Being more productive isn’t just about efficiency and checking off more items as “done.” If you want to unlock your peak productivity, it’s about focusing on the tasks which most require your attention. Actions should align with long-term goals too. And of course, you want to do these tasks well!
In this article, let’s work smarter by aligning work habits with high-impact tasks, leveraging natural rhythms, using strategic tools, and more.
Table of Contents
The content has been organized into three categories. Apart from the basics which are essential, any of the suggestions can be employed individually, or in a mix-and-match combination that best fits your needs.
The Basics
Before looking at techniques to work more efficiently and effectively, let’s start with the basics.
Focus on What’s Important
If you want to unlock your peak productivity, you need more than tips or tricks. You need to consider which tasks need your attention and also do them well. Remember: Efficiency doesn’t equal effectiveness.
Work Efficiently
Now let’s maximize output without losing time or energy on low-value tasks. The following strategies will help you streamline your workflow, minimize distractions, and make the most of every minute.
- Automate Recurring Tasks
- Avoid Multitasking
- Minimize Distractions
- Set a Pomodoro Timer
- Learn to Say “No”
- Use Ultradian Rhythms
Know Your Work Habits
It starts with understanding how you work best. At its simplest, maybe you are a morning person who works effectively and efficiently before lunch. Or maybe you instead are someone who isn’t fully productive until much later in the day. Or perhaps you easily struggle with distractions.
However, there are other aspects to consider too. For example, do you focus better with background music? Do you find that meetings drain your energy, so it’s best to do deep work first?
Self-awareness allows you to maximize your productivity.
How: Start with self-reflection and track your most productive hours during the week. Ask yourself:
- When do you get the most done?
- When is it harder to filter out distractions?
- When do you start to lose focus?
As you identify these patterns, you can begin structuring your day for peak performance.
Get Comfortable with Boredom
You won’t always feel excited or motivated about every task, responsibility, or project. Boredom is an inevitable aspect of work, no matter how much you enjoy what you do.
And it’s more than just the repetitive sorts of tasks, though. There are systems, processes, and best practices to build and iterate, and which may not feel especially interesting or glamorous.
Consider that you can improve your productivity just by starting, despite a lack of motivation. If you wait, no matter the reason you tell yourself, it’s just procrastination. And then you end up scrambling to meet deadlines and creating unnecessary stress for yourself.
How: Acknowledge that boredom is part of any process. Set a time to start, and commit to beginning even when you don’t feel like it.
Create a To-Do List
You shouldn’t view your to-do list as a collection of tasks you revisit once a week. Even once a day might be too infrequent.
Here’s what often happens: As you work, you have ideas and also remember other needs. For example, you realize that you want to share some data with a team member. Although sharing the data is important and deserves your attention, it’s just not relevant or important at this exact moment.
When you add to your to-do list throughout the day, you ensure that these thoughts don’t distract you nor are they forgotten.
How: When thoughts arise, jot them down. Review the list later in the day, or even as your final action of the day, reprioritizing what needs your attention.
A well-organized to-do list ensures you stay focused on what truly matters. Cut down on detours of your own making to unlock your peak productivity and make consistent progress toward your goals.
Use the Eisenhower Matrix
The Eisenhower Matrix comes from the practice of US President Dwight Eisenhower, and it serves as an important best practice to ensure you focus on only the most important tasks. The Matrix separates your tasks into four distinct categories based on urgency and importance, requiring you to think carefully about all of your to-dos.
Too many of the tasks on which you spend time and energy don’t deserve your attention. They might feel urgent but actually aren’t. For example, responding to emails may feel urgent, but are they all truly important? Or what is the benefit of inbox zero? Do either truly move the team or organization forward?
With the Eisenhower Matrix, you better understand what to eliminate, delegate, and automate. It’s a visual of your to-dos.
How: Divide your tasks into four categories and take the following actions:
- Urgent and Important: These tasks have clear deadlines or will cause a problem if not completed in a timely fashion. Prioritize these tasks to unlock your peak productivity.
- Important but Not Urgent: These tasks don’t have a set deadline. However, they bring you closer to your goals, so plan to do these later.
- Urgent but Not Important: Although these tasks have deadlines, they result in a poor use of your time and expertise. Delegate these tasks.
- Neither Urgent nor Important: These tasks don’t add any meaningful value or are repetitive. Eliminate or automate these tasks.
Eat the Frog!
This productivity hack also solves the problem of procrastination. With “Eat the Frog,” you tackle the most important and challenging task at the start of your day rather than putting it off until later.
The idea comes from a Mark Twain quote: “Eat a live frog first thing in the morning and nothing worse will happen to you the rest of the day.” And it’s rooted in cognitive load theory, specifically a difficult task which is not yet completed stays in the back of your mind. It continuously steals your focus and drains your energy.
But when you have taken care of the most challenging responsibility, you can approach other tasks later in the day with ease.
How: At the beginning of the day, identify the task which has the greatest importance and impact. Work until you have completed the task, or at least until you have completed a good chunk of it. And resist the urge to check emails or handle smaller, less significant tasks first.
Note: Ideally, use Eat the Frog with the Eisenhower Matrix.
Employ the 80/20 Rule
The Pareto Principle states that 20% of your tasks drive 80% of your results. When you understand and focus on the handful of high-leverage tasks, you make a much larger impact on your goals and performance.
In practice, this might mean that of the ten tasks on your to-do list, only two or three will have a real impact on the team and organization. Identifying and prioritizing those few tasks ensures that you maximize your efforts rather than squander time and energy on less important activities.
How: At the start of your day or week, identify the top 20% of tasks that will generate the most results. Dedicate 80% of your time and energy to these tasks, and avoid getting bogged down by the less important 80%.
Automate Recurring Tasks
Many recurring tasks, such as scheduling meetings, sending follow-up emails, or generating reports, can be automated. Set up systems that handle these repetitive tasks, which then allows you to focus on more strategic work.
In fact, according to research, up to 30% of daily tasks can be automated. When you eliminate routine work, you reduce decision fatigue and maintain the necessary mental bandwidth for more meaningful work.
How: Start with recurring tasks, and assess if these can be automated with templates and software. Schedule data downloads and report generation, for example. Or create a workflow which arranges meetings on the calendar, sends out reminder emails, and includes AI-generated meeting notes.
Avoid Multitasking
Multitasking is not just inefficient, it’s one of the fastest ways to reduce productivity. Our brains aren’t wired to handle multiple cognitive tasks at once. And studies show that juggling multiple tasks simultaneously decreases focus, resulting in increased time to complete each task. What’s more, because you are less focused, task quality also decreases.
In other words, resist the temptation to address multiple problems at once to unlock your peak productivity and achieve better results.
How: Be strict about what gets your attention. Focus on one task at a time, and also for an extended period of time. Tools like a Pomodoro timer (see below) can help you with your focus and dedicated time blocks.
Minimize Distractions
Distractions come in many forms, from emails and Slack messages, to coworkers asking questions, to even your own thoughts. It’s not just about losing a few minutes here or there, though. No matter how many minutes the shift in focus steals, it can take as much as 23 minutes to get back into a focused state!
Remember: Important decisions require deep thought. When you proactively manage distractions, you can focus on what truly matters.
How: To start, turn off unnecessary notifications. You don’t need pop-ups for emails or messages, and you instead should set specific times to check both. Also consider setting boundaries, such as time blocks on your calendar when no interruption is allowed, save for critical issues or emergencies. And lastly, use noise-canceling headphones to block out ambient noise, a real boon to working at home when the kids are around!
Set a Pomodoro Timer
The Pomodoro Technique involves working in focused intervals. You focus on one specific task, such as writing a report. Or you focus on one specific block of related tasks, such as going through emails and messages. The key?: Don’t switch from task to task.
A typical Pomodoro is 25 minutes with a 5-minute break. You repeat the 25-minute, 5-minute intervals three times, after which you take a longer break of 15-20 minutes. However, there is a lot of flexibility; for example, I prefer a time of 45 minutes, which guarantees enough time in the focus and flow but not before my productivity drops.
Whatever duration you set, it’s work, rest, and repeat.
How: As explained above, set a timer to solely work on one task. You can combine the Pomodoro Timer with the Eisenhower Matrix, Eat the Frog, the 80/20 Rule, or any other hacks which unlock your peak productivity.
Learn to Say “No”
Increasing output doesn’t necessarily mean increasing productivity if you don’t do what matters. And if you say “yes” to every request, you won’t be able to spend enough time on the most important to-dos. You end up working on tasks and projects which don’t align with team goals or contribute to your success.
Strive to be strategic with what you do. A “no” allows you to protect your time and focus.
How: Follow the below steps:
- Ask questions. It’s important to understand the request. That means talking about timelines, needs, ownership, and all of the other details. Also, are you the absolute best person to handle the request?
- Not only are the details important, but also the alignment with your priorities and goals. Does the request fit?
- There might be other benefits, such as new learning opportunities or working across teams. These will influence the decision.
- By saying “yes,” are you improving relationships, building rapport, or taking one for the team? These big-picture aspects should be given consideration.
- Other tasks will get bumped, and the impact should be clarified for existing tasks, responsibilities, and projects.
Use Ultradian Rhythms
Ultradian rhythms are the highs and lows during the day. A typical cycle lasts about 90 to 120 minutes of productivity, followed by a period with less energy. When we ignore the cycle and keep pushing forward, our cognitive performance declines. We work more slowly and make mistakes.
So don’t view breaks as a luxury. You might think powering past breaks feels productive, but doing so is counterproductive. Pay attention to your ultradian rhythm.
How: Break your day into blocks of work and breaks. During the breaks, step away from your desk for 15-20 minutes. Go for a walk, grab a coffee, stretch, or whatever; the point is a reset, so don’t check emails or do other low-priority tasks.
Conclusion
You have many choices if you want to unlock your peak productivity. The benefits compound as you adopt more than one, such as using the Eisenhower Matrix to identify what deserves your focus, Eat the Frog to spend your time on it, and a Pomodoro Timer to ensure you work at peak productivity.
But also keep in mind that consistency is key. When these actions become part of your daily habit, you make lasting improvements in how your work efficiency and effectiveness. Start with one or two suggested actions, make them a part of your routine, and then add more!