Productivity Hacks: This is What Works for Me

Basics first, hacks second and ideas for my fellow procrastinators last.

The basics:

1. Sleep: 7-8 hours is my sweet spot. After that time I wake up without an alarm. Unfortunately this is the most underrated habit in my profession. 
2. Eat: Regular meals with a good mix of carbs, proteins, fat, but little to no sugar. Almost impossible to continue to work after the „sugar high“ reverses itself. 
3. Run: Exercise helps to release stress AND to build up excitement (motivation booster!). The right exercise for you needs to be fun to become a habit. 
4. Brake: Two days of uninterrupted time off over the weekend to unwind - even if it means longer hours before. My mind will not unwind if there‘s that task I mean to „finish over the weekend…“ in the back of my head which prevents me from coming back to work with a fresh perspective Monday (which leads to best ideas).

Points above are the foundation for everything else. If one of these basic needs isn’t properly fulfilled for you on a regular basis (not speaking about the occasional mid-night oil, but real imbalances), read no further and fix that first. 

The hacks:

1. No multitasking: It never works. NEVER. Some people believe they are great multitaskers. They never are. Working on e-mails while in a meeting is disrespectful of other people‘s time. Listening-in for a call while working on a presentation will make work slower, output worse (and likely you haven’t properly grasped what was discussed on the call either). I’m much faster when I do things sequentially.
2. Block time: While „open door“ policy (or Homeoffice equivalent: „call me anytime“) are great to move quickly as a team, you need uninterrupted hours to work on things that require full attention. Depending on what I’m working on, I like to block 1-3 slots per day (90 min each is ideal, afterwards focus dwindles).
3. Bird or Owl: Do you work better in the morning or evening? I work great in the mornings and evenings but struggle in the early afternoon. Therefore I try to run in the middle of my day a few times a week. Thanks, Homeoffice!
4. Trust your intuition: Some decisions are best left to my gut, especially the ones that are within my area of expertise or that I have taken many times before (e.g., chose the next project to work on). That leaves analytical capacity and time for things I am less familiar with (e.g., writing a LinkedIn article..). 
5. Manage stress (up and down): I need a certain level of stress to feel challenged and perform at my best. For „important, but non-urgent“ tasks I intentionally increase stress levels, for example by unsolicitedly committing to a deadline. To release stress I ask myself „If everything goes wrong, what‘s the worst that can happen?“ (most of the time it‘s not that terrible after all), or go for a run.
6. Publicly appreciate what is going well: Colleagues like it. And l feel better, too, because it helps my mind focus on everything that is going well (of course I still need to fix what isn‘t but with this hack I can do it in a better mood :))

The deep-dive for procrastinators:

Sometimes motivation is nowhere to be found. Instead of falling back to unhelpful habits (like checking social media….), there are a few tricks that do help:

1. Eat the frog: If I have procrastinated on a task before, I do it as the very first thing in the morning. Hesitation would lead me back into the cycle of procrastination.
2. Small steps: Dis-assemble an impossible task into many small steps, write them on a to-do list and take the items one by one.  
3. Change of environment: Go for a walk, go home from the office and try again there, take „lap“-top literally and work from the sofa… 
4. Talk to someone: When I‘m stuck, describing my thoughts to someone else oftentimes lead to a breakthrough and motivation comes back. 

Despite knowing what works for me and my best efforts to act accordingly I don‘t always do what‘s best for me. Could be due to an important deadline, a new task that I‘m taking on because I‘m passionate about it, or simply not sufficient self-discipline. And I believe that’s ok as long as I return to a balance.

My hacks are not universal. Personality, job, family situation are all important factors for choosing one‘s personal hacks. 

What Works for You?