People think they are productive when they try doing 3 things at once. It’s possible to combine some activities (i.e. walking + listening to a podcast), but usually, you shouldn’t. With never-ending context switching, you often have to start by reminding yourself “well, what I was doing here?”. But this is not optimal, and it probably won’t allow you to get into a flow state. I also like dedicating whole hours or even days to specific projects. I’d rather work 2 hours in a row on blog posts, 2 hours in a row on programming, 2 hours in a row on social media, than switch between these three every 20 minutes.
  6. Use the timer. For me, when I reserve my time to do a thing, I don’t have urges to do other stuff (i.e. scrolling social media). I know I can do this once I finish the job and it’ll come at specific time of the day. Additionally, if you struggle with working too much, timer will also help by telling you “hey, it’s your time for rest, you deserve it”.
  7. When you have a non-related thought, just write it up for later. As an overthinker and daydreamer, I wish I had been taught this sooner. Nowadays, I always have my “Comeback later” note opened on my PC and when I find myself wondering “hmm, I probably need a new pair of shoes” while I’m working, I write this up for later. This way I don’t go shopping once the thought arise and I can continue focusing on a task.
  8. Be prepared and avoid taking frequent breaks. While breaks are important, taking them every 5 minutes is too much. Before you start working, make sure you’re fed, and you have a drink somewhere close. Just prepare so you don’t have to force additional breaks, because it takes time to get into a flow state (some sources claim it’s at least 10-15 minutes [1]). I believe it’s best when we can have at least 30 minutes of uniterrupted work.

How can you implement all of this?

I know it was a lot of content (to be precise, 31 pieces of advice).

While I’ve done my best to describe everything important and make it easy to understand, I believe it’s unrealistic to expect a significant improvement in your productivity just from reading something.

When it comes to productivity content like this, you can spend thousands of hours on it and still not become a productive person.

To become really productive, you need practice. Review, test, and see what works for you. Measure your productivity and assess your progress.

If you find this guide helpful, I suggest setting a weekly reminder to revisit it. Start with baby steps, advice by advice. Test what works for you, and what doesn’t. Then, after some time, you’ll probably come up with your own productivity system.

That’s all… Or you know what? Before we end this guide, let’s make it 32 pieces of advice. Just to make the number even.

  • Always be grateful. I know it sounds cliché, but no matter what you achieve, you won’t be happy about it when you constantly pursue something new. Try reflecting and appreciating small things. Help those who have worse circumstances. It’s good for them, it’s good for you, and it makes all this effort meaningful.

Thanks for reading, I hope this helps!