The Secret to Productivity for Entrepreneurs and Investors

If you're like most entrepreneurs, you've probably tried every productivity hack out there—checklists, planners, apps—but somehow, they don't seem to work the way you want them to. I’ve been there too. Early on in my journey, I brought the same productivity strategies that worked in my old 9-to-5 job into my business, thinking they’d have the same impact. Spoiler alert: they didn’t.

Over time, I realized that the checklist approach simply doesn't fit when you’re building a life and business by design. Entrepreneurship requires a different mindset, one that involves balancing not just your tasks but your whole life. Today, I want to share with you what I’ve learned about real productivity and how you can apply it to your entrepreneurial life in a meaningful way.

1. Stop Relying on Checklists

Let me start by saying this: checklists are great for reminders, but they won’t make you productive in the long run. They help in a corporate environment where tasks are assigned and you have specific projects to complete. But in entrepreneurship, your business is much more than a list of tasks—it’s a reflection of your vision and values.

Here’s what I’ve learned: to be truly productive, you need to connect what you do daily to a larger purpose. Instead of focusing on checking things off a list, ask yourself what you’re producing. Is it moving you closer to the life and business you want to create? If not, it’s time to rethink your approach.

2. Create a Vision That Connects Your Life and Business

Productivity isn’t just about your professional output—it’s about what you produce in your whole life. That means looking at your relationships, your health, your personal growth, and yes, your business. If your business is thriving but your health or relationships are falling apart, are you truly productive?

To avoid that trap, I recommend starting with a clear vision. What do you want your life to look like? What kind of business do you want to build that supports that vision? This isn't just about income or success—it’s about creating a balance that supports your values.

Once you have that vision, break it down into actionable steps that can be integrated into your daily life. This is where many entrepreneurs stumble—they don’t know how to take a long-term vision and bring it into their day-to-day activities. But trust me, without a clear roadmap, it's easy to lose focus or get bogged down in unimportant tasks.

3. Align Your Calendar with Your Vision

This is one of the most important action steps you can take. Take your long-term goals and start planning your week around them. Your calendar should reflect your vision and your priorities—not just a list of reactionary tasks.

One thing that works for me is breaking down my big-picture goals into weekly and daily priorities. What are the most important things I need to focus on to move closer to my long-term vision? I put those on the calendar first. Everything else, including meetings and administrative tasks, gets scheduled around them. This ensures that every day, I’m making progress where it matters most.

4. Track What Matters

Another critical piece of productivity is tracking your progress. And I’m not just talking about business metrics. You should be tracking progress in all areas of your life: health, relationships, personal development, and business.

For example, if improving your health is part of your vision, what are you doing each day to work on that? It could be as simple as a 30-minute workout or planning healthy meals. The key is to have clear markers of progress, so you can see where you’re improving and where you need to adjust.

5. Remember: Productivity Isn’t Just About Business

This is a hard truth that I learned the long way around: if your business is taking over your life, it’s time to reassess. You didn’t start a business to become a slave to it—you started it to create freedom and fulfillment.

That means your productivity should extend beyond business to your entire life. Are you making time for your family, for your personal growth, for your health? If you’re only focusing on business, you’re missing the bigger picture.

6. Join Me for a Deeper Dive

I know that all of this can seem overwhelming, especially if you’re used to living by checklists and tasks. That’s why I’m hosting a free Productivity Mastery workshop on October 31st, where I’ll take you through a step-by-step process to redefine your productivity. This isn’t your average workshop. We’ll go beyond tips and tools, diving deep into how you can connect your daily actions with your long-term vision and life goals.

If you’re tired of spinning your wheels and want to truly transform how you work and live, this is your chance to make that shift. Register now, and let’s work together to create a life—and a business—that truly aligns with your values and goals.

Productivity isn’t just about getting things done. It’s about producing what matters—across your business and your life. I hope these insights help you take the first step toward a more intentional, balanced approach to your work and your life. I look forward to seeing you at the workshop and supporting you on this journey!

Action Steps Recap:

1. Stop relying on checklists – focus on producing meaningful results.
2. Create a clear vision for your life and business.
3. Align your calendar with your vision and priorities.
4. Track progress in all areas of life, not just business.
5. Maintain balance – don’t let your business consume your entire life.

https://www.faisalensaun.com/productivity-workshop

TRANSCRIPTION

I have a checklist of do this, do this and do that. That is not how things will work in entrepreneurship. And most people bring their checklist ideas to their entrepreneurial life

And it stops being as simple as checklist because it starts being about your whole life.

Today I just wanted to, uh, have a, uh, short conversation around why you're not productive.

And, and this is going to be actually the, uh, a lot of what I'm going to, uh, support you with and, um, and help you on the productivity side. Um, at the end of this month, I'm doing a free, uh, workshop. It's a, it's going to be a very powerful coaching session. And it's going to be. Not like a training session where you're listening to me, but I'm walking you through a very powerful process.

And part of that, I actually walked my clients through in the event that I did recently in person. I want to go into why you're not productive, why most entrepreneurs, investors are not productive. And I want to raise my, own hand first that I've struggled a lot with this, especially when I got started as an entrepreneur and almost everything that I knew about productivity actually didn't apply in this world.

And it's weird because when you jump in and my previous job, I was in front of a computer. And then when I jumped in as an entrepreneur, I was still in front of the computer. So in my mind, they're the same thing. So Whatever was productive there would apply here. And what was productive there was checklist is to go through.

Hey, I'm assigned a bunch of projects and I have a checklist of do this, do this and do that. That is not how things will work in entrepreneurship. And most people bring their checklist ideas to their entrepreneurial life and to make things even more complicated. Most people who are trying to build , a life by design and a business that supports that lifestyle, which is the kind of business I wanted to create.

They don't realize how much complexity is in their life and productivity stops being just about the professional side. And it stops being as simple as checklist because it starts being about your whole life. And my philosophy around this is that you want to build a business that supports your lifestyle and your philosophy, your values, your relationships, your health and well being, your spirituality, all those things.

Um, if your business starts to become your life and it's not supporting your life, then you've built the wrong business. I don't care what kind of business it is, and I don't even care what you make in that business, or how much cash flow, or how much assets you're gonna have, because guess what? You're wasting your life.

Um, here's what, here's what I mean by this, and I'll, , reference, Tim Ferriss and his, and that was one of the first books that really opened my eyes about technology. 10 years ago. Um, and his book for our work week, he talks about this right in the beginning of the book where he talks about, and he says it in this way, most people, um, most people , don't want to be millionaires.

They just want to live like millionaires. And that was a very powerful distinction. And he also added to it that most millionaires don't even live like millionaires. And what he meant by that is they're so far focused on working and making money and building assets or whatever the hell they're doing, uh, that they don't actually live their life.

That means that in the process, they're actually sacrificing the most important things for them. And in fact, if you, if you listen to some of these popular, uh, multi millionaires or billionaires who are in the tech world or in the business world, they will even romanticize that process.

They will say, well, most people don't know this, but it took, uh, sacrificing my whole marriage for me to create this. You don't know what it takes to sacrifice. I think it's a bunch of bullshit. Uh, what they did was make a choice. They made a choice to focus on business and that sacrificed their whole, uh, personal life, their wellbeing, their health, their relationships, a bunch of stuff.

It was a choice. Now they could have done run the business a little bit slower and also worked on, uh, on the other parts of their life, but they didn't do it because one, they didn't have the training to, and if you really go deeper with them, you'll find out they didn't have the training. They didn't have the mindset.

They didn't have the know how. They didn't have the wisdom to do this. And that was a huge thing that, that, and, and I'm not saying I had the wisdom to do that, but I was actually given that wisdom. I borrowed that. I, my mentors, coaches, the communities that are especially Part of the amazing teachers that have taught me help me understand that it's not worth it to create an amazing business that gives you a lot of cash flow, but you're sacrificing your life in the process.

Now, I fully understand that. Of course, you need to go to work. You need to do certain things so that you can't always be doing, uh, being around your family and working on your health and all that stuff. And that's probably not even healthy to do that. Believe me, if I'm always around my family, that's probably more harmful to them than not.

So, um, what I am trying to hone in here is that if you're trying to create a life by design, uh, the concept of productivity completely changes and it takes on a different meaning. And let's go to the root word of this, of productivity. The root word is to produce and produce what produce something that matters to you, something that will give you an ROI and output that you're seeking.

So, um, What are you producing in your life? And so you're not just producing in business. You're also producing in your personal life. You're also producing better health. You're also producing better relationships. You're also producing better output in your business, whether that's cashflow, whether that's whatever else that you're working on in your business.

But the ultimate is the cash flow you're creating and the assets that you're creating. So that means that for you to be productive, you need to pay attention to all of them. And that's one of the biggest challenges that most, most entrepreneurs, they don't even know that they're, they're doing that. They usually figure that out about five years into their business.

If they survived building a business, cause it's hard enough to begin with, but let's say five years later, What? What happens is 4-5-6 10 years later after they have lost their marriage or if they have completely broken their connection with their spouse, they don't know their Children, their Children have become teenagers and they're completely disconnected from them.

They have the money, they have the business, but they're miserable. Um, and on top of that, they've done the business for so long, it's lost its novelty and excitement, and it's not the thing that they actually wanted to do. It's the thing that gave them money. So there they end up with nothing. And you would think that they have, they have a bunch of assets, they have a bunch of cash flow.

And I'm saying that not just from a theoretical point of view, I work with clients like that on a day to day basis. And these clients who have done very well and they struggled for 10, 20 years. Now I do admire them for their dedication to work on their business, but in the meantime, they would give all their money to gain all those years back with their kids, with their family, with their own health.

Like I, I know a few people who, you know, We're in an incredible position. They have all the time freedom in the world. They can travel the world. They can do whatever they want. They have no limitations in terms of time and resources, but they don't have anybody to do anything with, and they don't have the well being to do a lot of stuff.

They're on 20 different medications. So that is not what most people want. So if you're going to produce and be productive, pay attention to all the areas. I'm going to be going much deeper into this in the workshop that I'm doing. I'm going to be walking through You through every part of your life to help you understand why you need to pay attention to the important things so you don't end up with the regret 5 10 years later.

So that's an important piece. Um, and that also walks into the idea of checklists. Don't work. You need actually a strategic plan. And this is how I do it with my clients. I get my clients to get started with a vision, with a vision of what they want. Most people don't have a vision.

They don't have a sense of purpose. They're just doing things just because other people are doing things or they've watched some other person be successful in an area, or they've developed some kind of life. They have no idea what the hell they want. And again, I didn't know either if somebody had to walk me through this process or, and I also had to reflect a lot.

And then most people won't do the work, for example, in the. Uh, retreat that I did in New Mexico. I spent a whole day, close to eight hours walking, um, my clients through, uh, through their vision, through their strategy goals for the next five years, five to 10 years. And, and one of the biggest feedbacks, uh, was that, you know, Had I not come to this event, I would have never done this on my own.

Even when you go to events and other places, they spend about 15, 20 minutes, one hour tops, because that's the slot they have. And they hope that you would do the rest of the work. And that's the feedback that the other feedback that I got is that we need more time on this.

But the point that I'm trying to make is that for you to be productive You will need to build out your vision your you need to become clear about your sense of purpose You need to build out your strategy for how you're gonna implement that in your day to day life taking that big vision and bringing it to your week to week and day to day on your calendar becomes really important.

And that connection between the long term and short term, most people don't know how to do. Most people put reactionary things on their calendar, even if they have a calendar system. Some people don't even have that. But let's say you're an entrepreneur, you have your calendar system, you put stuff in there and it's full, you look, you're busy all the time.

But nothing is actually moving forward. The reason for that is that it doesn't connect to a bigger mission, a bigger purpose, a bigger vision for you. And you've lost sight of that. And half the time you're procrastinating the other half the time that you're struggling to work through that. Why? Because there is your mind cannot make the connection as to why it's so valuable, uh, why it's important for you to do this menial, boring task right now, because the task is not just a task.

It's the thing that takes you closer to your purpose. Thing that makes you helps you live your vision, all that. Again, I'm explaining this in theory, but I actually walk. people through this process. Now in the workshop, I don't actually do that. I will give you other resources to work through this and, and you can work on this with me later, but in the workshop, it will help you understand where you need to work on the longterm, the short term, the vision, the purpose, the new, your spiritual life, your personal life, your business, your efficiency, planning, whatever it is, we're going to figure out what it is that you need.

I'm going to walk you through a whole assessment and some questions for you to work through. It's going to take some time, but you're going to. be more clear than any other time. And this is why checklists and calendar systems and habits and all that stuff, they're all great. They can work, but if it doesn't connect to your vision and your plan and what matters to you truly in your heart, and it connects to your, it doesn't connect to your lifestyle and.

The kind of path that you want to create, then it doesn't matter. You can bring all the habits in the world. You can bring all the amazing tools in the world. All sorts of clients come to me and they will bring checklists and spreadsheets and all sorts of stuff and be like, I have the system for doing things.

And my question usually is, is it working? And most of the time, the answer is no, it's not working or it's, it was working for a time, but it's not working anymore. So, um, I really, um, I know I'm hammering in this point, but it's really important that You need to build out your long term and short term plan and you need to connect, help your mind connected.

Your mind needs structure for you to be productive. This is where procrastination, lack of motivation, lack of connection with the work that you're doing. Um, and, and all sorts of other things that come into the picture. And even things like, imposter syndrome that a lot of people talk about all that stuff comes in because you're not clear.

You're not clear about. Who you're becoming, what you're creating, and you don't have a strategy and you're not tracking things that need to be tracked. You don't have enough data tracking happening on your system as an entrepreneur, and you're not connecting personal and professional life at the same time.

You're focused on that one task and you're setting up checklists every day that you're probably not even completing. Don't even get me started with checklists and completing checklists, 'cause that doesn't even apply to entrepreneurship. I have, if I were to show you my checklist, this is 2000 plus.

Things that I need to do. I don't need to do most of them. I don't operate by checklists. This is just a reminder for me to look at, but there's the things that are important. They go on my calendar and that's connected to my vision and purpose. And if you want to take this next three months and accelerate, Three, make your productivity three to 10 times more, 10 exit, uh, to the next level. And also not just for the next three months, but for 2025 in the next five years. You wanna understand a better process, then definitely jump on with me in this workshop, this Productivity Mastery workshop, it'll help you a lot.

Uh, I'm, I'm doing it on October 31st at 9:00 AM Eastern. You'll, you'll gain a lot out of it. And please bring a friend, or a colleague or a business partner do it together. It'll help you a lot and you'll keep each other accountable as well on that. path. Aside from that, I'm excited to take you through that process.

Register now. Limited spots. I purposely keep it limited to a certain number. And I'm excited to see you see you there. And also please share any insights that you had as I was sharing this. Any thoughts, any ways that you've developed to become more productive? I'd love to hear from you and I'd love to respond.

I love other people to see what are some of the things that others are doing that's working.

I'm excited to do this workshop with you until then. Hope you have an incredible day.