The Five Small But Powerful Productivity Changes I’ve Made In 2023 That Have 10x My Results.
Your results today are downstream from your productivity yesterday.
Photo by Andreas Klassen on Unsplash
I know what you’re probably thinking.
Not another toxic productivity post.
But the essence of productivity is to create more freedom, not shackle you to working 14-hour days. That’s dumb.
Productivity is a form of self-care that helps me live the life that I want.
Here are five powerful changes I’ve made in 2023 that have transformed my results (so far).
#1: Batching my tasks according to my energy levels, not just time.
There is a cost to starting a new task.
To overcome the costs of context-switching, I group similar tasks together and execute them all at once.
Time block them in your calendar for when you know you have the energy to complete them.
I batch all my writing between 7:30am — 11:30am.
I batch all my client work and meetings between 1:00pm — 5:00pm.
I batch all my content creation on the weekends.
Batch to match your energy levels, not just the time of the day.
I would never batch my writing in the evening. I am effectively useless at this point in the day.
Batching allows me to:
Produce 1–2 Medium articles per week
Produce 1 Newsletter for my business per week
Post 5–6 times per week on LinkedIn
Post 5–6 times per week on Instagram
Run 3 businesses
All without burning out. Incredible.
#2: Implementing bimodal thinking throughout my week
There are two new mindsets I’ve developed.
The Pilot.
The Engineer.
The Pilot’s job is to fly the productivity plane.
The Engineer’s job is to build and maintain the productivity plane.
From Monday — Friday, I am in Pilot mode. This is where the rubber hits the road. My productivity system will come into contact with real life. I’ll experience delays, hit turbulence, and occasionally make a crash landing.
I record all the things that went wrong on my Trello Board.
I don’t try to solve issues unless they are urgent.
From Saturday — Sunday, I am in Engineer mode. I take all the data and feedback from the previous week and use it to diagnose the root cause of the issue, identify a solution and design a prototype.
I zoom out and view things from a bird’s eye view.
I zoom in and view things from a root cause perspective.
The two modes of thinking are important.
Many people correctly identify there’s a problem, but feel that they don’t have the ‘time’ to do anything about it. So they repeat the same mistakes over and over again. I did this for years.
My goal is to never experience the same issue twice. Since I’ve adopted the engineering mindset, I’ve saved myself at least 10 hours per month (maybe even more) and prevented issues from becoming catastrophes.
#3: Creating frequent and consistent checkpoints
I used to have a sprint mindset. Head down. Plow through the work.
Go, go, go.
Wrong.
I would often be sprinting for so long, I would lose track of what I was actually meant to be doing.
I’ve now adopted a Marathon approach. And just as in every Marathon, there are pit stops to rehydrate, rest and strategize.
I set 3 check-point dates:
Weekly reflections (7 days)
Monthly reflections (30 days)
Quarterly reflections (90 days)
Anything shorter than a week is too frequent. Anything longer than a quarter and I lose sight of what I was trying to achieve.
During the reflection sessions, I ask myself these questions:
Is what I am currently working on moving toward my long-term goals?
When I look at my calendar, what am I currently optimizing for?
What are my priorities? Is there anything I am overlooking?
These checkpoints prevent me from going too far down the wrong track.
I can pivot earlier and more frequently, course correcting when needed. No one intentionally creates a life they don’t want. It’s through omission that your life veers off course.
#4: Building an external online brain.
“Your brain is for having ideas, not storing them” — David Allen
What do Jerry Seinfeld and Taylor Swift have in common?
They document everything.
Every note, tidbit of an idea, or vague concept goes into a notebook. Physical or digital.
They don’t let any thought escape their mind.
By documenting everything, they always have a constant source of inspiration and ideas flowing through their mind.
By writing it down, they free their brain to keep thinking of ideas, instead of wasting bandwidth trying to keep track of everything.
This is how Seinfeld and Swift have been able to produce an incredible amount of high-quality creative work.
It’s not by accident, but they purposeful design.
I use Trello as my notes app. My Trello board is set up with:
Projects in the pipeline (upcoming or planned)
Active Project List (anything that requires more than one decision to complete)
Next action list (tangible next steps to take within 1–2 days)
Finished projects (done and dusted baby!)
Someday / maybe list (ideas that I want to do, but aren’t priorities)
Errands (any life or business admin)
Reference materials (cool books, podcasts, ideas, quotes)
Key checklists (travel checklist, writing checklist, etc)
Random thoughts and ideas (worries or concerns real or perceived).
This board captures everything in mind. Whenever I have a thought I immediately put it into this board under one of the headings.
Knowing that I won’t forget about something is incredibly liberating. When you’ve got a system for processing and actioning life and business data, it reduces your stress 10 fold.
I review this board every Sunday to see what my current priorities are and if I can action any random thoughts and ideas or cross off anything I’ve completed during the week.
You can use any technology to do this. You don’t need to use Trello.
The point is not to focus on the software, focus on your intentions.
The truth is, any piece of project management software will work for you if you know why you’re using it.
#5: Delegate and automate, elevate and then liberate.
Here’s how:
Audit all your frequent tasks
Rate how much each task brings you joy out of 10 (10 being the most joy).
For anything below a rating of 8, look to delegate or automate.
The criteria for delegation or automation:
Rules-based
Repetitive
Manual (i.e inputting data into a spreadsheet).
Automation:
I use Zapier to automate tasks and actions between software.
I use ConvertKit to automate my email marketing campaigns.
I use ChatGPT to automate email responses and ideation.
Delegation:
Anything that still needs human input, I give to my virtual assistants.
Editing reels, videos, and podcasts
Design
Reposting articles
Scheduling
Since doing this, I’ve been able to focus all my time on building high-value, high-leverage products, and services.
I maximize to do work that scales over time. Everything else gets automated, delegated, or not done at all.
Here have been the results so far (since Jan 2023)
Much less stress and more joy (priceless).
I’ve signed more than $50,000 worth of client projects in the first quarter of 2023, with a strong pipeline of leads.
More high-quality time with family and friends (again, priceless).
I’ve stopped working on Sundays completely and only do a few tasks on Saturdays (if I need to).
And this is just the beginning. Once I continue to work out the kinks in my system, I can scale this to do more with less effort.
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