With the collective reset of a new year — and after the sluggishness of the holidays — you might be thinking that it’s the perfect time to recommit yourself to productivity. No more mind wandering, you might declare, no more distractions. But before you go searching for the next greatest tool for focus and optimization, consider that for generations, people were already pretty effective at getting stuff done. “One hundred and fifty years ago, if we were on farms, sun goes down, you’re done,” says Alex Soojung-Kim Pang, author of Rest: Why You Get More Done When You Work Less, “or the factory whistle blew and you got to put down your tools and go home, or more likely, go to the bar.”
These days, in a digitally connected, always-on world, there’s no end point to your day, no upper limit to what you can accomplish. The pressure to constantly perform is exacerbated by an industry that profits from scheduling tools, distraction blockers, and intricate journals and organizers.
Here’s a secret: There isn’t one “hack” or secret to ultimate productivity, one way to get it all done. Each person has unique systems and approaches to get their work done, so one influencer’s in-depth morning routine (which is also … their job) may be constructive for them but a time suck for you. Instead, experts say, tried-and-true methods are more effective than anything billed as a revolutionary new fix. “Computers can’t make hard work less hard to do, no matter how intricate their systems,” Cal Newport, a Georgetown University professor and author of Slow Productivity: The Lost Art of Accomplishment Without Burnout, says in an email. “Some of the most productive people I know use the most basic tools; e.g., a calendar and some text files.”
Rather than provide more “productivity hacks,” here’s a reminder of how you’re already accomplishing enough — and some small reframes that won’t require you to wake up at 5 am.
You don’t need anything more intense than a to-do list
Trendy organizational systems or routines have the unique ability to waste more time than they save. “Any productivity system that involves more work to maintain the system than doing the work itself — get it out,” says Sahar Yousef, a cognitive neuroscientist and faculty member at the Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley. The one old-fashioned, low-tech method that most people have success with is the trusty to-do list.
Maintain a longer list of everything you need to get done over the course of a few weeks and then create daily task lists. The key to a functional daily to-do list, Yousef says, is prioritizing up to three “most important tasks” each day and using small gaps between meetings or other duties to knock out a handful of “least important tasks.” Write your daily to-do list on a sticky note, whiteboard, or other visible location. Start anew each day.
Don’t overthink where you keep your to-do list. For her longer-term list, Yousef is currently using a disposable sick bag from a recent flight. “The to-do list is on the back of a puke bag, and it’s stuffed into my purse right now,” she says. “I take that thing out every day, and I go, ‘Okay, this is the thing I need to do today.’ And then that gets pulled out and put on a different list for my day and that’s my priority list.” Keep this longer-term list going for a couple of days or weeks and start fresh when you’re about to start a new week or project.
As for the timeline of when you’ll accomplish these tasks, many people naturally gravitate toward deadlines, Yousef says. Whether self-imposed or through the nature of the job, the power of the deadline helps workers plan and stay on task. “We know that that is what actually triggers a great deal of dopamine in the human brain, that sense of urgency, that deadline,” she says.
The best productivity software of all is your calendar
If you want to map out your to-do list onto your day, Newport suggests leveraging your calendar to schedule your work time and meetings. Carve out time in your day to work on specific projects and that project alone. “Work on one thing until you reach a stopping point,” he says. “Then check your email/Slack. Then work on something else to a stopping point.”
Scheduling your day can help you avoid the allure of multitasking. “Recognize that if you work on too many things at the same time, you’ll create a cognitive log jam that will slow everything down,” Newport continues. “It sounds paradoxical at first, but working on fewer things in the moment means you’ll accomplish more things over time.”
But don’t be so rigid with your scheduling that you interrupt time spent in deep thought and flow, Yousef says. If you find yourself focused and taken in by a task, feel free to go beyond the allotted time you’ve set and embrace your natural productivity. “You have to allow yourself the flexibility to take advantage when the energy hits, when the focus is there, when the opportunity arises,” she says.
Protecting your free time can help others protect theirs, too
By now, professional boundary-setting has become a mainstream way to prevent the off-hours work creep and to reclaim free time. Instead of viewing this pursuit as an individual one, Pang says we should think of protecting nonwork hours collectively. Ignoring email while at the playground with your kids benefits not only you (who gets to enjoy time with your children distraction-free) but also the person on the other end who also won’t feel pressured to respond immediately.
Everyone reaps the rewards “if everybody cooperates and works together to create time for other people, as well as creating time for yourself,” Pang says. “It’s not just you having to hack together a schedule that allows you to get the kids to soccer practice … just for yourself and your own family. But it is an effort that is supported by your colleagues and that is reinforced by schedules, working habits, and social norms in your workplace that enable it.” Understanding that everyone is entitled to free time allows you to respect others’ and your own.
Don’t try so hard at being productive
If there’s one productivity hack to take with you, it’s to stop thinking about your output altogether. The time spent consuming productivity hacks on TikTok may make you feel worse about your personal output than inspire you. “It’s creating the impression that you must do these things,” Yousef says, “otherwise things won’t get done.” In fact, the methods and systems that have gotten you this far are probably all you need.
“Constant efforts to optimize yourself are more exhausting than they are rewarding,” Pang says. “Very often, if we want to have better lives, to be more creative people, to be more fulfilled at work or in our personal lives, the wiser solution is not to try so hard to do those things.”
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