productivity hacks

As pathetic as it sounds, I recently (started in January) blocking out my mornings. No calls, no meetings, just all to-do list items from 9-11am. I'm the most productive in the mornings so I've protected my mornings. An incredible hack that just took way too long to implement.

Knolling is a really specific system that involves laying all your stuff out at specific angles, but I take the broader idea as: don’t make cleaning and organizing into A Thing, just always be doing it. I’ve been trying to adopt this recently, and it is awesome. When I’m on a phone call, I tidy up my desk. When I’m waiting for something to export,

“You want to frame your goals in terms of “do” behaviors versus “don’t” behaviors. It’s easier to measure progress when engaging in proactive decisions or proactive behaviors rather than abstaining from things. You say, “Okay, I want to be a runner. I’m going to start by running half a mile every day.” That’s going to be easier to track than “I’m

In addition, if you can code 10x as fast, you also get to do 10x as much coding practice, which will probably lead to yet more improvements.

There is research showing that when we introduce what are known as “emergency reserves,” basically “get out of jail free” cards, into the process of goal setting, we’re much more likely to stay the course and to reach those goals.