A Masterclass in Getting Stuff Done, Straight from the Experts
Unlock the secrets of productivity with a masterclass from the experts. Dive into proven strategies and techniques that can transform your approach to tasks, helping you accomplish more in less time. Welcome to a world where getting stuff done becomes second nature.
Productivity essentials from Adam Grant, Laura Vanderkam, Chris Bailey, and Jill E Duffy
Reach out to cool people who get a seemingly superhuman amount of stuff done and ask them: “Can you condense your best productivity advice on a single cue card?”
- Collect productivity gold for our readers…and for myself.
Productivity Street Cred
Personal productivity requires personal knowledge
- Choose the path of least personal resistance
- Modify your work to suit you
- There’s often no “right” way to get things done
- Give yourself the freedom of adapting what you’re given and making it work for you
Productivity Street Cred
Productivity is simplicity
- True productivity isn’t about fine-tuning your to-do list setup, picking the right email service, or over-managing your calendar. It’s about putting the right things on to-list, exclusively answering emails that matter, and only taking meetings that will propel you forwards.
- Focus on what you want, not what you need. When you’re focused on unimportant objectives, you feel stuck. When what you spend your time on aligns with your values, progress feels conveniently close.
Productivity Street Cred
Productivity requires focus
- We encounter more distraction today than we have in the entire history of humanity
- Free yourself from distraction
- Choose important work
- There are four types of tasks: unnecessary work, distracting work, necessary work, and purposeful work
How do you actually put it into practice?
Issue yourself a “productivity ban” for a week
- Focus your attention on everything you need to do and how you can ensure it is in line with where you want to go
- Reach out to someone people at work and see if you can use your skills to make their life easier this week
How do you put this into practice?
Eliminate distractions
- Use site blockers to disable distracting website, turn your phone to airplane mode, and declutter your desk
- Practice saying “no”
- Single tasking
- Working on one task until completion before beginning another
How do you actually put it into action?
Go inward instead of outward
- Think of the last time you successfully completed an important project or accomplished something worthwhile and zero in on the practices that allowed you to go from start to finish
- The next time you find yourself thinking “this won’t work”, come up with a list of 5 alternatives that could work
Productivity Street Cred
Laura Vanderkam encourages us to look at our weeks as 168-hour blocks and suggests that “well-planned blocks of 168 hours are big enough to accommodate full-time work, intense involvement with your family, rejuvenating leisure time, adequate sleep, and everything else that actually matters.”
- Planning ahead allows us to save time on indecision and helps us execute on everything we want to get done with greater precision.
- Balance is central to productivity. Focus on all the important areas in your life, not just your career.
How to put this into practice
Schedule a 1-2 hour block in your calendar each week to plan for the week ahead