The productivity Ninja, Elon Musk heads multiple companies including the revolutionary Tesla and SpaceX. The 49-year-old tech-tycoon became the seventh richest billionaire in the world which wasn’t a cakewalk! Multiple failures resulted in a fall-off in resources and expertise in his team due to which, he ended up being the chief engineer and his own cheering squad.
Musk multitasks strategically. If you have watched his interviews, you know exactly how he turned out to be one of the greatest visionaries among the industrialists, engineers and entrepreneurs of our time.
This is what every writer (in fact every one!) must learn from Elon Musk:
1. MIT and Multitasking
Musk plans his day ahead and prioritizes them from the least to the most important. He starts his day at 7 a.m. by addressing important emails. He filters out unimportant things and focuses on what creates the most impact on his work. Out of all his works, Musk spends 80% of his time at work on engineering and manufacturing.
Start your day by batching similar works and find the Most Important Task (MIT). Set your word limit and don’t shift your focus until it’s done. Club unimportant tasks which need a similar mindset. For example, you can plan blog posts for the upcoming week while doing household chores or think about an interesting title for your article, under the shower!
Follow his golden productivity rule of 5-minute block system to be an unbeatable multitasker.
2. Simplicity in Communication is Key.
Musk is a great communicator. He conveys complex concepts in simple, stimulating discourse. He talks about envisions in the present tense, which makes it sound like Future happens Now.
Don’t write paragraphs when you can convey the idea in two insightful sentences. An interesting fact… Elon Musk has a one-page resume! Efficient and appropriate vocabulary compacted his lifelong achievements in a single page. Choose straight and clear language over squishy words. Know what you intend to convey and what the reader expects and write accordingly.
Musk leads an asynchronous life with a limited distraction from the outer world.
“I do love email. Wherever possible I try to communicate asynchronously. I am good at email.”
He often sends clear and direct emails to his employees with updates and motivation.
3. Growth-Oriented-Mindset
Musk started SpaceX when he found it is expensive to get rockets for his Mars mission. First, three launches of Falcon1 rocket failed, draining his resources. In 2008, the fourth rocket succeed and in 2009 fifth carried the satellite into orbit. He was never taken aback when people like Neil Armstrong, Gene Cernan who inspired him for this adventure, themselves testified against his idea of commercialising space flight.
“If something is important enough, you should try even if the probable outcome is failure.”
Despite the enormous achievements he earned, Musk believes that there’s always room for improvement.
One must be persistent in his field of work and a lifelong learner. Refresh your creativity with new knowledge and experiences. Being a writer, learn something different like SEO or graphic designing. Expand your skillset. Expand your vocabulary. Use a new word in your content every day.
‘They’ call him insanely ambitious, no matter who ‘they’ are, it’s impossible to deny his staggering achievements.
“I think it is possible for ordinary people to choose to be extraordinary,” says him. So why not give it a shot?
