Staying Productive

May 28th, 2020
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17 min read

Table of Contents

Advice on this is complicated to give:

There’s no single good approach. What works is experimenting with lots of good approaches and finding the few that work for you. I’m going to list many of them briefly here, and it will take some time to figure out what works for you.

Before trying any of these, start by disregarding one-size-fits-all models of productivity. Most self-help advice takes simplistic, standardized ideas of getting work done and often tangles them with shame. Not all of it is bad, and a few excellent resources do have nuanced advice. I’ve linked some at the end of this page, but only a small fraction of advice out there is actually worth reading. Hopefully this is one of them.

With any of these sections, try it for some time before writing it off. Two weeks is a good rule of thumb, but feel free to adjust based on your best judgment. There will be an adjustment period when you try anything new, but you should be able to tell fairly quickly after that if something actually works.

It’s also important to realize there’s no shame if a section doesn’t work for you. As you try and drop things, you might feel pretty negative at first, but it’ll fade as you experiment more and start seeing these as a box of tools you’re filtering through.

You’ll likely need a combo of many strategies that’s unique to you, so keep experimenting with strategies and their combinations. It might take a while until you’re fully at your peak, but even the journey there will start improving things early. You might read this list (and others out there) and realize you’re already doing some of these well; start with that.

Never forget: always be kind to yourself. It’s an introspective process and many parts can get uncomfortable.

Time of the Day

Some people work better in the morning, some in the evening, and some are exclusively night owls. Try different times and schedule productivity around what works for you. Sometimes different tasks also work better at different times of day, and as you figure that out, you can broadly set up daily schedules.

Days of the Week

Some people work better on weekdays, and some on weekends. Some work better with the week’s deadlines nearby, and others like being farther from deadline pressure. What works for you might vary, but experimenting with days of the week is worth it.

Together or Spread

Some people are far more productive doing large chunks of work in one go; others like interleaving with other tasks or doing a bit each day. There isn’t a fixed answer, and there’s lots of variation between these two, but try to figure out intervals that work for you. You can also have a hybrid approach where you do maybe six 50-minute work blocks with 10-minute breaks, twice a week, getting the best of both worlds.

Pomodoros

The idea is that you use 25-minute timers with 5-15 minute breaks in between. It’s named after tomato-shaped kitchen timers. People like the structure and clear time blocks, but others find it limiting or the pauses unnatural.

Some people only use it to gain momentum, using the Pomodoro clock for the initial stages and then continuing once they have momentum. Many others use it to prevent burnout because they want to stay productive throughout the day.

Some people even like getting a real kitchen clock that could even have a ticking noise. The tomato look is a classic but finding another cute one can be pretty helpful.

There are timing variations too. Some people like short bursts while others prefer longer blocks. Here are some popular ones:

These are all roughly in the 5:1 work to break ratio but that’s just a convention that works for many people and aligns with our 60 minute hours, but definitely think about experimenting on what works for you. If 60 minutes of work and 30 minutes of break works better, go for it. Check this post on pomodoro leverage ratios which thinks about this aspect more.

Goal Setting

The idea is that you set fixed goals for specific time bounds that help you get things done. A popular convention is SMART goals.

Here is an example: “I will create a sign up button (measurable) that links to my backend register function (specific and achievable) which I need for creating user accounts (relevant and possibly linked to an MVP) within the next 50 minutes (timely).”

Over time you’ll figure out your own form of goal setting, but I suspect you’ll share a few core ideas with this. I don’t think it’s effective when someone else does this for you, like corporate upper management; it works best when you set them up yourself. It’s a rule of thumb, and you’ll learn when it works and when it doesn’t.

This often pairs well with Pomodoro-style working due to the time bound nature of this strategy.

Social Productivity/Body Doubling

Sometimes doing things alone is enough (and for some people, it works better), so it’s also worth experimenting with a crowd you like working around:

In the end, many still work best alone, but this is effective for most people. It’s often part of why workplaces exist and colleges have so many study spaces, even when people aren’t collaborating 100% of the time.

Social Encouragement

It’s sometimes helpful to have people compare progress and encourage each other, and this can take many forms at both the goal-setting and achievement stages:

There is a lot of variation on this end, but this can have some pretty strong gains.

Small Setup Time Followed By a Fixed Break

Sometimes, when you don’t feel like starting a task right away, do a quick 2-5 minute setup step and then start after a fixed break. This works surprisingly well in practice because the hardest part is often the inertia of starting, not doing the task itself.

Having a little work started and reducing the friction of getting back to work counteracts that inertia to a large extent. Procrastination is often a result of having an unclear starting point, but doing setup separately can break that while only taking a few minutes.

For example, if I don’t feel like programming right now, I can quickly open up VSCode with my terminal and project ready. Then I set a 15-minute timer where I can still chill, and then get started.

2 Minute Rule

Instead of aiming to do the whole task at once, your goal is to do two minutes of work. You can even count 1 to 120 in your head if you need to. After 2 minutes, you might realize it’s not that bad and keep going, or decide it’s too overwhelming right now and try another 2 minutes later.

For me, I end up continuing about 80% of the time, but your results may vary. The most important thing is that even a low success rate is worth it because either outcome is fine, and odds are you’ll keep doing the task. The underlying principle is that starting is the hardest part, and continuing gets easier. It’s like jumping into a seemingly cold swimming pool and realizing after a minute or two that it’s pretty alright.

This strategy pairs well with the setup idea above because your 2 minutes can be setup. Even if you walk away, the work you did in those 2 minutes makes it easier to come back.

Have High-Quality Breaks

A lot of productivity advice is centered around working, but having good breaks is just as important. Many people think they shouldn’t have breaks or believe that breaks are something to be ashamed of. Not all breaks are alike, and you’ll have some breaks that you like more than others. It might seem counter-intuitive but try to find as high-quality breaks as you can. Higher quality breaks will often end up being shorter, more satisfying, and make you more productive. Many people try to shame themselves or treat a break as some reward but it’s better to reframe it as part of the productive process.

For instance, I might find a 15-minute call with a friend far more likable than an hour scrolling through social media. Or it might be more fun to do a walk or even a short exercise.

Schedule Recurring No Work Times

Like the previous point, I find it useful to actively block out periods of time where you will not be doing any work. It could be a day, a few hours, or even a few minutes spread over the day. In this slot, you have to take a break and not work at all. Regardless of how the day is going, you get guilt-free no-work time.

If you treat your non-work time as sacred, you may find it easier to keep your work time sacred too. It sounds counterintuitive to write off large blocks of time as unproductive, but doing this ensures the productive time left is far higher quality. On average, this can leave things better overall, especially for long-term productivity as you reduce burnout.

There’s no clear agreement on how long that time slot should be, and it often varies by person. Some like having a fixed set of hours in the day clearly blocked off; others like blocking off a full day or so. As a starting point, try at least one clear day a week, and if you’d prefer a daily version, at least an hour a day.

Todo Lists

Some people find it overwhelming just to keep track of what needs to be done, and keeping it all in their head can get exhausting. Having an external to-do list is helpful since the cognitive load is pushed onto technology or paper. You can use this to split big intimidating tasks into smaller, friendlier tasks as well. Some people like the motivation from sharing these or checking off items. Many sites have gamified to-do lists like Habitica.

This combines with SMART goals well too.

Additional Deadlines

Deadlines are great, and it’s perfectly fine to use them to your advantage. In general, if deadlines are what works best for you, then you can even create artificial ones. Some people can set that up for themselves, while others need external enforcers: both are perfectly fine.

For example, if you have a big project due at the end of a month, schedule a weekly call with a professor or manager where you’ll show stages of your progress. You might think you’re an inconvenience, but most people are glad to support efforts like this. Many people never take the initiative to ask, and there’s almost nothing to lose. Sometimes you’ll even get pointers.

Additional Consequences

Hitting productive goals can come with a reward depending on the goal size and the effort you took. Most of these you can arrange for yourself, though you might find your peers are happy to help in lots of small ways.

Some people prefer a slight negative consequence, like money on the line that will be lost or donated to charity. Negative loops can be a slippery slope, but used in a light-hearted way they can be effective.

Mental Health and Undiagnosed Issues

I am not qualified to give specific advice on this, but this is something that trips up surprisingly many people, and some attention plus specific help can go a long way. If you suspect something or have an untreated issue, definitely consult qualified experts who can help you improve many aspects of life, including productivity.

Sleep, Food, and Quality of Life

In general, try to keep your quality of life and health factors as good as practically possible. Trying to sacrifice those for productivity doesn’t really work short-term and mostly doesn’t work long-term either (even if you think it does). Sometimes, these issues are hard to fix, but even a 20% improvement in some quality of life factors can significantly affect your productivity. You don’t need to be the pinnacle of health, but any progress there will also help your productive life.

Iteration over Perfectionism

“Perfect is the enemy of done” (origin disputed).

When things are not going well, your brain will often set very high and unrealistic starting goals. It may not even let you get started, since you’ll aim for perfection right away instead of getting there through iterations. People might think this thought process leads to good results, but it rarely does. Instead, you start imperfectly, feel confused sometimes, go back and forth, erase some work, experiment, and keep refining what you’re doing. This workflow will get you far closer to great outcomes than perfectionism at the start.

To quote Paul Graham’s Hackers and Painters,

I was taught in college that one ought to figure out a program completely on paper before even going near a computer. I found that I did not program this way. I found that I liked to program sitting in front of a computer, not a piece of paper. Worse still, instead of patiently writing out a complete program and assuring myself it was correct, I tended to just spew out code that was hopelessly broken, and gradually beat it into shape. Debugging, I was taught, was a kind of final pass where you caught typos and oversights. The way I worked, it seemed like programming consisted of debugging.

For a long time I felt bad about this, just as I once felt bad that I didn’t hold my pencil the way they taught me to in elementary school. If I had only looked over at the other makers, the painters or the architects, I would have realized that there was a name for what I was doing: sketching. As far as I can tell, the way they taught me to program in college was all wrong. You should figure out programs as you’re writing them, just as writers and painters and architects do.

Non-Zero Days

This point and the next one are inspired by this famous Reddit comment.

The idea is that you’ll have days where things go wrong, days where nothing happens, and your entire to-do list feels like a reminder of how worthless you are.

On those days, before the day is over, do a tiny amount of non-zero work. Read a single page of a book, write a single line of code, add a single test case, do a single push up, or whatever. Anything that is not zero. Your ideal productive self won’t appear right away (as much as we wish), but from a series of non-zero days that slowly add up. Even if you’re not doing well, at least you can break the negative streak and give yourself a fresh start.

Forgiveness

No matter how hard you try, things will not go as well as you expect. That’s fine.

Always forgive yourself. If you want, I, Harsh Deep, will forgive you too. Maybe you had the skills you needed, and perhaps you had something unexpectedly go wrong. Perhaps you can’t come up with a reason at all. Everything is going to be okay.

The past is gone, and forgiving yourself pushes you towards creating a better tomorrow. Being stuck there is a spiral that only drags you down, and life is too short for that. This is easy advice to give but hard to follow. I promise it’s worthwhile, though.

Motivation

And finally, motivation. This one is tricky because it’s often what people blame first when they’re not able to work, but usually a large variety of factors are the real problem. Motivation is also a complex emotion with many types and ways to build it. It certainly helps to have something pulling you forward, figure out your style, identify what is blocking you, and work specifically to remove blockers.

Good luck

Productivity is complicated, and honestly, no one has completely figured it out yet. Over time you will arrive at what works for you, but don’t beat yourself up over it or try to be a perfectionist about it.

You got this!

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Thanks to Nehal Sai Tangudu for proof reading and providing feedback on an earlier version of the post.