I’m coming up on 10 years in corporate America. I’ve learned a lot about how to get things done, mostly through experimentation and trial and error. As 2024 starts to ramp up, I thought I’d share my best productivity hacks.
Turn off email pop-up notifications—Read emails on your schedule, not someone else’s. For bonus points, disable message previews in chat clients like Slack or Teams. I often close these apps completely when I’m doing deep work.
Write tomorrow’s to-do list in advance—I call this my “shut down ritual,” (hat tip: Cal Newport). I have 15 minutes on my calendar every day to update my to-do list for the next day. In the morning, you don’t have to think about what to do. 🧠
Pro tip: Identify one difficult task to complete first thing in the morning (before checking email!). If you don't get anything else done that day, you’ve done something important.Do less—The 80/20 rule teaches us that most actions don’t matter, but the vital few actions matter a lot. Practice identifying what truly matters most to your firm, and do those things. If/when those things get completed, move on to less important things.
Simplicity--the art of maximizing the amount of work not done--is essential
Bubble sort—The most important thing yesterday may not be the most important today. Develop the habit of constantly reprioritizing. It’s ok to abandon to-do list items if they lose relevance. When I’m under the gun, I sometimes rank-order my list several times a day.
Triage your distraction—If you constantly have ideas popping into your head, quickly write them down to revisit later. It’s ok to have personal things on your to-do list, just put them through the bubble sort process (see #4). Pro tip: If you get distracted easily, try some ambient music. My favorites here, here, and here. 🎧
Your brain is for having ideas, not holding them. — David Allen
Say “no” to low-value requests—Not everything is important. A clear and polite “no” is better than an unfulfilled “yes” and much better than wasting your time.
Don’t work when you’re not working—If you can avoid it, don’t be “on call” outside of reasonable working hours. Being constantly available gives people the license to bother you. Let the vital few know how to reach you for emergencies. Corollary: This only works if you’re consistently productive during work hours.
Customize your tools to save time—If you use MS Office, you can customize the menu bars with your most used actions. I have a “visualization” menu in PowerPoint that has saved many thousands of button clicks. Pro tip: use the “send slides as email” command to clip out one or more slides, and instantly attach them to an email. 🚀
Custom PowerPoint menu bar with my most used function Experiment with automation with GenAI—I used ChatGPT to write macro code for some of the most annoying things I do repeatedly in PowerPoint. I’ve used various LLMs for rapid learning, book summarization, writing improvement, image generation, career coaching, transcribing, and summarizing audio. I would still consider myself a novice. Here’s one prompt I used. Pro-tip: save your best GenAI prompts in a prompt library document. 🤖
Try this this prompt in ChatGPT or another GenAI tool. Impose WIP limits—If you’re always busy but not getting a lot done, consider imposing a work-in-progress (WIP) limit. Limit yourself to no more than 2 tasks at a time. You must complete one (add demonstrable value) before taking anything else on. Powerful when combined with #3 & 4. If you do one thing at a time, and you always working on the most important thing, you’re in business.
Optimize the system—If you manage projects or people, administrative tasks are a part of your job. Sometimes, sub-optimizing your output to optimize the output of the whole system (e.g. your team) can be a net benefit. My agile coach told me once that anyone who is not building the thing (i.e. management) is “necessary waste,” and it’s changed how I approach my role.
Look at productivity as an average—Some days I struggle to get things done, other days I have massive output. Instead of asking “What did I get done today?” I started asking “What did I get done this week?” If the answer is roughly equal to expected daily output * 5, then don't be too hard on yourself. If not, adjust accordingly.
Thanks for reading this week, for more on productivity check out my recent essay on overworking.
I’ll be back soon with more!
By following these, Jacob is so productive now that he hasn't had time to post on here anymore!
Bach is by far the best!