My guide to personal productivity
Chart a course and clear the path
This week’s writeup is mostly a reminder to myself on how to be productive, as well as something I hope to reference in the future. Hilariously I am writing this while procrastinating some other things I need to do. Funny how we often use procrastination as a method of getting other things done – more on that later.
There’s been a recent meme that productivity software is overwhelming and that the ultimate todo list is what people jokingly refer to as todo.txt – throw away your notion and use Apple Notes or good old pen and paper.
The problem with any todo list is how massive it can get in the long run. Even something as simple as a todo.txt can runaway from you because you are blending short-term with longer-term tasks and you’ll still feel a sense of pressure when you see a wall of text in front of you.
I wanted to share my process of productivity that simplifies the todo list and share some of the tricks I use to get focused when I need to get things done.
Productivity is simply achieving outcomes through your discipline.
I think of productivity in two parts:
Charting a course towards outcomes – knowing where to go.
Clearing distractions from discipline – removing things that prevent you from getting there.
1. Charting the course to outcomes
I think everyone should keep some kind of longer term todo list so you both don’t miss some of the smaller tasks that come up and you remind yourself of the ways you realize the larger identities that you keep in mind for the long term. My challenge with productivity has never been thinking about what’s in the future, but rather how to get stuff done right now.
A while back I discovered Marc Andreessen’s method of productivity:
Each night before you go to bed, prepare a 3x5 index card with a short list of 3 to 5 things that you will do the next day.
And then, the next day, do those things.
I sit down at my desk before I go to sleep, pull up my Todo List (which I keep in Microsoft Word’s outline mode, due to long habit), and pick out the 3 to 5 things I am going to get done tomorrow. I write those things on a fresh 3x5 card, lay the card out with my card keys, and go to bed. Then, the next day, I try like hell to get just those things done. If I do, it was a successful day.
I’ve found having a long-term list for awareness (which I keep in Roam Research) and a short-term list for execution (the notecard) has helped me keep track of outcomes in a way that doesn’t feel overwhelming like a massive todo list.
I like the notecard method because it’s simple, tactile, and just doesn’t come with a lot of baggage. Whenever I ask myself “what do I do next?” I just look at my card and I have 3 to 5 options to choose from.
To be honest though it has been a tough habit to take on. I can’t tell you how many notecards share some of the same items on them day after day, but the days that I do use the notecard method I get more done even if there are some repeat-tasks. As Marc said, “Once you get into the habit, you start to realize how many days you used to have when you wouldn’t get 3 to 5 important/significant/meaningful things done during a day.”
Choosing what to do every day
The maximalist in me struggles to decide on what I’d like to get done every day. My longer-term todo list is infinite, and I get easily excited about new projects. There are a couple of ways I manage the maximalist anxiety of choosing what to do:
If it’s top of mind, it’s probably in the top 5 or 10 things to do, so writing it down for today would probably be a good idea.
Usually what is hardest to do is what is most important to do. This is a tough one to realize because it pushes you the most. The good news is that it usually is not as hard as you think it would be and the moment you get it done you feel extra accomplished, so if you're worried about what to write down for today, choose something you feel is difficult.
If you at least get the three things done, you can add more if you feel like it, but chances are you’ll be content with having done those three things (as long as they are important!).
Unless you’re starting from a clean slate, generally you’re working towards tasks that are adjacent to the skills and projects you have in front of you. It can be healthy to do a reset every couple of months just to make sure you’re not stagnating, but the tasks you choose for today should probably make the most of what you’ve been recently working towards. It’s obvious to say, but don’t be afraid to work on the things you were already doing.
Tim Ferris has some great suggestions in this video too that are good reminders for picking what to do next.
Three to five tasks seems like not a lot, but if they are important tasks and you consistently crank them out, I guarantee you that you’ll close out your week feeling good about what you’ve accomplished.
2. Clearing distractions from discipline
Most of modern productivity is just preventing distraction. Distraction from coworkers, your environment, and especially your phone. Let’s start with the biggest distraction: your phone.
Your phone is too close to you
You MUST put your phone in another room. The closer your phone physically is to you, the more likely you’ll instinctively reach for it the second your brain starts to wander. And research has shown that simply having your phone near you at all, whether on or off, makes you stupider.
Researchers studied nearly 800 participants as they performed tasks with their phones either on a desk next to them, in their pockets, or in another room.
The results were striking: individuals who completed these tasks while their phones were in another room performed the best, followed by those who left their phones in their pockets. In last place were those whose phones were on their desks. We saw similar results when participants’ phones were turned off: people performed worst when their phones were nearby, and best when they were away in a separate room. Thus, merely having their smartphones out on the desk led to a small but statistically significant impairment of individuals’ cognitive capacity — on par with effects of lacking sleep.
If you’re super nervous about missing something important or an emergency, put it on Do Not Disturb indefinitely and unsilence it so your contacts can double-call you if absolutely needed.
If you’re working in a coffee shop, put your phone in your bag and physically burry it away from you so that there are multiple obstacles in the way of getting to it. You have to make it clear to your brain that there is a process to go through in order to get to the dopamine machine. Anytime your brain wants it you can remind it of the obstacles and refocus on what you’re working on.
I can be hesitant to part with my phone sometimes because of FOMO and the general allure of dopamine from social media apps, but reminding myself that all of the fun action-packed thrilling content will still be there waiting for me when I’m done with my work can help me be patient with indulging in it.
Your acoustic environment
Depending on where you choose to work, you should do your best to isolate yourself from interruptions. I use noise-cancelling AirPod Pros for any work I’m doing outside of my home, and larger over-ear headphones (with better sound quality) for when I’m home.
In addition to headphones, listening to either a completely instrumental playlist or a playlist of an album you’ve listened to many times over and over is essential so you don’t get distracted by new sounds. There’s a lot of non-conclusive research on whether music is good for your productivity, but I’ve found that it generally lifts my mood and puts me into a context of working, so I add it to my regiment.
Valentin Perez has a number of really great playlists for focus that I use when I have a lot of work ahead. Here are two of my go-tos:
As for music I know well and can play in the background, I listen to Dawn FM by The Weeknd (Jim Carey’s radio-host commentary throughout the album gives it a “background radio” feeling), Pirates of the Caribbean 1-5 for some undulating cinematic energy, the Tenet soundtrack for when I’m getting serious and really dialing it in, and some of the older ZHU for late night concentration. I stopped listening to the Social Network soundtrack because it was too cliche.
Your email inbox
I once used this simple email app (I forget what it was called) that only let you look at emails at 9am and 4pm. After having used it I started to check automatically check email at those times, allowing me plenty of space to actually get things done.
Email is fun because it’s where most of the results of your work come through, but it can definitely be a distraction. Disable notifications for your email and only check it twice a day. If something is truly urgent it will find its way to you.
Timers for your tasks
Probably the most effective tool I’ve found for eliminating distraction and refocusing myself has been using timers. This is essentially the Pomodoro technique where you set a timer for 25 mins, then take a short (5 min) or long (15 min) break from your task before diving right back in.
When I am really struggling to get going on a task I set a timer of 5 or 10 minutes. I find that it takes a couple of these initiation timers to get into my flow. The shorter time period helps for reminding myself what I should be working on if I get distracted, and once I start hitting my stride I’ll open up the timer to the full 25 mins.
Trying to get your todo list done in these shorter 25 minute bursts or a series of bursts can be a great way to knock things off the list, mostly because 25 minutes is approachable and it’s just enough time to make focused progress on a project.
Make sure NOT to use your phone for this. I use my Apple Watch (on Do Not Disturb mode), but you can use any online timer.
What about procrastination?
I am a massive procrastinator, mostly because if I don’t feel the time pressure I don’t work at the pace that I want to. I once read that nobody really takes a deadline seriously until the halfway point anyway, so I don’t blame myself for holding out until the deadline is on the horizon.
In John Fitch’s book Time Off he makes the case that it’s a huge benefit to have periods of time between tasks so that your brain can process information in the background. It’s a reason why sleep is so important – your brain is forming new connections of all of your fresh experiences and ideas from the day before.
Knowing this, I try to outline a task the moment it gets into my longer-term todo list. If it’s a new project, I’ll write as many thoughts and ideas down so I can ride the high of having something new and fun to chew on.
Most of the time what I write isn’t even remotely cohesive. It probably is at a 20% completion or usefulness for the whole project. But having the thoughts out and onto a page means that it is now translated from my brain to somewhere else, freeing up capacity to start working with new ideas.
The Fibonacci sequence countdown
This process of starting a project and then revisiting it days later always makes me produce better work. It goes against my time-pressure-tendency to wait until the halfway point, but generally it has improved my quality of work. Ideally I’d work on an idea in almost a reverse Fibonacci sequence countdown from the day I have to get a project done:
34, 21, 13, 8, 5, 3, 2, 1, 1, 0
So if I’m 8 days away from the deadline, I get as much as I can done, then at 5 days I refine it, then at 3 days I refine it again, etc. etc.
The challenge is having the discipline to revisit a project when you only take a deadline seriously at the halfway point, but when you have enough time to process, output, then step back and passively reflect, you’ll allow your brain the space to make the best connections.
The best work you’ll do will come from the passive thinking and connection-building in between your focused work, so optimize for as many of those short breaks of background-processing as you can.
Productive procrastination
It’s totally possible to make the most of your procrastination by actually doing other things that are small but are still productive.
Putting small things away, doing the dishes, dusting some surfaces are all great ways to get some of the smaller things out of the way. This is where the other side of your notecard comes in with your “Anti-Todo List”. From Marc’s writeup:
Then, throughout the rest of the day, use the back of the 3x5 card as your Anti-Todo List.
This isn’t a real list. And the name is tongue firmly in cheek.
What you do is this: every time you do something—anything—useful during the day, write it down in your Anti-Todo List on the card.
Each time you do something, you get to write it down and you get that little rush of endorphins that the mouse gets every time he presses the button in his cage and gets a food pellet.
The physical notecard becomes a positive record of everything you’ve done, planned and unplanned but nevertheless achieved. A lot of productivity is maintaining momentum, so just having more things written down and crossed-out on the card generally has helped keep things positive even on some of the days that you only get one of your main todos done.
Other thoughts on productivity
Not all of us have the luxury of choosing when we can work, but generally I’ve noticed I do my most creative work at night. I think it’s because I’ve either accepted whatever FOMO I’m going to have for the night, or the rest of the world is asleep and won’t distract me.
If you have the chance to choose where you work, I’ve found that big large open spaces or places overlooking a view are great for divergent creative thinking. Smaller spaces like coffee shops tend to be better for focused, tightly concentrated repetitive work.
Sometimes maintenance work is necessary – try to reserve maintenance work for a specific day and make it as fun as you can. I’ve found making maintenance work feel as easy and minuscule as possible is helpful for just getting it done. Use a timer of 2, 5, or 10 mins to just crank it out.
I’m sure I’ll add more to this in the future, but this has been what’s worked for me for now. Hopefully you can take some snippets of what I’ve mentioned above or at the very least, some recommendations on what to listen to next time you’re trying to get things done.
How do you like to get things done? Anything else I should add to my productivity process? Let me know and let’s get something done.