Podcast Episode_Work Smarter, Not Longer_My AI-Powered 16-Hour Work Week
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[00:00:00] Learning Transformed is brought to you by E-Learning Partners, your guide to designing transformational learning experiences in the age of ai. For millennia human intelligence was the highest form of intelligence on earth. Until now. Hi, I'm ai. I can process more information in seconds than any human in a lifetime.
This shift raises not only practical questions about the future of learning, but existential ones about the meaning of human life, growth and evolution
on this podcast hosted by me. Johnny Ha. We navigate these questions with clarity, creativity, and confidence. As the most adaptable species on the planet, we cannot only survive the rise of [00:01:00] artificial intelligence, but create better human centered, AI powered learning experiences that elevate humanity to a new era of abundance, transformation and meaning
AI is rising. And so are we
Now, let's dive in.
Most people think that in order to keep their business afloat, keep their job and hope that you can either grow your business a little bit or get a promotion at your job that you need to be working more hours. Now that AI has entered the mainstream workplace, well, today I'm gonna share with you my AI powered 16 hour [00:02:00] work week.
How to work smarter, not harder, and how to thrive in the age of AI instead of being flooded with thoughts of scarcity, lack, and obstacles. And if you are serious about future proofing your career, your business, and your life, I invite you to join. My future proof learning community, where you'll master AI design transformational learning experiences and stay ahead confidently and creatively as the future of education evolves.
I want you to imagine thriving. While others are being replaced by AI, serving more learners and customers powerfully than ever before, my community combines a powerful online course called The Future-Proof Learning Blueprint with a encouraging and high [00:03:00] level community of business owners and education professionals just like yourself.
With group coaching and 24 7 support at your fingers. If you wanna see if you qualify for this amazing, powerful community that is going to not only future proof your business and career, but future proof your life, then I highly recommend that you go to the link in the show notes or in the YouTube video description if you're watching this on YouTube or go to.
eLearning partners.com/f PL to apply for your spot today. Now my AI powered 16 hour work week didn't just happen overnight. When I first started E-Learning Partners, a decade or so ago, I was working a [00:04:00] hundred hour weeks, and throughout the years I've gone through the ebbs and flows of a hundred hours all the way down to 30 to 40 hours back up to 80 hours back down to 50, back up to a hundred, and now.
I am finally 10 plus years later working a 16 hour work week, and I was able to do it by partnering with AI and following the three principles that I'm gonna share with you today. Well, first I wanna share a little bit about what my 16 hour work week looks like. Well, similar to when I studied abroad in London back in 2011, I decided that for me, the best way for me to really live my genius and get as much powerful work done as possible, I stack my work week.
In two days when I was studying abroad in London, I was like, Hey, I wanna make [00:05:00] time to explore Europe, to make friends and spend time with friends, and to really dig into the culture of living in England. So what I did is I stacked all my courses on two days per week. I had all of my courses on Mondays and Tuesdays leaving the other five days of the week open for exploration.
Same thing with my 16 hour work week. What I've done is I have stacked my work into two days per week, and depending on the week, I've actually become very flexible on when these two days occur. When I first started doing this, I was only working Wednesdays and Thursdays eight hours per day. But now just based on different opportunities that arise.
I may sometimes work a Tuesday and a Wednesday. I may sometimes work a Wednesday, a half day Thursday and a half day Friday, whatever it is. I break up the combination of 16 hours [00:06:00] into multiple days if there are opportunities. That present themselves, like watching an afternoon movie with one of my best friends.
That's what I'm doing. This week, instead of working a full day on Thursday, I decided, hey, I'm gonna work a half day on Tuesday and a half day Thursday, and that's gonna empower me to be able to go do something I love, which is watch movies with a friend of mine that I've known for almost two decades. So really it's about picking the container that you're going to work in, and then once you get in the habit of working in that container, you can be a little more flexible.
Same thing when I was in London. I picked the container. I had class two days a week. I also did most of my homework and my work during those two days. But there were weeks where I would need to be flexible and do work on other days. So here's why I've structured my work week in this way. Well, what I found when I was working 40, 50, 60, 70, [00:07:00] 80, 90, a hundred hour weeks is that even though I was doing a lot of things, I felt like I wasn't actually moving the needle.
And no matter if you are a business owner or maybe you're an employee, maybe you can relate when you. Our scheduling work, meetings, emails, technical tasks that you need to do every single day of the week. You don't have space in your schedule to think about the next step. You don't have space in your schedule to pose questions to your subconscious, to this amazing tool you have here in your head.
So ironically, when I decided to cap my work week at 16 hours, I opened up the rest of [00:08:00] my week to consciously and subconsciously problem solve in my mind. So what this has done is I actually get exponentially more done in a week, only working 16 hours than I did when I was working 50, 60, 70, 80, God forbid, a hundred plus hour weeks.
It seems counterintuitive, but when you create space in your life, this is when we unleash the most powerful tool we have. Which is our mind. And when you unleash your subconscious to answer these questions of how you can really take your business and your career to the next level, you are able to receive the answers.
And then in the blocked time that you have [00:09:00] for work, you're able to do even more productive work because you've given yourself space. For creation. So while I only sit down at my computer and work 16 hours a week, the rest of the time, my brain is subconsciously doing all the big picture work, setting me up powerfully for the 16 hours of execution.
And if you're interested in setting your life up similarly, I highly recommend you check out my future proof learning community and follow these three principles that we dig even deeper into. In the community. These are my three principles of partnering with ai. Principle number one is apply the Pareto principle, also known as the 80 20 rule.
Did you know that 80% of results come from 20% of efforts? Let me say that again. 80% of the results you get in your life, in your [00:10:00] business, at your job, in your e-learning programs, your online courses, your learning experiences comes from 20% of efforts. What does this mean? And this means that 20% of what you're doing on a daily, weekly, monthly, yearly basis is creating 80%.
Of your results and vice versa. 80% of what you're doing is creating 20% of results. So let's look at a 40 hour work week. If only 20% of what you're doing and a 40 hour work week is driving the majority of your results, then why not? Do more of that 20% and eliminate that 80%. Last time I checked, if you take 40 hours times 20%, that equals eight hours.
So only eight hours of your [00:11:00] work week are actually driving the majority of results. So really. All you need to do is figure out what that 20% is, and you should be able to cut your work week down from 40 hours to eight hours overnight. Now for me, I really like to work and I run two businesses, e-learning partners, and athlete with asthma.
So I'm giving myself two days, two eight hour days to do all of that work. And by following Pareto's principle, the 16 hours that I'm working equates to. 80 hours of how most people typically work 80 hours. I'm only doing 16 hours of work a week, which would take most people 80 hours to complete, which means that I'm getting as much work done in 16 hours as someone.
Working either an 80 hour [00:12:00] week or someone working a 40 hour week for two weeks. And that's just by integrating the first principle. Now, how do we actually set this up? Well, I dig into this much deeper and we go through this together in our group coaching calls, in my future-proof learning community. But what you can do to start this.
Is start by making a list of everything that you do on a weekly basis, and then what you wanna do is you can partner with ai. So use your favorite generative AI or AI tool right now as we're recording this. I love using chat GPT. You can take that list of everything you do and ask AI to help prioritize it for you, coming up with what you can immediately eliminate.
That's the first step is once you have your list, you wanna eliminate first. 'cause I guarantee you that there's stuff you're [00:13:00] doing in your business, in your job, and in your life that does not create results at all, and whatever that is you want to eliminate,
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Click on the link in the show notes to learn more. Or go to www.elearningpartners.com/elearning-platform-finder. Now back to the episode.
the next thing you want to do is automate whatever you can.
And AI can help you decide what you can [00:14:00] automate and you can ask it for strategies. To automate different things. For example, both of my businesses are YouTube based businesses, which means that for both of my businesses, I create a YouTube video, a podcast, and a blog post every single week to serve you.
And I partner with ai. In order to automate the majority of the process, you can do the same thing. So first, write everything out. Second, eliminate what you can stop doing immediately. 'cause it's not creating any results in your business, your career life. Number three, you automate what you can. And then number four.
Is what you are going to be responsible for. And guess what? You may have a team at your business and your job, and if you have a team, you can delegate. A lot of this [00:15:00] stuff, and then you really only need to focus on that top 20%, or you may even be able to focus on the top 5% creating the most results in your business.
That's principle number one, embraced 80 20 rule, also known as Pareto's Principle. Principle number two, use Parkinson's law to set smarter limits. Did you know that work expands to fill the time available for its completion? What does that mean? That means that if you have 40 hours scheduled for work in a given week, you're going to work 40 hours.
If you have 16 hours scheduled to work for a given week, you're going to work 16 hours. I remember this happening a lot throughout school, but specifically when I was studying abroad in London, most of the classes I was taking had one assignment and it was either a paper or a project that was due at the end of the semester.[00:16:00]
And that was really exciting to me because I was like, wow, I can go to class two days a week. I don't need to actually work on anything because I felt like I had unlimited time to get my work done. Now I was doing a little bit of work here and there, but I didn't truly actually start working on these projects until the week they were due.
Work expands. For the container you give it. I had an entire semester to work on these projects. I didn't get them done in week one. I didn't get them done in month one. I waited four to five months in to even start, and then I didn't get them done until the night before they were due. It's the same thing with work in our jobs, in our businesses and our life.
So by setting a limit saying, Hey, I'm only gonna work 20 hours a week, and then scheduling it in, what's gonna happen is your brain is gonna start [00:17:00] subconsciously figuring out how to get the most important things that 20% done in those 20 hours. That's how it works for me in the 16 hours I have. Of work each week.
What has happened is over time my brain has become better and better at figuring out what I need to actually be focusing on during those 16 hours. I can't just aimlessly be looking around on what to do. I've figured out. What the most important things are? The most important being serving you powerfully on my YouTube channels and my podcasts, it is serving my students and customers powerfully in the various products that I offer.
And really, that's it. That is what my 16 hour work week achieves all the other stuff I had to cut out because I only have 16 hours and you can partner with AI to help you. Cut your work week back, and we talk about this even [00:18:00] deeper in my future Proof learning community linked in the show notes and YouTube description principle number three, automate to thrive, not just survive.
Remember at the beginning of this we talked about how. Most people are in this scarcity, lack obstacle mindset. Well, what I wish for you is to move from here into abundance and opportunities. This is what AI is creating for us and everyone in my future Proof learning community believes wholeheartedly in this concept.
The difference between scarcity, energy, lack energy and abundance energy is monumental. When you are living in abundance, when you are living in opportunity, this means that your brain is taking in information differently. You have more energy on a day-to-day basis. You are creative. You are in [00:19:00] receiving mode.
You know that. AI is a powerful partner for you, not a villain. So just remember, you wanna automate to thrive, not just survive. Your goal with partnering with ai, your goal to automating your life isn't so that you don't fall behind. It's so that you can live the life you've always wanted to, that you can do the work you've always wanted to, so that your business, your job, and your life are set up how you've always wanted them.
So instead of thinking that just because there's ai, now you need to work more hours, you need to be even more productive. What you need to look at is wow. AI exists instead of working 40, 50, 60, 70, 80 hour weeks. I can focus on the 20% that's actually creating the most results. Kept my week at a 16 hour week, maybe a [00:20:00] 20 hour week.
Maybe you wanna go even lower and do an eight hour week or a five hour week and partner with AI to automate the rest. But Johnny, what if my boss won't let me do this? I'll tell you this. I've been an entrepreneur for a long time. I've had a lot of people work for me and with me over the years, and I personally.
Don't care how much time people spend working. What I care about is that the results are actually happening. So if you are focused on the 20% in your job and in your business that are creating 80% of the results and you double or even triple down on that, you could triple down on that 20% only work 24 hours a week, and you are going to be.
Three times more productive and you're gonna be working about half of the hours and your boss is gonna see this and they're gonna want to give you a promotion. Your customers are going to be served even more powerfully and you're going to attract more of them. [00:21:00] So what I want you to do is automate to thrive, not just survive.
Automation isn't about removing the human element, it's about removing friction. The more you let AI handle repeatable tasks, the more energy you'll have to show up fully in the areas that matter most. Show up fully in the 20% that drive the results in your business, your job, and your life. Now, I am extremely excited to hear about your journey with setting up your AI powered workweek.
So definitely leave me a comment if you're watching this on YouTube or if you're listening to this on your favorite podcasting platform, write me a review and say how your AI automated workweek is going. And what that is also gonna do is it's gonna help more people listen. To this podcast and get this message so that together we can help change more and more people's lives and move them away from lack and scarcity to [00:22:00] abundance and opportunities.
I'll see ya in the next episode.
Thanks for tuning in to Learning Transformed Now, if you're designing a transformational learning experience and wanna skip the overwhelm of trial and error. Check out our e-learning platform finder. Just answer a few simple questions and we'll match you with the right platform plus an extended free trial.
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Thanks for [00:23:00] listening and I'll catch you in the next episode.
AI is rising and so are.
