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Time is our most valuable asset, but we often undervalue it. Most people aren't intentional about how they spend their time, yet we want to be productive. To be productive and get stuff done, you need to analyze how you're spending your time, then optimize it. This playbook will help you do that.
If you want to be more productive, time management is key. If you have a lot of stuff to do with limited time, you need to learn how to prioritize. Not all tasks are equal. Learn how to prioritize what matters, and as a result, what to spend you time on. Learning how to prioritize is a whole other exercise, but you have start by asking yourself, "What's important to me? What will give me the most value?"
Productivity Hacks
Follow these 3 steps to achieve a higher level of productivity. Invest the time into mastering your schedule and task management - it will pay off in the long term.
Step 1: Understand how you're currently spending your time.
🗓 Use Google Calendar and visualize each day.
Specifically pay attention to:
- Where your gaps are.
- Times in the day you are usually unproductive or get distracted.
- Pockets of time you could be productive in (like transit).
- During these times, think about how you can be doing things that add value to you, like listening to podcasts or reading articles/papers.
- Activities you do that are not giving you value.
- If you identify things you're doing that don't give you value, cut them out. Take initiative and control of your time. Stop doing things that don't help you grow, and replace them with high value activities.
Step 2: Create your optimal day.
Time Dedication: 4 weeks minimum.
Create a schedule for yourself that aligns with what you want. For example, if you're more productive in the morning, start your day earlier and get stuff done in the morning. If you like to code at night, then schedule time to do those types of activities at night. Make sure you schedule time for the following activities:
- Learning new knowledge that will give you long-term value (e.g. working on your Focus).
- Building real-world skills.
- Fitness/Health
- Relationships (friends and family)
- School work
- Sleep
- Fun/relaxation time
- Bonus: thinking time (5-10min where you intentionally do nothing but think).
Step 3: Organize yourself
Time Dedication: 4 weeks minimum.
Use a task manager to organize your life. I recommend using Notion or Trello. Here's one example of how someone uses Trello to organize their life: click here. Another way to organize Trello is by categorizing your tasks by type (School, TKS, Club A, Club B...). You should develop your own method that works best for you. In Trello, list all of your tasks. Inside those tasks, make sure you set the due date and priority level. Notion has the same features as Trello... you can figure it out.
Once you have all your tasks listed out, you'll be less stressed and more organized. You can then allocate time in your calendar to complete your tasks. This is important, because if you don't make time for work on your tasks, they will never get done.
Step 4: Eisenhower Matrix
After you have a list of all your tasks, you can put them on an Eisenhower Matrix. This will help you understand what is:
- Important & Urgent
- Important & Not Urgent
- Not Important & Urgent
- Not Important & Not Urgent
Click below to see what the matrix look like. Then add your tasks in the squares to help you understand what to prioritize.
Advanced Productivity Hacks
Daily Updates
Time Dedication: 8 weeks minimum.
Once you feel you have developed you optimal day and you've organized yourself, you can start doing daily updates to keep you accountable and productive. The goal behind daily updates is to be intentional about each day. This is one of the best methods to living on optimal life → living optimal days.
To learn more about daily updates, click here to see the playbook.
🔑 If you decide to do daily updates, you need to commit to doing this every morning for 10 weeks.
Track Daily Habits
Time Dedication: 4 weeks minimum.
Make a list of 4-8 important things you want to make sure you do each day. Then, get a whiteboard at home and track completing each habit at the end of the day. You want to hold yourself accountable and visually see and check off what you've done and didn't do. Here are some examples of daily habits:
- Worked out
- Did a brain training session on Elevate (highly recommended)
- Ate healthy
- Meditated for 10min
- Sent my morning daily update
- Got (x) hours of sleep
- Did something kind for someone
Theme Days
Many CEOs use theme days - Jack Dorsey is a great example. He is the CEO of Twitter and Square, 2 publicly traded billion dollar companies. To manage this, he uses theme days. This means that certain days are dedicated to specific areas. For example, Monday might be Twitter Product, Tuesday could be Twitter Leadership, Wednesday might be Square Investors, etc. This way he can focus. When people try doing too many things in one day, they lose productivity from switching costs. This is the mental cost when switching activities. It takes time to enter a flow state and focus on a task. By setting theme days, you can reduce switching costs and increase focus + time on a specific priority area.
Other Resources
🔑 Study hacks blog (highly recommend): https://www.calnewport.com/blog/
Use Google Calendar to time block.
Note Taking Apps: For taking notes and keeping them organized, check out Notion and Obsidian.
Daily Notebook Planners: Daily planners have worked for a lot of people. Here are two good ones:
- Panda Planner: https://pandaplanner.com/
Want more?
Watch this 3 part workshop on productivity from a world renown expert: https://tksworld.notion.site/Productivity-Workshop-Mike-Williams-d963b3cb566b47a8a4522a6671187d0c
Listen to this scientific in-depth podcast by Andrew Humberman that a lot of TKS alumni really liked: