Hello, I'm Hank Green.
I am the founder, or co-founder, of DFTBA
Records, Subbable, Vlogbrothers, Crash Course,
SciShow, VidCon; I invented 2D glasses; I'm
the executive producer of The Brain Scoop,
Lizzie Bennet Diaries, Emma Approved, Frankenstein
MD, Sexplanations and a little channel you
might have heard of, called How To Adult.
I like to do things.
Sometimes I feel like I like it too much.
In fact, I often end up starting things despite
the fact that I don't have time to do the
things I'm currently doing.
So after 8 years of putting project on top
of project and not being able to stop myself,
I have developed some tips for how to do all
the things.
1.
Make commitments that you can't back out of.
It's not really about being able to do lots
of great things really well, it's about needing
to get them done.
If you make promises that you can't break
without feeling like a horrible, miserable
person, then you probably will pull it off.
This is dangerous, of course, because if you
make that commitment and then you break it,
you feel like a horrible, miserable excuse
for a human.
But it is a strategy that I have found to
work.
Just be careful with it.
When you're at the top of the cliff, don't
look down.
So imagine you agreed like a week ago to deliver
an episode of How To Adult to your friends
Mike and Emma.
Do not think about everything you need to
do to get that done!
Like, if you try and think about all the different
tasks, you'll never be able to motivate yourself
to do it.
I gotta decide what to do the video on, I
gotta do the research, I gotta write, I gotta
film it, I gotta edit it, I gotta upload it,
I gotta write the description, I gotta do
all these things!
(Makes overwhelmed noises).
Take it one little tiny task at a time, just
climb down that cliff and never look at how
long it is.
You can't eat a pizza in one bite, friends.
Though if you could, I would.
2.
Prioritize.
This is vital.
How do you do this?
That is a good question and my only advice
for you is to let your brain do it.
Just look at all the things that you have
to do, consider them each carefully and then
do the one that your brain says "that one",
even if you don't know why.
Listen to your monkey brain, it knows what
it's talking about.
But don't, do not, do nothing!
And to be fair, I spend like 30% of my day
doing this, at least.
And that's scrolling on Tumblr, playing Candy
Crush, watching Boardwalk Empire, Facebook,
Reddit - those kinds of things.
They achieve very nearly nothing.
Except possibly to rejuvenate some of my mental
juices.
I don't know, maybe if I didn't do them I
would completely crumble under everything.
So maybe it's good to do nothing sometimes
but if you're trying to get something done
you have to minimize the amount of time that
you are literally doing nothing.
3.
Don't freak out.
And I feel like I've alluded to this several
times but it's easy to freak out and then
you sort of recede into your brain and you
just lay there and you do play Candy Crush
and that's all you can do or you just sit
in bed and stare at the wall and think about
how much everybody is going to dislike you
because of how you can't get anything done.
The only cure for this, I have found, is to
do things.
You just gotta do it.
Sit down, start typing.
It's like jumping into a cold swimming pool,
you just gotta do it and then you're doing
it and that's it.
Sometimes when I'm super freaked out I will
actually repeat a little mantra: "I must not
fear.
Fear is the mind-killer."
You can find your own.
Try to enjoy it.
I know I just made it sound like it was the
worst possible fate to do the things that
you have to do but really it's all solving
puzzles, that's what I find.
Like, any project is just solving puzzles.
Sometimes they're really, stupidly dumb puzzles
and sometimes they're super gigantic, complicated,
terrifying problems that are just really hard
to fix and they have to do with my values
and whether or not there's enough money, and
there's employees and there's peop- and there's
all these different - and that can be really
scary.
But it is still just a problem to solve and
if I think about it that way - my job is problem-solver
- it's a lot easier for me.
Ramble, much?
Yes.
4.
Do nothing, sometimes.
And I know I just said don't do nothing but
this nothing is really nothing.
Don't look at Twitter, don't read a book,
don't do anything.
Just sit and think.
Take stock - figure out what you care about
most, figure out what's stressing you out
because if you can take care of those things
you will be more productive.
And write, maybe, at the same time, preferably
with a pencil.
But try not to do anything but think for like
10 minutes.
You would be amazed at how much thinking a
person can get done in 10 minutes.
In our lives we are going to juggle lots of
different tasks that are all extremely important
and that is going to freak you out.
No one - I have never met a single person
- who has it all together.
Juggling all the things to keep you and your
friends and your family and your work and
your hobbies all satisfied is not going to
be easy.
But it is gonna be necessary.
I'm Hank Green.
Thank you for watching this episode of How
To Adult.
If you want to keep learning how to adult
you can go to youtube.com/learnhowtoadult.
