Years and years ago I used to play chess competitively.

One of my favorite memories is what I remember as "the Drazil game," against an opponent named Frank Drazil. (There are enough Frank Drazils in the world that I'm not embarrassing this particular one by recalling this episode from 20+ years ago.) But I absolutely destroyed this poor guy.

I don't think he was a bad player. I just hit him with a couple of shocking tactical shots, and from there he was just thrown off his game.

I'm pretty sure I have the game recorded on one of my note pads and I may dredge it up one of these days. But I'll never forget his reaction: he was so embarrassed and frustrated at how poorly he had played that he resigned, gathered up his things, and marched out of the room without so much as a word. I never saw him again.

Not all games were like that. I also had long, strategic slogs that would go for two and a half hours. The satisfaction of winning a hard-fought game like that was much greater. (And of course the disappointment at losing such a tough game was very vivid.)

Now here's the point:

A good player knows both the tactics and the strategy.

Tactics involve those sudden, flashy moves that your opponent doesn't see coming, because they often seem impossible -- e.g., he can't capture my knight because I will do X in return...and then you realize you can't do X after all because you hadn't studied the position deeply enough. If you don't know your tactics you'll miss out on opportunities to blow your opponent off the board -- and in fact you'll often find yourself blown off the board.

Strategy involves the slow and gradual accumulation of slight improvements to your position until your superior position overwhelms the opponent. This is big-picture stuff. Nothing flashy. There won't always be a beautiful tactical shot in your position, so you need to know your strategy, too.

This is exactly how I've made myself more productive and a better time manager: with both tactics and strategy.

In this case, a tactic would be (for example) an app that gives me back 30 minutes of my life per day, or methods for concentrating in short chunks. Strategy involves big-picture questions like where my time is going in the first place (we have 168 hours per week, and even if we work 60 hours and sleep 56, that still leaves 52 hours every week that's going somewhere). Or instead of figuring out how to do X more efficiently, asking whether I should be doing X in the first place, or whether I should delegate X or even discontinue X.

In productivity as in chess, we need both tactics and strategy.

And that's how I teach (and live) it: tactics and strategy.

I know of no one who wouldn't like to be more productive, or get back the equivalent of an hour per day.

My personal trainer, who reads these emails, told me just today, "I know how productive you are, so I know you live what you teach."

But I also enjoy plenty of leisure time, more indeed than ever.

The stuff works, my friends, so take advantage of the launch pricing and get it for yourself:

https://www.WoodsPPP.com

Tom Woods