The Top 5 Productivity Strategies I Use Every Day
As a Career Coach and a general self-improvement nut, I’ve read tons of books and articles about various productivity strategies. I often have clients who need help managing their stress and workload and look to me for suggestions on new strategies they can employ. I like to practice what I preach so it's important to me to recommend strategies that I have tried or seen work with other clients. While I like exploring different productivity strategies, I also don’t want to end up being an overscheduled robot who has to wake up at 4 AM each morning to get everything done. As a result, I always recommend some combination of a group of five strategies that I use to help me manage my own work that are easy to employ. Here are the five productivity strategies I use every day to manage my work quickly, efficiently, and with minimal stress.
Energy management
One of the most important things to understand if you want to be more productive is to understand WHEN you are most productive. It all starts with energy management. As author Daniel Pink discusses in his book, “When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing”, our energy changes throughout the day. If you can identify when you are most primed for deep focused work, analytical work, creative work, and/or collaborative work, you can arrange your schedule so you can take advantage of those natural peaks.
For myself, I am what Pink calls a “lark”, which means my energy peaks in the morning and wanes after lunch. As a result, I schedule work that requires deep focus during the morning and take my calls after lunch. By adhering to this arrangement most days, I can get more accomplished in 6-7 hours of work time than most people can get accomplished in a 10-12 hour day. It also results in a work day that does not leave me feeling depleted or zombie-like. That means I can show up for my family each evening with a much nicer attitude, which they all appreciate.
Routines
Now that I have a schedule that works for my energy, I harness the power of habits to save my energy for the work that really matters. Routines cut down on the number of decisions that need to be made each day. As a result, you can save your brain power for the decisions that actually matter and avoid decision fatigue. By using the power of "habit stacking", as described by James Clear, the author of the bestselling book, “Atomic Habits”, I move from one activity to the next with little conscious thought. This choreographed set of habits builds to create a morning routine that leaves me feeling energized, instead of exhausted in the morning.
Routines can also be a powerful motivator to help you on days when you are struggling. Often we struggle to get out of bed in the morning because we either don’t have a clear idea about what comes next or we know but are avoiding it. Routines can help us by creating clarity as to what comes next and removing that barrier.
My morning routine is pretty much the same every day. I wake up and make my morning matcha latte. While enjoying my matcha, I sit and read the NYTimes morning newsletter. I made an intentional decision a few years ago to try and stay more abreast of the news and this is the best time to carve out that reading. It also serves as an opportunity to give me enough time to wake up so that I can workout. Once my reading is complete, I work out for 15-25 minutes using a digital platform called P.volve. By the time I am done working out, my partner is up and helps get breakfast going while I hop in the shower. Then we eat the same thing for breakfast every morning, which avoids another decision making point. Post-breakfast, I finish getting ready, make the bed, take my vitamins, and then am ready to sit down at my desk by 9:00 AM. And now I am ready for the next productivity strategy.
Daily Planning
Notice how so far I have not yet checked my emails. This is an important component to controlling my day and avoiding distractions. One of the most important activities you can do each day, before you check your email, is to take 5-10 minutes to plan out your day. Identify the three most important things (MITs) you need to complete that day for it to be successful. There are lots of strategies you can use to help you prioritize your tasks. In the end, focus on what is most urgent and what is most impactful.
At the beginning of the week, I will also focus on planning out the most important things to complete for the week. If I can’t assign all of those activities to specific days initially, I keep a running list and ensure they get assigned as the week progresses.
Only after you have planned your day does it make sense to then check your email. As a result, you are now comparing the tasks in your emails against your own measure of what is important. It is now a negotiation instead of a demand. You can now feel more empowered to say no or deprioritize email demands. Sometimes, after reviewing your emails you will want to update your MITs and that is ok, as long as you are deprioritizing an item on your MIT list and not just adding another item to your list. Once your list is created and adjusted based on new demands, you are ready for the next strategy.
Time boxing & Time blocking
Most people feel deflated at the end of the day because they didn’t get all of their to-do list items completed. The two biggest factors that contribute to that feeling is 1) starting with too long a list (aka not identifying their MITs) and 2) not planning for when they will complete their MITs. Time boxing and time blocking are strategies that help you estimate how long you want to spend on a task and then schedule specific time to tackle that task. For all intensive purposes, I will refer to both strategies as “time blocking” because they go hand-in-hand.
For a quick tutorial from me on how to master the skill of time blocking, check out this video.
Time blocking ensures that you are being intentional about how you spend your time. It also helps reduce commitments to work that are not feasible to complete in a given work day. For every item on your MIT list, block out time in your calendar for when you will actually complete that task. If there isn’t enough time, that means you need to adjust your MITs or adjust your schedule (aka time to decline some meetings).
I also account for breaks in my time blocking, which is why I don’t schedule some tasks back-to-back. Taking breaks is an important part of your schedule. After I complete a deep focused task I then take a break to stretch, bio break, and check email before diving into the next activity.
Some individuals will use time blocking for organizing their entire day, including personal obligations. I only use it to assign work tasks to my day. Do whatever feels good to you, while still being productive.
Time blocking can also be used to help combat wasted time between meetings. I used to waste that awkward 30 mins of time between meetings because I didn’t have a plan for what I needed to do and how long I should spend to complete the task. With my daily planning and time blocking activities, I can identify tasks that can be completed in < 30 minutes and assign those items to be completed between meetings. I now know exactly what I need to complete so I can stay focused during that break instead of being distracted by emails, Slack messages, social media scrolling, article reading, etc.
End-of-day review
The last productivity strategy I use every day is an end-of-day review. This is a simple 5-10 minute exercise to close out the thoughts in your head so you don’t find yourself thinking about work during dinner (your partner will thank you for this). First, review your to-do list and understand what you did and didn’t do. Celebrate your wins for the things you did accomplish. Reflect on what enabled you to get that work accomplished so you can replicate it in the following days. For the items you did not get to, reflect on whether they still need to get done and if so, look ahead and use time blocking to intentionally set aside time to complete the task. Write down anything else that you need to tackle the next day so it’s out of your mind and onto a list. Look ahead at your schedule for the next day and make any changes to your calendar to ensure you can be productive the next day as well.
At the end of the week, spend an extra 5 minutes to reflect on the week as a whole. Here are a few questions to get you started:
What were your wins for the week?
What worked well for you this week?
What do you want to do differently next week?
There are numerous productivity strategies out there and it is important to figure out what works best for you. What I love about these 5 strategies is how seamlessly they fit together and build on one another. That enables me to easily employ the strategies and see the benefit of them.
What are your favorite strategies?
Want more help employing these new strategies? Check out my Annual Planner Series, a series of digital planners that work together to help you build a routine to set goals, monitor progress, celebrate successes, create attainable to-do lists, and manage projects, all while building a more positive and growth-oriented mindset.
