So, let's use this thread to collect and share YOUR best tips, tools and ressources for personal productivity.
Every morning, before I start working, I browse my calendar, Omnifocus, notes from yesterday, and with my notebook, I write down the three things I absolutely want to get done today.
I don't always get those three things done, but I sure do make a lot of progress on them and feel good about my productivity at the end of the day.
Something about the ritual and physical act of writing stuff down with a pen really does it for me. When I forget to do this or start working without it, I feel directionless and will mostly just answer email and get inconsequential stuff done all day.
Once you understand your own capacity for multitasking then fight to stay in that zone (and before anyone calls something like that a "comfort zone" its more like an "efficiency zone").
"but that's not multitasking really."
Do you think single core computers don't do multitasking? They do it exactly this way.
- Try to find ONE most important activity to do and focus on doing that. Switching your focus between several tasks, or having to constantly decide what is the most important thing to do takes an enormous toll on your focus and productivity.
- Start to value being Lean. Aside from adding things to your life(buying physical objects, taking on projects, developing skills, engaging in activities), realize that removing unimportant things is also very valuable. I love making my life lean, it is surprisingly liberating to remove unnecessary noise and be able to focus on what really matters.
- Instead of just relying on your will power, try to align your incentives, and make the things you do fun and engaging. Will power is important, but I'm 1000 times more productive when I find an activity my brain can "buy in" into, and be completely engaged in.
- Read about the "flow" state, understanding how it works is very important to improve your engagement.
- Read about the "pomodoro" technique. I don't always use it, at some points in my life it works very well, sometimes it doesn't. But it's cool to know about.
- Track&Share is an awesome iPad app for tracking habits.
Sort T by difficulty to complete. Complete one task after the other starting with the hardest.
This approach goes against the often spread advice that you should start with the easiest tasks, which are probably fast to complete, in order to get quickly a feeling of accomplishment which keeps you motivated. I think this approach is wrong and here is why:
IMO our brains always weigh risk multiplied with investment against reward, and as long as the reward outweighs (risk * investment), we are motivated: Risk meaning here, that you invest time and effort but eventually you miss the deadline and are not paid the full reward. The more time we let pass, without completing anything, then the risk of not getting the rewards becomes bigger and eventually it is not worth our effort anymore, and our brain finds more rewarding things to do (procrastinates). So why should we start with the hard tasks first?
Because, given that we start with the easy ones first, we reduce the available time to complete the hard tasks, and by the time that we start with the hard ones, the risk of failing becomes too big in order to be still motivated. In contrary, when we start with the hard ones, of course it takes longer to finish them, and the time left for the easy ones is less, but our brain can easily estimate the risk of easy tasks, and it will find that it's quite possible to get the final rewards, because we already finished the hard ones.
The realisation changed my life. I completed my CS master studies within 15 months.
Sometimes when there is too much going on, I'm a little too restless or I just can't focus. I'll just get up and go for a short walk, try to clear my head, maybe tire myself out a bit. Usually gets me a little more relaxed.
If I'm stuck on a problem, I'll go for a walk. My hope is that I'll find a solution, but I often discover that I don't even need to solve the problem.
2. If you want to get a project done, keep your mind in the context of that project at all costs. Simple trick: in the evening, close other windows on your computer except the ones related to the project you want to get done: an IDE, a TODO list, related research. It will be much easier in the morning to kick things off.
3. If a project / work causes a lot of resistance and procrastination, ask yourself if you absolutely must be doing it. Challenge assumptions.
Works better for me than burning the midnight oil (which works too but probably isn't as healthy).
-Not doing too many things at the same time (hard)
-Having a passion in what you are doing and being proud of the quality of the end result
-Some excercise helps to get the blood flowing and oxygen into your brain which I find helps with focus
I also tend to (for various reasons) get better quality sleep if I go to bed early and wake up early. Human sleep cycles have probably aligned with the sun for a long time which (might) have biological effects favouring this type of circadian rhythm.
Plus seeing/photographing magnificent sunrises feels good :)
My Chinese teacher put it best: "Early to rise, early to bed, leaves you healthy, wealthy, and socially dead."
For the last couple of years we have tried many different things to boost productivity, inspired by netflix, valve, linkedin and more.
This year all these things resulted in us inventing a new method (http://timeblock.com) that is more about transparency and feedback between Makers and Managers than anything else.
The method results in less procrastination, better estimation, happier Makers, Managers and customers.
http://www.klinger.io/post/71640845938/dont-drown-in-email-h...
(disclaimer: i am the author of this post)
If possible a short nap after lunch (siesta) will also help stay energized for the rest of the day.
Whilst I don't love this quote, it represents a problem that I see often: people are asking for tools and techniques to achieve better productivity when often, it's about discipline. I wrote more about how discipline and why it's important here[0], with a particular story about how my father's time in the British Army taught me a few things.
However, there are certainly a few strategies that we can all use to combat our irrational behaviour and get things done rather that procrastinate (on hacker news all day!):
Make Time
Stop saying you don't have time. It's up to you to make time. If it's important enough, you can do it. Read more at 'Make Time for Your Side Project' [2].
Timeboxing
This is a simple technique (similar to using a pomodoro timer) that defines a start point and a fixed time for completing a task. Often starting is the key to finishing.
Mise-en-Place
Prepare for success by getting the environment right and ready. Make it easy for you to jump in to a piece of work without any 'set up' time. Give yourself the chance to succeed by removing any potential distractions.
Celebrate Small Victories
Allow yourself a pat on the back. Completing small tasks can give you enough of an adrenaline rush to start the next task. Then you're on a roll!
Stop Aiming Too High
This is something I suffer from all the time. I see so much great work out there that I'm constantly embarrassed to launch. This 'fear of the launch'[3] can be dealt with. It's about overcoming your anxieties to produce something 'epic' by purposefully launching something below your comfort threshold. True success is often journey paved with small, iterative launches.
For more, you might want to read the previous discussion on Good and Bad Procrastination (2005)[1]
[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7864959
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7864525
[2] http://www.startupclarity.com/blog/make-time-side-project/
30 minutes - first thing every morning.
It's unbelievable how much my energy levels and concentration have gone up!
At home doing my own coding? Light beer(as light as i can get, i want to take the edge off, not get drunk), a movie/music on the tv that i have seen/heaed a lot before.
Honestly the drink is a crutch, but i cant program more than once a week, so it seems to work for me. (Time constraints due to work/wife), but in my current project helps me relax enough, forget about my dayjob and focus for 3-4 hours.
http://markforster.squarespace.com/blog/2015/5/21/the-final-...
No app or self-help book could ever replace the shame from letting down someone you respect.
- Find your most productive times of the day and manage your day around it
- Take notes and have yourself be notified (for important stuff) instead of polling (unless the frequency is too big, then poll for a large time
People underrate standing. I can literally feel my brain being more productive.
2. Do those things.
3. That's it.
1. Get as much sleep as you can. Consistently. Yes, it's counter-intuitive. Yes, you'll have fewer waking hours. But those few hours will be many times more productive and joyful.
2. Drink more water and eat fresh food. Eat less than you normally do.
3. Get plenty of fresh air and sunlight.
4. Get a good amount of physical activity throughout the day (exercise, walks, whatever works for you)
5. Get plenty of vacation time during the year. Do not do ANY work during your vacation time - focus on enjoying yourself. (Ideally, 1/3 of the year should be spent on vacation time)
6. Make a list of the 20 most important things you want to accomplish (near-term). Sort the list so that at the top you have the things that you feel most passionate about. Keep the top 2 items and scratch everything else (I don't mean de-prioritize - I mean scratch it / drop it / burn it / forget it / it ain't happening.)
7. Focus all of your time and attention on doing those things that are most exciting TO YOU personally. Whether those things have any utility to anyone other than you is irrelevant. You come first.
8. If there is anything else that still absolutely needs to be done - find a way to delegate it to someone who's good at that stuff.
9. You will be unstoppable.
I do software development and IT consulting and am gradually moving away from freelancing (where I do most of the work myself) towards just orchestrating things and streaming work through my company to other freelancers.
If you need even more context - I also have a family with 3 young children and the income that I generate is about 100% of our total family income.
We get 5 weeks where I am, but I still make it a point to take at least 2 months off.
The most relevant influence is perhaps Dan Sullivan from Strategic Coach. The bit where you pick the top 2 tasks and drop everything else I picked up from a Warren Buffet book a few years ago.
I fully agree with you - a lot of this is not practical for the vast majority of the population. I'm obviously no Warren Buffet, so I also don't have the luxury of doing this all the time. All I'm saying is that when I DO stick to this plan as much as possible, the results are amazing.
It takes a lot of courage to NOT do things that you think you MUST do but HATE doing. Once you blast through this fear, though, you will literally see miracles happen.
Show me one office job, where you have 4 months vacation.
I'm curious if you would count your day job as an "accomplishment".
With that said, while you are still at your day job, definitely count everything you do there as accomplishment. You can't hate your way out of a job (but you can sometimes love your way out of it).
But generally, when I speak about vacation time in the context above, I mean it as in large continuous chunks of time during which you only unwind and regenerate (and ideally travel to some interesting place off the beaten track).
That said, I'll agree that it does work. And I'll even submit my idea of why most people will consider it "impossible". Understanding the difference between hours spent tapping on a keyboard and productivity takes experience.
I didn't have that experience 15, 10, even 2 years ago, so the idea of being able to "do" less and get more out of it was quite foreign.
It works, though. :)
It's 4:30 AM. I am going to go to bed RIGHT NOW.