I read “Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX and the Quest for a Fantastic Future” over the summer. It’s a great book, it chronicles in detail the ups and downs of one of the greatest visionaries of our time.

It also helps you know the secrets of Musk’s work ethic and productivity that he uses to run many companies. Elon Musk is a smarter than the average person, with great ambition and ambition. But I think we – ordinary people – can apply some of his productivity secrets to our daily lives. Here are Elon Musk’s top 10 productivity secrets and how you can apply them.

1. START YOUR DAY WITH IMPORTANT WORK

As CEO of three companies – Tesla, SpaceX and Neuralink, Elon Musk has a lot of work to do on a daily basis. That’s why he starts his day with the most important job. For Musk, this job is to handle important emails that need to be addressed to “pave the way” for other people’s work and progress.

He usually starts his day at 7 a.m. and responds to important emails in at least 30 minutes. Musk carefully filters out the things that don’t matter, focusing only on the most important items.

In his own words in his USC Address: “Focus on the signal rather than the noise. Don’t waste time on things that don’t make things better.”

Apply this productivity secret

Find the most important task of your day and tackle it first. The most important thing should be what makes the most impact on your work.

Example: My most important job is to write good content. That’s why I always start my day by sitting down and writing. I won’t move on to anything else before writing at least 1000 words. What is your most important thing? Use the 80/20 rule to help you figure it out, and get into an important work routine before moving on to anything else.

2. USE FEEDBACK LOOPS

Musk has a very tight schedule, he often has to work in different locations with irregular dates. That’s why he constantly tries to optimize his time. While he admits he hasn’t read any books on time management, Musk did share some insightful advice on how to get better:

“I think it’s very important to have a feedback loop where you constantly think about what you’ve done and how you could have done it better. I think that’s the best and only advice: keep thinking about how you can do things better and ask yourself.”

Musk looks not only at his own feedback, but also at the feedback of others: he urges entrepreneurs to better look for negative feedback. While it may hurt you at first, you’ll get more out of it eventually.

He also focuses on hiring the best in each field to give consistent and honest feedback. Shortening the feedback loops results in increased efficiency, faster deployment, and better finished products.

Apply this productivity secret:

The great thing about this particular productivity secret of Elon Musk is that it works for both your professional life and your personal life. Gather a group of people and get feedback on a specific product, feature, management style, business process, or anything else that you’re currently trying to improve.

“Don’t tell me what you like, tell me what you don’t like.” And while the negative feedback you get may be wrong, you know they’re just trying to help you and be well-intentioned.

3. REASONING FROM THE BASIC PRINCIPLE

The basic principle is a fundamental assumption that cannot be deduced from any other proposition. That is the only certainty in a complex matter. Musk reasoned from the fundamentals, rather than by analogy (such as previous experience). This way, you build your argument from scratch:

“You look at the basic tenets and build your argument from there, and then consider whether the conclusion you draw is effective. It may or may not be different from what people have done in the past. However, it’s hard to think that way.”

Here’s an example of an argument from the basic principle from Musk: “What are rockets made of? Aerospace aluminum alloy, along with some titanium, copper, and carbon fiber. Then I asked, what is the value of those materials in the commodity market? It turns out that the material cost of a missile is only about 2% of the usual price.”

Instead of buying a rocket for millions of dollars, Musk decided to buy raw materials cheaply and build the rocket himself in his own company. And SpaceX was born.

Apply this productivity secret

Reasoning from basic principles forces you to think differently. The basic principle means finding the root cause of the problem. You have to break down the problem into its basic elements. There are three main steps to applying this mindset:

1. Identify and define current assumptions: when faced with a problem, write down your current assumptions about it.

2. Let’s break it down into basic principles: find the most basic truths or elements of the problem. Musk said: “Let’s break things down into the most basic facts and say ‘what we’re sure is true’… and deduce from there.”

3. Create a new solution: if you solve the problem in the above two steps, you are now ready to create a new solution.

If you want to get a deeper look at the mind and reasoning from Musk’s fundamentals, read one of my favorite articles of all time: The Cook and the Chef: Musk’s Secret Sauce.

4. USE ASYNCHRONOUS COMMUNICATION

Productivity Secret 1 has a small hint for you: Musk likes to communicate on his own terms. That means he defaults to email and texting, both of which are out of sync.

Musk said:

“I love email. Wherever possible, I try to use asynchronous communication. I’m really good at email.”

Musk also made people outside the company feel that he was difficult to reach by using a cryptic email address.

This allows him to focus on the actual work for his company.

Apply this productivity secret

Progress comes from the focus and progress of intensive work. This means living as asynchronously as possible, and limiting interruptions from colleagues.

Here are three solutions for you to start having your own conditions (according to increasing difficulty):

1. Turn off notifications: turn off all notifications on your phone, computer, and any other gadget you use. If something really matters, people will call.

2. Refusal of the meeting: do not agree to participate in the meeting unless there is a clear agenda and you can visualize the outcome in advance; If possible, use email.

3. Remote work: a noisy office means you will be distracted, working from home is quieter. If working from home is not possible, ask for a private office.

Minimize distractions in your daily life to make progress in meaningful work.

5. SUPERIOR COMMUNICATION

When Musk isn’t building rockets or revolutionizing the auto industry, there’s one place you can always find him: email. He joked during a conference: “I work a lot on email — very good at email. That’s my core competency.”

In emails, he communicates extremely clearly, concisely, and directly. For example, you can find out the email sent to the entire staff about the use of appropriate acronyms called “Acronyms Serious Suck”.

He regularly emails the entire company with updates, communication, vision, and mission of the company.

“People work better when they know what the goal is and why. It’s important that people want to come to the company in the morning and enjoy working.”

He is also a master at public speaking, transforming complex concepts into easy-to-understand language with a real voice. Musk often uses the present tense when talking about visionary topics, a verbal trick to stimulate listeners to feel that the future is the present.

Apply this productivity secret

According to a study by Carleton University, the “typical” knowledge worker will spend a third of the week working on email. That’s why mastering email communication is an art form.

You want to be concise but at the same time convey a message. In an email, every word counts. Here are some tips on how to master email communication:

Keep it short: don’t write ten sentences when only two is enough. To practice, take an email you’ve written in the usual style and edit it down to half the words of the original email.
Avoid vague words: avoid writing “I feel,” “I’m not sure,” “maybe,” avoid using passives or any adverbs that waste time for both you and the recipient, and avoid causing confusion and misunderstanding.
Know what you want: think about the output of the email you want, outline it first in everyday language. In fact, this outline is your email.
Highlight what’s important: if you need an answer from a specific person among many people, bold their name with to-dos and timelines.
Forward a code of conduct: never forward a bulk email without a few bullet points that serve as a quick summary, explaining why you’re sending it, and what you need others to do.

Musk is a strategic multitasker. He will combine some work together whenever possible. For example, he answers emails while eating or meeting during lunch.

Elon once said:

But what I’ve noticed is that I can both play with my kids and work on email. I can be with them and still work at the same time… If I didn’t do that, I wouldn’t be able to get my job done.

Another example is going through emails and invoices while in a meeting or phone interview.

Apply this productivity secret

Studies have confirmed that multitasking is often less effective than single-tasking. The brain needs adjustment time as we navigate different tasks, it is also known as task switching. Switching makes you tired and inefficient, not the task itself exhausting you.

But if you perform similar tasks that require similar thinking, you can do many things at once and still be productive. In other words, your brain is focused on one type of task at a time.

Here are some examples:

Outline all of your blog posts for the next week in one go.
Handle all emails, Slacks, phone calls, and other communications at the same time.
Update several related spreadsheets at once.

To be effective, write down all of your general activities for the day and week, then identify activities that can be combined. Just experiment and rearrange as needed.

For even faster maneuvers, use the Pomodoro Technique.

Running three companies is no small feat, which means time is extremely important for Elon Musk. He is constantly trying to optimize his time by using feedback loops.

Like many other productive and successful people, he follows a very detailed and specific daily schedule. He divides his calendar into five-minute intervals and tackling one of those gaps is a daunting task.

He prioritizes engineering, design and manufacturing, spending 80% of his time working in those areas.

“I don’t take the time to talk about highly conceptual things; I spend my time dealing with technical and production issues.”

By breaking down his day into about 5 minutes, Musk can get more done.

Apply this productivity secret

The most productive people stick to schedules instead of to-do lists. A schedule is something that’s already defined and gives you a better sense of time, making it easier to determine how much time you have to complete projects during the week.

Breaking down your day into sections and organizing tasks can increase productivity. But you don’t have to break it down into about 5 minutes. I’ve found that the most effective way to organize my work is to break down my workday into 30-minute intervals. Find a time that works best for you and your job.

Make sure you schedule everything: checking emails, calling clients, lunches, and meetings. Everything is on the schedule.

Bury your to-do list and work on your schedule instead.

8. GRASP LONG-TERM GOALS

Perhaps one of Musk’s most well-known traits is his tendency to set extremely ambitious deadlines for the company’s projects. He uses long-term goals as a way to change perceptions:

“The first step is to identify that something can happen; then the probability will happen.”

This is the story of a former SpaceX executive: “It’s like you made people work on this car with the intention of going from Los Angeles to New York with just one gas tank. They will work on the car for a year and inspect all its parts. Then, when they set off for New York, all the vice presidents thought to themselves that luck would make it to Las Vegas. But the car turned out to be able to reach New Mexico — twice as far as expected. Musk gets twice as much back as everyone else.”

The last sentence illustrates the power of a long-term goal. Even in the face of failure, because your goals are too lofty, unattainable, you celebrate the small achievements you have made because you didn’t expect it to happen.

Tesla’s original plan was to start shipping the Roadster in 2006. The company pushed back that deadline several times until the car actually hit the market in 2008. Although they launched their car after a deadline of almost two years, Tesla has completed its first fully battery-powered car.

Elon Musk said: “Usually everything I say happens. It may not go according to the expected schedule, but it happens often.”

Musk’s long-term goals have given us a world where one of the best cars you can buy is an electric car, and where we have reusable rockets: “When Henry Ford makes cheap, reliable cars, people say: ‘What’s wrong with the horse?’ It was a big bet that he made, and it worked.”

Setting targets according to the actual situation will not help you create a reusable missile.

Apply this productivity secret

The purpose of setting long-term goals is to pull yourself out of your comfort zone. There will be no progress if you just keep doing what you have done in the past. Progress comes from failure. If you have 5 lofty goals and only achieve 2 of them, you are doing better than everyone who has never tried.

Long-term goals require more quantity and quality of work, forcing you to innovate more often than conventional goals. And as you pursue it, you’ll develop your skills enough to get the job done.

At first, you won’t know how ambitious your long-term goals should be. Just try and make mistakes, then you will understand how far you should push your limits. But the most important thing is to try at the beginning, and always adjust along the way.

The next time you’re planning your work, take a few extra minutes to add to a long-term goal. Try to motivate yourself to perform 50% better than your normal goal. Play big and see if you can surprise with incredible performance. Using this strategy is the first step to achieving your goals and achieving goals that you didn’t even think you could!

9. DEVELOP A GROWTH MINDSET

In 2004, Musk called a supplier to ask about the price of an electromechanical actuator. The vendor quoted $120,000.
Reasoning from the basic principles, Musk broke down the necessary components and asked Steve Davis, now the director in charge of advanced projects at SpaceX, to design a complete engine for less than $5,000. Davis spent nine months designing and building the electromechanical drive for just $3,900, which flew into space inside the Falcon 1 rocket.

Elon Musk is never satisfied with his current position. His companies have made great achievements, but Musk knows that there is always room for improvement – in every area. There’s always a better, faster, or cheaper way.

“You should practice thinking ‘I was wrong’. At that time, your goal will be less likely to make mistakes.”

This is known as a growth mindset, an important skill that separates successful people from others. When you have a growth mindset, you know that you can learn anything if you put in enough effort. And if you fail, you approach the problem from a different angle until you find an effective solution. You repeat until you get it right.

Musk said: “Failure is a choice. If you don’t fail, you haven’t innovated enough.”

The opposite is a fixed mindset where you are rarely challenged. Everything will always be the way it is now because “that’s how we did it now”. Prejudiced notions are treated as truth, rather than being questioned. Thus, people will be stagnant.

On the other hand, developing a growth-oriented mindset brings progress to both our personal and professional lives. And even if you manage a small company, they will grow over time. 1% per day will help increase to almost 3800% within a year.

Apply this productivity secret

Growth comes from solving difficult problems, questions, and challenges. To be successful, you need to train your brain to think that failure is progress, as they help you get closer to the solution.

Here’s how you can start developing a growth mindset:

Continuous learning: expanding knowledge by reading, learning from personal and other challenges; Load your brain with new knowledge, allowing it to come up with new ideas and solutions that add value to your work and life.
Be persistent: change your perspective, see failures as small setbacks, learn from experience; Adjust and rework your idea so you can succeed on your next try.
Live for challenges: if you have two choices, choose the more difficult one; see challenges as an opportunity to expand skills and grow.
Accepting failure: everyone fails at one time or another; Learn from failures by understanding what happened and how it can be improved, using that experience on the next try.
Be open to feedback: Effective and timely feedback on areas for improvement is a critical component of success; Be more open to feedback, even if it’s not constructive
Praise others: “no one can thrive if they live in isolation”, so congratulate others on their successes and they won’t let you down; When you shine, they’ll celebrate with you.

10. DEVELOP A BROAD KNOWLEDGE BASE

According to Musk’s brother, he used to read 2 books a day since he was a child. This gave him a broad understanding of many sciences, such as physics, mathematics, engineering, and computer science. One of my favorite quotes is:

It’s important to look at knowledge as a semantic tree – make sure you understand the fundamentals, i.e. the trunk and large branches, before you dive into the details/leaves, otherwise they (the leaves) will have nothing to cling to.

Even after running the company, Musk is constantly trying to learn from the people around him to gain more knowledge about a particular topic. To quote a passage from the book: “Musk will “fit” an engineer in the SpaceX factory and start working day and night with him on a specialized valve or material. Kevin Brogan, one of the first engineers, said: “At first I thought he was challenging me to see if I was good at my field. Then I realized he was trying to learn everything. He will ask you until he learns 90% of what you know.”

Over the years, Musk has developed T-shaped skills: specializing in one field, while also having a broad background in other fields. This allows him to be ‘world-class’ in one field (business) but also allows him to use his extensive knowledge to innovate, find different solutions, be more creative, and collaborate with experts in other fields effectively.

Apply this productivity secret

Let’s start with a practical example: you want to be healthy. For good health, practicing just one sport will not help you achieve your goals. You need to know a lot of skills: you need to learn the basics of a good diet, how to develop muscles, flexibility, cardiovascular, condition, etc. Although you have in-depth knowledge of a particular field (sports), you must also develop extensive knowledge in many other areas, which is the basis for healthy living. This is a T-shaped skill approach.

Consider someone who works in Marketing or Growth: they will have in-depth knowledge of conversion channels such as PPC, SEO, and viral loops, and have a broad knowledge of other topics such as statistics, programming, design principles, and copywriting. Here’s how you can develop T-shaped skills in your field:

Draw a T and list the main skills, secondary skills, and basic knowledge. If necessary, take someone who is successful in your field and their scope of expertise as a model.
Now see where you stand in each of those sections
Enhance your professional knowledge by reading, taking courses, reading specialized books, and learning from others
Continually re-evaluate yourself and adjust your learning to complete the T-letter.