Become a productivity hacker in 7 steps
Work smarter, not harder!
The Physics of Productivity by Newton:
- Momentum is key (i.e., objects in motion tend to stay in motion).
- It’s not just your efforts that count, but where you direct them too.
- You can drive through barriers or look to eliminate them.
A 7-Step Approach:
- Understand what motivates you
- Follow Pareto’s Principle
- Learn how to prioritize
- Know the planning fallacy
- Build good habits
- Reduce procrastination
- Share the workload
Step 1: Understand what motivates you
Motivation is important because it encourages us to strive for success, boosts morale and self-esteem, and drives us to become the best versions of ourselves.
In addition, it helps us stay focused and energized, while increase productivity and creativity. Self-motivation can also help build relationships, foster collaboration, and increase team spirit. We all want to have a sense of belonging.
Focus on:
- Defining your higher purpose
- Knowing what gives you energy
- Knowing what depletes your energy
Example that give energy:
- Autonomy
- Time offline
- Being able to create
- Being able to innovation
- Opportunities to connect
Examples that suck energy:
- Negativity, fear and overcontrol
- No strategic direction
Step 2: Follow Pareto's Principle
Learn to prioritize by identifying the 20% of your efforts that lead to 80% of your desired outcomes. This will allow you to find key leverage points that deliver real value and impact.
Focus on:
- Starting with the end in mind
- Delivering impact, not perfection
- Following the 80/20 rule
The Pareto principle, known as the 80/20 rule, is a simple but powerful tool for analyzing and improving processes. It states that 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes.
In other words, a few causes account for the majority of the results. The Pareto rule is used to identify the most critical factors in a given situation and focus on those while ignoring the less important ones. It can be applied to many different areas, from managing resources to improving customer service. It can also be used to help prioritize tasks and make decisions. Focusing on the most critical tasks, it can help organizations improve efficiency and increase their bottom line.
Step 3: Learn to prioritize
Prioritization is an important skill that helps us, our teams and our businesses be able to deliver on whatever we set out to do.
It helps ensure that the most important things (goals and tasks) are completed first and that resources (money, time, people, tools, etc.) are allocated in an efficient and effective manner. It also helps improve focus, productivity, and efficiency and can help ensure that your or the company’s deadlines are met.
Focus on:
- Knowing that where attention goes, the energy goes
- Understanding what matters most to you and the business
- Acknowledging that you cannot do it all
Learn to say “no”, especially when work and life are too demanding.
You’ll never have enough time for it all. I focus on knowing what’s important and urgent to achieve my desired outcomes.
Step 4: Understand the planning fallacy
Generally, we plan for ideal scenarios. This leads to most of us overestimating what's achievable in one year. But ironically, we tend to underestimate what can be done within three years because of how "far away" it seems.
The planning fallacy is characterized by an optimistic outlook and a tendency to ignore potential problems or underestimate the difficulty of a project. This can lead to unrealistic expectations and missed deadlines. It is associated with a variety of other cognitive biases, such as optimism bias, overconfidence bias, and confirmation bias.
Focus on:
- Breaking our workload down as we tend to underestimate our workloads
- Using S.M.A.R.T. objectives (specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, timebound)
- Leveraging performance measurement (e.g., key performance indicators (KPIs))
The planning fallacy can have negative consequences, such as financial losses, frustration, and delays in completing projects.
Step 5: Build good habits
More than 40% of our day is around our habits.
Habit building is about the regular routines and actions we take every day that shape our lives. By building habits that support our goals and values, we can become more productive, increase our self-esteem, and achieve our dreams.
Habits also create an automatic response to situations we encounter, making it easier to make good decisions and stick to our plans. Habits also help us form better relationships, as they help us become more consistent and reliable people.
Ultimately, the importance of habit-building lies in the fact that it can help us become the person we want to be.
Focus on:
- Making time your ally, not your enemy
- Unloading the cognitive burden of decision-making
- Small consistent habits that have lasting long-term outcomes
- Being the person you want to be today (not tomorrow)
Your habits should encompass your desired identity, your goals, and the ultimate outcomes you want to achieve. The habits make you and then you make your habits.
Step 6: Reduce procrastination
Procrastination is the habit of putting off or delaying tasks or chores that should be done in a timely manner. It can be caused by a variety of factors, including fear of failure, fear of success, low self-esteem, lack of motivation, and perfectionism.
It’s a form of avoidance behavior, which can further lead to stress, guilt, and self-doubt.
Focus on:
- Starting with small tasks
- Removing distractions
- Setting time to focus and go
- Riding the wave of discomfort
Try to tackle something difficult or uncomfortable first and then reward yourself with something you find more enjoyable as a way to link rewarding the focused behavior.
Look at a productivity hack called timeboxing as a way to set time aside to work vs. getting sidetracked.
Step 7: Share the workload
Sharing the workload helps to ensure that tasks are completed in a timely manner and that no one person is overburdened with too much work.
It allows for a more balanced and equitable distribution of tasks, which can help to reduce stress levels and create a more positive work environment. Additionally, it can help to improve efficiency and productivity, as everyone has an equal share of the work and can work together to complete tasks more quickly.
Focus on:
- Collaborative approach to learning, thinking and doing
- Aligning your roles, passions and strengths where they matter most
- Empowering others and learning to let go
Use tech to buy back your time I embrace shared learning, open collaboration, and diversity of thought.
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