A great book that compiles and organizes the habits, success principles, life lessons, and morning routines of many billionaires such as Elon Musk, Bill Gates, Oprah Winfrey, Richard Branson, Ray Dalio, and others, and summarize it for all of you to understand. The book is titled "Billionaire Habit," which was written by Steven Hunter.
And the person we will choose to elaborate on in this episode is Mr. Elon Musk. In a previous book summary a book about Elon Musk. For that book. Therefore, before we begin to understand and apply his habits and success principles in a moment, I would like to briefly recall some key information about Elon Musk first.
Elon Musk is one of the greatest entrepreneurs of all time. He is a business magnate, investor, and engineer. He is the founder, CEO, and lead designer of the company SpaceX. He is a co-founder, CEO, and product architect of the company Tesla, Inc., and a co-founder and CEO of the company Neuralink.
In December 2016, he was ranked 21st on Forbes magazine's list of "The World's Most Powerful People." As of February 2018, he had a net worth of $20.8 billion and was ranked by Forbes magazine as the 53rd richest person in the world. And if we look at his wealth in the year 2022, as of May 8th, it has increased to $268 billion US dollars.
So, without further delay, let's go and understand the 18 habits that have led him to his amazing success, as follows.
Habit 1: When we face a problem, we usually tend to look for a solution to that problem by following the example of someone who has successfully overcome or solved that problem in the past. But for Elon Musk, he does not use this method. He always uses a habit that is called in English, "First Principle Thinking." It is a method they use to break away from conventional thinking or the habit of adopting solutions based on the example of someone who has already done it in the past. Instead, one should think and find a new solution that is better and more efficient than the solutions that people have used before to get through it, even if the problem is similar. Below are the techniques that Elon Musk has applied in solving various problems.
Identify the nature of the problem and create a clear assumption of your own. 2. Break down the problem to its true root cause. Doing this can help you reduce confusion about the different elements of the problem. Sometimes, you can find the root cause of a problem by asking "why" repeatedly until you can no longer find a new answer. The last answer you find is likely the true root cause of your problem. For example, if you want to find the root cause of domestic violence, you can start by asking, "What is the cause of domestic violence?" The answer you find might be a lack of education. You can continue to ask, "Why is there a lack of education?" The answer you find might be due to financial hardship. So you can continue to ask, "Why is there financial hardship?" The answer you find might be because they don't work hard to earn an income to support the family. You can continue to ask, "Why don't they work hard to earn an income to support the family?" The answer you find might be due to a lazy and stubborn habit of not listening to others' advice. You can continue to ask until you can no longer find an answer. Then, you can probably take the last answer to assume it is the true root cause of the problem.
After finding the source of the problem, you can proceed to the next stage, which is: 3. Create a new solution for the specific problem without necessarily taking a model from the solutions of people from the past or anyone else. Elon Musk has strongly emphasized that no one knows our problems better than we do. The same goes for our dreams. Everyone else will not understand until you make your dream a visible reality.
We now turn to understanding the second part, which is the Business Lessons section. This section will tell us about 9 types of habits of Mr. Elon Musk, which will be discussed next. These habits have made him a great man with a grand vision to change the future of the entire world.
Habit 2: The habit of exploring all available possibilities to create new opportunities. (Habit to explore all possibilities to create new opportunities). To be able to find possibilities or available opportunities, Mr. Elon Musk has shared six steps, as follows: Step 1: Dare to challenge your beliefs and ideas. (Change your beliefs and ideas). Step 2: Be a person with a vision. A person without a vision is like someone wandering aimlessly, being pulled along by the influence of those around them. Step 3: Connect with people who have motivating energy for you. It's not different from our Khmer proverb that says, "Associate with a scholar, and you will become a scholar. If you associate with a snake, you will soon become a snake." Step 4: You must seek new skills and expertise. You must be able to adapt and keep up with the progress of the times. Step 5: Find a mentor who truly wants to see you succeed. Step 6: You must build a network of people who can help each other when misfortune arrives, through participating in networking events or through various seminars.
For Mr. Elon Musk, even though he has become a top billionaire in the world, he still continues to apply these six steps always, because these six steps are still effective and have brought success in life to him, from his childhood until the present.
Since childhood, Mr. Elon Musk has always sought and created opportunities for himself to grow and become better than before. He left South Africa because this country did not facilitate his humanistic ambitions, and he could not develop his potential to its fullest extent. He always nurtured the idea of creating electric cars and the potential that these cars could have, as well as affordable space travel. Therefore, he has strived to use all his available capabilities to continue creating many more new opportunities.
Habit 3: The habit of using time to solve the problems of humanity. Mr. Elon Musk has stated that money is important, but it still cannot fulfill the craving for a solution to a problem of humanity. Therefore, you should continue your life to do something that has value for your life on this earth. Mr. Elon Musk has had this burning passion, which we always call "passion," for a long time. During his childhood, he did not know what he wanted to do when he grew up. But he seemed to start becoming obsessed with computers. With the presence of computers in this world, he always had daydreams about the endless possibilities that computers could have in helping to solve the problems of humanity.
The company Apple is also similar. Initially, the primary goal of this company was to contribute to helping the world by creating a smart device to be able to promote progress for all of humanity.
Habit 4: Learn to accept failure as part of the process of creating new things. (Embrace failing as part of the innovation process). Mr. Elon Musk thinks that failure makes you smarter. It makes you learn to create different and better choices than before. If you have never failed, it means you have not yet innovated what you are doing to its full potential. You can try to answer the following questions to know if you are a person who fears failure or not. 1. Does the fear of failure prevent you from creating new and innovative things? 2. When was the last time you failed? 3. Do you feel that your innovation is sufficient or not? For Mr. Elon Musk, he is never satisfied or feels that he has done enough in terms of innovation. That is why he is never complacent and is always seeking to innovate and create new things to serve humanity. 4. Have you ever had the thought of wanting to give up after failing once or twice in your life? For Mr. Elon Musk, failure is just a part of the whole process.
When he decided to create the company SpaceX, he had no knowledge at all about building rockets, but he dared to invest $100 million of his personal money to create this company. And this amount of money was just enough for him to be able to launch his rocket three times. And what is even more regrettable is that his three rocket launches all failed. In the third rocket launch, the rocket performed well, but it failed only due to a calculation error. With these three failures, it led him to success at last with the launch of his fourth rocket.
Habit 5: Learn to listen to criticism and take it seriously, because it can be your best teacher. Mr. Elon Musk has stated that most people do not like to listen to criticism and always try to avoid it. It is true that criticism is very difficult to take to heart, and sometimes it strongly affects one's emotions as well. But he still thinks it is very important for correcting weaknesses. He believes that: 1. Criticism helps things to improve and can correct them to be better than before. He has advised that when you receive criticism, you should judge that criticism. If it has value for you, you should learn from it and correct what is lacking to improve. 2. Create a culture of feedback so that you can continue to improve and grow. You should create opportunities to receive regular feedback from others and learn how you can do it even better.
Did you know that when Mr. Elon Musk was working on the first design of his Tesla car, he asked many people about what they disliked about his car, rather than asking what those people liked about his car? And he listened with great attention, reviewed, and improved his design to be even better.
Habit 6: The habit of working with the best people you can find. One important thing that you cannot overlook is attracting talented people to come and work with you. Working in a team that is full of talented people has a great influence on our future. Especially if you are a company owner, you should find good and talented people to put in your company as much as possible. Choose talented and good people and let go of the not-so-good people as quickly as you can. If you are a business owner or a company owner, Mr. Elon Musk has shared five points to help you be able to choose talented employees.
You should give them time to describe the achievements they have accomplished in solving any problem recently. Let them describe it in detail. Skill in solving problems is very important, and Mr. Elon Musk always looks for this skill in his employees with great attention. 2. Ask them to describe their work history and the decision-making processes related to their work. 3. Ask to see their portfolio of work. 4. Make the interview more casual, looking like just a conversation. 5. A single talent cannot determine that the person is a good employee. The code of ethics in performing work, responsibility, and character are more important.
Employees are no different from target customers; they are the heart and soul of a business. The future of a company lies in their hands. The success of a company mostly depends on the code of ethics, responsibility in performing work, having the right professional skills, character, creativity, talent, and skills of each individual in that company.
Habit 7: The habit of striving and not giving up easily. Mr. Elon Musk has stated that if you believe that something is important for you, even if someone or a group of people discourages you, you should continue to do it. You should remind yourself that failure is not an option. Remind yourself frequently of the reasons why you will achieve success one day in the future for sure. Build self-confidence that you cannot fail; you have only one option, which is the option to succeed. The difference between winners and losers is not in winning or losing, but it lies in how they react when they face failure. The struggle and perseverance without giving up easily is what is everything in the end, and can lead you to win for real, to reach the final end, which is to achieve success.
Habit 8: The habit of spending more time on creating great products rather than spending time on advertising. Mr. Elon Musk has stated that many companies are mistaken about this, in that they have spent a lot of money on doing various things that have not contributed to making their company's product better. He strongly emphasizes that making a product a great product is what is important and necessary. If you have a product that is good, you almost don't need to advertise at all. Information about your product will be shared from one mouth to another for sure. What do you all think about this perspective? Can this perspective be correct with the situation and the behavior of users in our country's market or not?
For Mr. Elon Musk, he thinks that no matter how great your advertising is, if your product has many defects, the advertising will not be effective. It is better that you should spend time working on improving your product to be good. Do whatever it takes to make it a product that people love. Then, the product will sell by itself without you having to spend a lot of money on advertising.
Habit 9: The habit of working and having fun with the work. His advice on this habit is: 1. You should not consider the workplace as a place that creates stress. You should add something fun to the work environment or some recreational equipment that can help relieve tension for your employees. Doing this will make people work hard and have higher work productivity. 2. You must have a joyful attitude always. Even if sometimes the work of you is stressful or difficult, you can take a short break to find joy and relaxation for your mind from that work. Some workplaces have cafes or places for enjoying beverages with soft music playing as well.
There are many people who take life's achievements too seriously, which makes them more stressed and cuts out the joy that they could easily find. Day in and day out, they focus and pay close attention only to life's achievements, forgetting to be happy with what they have, and they worry that joy will cause them to lose more than they gain. As time goes on, they lose all the time for joy. By the time they understand and realize it, it is almost too late.
A study has shown that employees who have fun and joy at the workplace take the fewest sick days off and can work more and have high work productivity. For Mr. Elon Musk, even though he is busy with a lot of work, he still finds time to seek joy for himself. He likes to play games, go to concerts, or play with his children, and he reads books to relax his mind.
Habit 10: The habit of being meticulous in analyzing everything thoroughly, and daring to take various actions to make that dream a reality, not just thinking or wanting to do it but not starting to take action.
The nine habits above are all habits that Mr. Elon Musk has applied in his business, which he has shared directly. Now, we turn to look at the habits that help him become a person with high work productivity, which in English we call "Hyper-productivity." Speaking of hyper-productivity, Mr. Elon Musk is a very famous person in this matter, because he is the CEO of three large companies that are growing very fast, which demands a lot of his time to oversee the company's affairs. He not only works a lot, but he is also filled with extraordinary productivity. Below are his collection of habits for creating work productivity (hyper-productivity).
Habit 11: The habit of starting each day with the most important task. As we know, he is the CEO of three very large companies, and the most important task is to solve the important problems of the institution in order to facilitate the work and the overall vision of their projects. Usually, he starts his new day at 7 in the morning by starting to reply to important emails. This means he only replies to emails that are important.
Habit 12: The habit of using asynchronous communication. Asynchronous communication means communicating with each other without being concerned about the time. It means that team members can provide feedback at any time, with different schedules, without needing to participate at the same time as we do in online or offline meetings. Asynchronous communication is effective and helps save time for team members. And usually, it is used in cases where there is an official announcement from the team or the institution. Asynchronous communication is also a form of high-level discussion to create an effective strategic plan. If you want to learn more about this asynchronous communication, you can go to Google and type "asynchronous communication definition." Then you will understand it in more detail and more clearly. I just want to mention here that Mr. Elon Musk likes to use this asynchronous communication method very much.
He has given advice that, if it's possible: 1. You should use an email system or a messaging system that has an asynchronous nature, because it can help you and other members stay away from various interruptions. 2. You should also turn off all notifications on your computer or phone, because if someone has an important task and wants to contact you, they will call you. 3. Refuse meetings. For Mr. Elon Musk, he thinks that meetings are a waste of time, unless that meeting is very important and has a proper agenda, then it is not a waste of time. 4. If possible, you should work remotely. Why is that? It is because he understands that a noisy office is very disruptive to the work, especially the distractions that arise from unnecessary work and from the people in the workplace itself.
Habit 13: Master all the communication mediums in the company. You should communicate with other departments in the company to be connected and effective, especially through the use of your official email, such as: 1. Write it concisely, with a clear meaning of what you want to convey to the recipient. 2. You must strictly avoid words that do not have a full meaning, that do not clarify your position, such as: "I feel that...", "I am not sure...", or "according to my guess...", and so on, or any words that can cause confusion of meaning or situation. 3. Know clearly what you want. 4. Use bold type to highlight the important points you want to convey. 5. When you forward an email to someone, you should clarify the reason why you are forwarding that email to the recipient clearly.
A powerful weapon of Mr. Elon Musk is sending emails. He uses his official email more than other communication mediums because it can be found in his sent box at all times and can track the responses very clearly. He also likes to update the vision, mission, and achievements of the company through email to all employees in all departments of the company as well.
Habit 14: Group tasks that are similar together and do them as quickly as possible at the same time. (Batch similar tasks and do them simultaneously). Mr. Elon Musk understands that the habit of grouping similar tasks together and doing them at the same time like this is very efficient, because the natural condition of humans does not require multitasking like a robot. Therefore, it demands a lot of mental energy and concentration and requires a lot of time to complete that task as well.
Habit 15: Increase productivity during work hours. To increase productivity during your work hours, you must: First, reduce spending on useless things. Second, cut some time from your lunch hour. 30 minutes is enough time to eat. Don't spend too much time. In our country, we have a very long lunch break. Some places leave at 11 and come back at 1 or 2 in the afternoon. In most developed countries, they have only one hour for lunch break. Mr. Elon Musk works up to 100 hours a week, but he still has time for his family. Working long hours like this is almost impossible for an ordinary person to do. But even so, increasing productivity during your work hours can give you more time to achieve even higher work productivity.
Habit 16: Organize your schedule. (Organize your schedule). Mr. Elon Musk does not like to make a list of tasks to be done (to-do list). He likes to work according to the schedule in his calendar, which has been meticulously organized. Being a person with many responsibilities like Mr. Elon Musk is not easy. If you were him, what would you do to ensure that you have used your time only for tasks that are truly important and correct? The answer is through a schedule. If there is no clear work schedule, we will be prone to interruptions and will not be able to focus our energy and time well on tasks that are unfinished and important.
Habit 17: The habit of showering early in the morning to feel refreshed and to be able to get new ideas. For Mr. Elon Musk, he has mentioned in an interview with the famous website Reddit that he gets his most unique and new ideas while he is showering in the morning.
Habit 18: Find time to read regularly, especially in the morning. You should choose books that can help you increase your knowledge in your field, which you feel is important for you. You should read that book in the morning, which is a very fresh time for your brain. Another thing is, don't be afraid to ask questions about what you are curious about or want to know from someone who can provide answers to you, because it is the fastest way to get insights, ideas, or clear knowledge without having to spend a long time reading or searching on the internet.
And the person we will choose to elaborate on in this episode is Mr. Elon Musk. In a previous book summary a book about Elon Musk. For that book. Therefore, before we begin to understand and apply his habits and success principles in a moment, I would like to briefly recall some key information about Elon Musk first.
Elon Musk is one of the greatest entrepreneurs of all time. He is a business magnate, investor, and engineer. He is the founder, CEO, and lead designer of the company SpaceX. He is a co-founder, CEO, and product architect of the company Tesla, Inc., and a co-founder and CEO of the company Neuralink.
In December 2016, he was ranked 21st on Forbes magazine's list of "The World's Most Powerful People." As of February 2018, he had a net worth of $20.8 billion and was ranked by Forbes magazine as the 53rd richest person in the world. And if we look at his wealth in the year 2022, as of May 8th, it has increased to $268 billion US dollars.
So, without further delay, let's go and understand the 18 habits that have led him to his amazing success, as follows.
Habit 1: When we face a problem, we usually tend to look for a solution to that problem by following the example of someone who has successfully overcome or solved that problem in the past. But for Elon Musk, he does not use this method. He always uses a habit that is called in English, "First Principle Thinking." It is a method they use to break away from conventional thinking or the habit of adopting solutions based on the example of someone who has already done it in the past. Instead, one should think and find a new solution that is better and more efficient than the solutions that people have used before to get through it, even if the problem is similar. Below are the techniques that Elon Musk has applied in solving various problems.
Identify the nature of the problem and create a clear assumption of your own. 2. Break down the problem to its true root cause. Doing this can help you reduce confusion about the different elements of the problem. Sometimes, you can find the root cause of a problem by asking "why" repeatedly until you can no longer find a new answer. The last answer you find is likely the true root cause of your problem. For example, if you want to find the root cause of domestic violence, you can start by asking, "What is the cause of domestic violence?" The answer you find might be a lack of education. You can continue to ask, "Why is there a lack of education?" The answer you find might be due to financial hardship. So you can continue to ask, "Why is there financial hardship?" The answer you find might be because they don't work hard to earn an income to support the family. You can continue to ask, "Why don't they work hard to earn an income to support the family?" The answer you find might be due to a lazy and stubborn habit of not listening to others' advice. You can continue to ask until you can no longer find an answer. Then, you can probably take the last answer to assume it is the true root cause of the problem.
After finding the source of the problem, you can proceed to the next stage, which is: 3. Create a new solution for the specific problem without necessarily taking a model from the solutions of people from the past or anyone else. Elon Musk has strongly emphasized that no one knows our problems better than we do. The same goes for our dreams. Everyone else will not understand until you make your dream a visible reality.
We now turn to understanding the second part, which is the Business Lessons section. This section will tell us about 9 types of habits of Mr. Elon Musk, which will be discussed next. These habits have made him a great man with a grand vision to change the future of the entire world.
Habit 2: The habit of exploring all available possibilities to create new opportunities. (Habit to explore all possibilities to create new opportunities). To be able to find possibilities or available opportunities, Mr. Elon Musk has shared six steps, as follows: Step 1: Dare to challenge your beliefs and ideas. (Change your beliefs and ideas). Step 2: Be a person with a vision. A person without a vision is like someone wandering aimlessly, being pulled along by the influence of those around them. Step 3: Connect with people who have motivating energy for you. It's not different from our Khmer proverb that says, "Associate with a scholar, and you will become a scholar. If you associate with a snake, you will soon become a snake." Step 4: You must seek new skills and expertise. You must be able to adapt and keep up with the progress of the times. Step 5: Find a mentor who truly wants to see you succeed. Step 6: You must build a network of people who can help each other when misfortune arrives, through participating in networking events or through various seminars.
For Mr. Elon Musk, even though he has become a top billionaire in the world, he still continues to apply these six steps always, because these six steps are still effective and have brought success in life to him, from his childhood until the present.
Since childhood, Mr. Elon Musk has always sought and created opportunities for himself to grow and become better than before. He left South Africa because this country did not facilitate his humanistic ambitions, and he could not develop his potential to its fullest extent. He always nurtured the idea of creating electric cars and the potential that these cars could have, as well as affordable space travel. Therefore, he has strived to use all his available capabilities to continue creating many more new opportunities.
Habit 3: The habit of using time to solve the problems of humanity. Mr. Elon Musk has stated that money is important, but it still cannot fulfill the craving for a solution to a problem of humanity. Therefore, you should continue your life to do something that has value for your life on this earth. Mr. Elon Musk has had this burning passion, which we always call "passion," for a long time. During his childhood, he did not know what he wanted to do when he grew up. But he seemed to start becoming obsessed with computers. With the presence of computers in this world, he always had daydreams about the endless possibilities that computers could have in helping to solve the problems of humanity.
The company Apple is also similar. Initially, the primary goal of this company was to contribute to helping the world by creating a smart device to be able to promote progress for all of humanity.
Habit 4: Learn to accept failure as part of the process of creating new things. (Embrace failing as part of the innovation process). Mr. Elon Musk thinks that failure makes you smarter. It makes you learn to create different and better choices than before. If you have never failed, it means you have not yet innovated what you are doing to its full potential. You can try to answer the following questions to know if you are a person who fears failure or not. 1. Does the fear of failure prevent you from creating new and innovative things? 2. When was the last time you failed? 3. Do you feel that your innovation is sufficient or not? For Mr. Elon Musk, he is never satisfied or feels that he has done enough in terms of innovation. That is why he is never complacent and is always seeking to innovate and create new things to serve humanity. 4. Have you ever had the thought of wanting to give up after failing once or twice in your life? For Mr. Elon Musk, failure is just a part of the whole process.
When he decided to create the company SpaceX, he had no knowledge at all about building rockets, but he dared to invest $100 million of his personal money to create this company. And this amount of money was just enough for him to be able to launch his rocket three times. And what is even more regrettable is that his three rocket launches all failed. In the third rocket launch, the rocket performed well, but it failed only due to a calculation error. With these three failures, it led him to success at last with the launch of his fourth rocket.
Habit 5: Learn to listen to criticism and take it seriously, because it can be your best teacher. Mr. Elon Musk has stated that most people do not like to listen to criticism and always try to avoid it. It is true that criticism is very difficult to take to heart, and sometimes it strongly affects one's emotions as well. But he still thinks it is very important for correcting weaknesses. He believes that: 1. Criticism helps things to improve and can correct them to be better than before. He has advised that when you receive criticism, you should judge that criticism. If it has value for you, you should learn from it and correct what is lacking to improve. 2. Create a culture of feedback so that you can continue to improve and grow. You should create opportunities to receive regular feedback from others and learn how you can do it even better.
Did you know that when Mr. Elon Musk was working on the first design of his Tesla car, he asked many people about what they disliked about his car, rather than asking what those people liked about his car? And he listened with great attention, reviewed, and improved his design to be even better.
Habit 6: The habit of working with the best people you can find. One important thing that you cannot overlook is attracting talented people to come and work with you. Working in a team that is full of talented people has a great influence on our future. Especially if you are a company owner, you should find good and talented people to put in your company as much as possible. Choose talented and good people and let go of the not-so-good people as quickly as you can. If you are a business owner or a company owner, Mr. Elon Musk has shared five points to help you be able to choose talented employees.
You should give them time to describe the achievements they have accomplished in solving any problem recently. Let them describe it in detail. Skill in solving problems is very important, and Mr. Elon Musk always looks for this skill in his employees with great attention. 2. Ask them to describe their work history and the decision-making processes related to their work. 3. Ask to see their portfolio of work. 4. Make the interview more casual, looking like just a conversation. 5. A single talent cannot determine that the person is a good employee. The code of ethics in performing work, responsibility, and character are more important.
Employees are no different from target customers; they are the heart and soul of a business. The future of a company lies in their hands. The success of a company mostly depends on the code of ethics, responsibility in performing work, having the right professional skills, character, creativity, talent, and skills of each individual in that company.
Habit 7: The habit of striving and not giving up easily. Mr. Elon Musk has stated that if you believe that something is important for you, even if someone or a group of people discourages you, you should continue to do it. You should remind yourself that failure is not an option. Remind yourself frequently of the reasons why you will achieve success one day in the future for sure. Build self-confidence that you cannot fail; you have only one option, which is the option to succeed. The difference between winners and losers is not in winning or losing, but it lies in how they react when they face failure. The struggle and perseverance without giving up easily is what is everything in the end, and can lead you to win for real, to reach the final end, which is to achieve success.
Habit 8: The habit of spending more time on creating great products rather than spending time on advertising. Mr. Elon Musk has stated that many companies are mistaken about this, in that they have spent a lot of money on doing various things that have not contributed to making their company's product better. He strongly emphasizes that making a product a great product is what is important and necessary. If you have a product that is good, you almost don't need to advertise at all. Information about your product will be shared from one mouth to another for sure. What do you all think about this perspective? Can this perspective be correct with the situation and the behavior of users in our country's market or not?
For Mr. Elon Musk, he thinks that no matter how great your advertising is, if your product has many defects, the advertising will not be effective. It is better that you should spend time working on improving your product to be good. Do whatever it takes to make it a product that people love. Then, the product will sell by itself without you having to spend a lot of money on advertising.
Habit 9: The habit of working and having fun with the work. His advice on this habit is: 1. You should not consider the workplace as a place that creates stress. You should add something fun to the work environment or some recreational equipment that can help relieve tension for your employees. Doing this will make people work hard and have higher work productivity. 2. You must have a joyful attitude always. Even if sometimes the work of you is stressful or difficult, you can take a short break to find joy and relaxation for your mind from that work. Some workplaces have cafes or places for enjoying beverages with soft music playing as well.
There are many people who take life's achievements too seriously, which makes them more stressed and cuts out the joy that they could easily find. Day in and day out, they focus and pay close attention only to life's achievements, forgetting to be happy with what they have, and they worry that joy will cause them to lose more than they gain. As time goes on, they lose all the time for joy. By the time they understand and realize it, it is almost too late.
A study has shown that employees who have fun and joy at the workplace take the fewest sick days off and can work more and have high work productivity. For Mr. Elon Musk, even though he is busy with a lot of work, he still finds time to seek joy for himself. He likes to play games, go to concerts, or play with his children, and he reads books to relax his mind.
Habit 10: The habit of being meticulous in analyzing everything thoroughly, and daring to take various actions to make that dream a reality, not just thinking or wanting to do it but not starting to take action.
The nine habits above are all habits that Mr. Elon Musk has applied in his business, which he has shared directly. Now, we turn to look at the habits that help him become a person with high work productivity, which in English we call "Hyper-productivity." Speaking of hyper-productivity, Mr. Elon Musk is a very famous person in this matter, because he is the CEO of three large companies that are growing very fast, which demands a lot of his time to oversee the company's affairs. He not only works a lot, but he is also filled with extraordinary productivity. Below are his collection of habits for creating work productivity (hyper-productivity).
Habit 11: The habit of starting each day with the most important task. As we know, he is the CEO of three very large companies, and the most important task is to solve the important problems of the institution in order to facilitate the work and the overall vision of their projects. Usually, he starts his new day at 7 in the morning by starting to reply to important emails. This means he only replies to emails that are important.
Habit 12: The habit of using asynchronous communication. Asynchronous communication means communicating with each other without being concerned about the time. It means that team members can provide feedback at any time, with different schedules, without needing to participate at the same time as we do in online or offline meetings. Asynchronous communication is effective and helps save time for team members. And usually, it is used in cases where there is an official announcement from the team or the institution. Asynchronous communication is also a form of high-level discussion to create an effective strategic plan. If you want to learn more about this asynchronous communication, you can go to Google and type "asynchronous communication definition." Then you will understand it in more detail and more clearly. I just want to mention here that Mr. Elon Musk likes to use this asynchronous communication method very much.
He has given advice that, if it's possible: 1. You should use an email system or a messaging system that has an asynchronous nature, because it can help you and other members stay away from various interruptions. 2. You should also turn off all notifications on your computer or phone, because if someone has an important task and wants to contact you, they will call you. 3. Refuse meetings. For Mr. Elon Musk, he thinks that meetings are a waste of time, unless that meeting is very important and has a proper agenda, then it is not a waste of time. 4. If possible, you should work remotely. Why is that? It is because he understands that a noisy office is very disruptive to the work, especially the distractions that arise from unnecessary work and from the people in the workplace itself.
Habit 13: Master all the communication mediums in the company. You should communicate with other departments in the company to be connected and effective, especially through the use of your official email, such as: 1. Write it concisely, with a clear meaning of what you want to convey to the recipient. 2. You must strictly avoid words that do not have a full meaning, that do not clarify your position, such as: "I feel that...", "I am not sure...", or "according to my guess...", and so on, or any words that can cause confusion of meaning or situation. 3. Know clearly what you want. 4. Use bold type to highlight the important points you want to convey. 5. When you forward an email to someone, you should clarify the reason why you are forwarding that email to the recipient clearly.
A powerful weapon of Mr. Elon Musk is sending emails. He uses his official email more than other communication mediums because it can be found in his sent box at all times and can track the responses very clearly. He also likes to update the vision, mission, and achievements of the company through email to all employees in all departments of the company as well.
Habit 14: Group tasks that are similar together and do them as quickly as possible at the same time. (Batch similar tasks and do them simultaneously). Mr. Elon Musk understands that the habit of grouping similar tasks together and doing them at the same time like this is very efficient, because the natural condition of humans does not require multitasking like a robot. Therefore, it demands a lot of mental energy and concentration and requires a lot of time to complete that task as well.
Habit 15: Increase productivity during work hours. To increase productivity during your work hours, you must: First, reduce spending on useless things. Second, cut some time from your lunch hour. 30 minutes is enough time to eat. Don't spend too much time. In our country, we have a very long lunch break. Some places leave at 11 and come back at 1 or 2 in the afternoon. In most developed countries, they have only one hour for lunch break. Mr. Elon Musk works up to 100 hours a week, but he still has time for his family. Working long hours like this is almost impossible for an ordinary person to do. But even so, increasing productivity during your work hours can give you more time to achieve even higher work productivity.
Habit 16: Organize your schedule. (Organize your schedule). Mr. Elon Musk does not like to make a list of tasks to be done (to-do list). He likes to work according to the schedule in his calendar, which has been meticulously organized. Being a person with many responsibilities like Mr. Elon Musk is not easy. If you were him, what would you do to ensure that you have used your time only for tasks that are truly important and correct? The answer is through a schedule. If there is no clear work schedule, we will be prone to interruptions and will not be able to focus our energy and time well on tasks that are unfinished and important.
Habit 17: The habit of showering early in the morning to feel refreshed and to be able to get new ideas. For Mr. Elon Musk, he has mentioned in an interview with the famous website Reddit that he gets his most unique and new ideas while he is showering in the morning.
Habit 18: Find time to read regularly, especially in the morning. You should choose books that can help you increase your knowledge in your field, which you feel is important for you. You should read that book in the morning, which is a very fresh time for your brain. Another thing is, don't be afraid to ask questions about what you are curious about or want to know from someone who can provide answers to you, because it is the fastest way to get insights, ideas, or clear knowledge without having to spend a long time reading or searching on the internet.