6 productivity hacks for the ambitious entrepreneur
Skyrocket productivity without needing to learn a new tool
I’ve recently been thinking about how important each and every day is for the rest of our careers. There are days when I spring awake with drive, motivation and energy because I am extremely excited about a problem. During these days, my productivity is high, and I accomplish an incredible amount of work. Those days are great.
But every day is not like this. It is so important to optimize for productivity on the less efficient days. I believe that if I can dedicate just one unproductive hour each day to a purpose that I care about, the gains to my life are substantial and significant. Evidently, many other companies and people believe this too.
Among many other productivity tools, Trello, Evernote and Google Keep are great ways to organize our lives. However, it seems like there is an endless sea of tools that are meant to help us along. How can we possibly know which one is the best? Even when a useful tool is found, it commonly interrupts our workflow as a means to make us more productive. This turns out to be annoying, and many of us cease usage of the tool when it fails to provide enough value.
Thankfully, this is not the only way. Here are six things that I do to stay productive without needing to learn a new tool.
6. Keyboard shortcuts
Keyboard shortcuts are a great way to cut time when performing tasks. Even if it’s just a few seconds, every moment counts when defending against potential distractions. I find it refreshing to rapidly shift through my tabs to refresh my train of thought with CTRL+TAB and CTRL+SHIFT+TAB after becoming distracted from a notification. Note: if you are a Mac user, CTRL can generally be substituted with Command.
Here are more of my favorite shortcuts:
- select to the front/end of the line — SHIFT + HOME /END
- select to front/end of the next word — SHIFT + CTRL + RIGHT/LEFT
- scroll to next/previous page — PAGE UP/DOWN
- open new tab in chrome — CTRL + T
- close tab in chrome — CTRL + W
- reopen last closed tab(s) in chrome — CTRL + SHIFT + T
- switch across windows in computer — ALT + TAB
- dock windows side-by-side — WINDOWS KEY+RIGHT/LEFT
Please comment if you have any shortcuts that help you stay productive :)
5. A readily accessible checklist
A common hindrance to productivity is forgetfulness. It’s easy for us to become distracted if we cannot remember what needs to be done. For this reason, it’s important for our task lists to be omnipresent. Whether transcribed on a nearby whiteboard or stored in an open tab, our checklists should not be more than a glance away.
My personal tactics include putting long-term tasks on my Desktop wallpaper so that I see them a few times a week. For weekly tasks, I keep tabs open for Google Calendar and Trello. For daily items, I use written notes and other simple tools. Continually reminding ourselves what needs to be completed is a dependable way to boost productivity.
4. Set it and forget it
Snoozing has more applications than just our morning alarms. I have found that using email and calendar snooze helps me stay productive by letting me forget what I do not yet need to worry about. Snoozing is a great way for us to fall into a relaxed state of mind with the assurance that our action items will resurface when necessary.
Calendar snooze can work by simply creating an event for the future, then deleting it off our task lists. Email snooze is great, as it lets us delete an email and be reminded in an email inbox when necessary. If not already available, some frictionless ways to get email snooze include Followupthen and Google Inbox Snooze.
3. Toggle your physical environment
Our work environment plays a significant role in how productive we are. Some people associate different types of work with different locations, whereas others simply need a fresh location to refresh their focus. In both cases, a change of work location can really boost productivity. The National Grid reports an 8% productivity increase when adopting this fluid workspace model.
In addition to space changes, changes in the way time is managed can also positively influence work output. I have found that operating on 20 minute sprints with silenced notifications is a large boost to my productivity. Between sprints, a few minutes of recalibration is pleasant, and the time fluidity helps me prioritize and execute.
2. Hold yourself accountable
Metrics, metrics, metrics. In order to improve, we also need to know how we are performing. One great way that I track what I am doing without physically writing it down myself is with a tool called RescueTime. It tracks how I spend my time on mobile, web and desktop. Then it provides me with a beautiful dashboard of my performance, which I aim to improve every week.
1. Augment yourself with artificial intelligence
I enjoy using products that make me smarter, faster and more productive. My number one requirement for these products is that they need to do this without changing my workflow. Google Now is a great tool that displays travel information, weather, and interesting articles without me needing to explicitly request it. Other smart AIs that work in the background for me include Clara Labs to schedule meetings for me and Fireflies.ai to make sure I don’t forget about the promises I make.
We only have two hands and one brain, so there’s a limit to the number of tasks we can do at once. Therefore, the tasks that we choose to tackle should be executed with extreme efficiency. By summing these micro-improvements up each day, perhaps we can hack our own productivity. Good luck!
Sam is a recent graduate of MIT. He’s a co-founder of Fireflies.ai, which transforms promises on Facebook, Slack and Gmail into tasks and calendar events in real time. He is excited about the future of AI in applications like messaging platforms and unmanned aerial vehicles.
