13 things ridiculously successful people do every day

13 things ridiculously successful people do every day13 things ridiculously successful people do every dayHaving close access to ultra-successful people can yield some pretty incredible information about who they really are, what makes them tick, and, most importantly, what makes them so successful and productive.Whenever you see a successful person, you only see the public glories, never the private sacrifices to reach them. Vaibhav ShahKevin Kruse is one such person. He recently interviewed over 200 ultra-successful people, including 7billionaires, 13 Olympians, and a host of accomplished entrepreneurs. One of his most revealing sources of information came from their answers to a simple open-ended questionWhat is your number one secret to productivity?In analyzing their responses, Kruse coded the answers to yield some fascinating suggestions. What follows are some of my favorites from Kevins findings.Follow Ladders on FlipboardFollow Ladders magazines on Flipboard covering Happines s, Productivity, Job Satisfaction, Neuroscience, and moraThey focus on minutes, not hours.Most people default to hour and half-hour blocks on their calendar highly successful people know that there are 1,440 minutes in every day and that there is nothing mora valuable than time. Money can be lost and made again, but time spent can never be reclaimed. As legendary Olympic gymnast Shannon Miller told Kevin, To this day, I keep a schedule that is almostminute by minute. You must master your minutes to master your life.They focus on only one thing.Ultra-productive people know what their Most Important Task is and work on it for one to two hours each morning,without interruptions. What task will have the biggest impact on reaching your goals? What accomplishment will get you promoted at work? Thats what you should dedicate your mornings to every day.They dont use to-do lists.Throw away your to-do list instead schedule everything on your calendar. It turns out that only 41% of items on to -do lists ever get done. All those undone items lead to stress and insomnia because of the Zeigarnik effect, which, in essence, means that uncompleted tasks will stay on your mind until you finish them. Highly productive people put everything on their calendar and then work and live by that calendar.They beat procrastination with time travel.Your future self cant be trusted. Thats because we aretime inconsistent. We buy veggies today because we think well eat healthy salads all week then we throw out green rotting mush in the future. Successful people figure out what they can donowto make certain their future selves will do the right thing. Anticipate how you will self-sabotage in the future, and come up with a solution today to defeat your future self.They make it home for dinner.Kevin first learned this one from Intels Andy Grove, who said, There is always more to be done, more that should be done, always more than can be done. Highly successful people know what they value in life . Yes, work, but also whatelsethey value. There is no right answer, but for many, these other values include family time, exercise, and giving back. They consciously allocate their 1,440 minutes a day to each area they value (i.e., they put them on their calendar), and then they stick to that schedule.They use a notebook.Richard Branson has said on more than one occasion that he wouldnt have been able to build Virgin without a simple notebook, which he takes with him wherever he goes. In one interview, Greek shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis said, Always carry a notebook. Write everything down. . .. That is a million dollar lesson they dont teach you in business school Ultra-productive people free their minds by writingeverythingdown as the thoughts come to them.They process e-mails only a few times a day.Ultra-productive people dont check their e-mail throughout the day. They dont respond to each vibration or ding to see who has intruded into their inbox. Instead, like everything else, theyscheduletime to process their e-mails quickly and efficiently. For some, thats only once a day for others, its morning, noon, and night.They avoid meetings at all costs.When Kevin asked Mark Cuban to give his best productivity advice, he quickly responded, Never take meetings unless someone is writing a check. Meetings are notorious time killers. They start late, have the wrong people in them, meander around their topics, and run long. You should get out of meetings whenever you can and hold fewer of them yourself. If youdorun a meeting, keep it short and to the point.They say no to almost everything.Billionaire Warren Buffet once said, The difference between successful people and very successful people is that very successful people say no to almost everything. And James Altucher colorfully gave Kevin this tip If something is not a Hell Yeah then its a no. Remember, you only have 1,440 minutes in a day. Dont give them away easily.They follow the 80/20 rule.Known as the Pa reto Principle, in most cases, 80% of results come from only 20% of activities. Ultra-productive people know which activities drive the greatest results. Focus on those and ignore the rest.They delegate almost everything.Ultra-productive people dont ask, How can I do this task? Instead, they ask, How can this task get done? They take theIout of it as much as possible. Ultra-productive people dont have control issues, and they are not micro-managers. In many cases, good enough is, well, good enough.They tick things only once.How many times have you opened a piece of regular mail- a bill perhaps- and then put it down, only to deal with it again later? How often do you read an e-mail and then close it and leave it in your inbox to deal with later? Highly successful people try to touch it once. If it takes less than five or ten minutes- whatever it is- they deal with it right then and there. It reduces stress since it wont be in the back of their minds, and it is more efficient, since t hey wont have to re-read or re-evaluate the item again in the future.They practice a consistent morning routine.Kevins single greatest surprise while interviewing over 200 highly successful people was how many of them wanted to share their morning ritual with him. While he heard about a wide variety of habits, most nurtured their bodies in the morning with water, a healthy breakfast, and light exercise, and they nurtured their minds with meditation or prayer, inspirational reading, or journaling.Bringing It All TogetherYou might not be an entrepreneur, an Olympian, or a billionaire (or even want to be), but their secrets just might help you to get more done in less time and assist you to stop feeling so overworked and overwhelmed.What do you do to stay productive? Please share your thoughts in the comments section below, as I learn just as much from you as you do from me.Special thanks toKevin Krusefor assistance with this post.This article first appeared on Linkedin. You might also enjoyNew neuroscience reveals 4 rituals that will make you happyStrangers know your social class in the first seven words you say, study finds10 lessons from Benjamin Franklins daily schedule that will double your productivityThe worst mistakes you can make in an interview, according to 12 CEOs10 habits of mentally strong people