Plan your week (and life) every Sunday: 30 minutes before the week starts will transform the quality of your workweek.
Rely on Parkinson’s Law. Your project will take exactly the amount of time you say it will. Challenge yourself with a shorter timeframe and get to work.
Have a singular focus at a time. Multitasking is the enemy of productivity.
Prioritize your focus carefully. What gets planned gets worked on. But that doesn’t always mean what you planned was the right thing.
Don’t attack every small problem. Instead, zero in on the big problems that MUST be solved and break them down into manageable tasks.
Optimize for shipping, not perfection. Putting things out into the world is more important than perfecting every detail.
Spending time over-communicating now will save you an enormous amount of time long term.
Take a step away. When you feel your energy becoming stale, remove yourself for a moment. Renew your mind and then get back to it.
Tackle your hardest task first. Avoid the temptation to start with softballs. Dive into your most daunting project and make real progress.
Do what you said you would. Accomplish the tasks you planned. Help the people you promised. Sticking to the plan is the hack.
Visualize a productive day. What does that day look like? What do you accomplish? What do you avoid? Then set yourself up to live that day.
Measure your productivity. Know the goal you’re trying to hit. If you don’t set a plan, and know whether or not you managed to it it – everything you’re doing is guesswork.