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What's your #1 productivity hack?

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Mine, is this one "Picking the right thing to work on is the most important element of productivity and usually almost ignored." from Sam Altman. I take the time each day to prioritize my tasks, meetings, etc.
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Turning off my phone works well for me.
Hardest to do, but really does work. So much of my work is connected to the phone that it's mostly impossible to do. Hence, I work great at night!
Oh, I agree with this. Or I just keep my phone away from my work table. Out of sight, out of mind :D
Agreed. Putting your phone away from your sight helps a lot.
You mean that because of calls? Because laptops (social, news, ....) are there also!
When you have your phone in sight, the notification beep and light on phone distracts and sometimes, puts focus aside from what I was doing on laptop. It kinda makes you "zone out" from a deep focus state. Maybe the same thing with calls as well.
At the end of the day, I close all my browser tabs and just look at my to-do list. I take the three things I want to get done tomorrow and put them at the top, uncategorized. I then think about those things for about 5-10min (no more than that, unless you want to get sucked into a late night) and then I log off. When you wake up, you'll look at your to-do list and realize that you have three main things to focus on, and you'll immediately recall what you thought about them the day before. You'll also get the benefits of sleeping on those thoughts.
I do it in the morning, but seems interesting your approach! i will test it.
interesting
I like this
yeah, just started forcing myself to do this one. I used to just clock out. Forcing myself to clean up the desktop definitely create a better start to the day.
Awesome, great to hear! Yeah, for some reason I find this activity to be more effective personally at the end of a day instead of the morning. Mornings are foggy for me and it's nice to wake up to a list of three goals instead of having to mentally get myself there in the morning while I'm still trying to get my caffeine levels right ;)
Stopping work on an exciting note, e. g. with one simple unfinished task. Makes you wanna go back to it.
This seems interesting :). I can recognize lots of times when that worked for me even though I did not do that intentionally. I will try to do that more often. Thanks
This one I'm going to try!
haha, this is a neat trick, I'm going to try this 😂
Writing down current tasks and working in accordance to the plan.
this alone is powerful enough to reduce a ton of anxiety.
Productivity is not the problem, priority is. And once you have a task list that is solved.
yep, agreed. Writing my "intentions" for the day has changed my life.
A cup of coffee, and some sound around. Nighttime really helps since the rest of the world is off.
If sounds work well for you, try Brain.fm, it works wonders for me :)
Thanks, checked the product out and not sure having this over Spotify or Youtube is much more valuable. I can get the same in those locations. Just can't see paying for another service. Appreciate the send though. Interesting nonetheless!
Oh yea sorry I forgot it's not free, I've had a lifetime coupon on it or something. I can't to heavy tasks without it anymore.
Mine is an extension to yours. Its picking the right thing to work and time framing it. Whenever I pick up a task I time frame it. Otherwise the schedule goes haywire.
totally agree. Currently looking for a way to block my hours in the day to only do specific tasks. Once the time is up, I move to the next task.
Hey! I almost developed a time boxing app. I feel like the aren't great options out there. Google calendars is ok, but it's a bit of a pain to manage on mobile. Toggl's pretty decent actually... still leaves a bit to be desired though.
Alt Pomodoro Technique : 40 Min Spritns , 5 min breaks. after 4 sprints a long break 30 min. And I use to control the time the App Be focused Pro ( for mac)
yeah this makes a lot of sense. You may want to check out what is working on. Similar concept, but they offer up good content during that break,
Nice I will checkout
Lately, while I am working at home with the fam: Noise Isolating Headphones. I get so much more done when I am not constantly distracted.
lol, yes, these are a godsend... especially with the yippy little dog that lives next door to me 😂 What headphones do you use?
Currently, I'm trying something I call the Daily Sitdown. It's like the daily standup meeting, but it's close to the end of the day. It really helps people clarify, in their minds, how productive they were that day. I find that it helps me to be mindful about what I'm working on, and it lets the rest of my team know they can count on each other to deliver.
And do you do it in a meeting? Or sharing this with the team? Or it is for you alone? Interesting!
we haven’t been doing it in a meeting, just because we tend to finish up at different times. But, I’d like to try that out. We’re all remote now, so any excuse to have a quick, real-time chat with my teammates (or anyone, for that matter) is a net positive!
hmm interesting. We've been running the standard morning standup, but flipping it might have some interesting results. Have you tried both?
we do both! The standup has been super helpful, too.
Doing one thing at a time. It's been the hardest thing for me to do. I keep too many tabs open and keep shifting between things. Which is always messy and nothing gets ticked off my list. So now I make a list and do only one thing at a time, even if it means having to hold off replies to the team. Tick off one thing, then get back to next and in between keep time for team conversations. Works wonders for me and I recommend to everyone who starts doing too much together!
Good one! Multitasking and millions of tabs open kills my focus too!
The most productive things are perhaps the hardest to do! :D
Just to kind of piggyback off this, I also keep too many tabs open :) I find that "cleaning" my desktop at the end of the day (i.e. closing all tabs, removing everything from my desktop) has a cathartic effect.
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