50 First Levers (How to start building Leverage)
Leverage is everywhere. You felt it as a kid shooting peas across the room with a spoon. Or when you first used a calculator, and wondered why your teachers made you do long division by hand for 3 years.
At some point it clicks -- “oh shit, I just accomplished something surprisingly big for the effort it took!”
As we grow, our levers get bigger. The adult version of “wow that pea bounced off the ceiling!” Maybe we marvel at the use of a nail gun, getting 100 views on a Youtube video, or hiring a house cleaner.
I LOVE when someone has a ‘click.’ -- when we have a new believer in leverage. Sometimes a click totally changes how you prioritize your work and your life. For me, it changed my career, how I make decisions, and how I live my life.
Build levers, extend levers, and get more done with less effort.
Most of the examples here were shared by people who joined the Life of Leverage Course. We learn how to use leverage to increase your impact/effort ratio in your business or personal life.
You’ll certainly get some inspiration here, and I hope you’ll try some. But even if they don’t “click,” you’ll be a little more effective tomorrow than you are today. I’ve organized them into the main four types: Tools, Product, People, and Capital.
Tool Leverage
“I went down a LOT of rabbit holes to automate things. I settled on using the Acorn app to invest my change as my first step towards leverage.”
“I set up a Google Alert for any update relating to Canadian Blockchain or Crypto laws/regulations. Now, rather than scanning news articles, any updates in this space arrive in my inbox.”
“I created an IFTTT for the first time. Synced my YouTube channel to post automatically to my facebook page.”
“Updated my automated crypto investments, and going to automate my weekly reccurring emails.”
“Signed up for Readwise and also another reading app that summarises books, saving time as it helps to understand key insights.”
“Signed up to receive a daily text with tomorrow's weather every day at 6pm and delegated my grocery shopping to Instacart!”
“Created a Readwise account (didn't know it existed!!). Now looking to organize the mess that is my Twitter bookmarks!”
“Set up my own personal Slack workspace that'll act as a hub for all my notifications in the future (less cluttered than my inbox, and I'm in Slack 24/7 anyway). First automations were:
— Subscribing to Airtable notifications.
— Moving my Talkwalker Alerts out of my inbox and into their own channel.
— Connected my Google Calendar accounts so I get a daily/weekly reminder of events.”
“Set up a slack account so I can communicate with groups easier. Deleted some entertainment options so I have less peripheral noise to be distracted by.”
“Finally started using IFTTT; starting w syncing iOS contacts to a Google spreadsheet as an auto-backup. And subscription fresh roasted coffee beans from a local vendor.”
“Downloaded and installed aText (similar to Textexpander) for often written things like email and written scripts and decided to connect an IFTTT weather alert. Plenty of time leverage available.”
“Enabled color filters on my iPhone (B&W mode). Every time I've done this it significantly reduces the amount of time I waste doing zero leverage/negative leverage things on my phone. Everything is less appealing/interesting/distracting.”
“I set up Tiller to automate the consolidation of transactions across all my accounts (banking, investing, credit) to streamline weekly/monthly budget reviews.”
“Bought home speakers play my favorite playlist when my phone connects to home wifi after 5 pm (arriving home after work)
“This morning I discovered last night’s babysitter finished the last of our coffee beans. Never again. Signed up for 32 oz bags of Bottomless coffee automatic delivery. Can feel the leverage coursing through my veins already.”
“Set up my partner’s phone (Find My - Apple) to ping me when she leaves work so I know when to start dinner... now need someone/thing to handle dinner “
“Used Otter to save time transcribing important meetings.”
“Used Briskine to create templates for frequently sent emails. Using shortcut phrases helps save a lot of time and mental effort in sending emails.”
“Downloaded Grammarly so I can stop googling grammar rules and spending time proofreading.”
“I am using Monday as a digital note taker and place where I can search all my mental models/productivity hacks/quotes and thinking about switching to mind mapping instead of book reviews.”
“Bought a robot vacuum. I used to think they were pricey. Then I realized that I'm not buying a vacuum cleaner...I'm buying the ability to spend wayyyyy less time vacuuming, and also vacuuming way more frequently.”
Photo by Priscilla Du Preez on Unsplash
People Leverage
“Changed my personal training appointment for my trainer to come to my garage gym vs. me going to him. Not a mountain of leverage, but feels like every minute counts.”
“I am hiring a marketing coordinator and executive assistant for email/scheduling.”
“Hiring freelancers on Upwork to do simple tasks for my business so I can focus myself and my team on more important tasks.”
“Looked for a programmer to create simple programs to automate tasks in my real-estate business.”
“Hiring an assistant to manage my inbox and calendar so I don’t have to worry about meetings and schedules.”
“Hired people who create code better than I do and focused all my efforts on expanding my business.”
"My biggest three leverage inflection points were hiring my first CEO, hiring my CFO, and hiring my assistant." - Andrew Wilkinson
“I hired an editor to review my blog posts and help structure the ideas professionally.”
“Hired an accountant to manage my books and do my expenses which took ~5 hours per week. Consolidated to one business credit card to simplify.”
“Emailed 10 friends the job posting I’d just put up asking them for referrals.”
Photo by Precondo CA on Unsplash
Capital Leverage
“Set up a recurring payment on Stashaway to invest $1000 every month and leverage the compounding effect. Staked DefiChain on Cake.”
“I listed my couch AND guest bedroom on Airbnb to get some extra cash from travelers and help cover my rent.”
“Bought some crypto and made an angel investment. Both long term but let's see what happens!”
“Bought crypto. Looking into crypto staking.”
“I promote products I love using to my followers and use affiliate links to get a little bit of commission should they follow my recommendations.”
“Finally began delegating my GRT within the graph ecosystem, something I had been putting off for a while (plus, I bought some COMP on Coinbase and began staking it).”
“I alloted a fixed percentage of my monthly income for stocks/crypto investments.”
“Set up auto-recurring with Swan Bitcoin that automatically deducts money from my account and invests it in BTC. Dollar-Cost Averaging.”
“I’ve automated my personal finances. Money comes in, it’s automatically split into buckets, and money goes out to be invested in crypto/stocks and to pay bills.”
“Made an angel investment. Invested a ton of time tinkering on Zapier for my business and life!”
Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash
Product Leverage
“I made a checklist of home maintenance items to do each year, so my wife knows what’s coming, and I don’t have to remember them all and fall behind.”
“Started using a password manager so my family has all of the access to accounts they need in case of emergency, and to prevent constantly having to reply/react to requests.”
“Created a decision journal template, asking questions of myself about big decisions I’m making so that I can come back and see how I did.”
Set up an autoresponder in my email, as recommended by Tim Ferriss in 4-hour Work Week, telling people when they can expect a reply.
“I recorded a screenshare of the introduction call I do with potential new clients then posted it to my website”
“Set up 10 household goods items on Amazon to auto-ship every two months. Also bought an Elgato stream deck and programmed some of the buttons to help me better manage my outlook inbox.”
“I leveraged Twitter by tweeting about updates on my business. It attracted plenty of clients and partners without having to pay for any leads.”
“Downloaded a 3-month workout program to follow. This will save me time from having to figure out my workouts day-to-day.”
“Just added a section of my daily habit tracking on Notion for Leverage, to make daily notes of what I've learned from the Leverage course or actions I've taken to get leverage.”
“Set up a Slack notification to let me know whenever someone signs up for my lead magnet. I also created automation inside of Notion that displays the completion percentage of my projects based on how many tasks are completed in that project.”
“I signed up for a no-code Makerpad course.”
“I mapped my workout into time segments and put the routine into an interval timer app.
This lets me just hit play and have the app tell me what exercises to do and how long to do it for - reducing my cognitive load and allowing me to get into better flow + mind-muscle connection in workouts. This helps me “automate my gains”.
“Have been extensively blocking time on my calendar for reflection/reading/self-development (including the gym) as well as everything that needs to be done on the work front. I've moved away from to-do lists as that felt like extra maintenance and just schedule everything on my calendar. Has mentally freed me up a lot without having to worry if I'm missing anything that needs to be done! It is all scheduled.”
“Synced my Mealtime account to my Sprouts, Kroger, and Amazon Fresh accounts to simplify meal planning.”
“I set a reminder to start getting my kids ready for bed. I set up Readwise (I have never tried it).”
“I created a rule in my email accounts to put all newsletters in one folder.”
“Set up notifications for when a new resource is added in the Leverage course's Library of Leverage on Airtable and set up weekly purchases of BTC.”
“Home automation - I have bedroom lights that auto-turn on every morning instead of an alarm clock. Much nicer way to way up. I also set up a routine to turn on evening lighting 30 min before sunset. Alexa will turn off all the lights when I say 'goodnight'.”
“I took up online courses on video editing so I can create my own content with high quality, which hopefully will be a source of passive income.”
“Groceries - I started using HelloFresh / Blue Apron to remove 3 hours of meal planning + grocery shopping and outsource it. Worth the premium price to outsource even if I only valued my time at $10/hr.”
“If I look back at all the good things that have happened in my career in the last 3 years, they all come from writing. One little habit of writing 1,000 words a day revolutionized my career.
Today I earn my living owning a software company, but for years I paid the bills as a writer.” - Nathan Barry, in his article entitled, “Good things come to those who write”
Ok, we actually ended up with more like 60 first levers. Because we got excited and there was so much to share!
Most of the examples here were shared by people in our community. If you’d like to learn more about the Life of Leverage Course, here are some preview lessons:
In the course & community, we share how we continually get leverage to make our tasks simpler, grow a business, and free up precious time. Click here to sign-up for the course.
If you’ve had your first taste of leverage already, please share your first lever down in the comments below. Let’s keep building our list!