Productivity is made up of 3 things: time, attention, energy.

Need them all

Values
As a result of implementing the below tactics, you have 2 more hours of leisure time every day.
How will you use that time? Write that shit down now.

Impact - 20/80 rule: 20% of your tasks contribute at least 80% of your value
1. List out everything youre responsible for in your work.
2. After youve collected a list of everything youre responsible for, ask yourself: If you could
only do 3 things on that list all day, every day, what items would you do that allow you to
accomplish the most in the same amount of time? This is your 20%

Rule of 3
1. At the beginning of every day, mentally fast-forward to the end of the day, and ask
yourself: When the day is over, what three things will I want to have accomplished?
Write those things down.
2. Do the same at the beginning of every week

Prefrontal cortex/creativity most active immediately after you wake up

Gain 13.6 years of your life back by cutting out TV!!!

To Defeat Procrastination
When procrastinating:
1. Create a procrastination list - make a list of meaningful and high-impact tasks
2. List the costs of putting something off
3. Just get started - tell yourself youll work for 10 min, often after 10 min its much easier to
continue and you wont want to stop

Future You
Connect with future you - he shouldnt be a stranger
Your future self usually gets the short end of the stick - dont commit your future self to things
your current self wouldnt want to do
1. Look at older you using AgingBooth
2. Send a letter to your future self - FutureMe.org
3. Create a future memory - Imagine a better, more productive version of yourself down the
line

Disconnecting from the Internet

Lets you reclaim mindlessly wasted time and attention
Makes it easier to focus on higher-impact tasks
Chriss tricks:
Shut off smartphone between 8pm and 8am
Whenever you can, switch smartphone and laptop into airplane mode to hunker down on
the most unattractive and high impact tasks
When you notice yourself surfing on autopilot, use that as a trigger to disconnect

Set a timer, get more done in less time

Work based on energy levels

 Block off Biological Prime Times on calendar, set a reminder 30 and 15 min before your
prime time starts as cues for hunkering down on your most important and high-impact
tasks
Chris disables the clock on his computer. He has his calendar notify him when its time
to switch modes before meetings/appointments.

Maintenance Day
Throughout the week, collect all low-return maintenance tasks on a list and do them all on
Sunday.
Stuff on Chriss list (he spends 4-6 hrs on Sunday):
Grocery shopping, clean house and office, create a meal and workout plan, do laundry,
prepare lunches in Tupperware containers for the week, water plants, read articles
saved up throughout the week, review projects and define next steps, review Waiting
For list, define 3 outcomes for the week ahead, clear out all inboxes, review hot spots,
review Accomplishment List
Multitask:
Listen to a podcast or audiobook (Chris gets through half a book each time), plan for a
vacation, practice a new skill
Skype someone
Let your mind wander

Shrinking the Unimportant

Schedule 1-3 30-min chunks of time per day to deal with email
Limit checking social media to 5 times per day
Set up a temporary autoresponder for 1-2 days to work on a high impact project w/o
distractions
Make it a rule to make all emails 5 sentences or less (For your benefit and mine, I keep
every email I sent to 5 sentences or less)
Send-it-later email plugin: Boomerang, Right Inbox for Gmail; SendLater for Outlook
Chris checks email 3x/week: Mon Wed Fri 3pm; also has a second priority inbox
Cut down meeting times, ask friend for 1-min recap instead of going, suggest ending the
meeting 10 min earlier

Removing the Unimportant

Low return tasks like managing your calendar, booking appointments, researching and booking
trips, website maintenance, hiring and managing other contractors can be delegated to others
Good virtual assistant is $15-30/hr
Hiring someone in a different time zone can be advantageous, get shit done while you
sleep
Always check VA references, make sure theyre good
FancyHands.com, Zirtual.com, Eahelp.com for hiring VAs
Freelancer.com, Upwork.com for per-task hiring
Job postings at local colleges to hire an intern, Help wanted posts on Craigslist/Twitter
Say No as often as you can to low yield shit

Emptying Your Brain - head is not for holding ideas - its for having ideas; externalize ideas
to clear your mind, increase focus!!!
How: Throughout the day, as tasks or ideas grab your attention, put them in your notes
app synced with all your devices
 Every Mon, Wed, Fri after you check email, go through notes and add them to to-do list
or calendar
To-do list:
o note pinned to the top of your list of notes
o Contains your 3 daily and weekly intentions at the top, with task list underneath
When youre away from devices (like after 8pm shutoff ritual) use pen and notepad in
your pocket
Best tools to organize and deal with all tasks and projects:
Waiting For list: list of everything youre waiting on, from Amazon packages, to
important email responses youre expecting, to money youre owed, to important
calls/letters youre waiting for
o Review Mon, Wed, Fri after email
o Keep list in notes app so everything is in one place
o Group items on list by context (Home, Owed, Email, Phone, etc)
Individual project notes: in your notes app, keep a separate note for each project
youre tackling
o Every project note contains info about each project that you need to keep in mind
to move the projects forward, and most important, the very next actions to take
with each project
o Titles of all project notes start with PRO so theyre all in one place when you
scroll
o Every Maintenance Day: scan through your list of projects to define next steps,
and pull to-dos from them to add to your task list and weekly intentions
o B/c of this, Chris can take on dozens of projects at once while hardly ever
thinking about them
Worry list: if things are spiraling out of control, make a list of everything youre worrying
about and schedule an hour during the day to think through everything.
Inbox review: on Maintenance Day, review and empty all inboxes. Also clear out ideas
and tasks accumulated in notes app
Keep notepads everywhere: AquaNotes notepad in the shower, notepad on bedside
table with a light-up pen, notepad in pocket
Simpler passwords: 1Password or LastPass to fill in pwds automatically; letter to the
left of each letter of the website, plus your code tacked on thats the same for all your
pwds
Archive/search for your emails, dont put them in folders

Hot Spots
7 areas in which we invest our time/attention/energy: mind, body, emotions, career, finances,
relationships, fun
A scannable list of your 7 hot spots with all the commitments you have in each one
o Chriss Mind section includes: learning, meditation, reading, music, mindfulness,
slowing down and working more deliberately, making more attentional space
between work and life elements
Idea: each Maintenance Day, review your list of hot spots, evaluate how you did that
week, think about what you need to change in the week ahead
Make a master list of projects, with projects grouped under each of your hot spots
o Chriss Finances hot spot includes: pay off student loan, do taxes, spend less
money on eating out and delivery, create a budget for next year, save up for a
vacation in Ireland
As new hot spot elements come to you, capture them in your notes app and add them to
the list when you clear your notes a few times a week
For at least 15 min every day, sit in a room with pen and notepad, let your mind wander,
and jot down all your ideas.

Shut off every single notification on your phone and laptop.

20 Second Rule from psychologists: Keep negative distractions (like phone) at least 20
seconds away from where you work

Multitasking feels really good, but is completely unproductive, as shown by ALL studies.
Single task as often as possible
Only multitask when youre doing mindless work, like on Maintenance Day

Pomodoro technique to be highly focused on one task:

Work on only one task for 25 min, take a 5 min break. After four of these cycles, take a 15 min
break. Repeat.

Meditate!!!
In Chriss opinion, for each minute of meditation, you gain back 10 min of productivity
Helps you focus better, waste less time, work more intentionally, makes it easier to
identify high-return tasks, and gives your prefrontal cortex more power over your limbic
system
Chris meditates 30 min a day, but even 1 min each day makes a profound difference
Chris recommends at least 5 min each day. You can do anything for 5 min!

Eating for Energy

Eat more unprocessed (lower glycemic index) foods that take longer to digest

Drink Coffee Strategically not Habitually

Before big tasks like giving an important presentation or writing a big paper. Otherwise,
keep coffee drinking to a minimum
If you wake up between 6-8am, 9:30-11:30am is the optimal time, only if you have an
extra large task to tackle.
Caffeine hurts creativity - dont drink caffeine before working on a task that involves
creativity
Stop drinking caffeine 8-14hrs before bedtime. Coffees effect is good 1:30-5:30 as well
but then it interferes with sleep
Green tea and matcha are good alternatives, ease caffeine crash
Use energy crash strategically: drink coffee 12 hrs before an overnight flight, time coffee
intake so crash coincides with new bedtime overseas

Water
Drinking 1L water first thing in the morning - fires up your metabolism, making it 24%
faster
Lose 4.5 lbs over 3 months by drinking a glass of water before every meal
For max energy throughout the day, buy a 1L water bottle and fill it 4x/day for males,
3x/day for females

Exercise every day

For every hour of sleep you miss out on, you lose at least 2 hours of productivity!

Sleeping Your Way to Productivity

Create a nighttime ritual
o Pick a very specific time to head to bed and plan out when youll start your ritual
to ease out of the day
o Chriss ritual includes meditation, reflection time
Less blue light before you sleep
o Shut off electronics 2-3 hrs before bed
o Blue-blocking sunglasses for when you have to make an exception and use
electronics late at night
o f.lux on your computer (justgetflux.com)
o Expose yourself to more natural light during the day (e.g. window)
Nap in the middle of the workday instead of drinking coffee
Stop drinking caffeine 8-14 hrs before you sleep

Be Kind to Yourself
1. Break for at least 15 min every hour
2. Every night, write down the 3 biggest things youre grateful for from that day
3. Journal about a positive experience you had at the end of each day
4. Add structure to larger projects by creating subgoals - like video games
5. When faced with a challenge, ask yourself for advice - what advice would you give
yourself in your situation?
6. Reward yourself to create/solidify habits
7. Know you can grow - Carol Dwecks Mindset
8. Review your Accomplishments List each Maintenance Day - so you recognize the
achievements your increased productivity leads to

Productivity is one of the keys to happiness - happiness is one of the keys to

productivity

Attitude towards productivity: Its a good thing to never feel fully satisfied - as long as
you find ways to continually cultivate happiness along the way.

People are why we do what we do, and why we push ourselves to accomplish more.
Surrounding ourselves with people makes us happier, more engaged, and makes us
want to be more productive. People are the reason for productivity.