Some thoughts on working more effectively

A watercolor I painted 12 years ago. No perfectionism here!

Below are a smattering of thoughts on productivity, efficiency, and just getting things done. I've been obsessed with order, process, and planning for almost all my life.

However, all advice is given through the lens of the advice giver. The most important part of productivity is focusing on what matters to you.

If you are new to all of this, read Getting Things Done (GTD) & Seven Habits of Highly Successful People.

If you are a productivity geek, check out Atomic Habits, Better than Before, and The Power of Habit.

Choose a system to write stuff down and stick with it. Do not flip between Evernote, your email, and a piece of paper.

Per GTD principles, try to only touch something once. When you get an email either respond, ignore, or forward on. This is called do, defer, or delegate. If any item will take you less than 2 minutes to do, just do it.

I'm a huge fan of followupthen.com which allows you to forward emails for yourself on a specific day.

Use a password manager because copy + pasting passwords and remembering them is a huge time suck.

Automate repetitive things like bills, deliveries, savings, etc. Learn a few keyboard shortcuts.

Get plenty of sleep, drink water, and exercise.

The advice below progresses from work to personal life.

Hiring good people — People say they want to hire good people, but many organizations have employees that make you think, 'how the heck did you get here?' When hiring, look for people smarter than you and that you respect.

& delegate to them — You don't have to have someone work for you to delegate to them. If you find yourself doing something that you think, 'God why am I doing this?' you should immediately identify someone to whom you can delegate that task.

Say no ruthlessly — I don't have many obligations. Almost everything I do in my life is because I want to do it.

Let things that don't matter go, no perfectionism — Perfectionism is the killer of productivity because you continuously revise and second-guess yourself.

Most decisions are reversible, start making more — There are very few things in life that are not easily undone. I haven't finished reading Thinking in Bets but that is another good book on decision making.

Believe in your work & enjoy the process — It's a lot easier to get stuff done if you actually care about what you're doing. Another aspect of enjoying your work is enjoying the process of getting work done. This is called the 'progress principle.'

Be clear in what you want and write it down — A huge inhibitor to productivity is not knowing what to work on. Write it down. A tactical, necessary thing related to writing it down: Process documentation.

Understand yourself, your ambitions and stop making excuses — Are you reading this and nodding but then excusing yourself for not doing certain things?

None of the above matters if you don't have the building blocks in place — Ultimately, in order to live a productive life, you need to have your values aligned with how you live your life. There is a reason why 'making your bed' is popular advice for being a happier person.