Productivity
General Advice:
There is a lot of specific advice out there! The best meta-level advice is to approach your own work habits and goals with open curiosity. Pay attention to how you spend your time and effort and ask whether that aligns with your values and goals. If not, take specific steps to change. Then, periodically reevaluate, adjust, and try again. Keep in mind that something that is helpful at first may cease to be helpful a few months later (or vice versa).
Maximize time spent on high-value tasks:
Regular writing is the best predictor of success at writing (articles or novels!) Writing is a skill like anything else and requires practice. If you do nothing else, make time to write.
Pay attention to when and where you work best (e.g., first thing in the morning at the coffee shop in an overstuffed armchair) and block that time for your focused work. Don't schedule other things during that time and treat it as an unbreakable commitment to making progress toward your most important goals. This is particularly important if you have psychological or physical limitations that can derail focus at other times or in other situations (chronic fatigue, chronic pain, etc.).
When you encounter resistance to work, set a timer (Pomodoro Technique) for 15-25 minutes and commit to working on it for only that long. When the timer goes off, you can take a break or be done for the day. Just getting started (or regularly returning to a difficult project) makes a big difference. An added benefit is that it will be fresh in your mind and your subconscious can make progress on it while you do other things.
Minimize time spent on low-value tasks:
Batch emails by setting aside a time when you’ll only (and efficiently) read and answer (snooze/delay-send) emails. Turn off email notifications and get to inbox zero each time. No email is so urgent it can't wait until your batch time (ideally only once or twice per 9-5 weekday).
List all your tasks in a task-management system (such as Trello or GTD, below).
Block the web during your work time. You can do this wholesale (freedom app, unplug router) or just by the worst offenders such as email, reddit, etc. (leechblock, etc.) Put your phone in another room on silent. Remove the option. Often just knowing you could check is distracting.
Once you've decided what the most valuable use of your time is (e.g., for the next ½ hour), focus only on that. Avoid distractions since you’re already doing the most important thing. (This applies also to non-work values: conversations with friends, relaxing bath, etc.) Fully focused presence is much more efficient and enjoyable.
If something takes fewer than 1-5 minutes, do it immediately.
80/20 rule: 80 percent of value comes from 20 percent of activity (pareto principle) so don't waste time 'perfecting' what doesn't need to be perfect. (Relatedly: don't let perfection be the enemy of the good.)
Large goals can feel overwhelming. Break them down into manageable chunks. Rather than: I need to 'write a paper,' be specific: you need to read this article, edit that paragraph, track down three citations...
People regularly underestimate by many times how long a task will take (and subsequently feel bad when they do not meet their own unrealistic expectations). The planning fallacy is real. Predict how long it will take you to do something, then time how long it actually takes. Use the actual time for future predictions.
Have a system for taking notes. I use TheBrain. RoamResearch is also popular. It doesn’t matter what your system is, so long as you reliably digest the papers you read and have a way of searching / recalling the information effectively. Use your own words to take notes and think about any objections you have along the way. This is often where papers are born.
Sometimes, resistance to doing work is rooted in emotions. It can be worthwhile to notice what other thoughts (I’m no good at this) or physical sensations (churning stomach) arise when you think about work. Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) is the most popular, evidence-based therapy for these issues. Cognitive distortions are very common and treatable. [See resilience.]
Specific Resources for Productivity:
NCFDD (National Center for Faculty Development and Diversity): Free for CU students and faculty with many useful webinars (both live and recorded), as well as groups, such as the 14-Day writing group and the accountability buddies.
CU's Grad+ Writing and Support: Weekly write-ins, writing retreats, and support.
Specific Ideas from the Literature:
NYTimes article: "Why You Procrastinate"
Mindset by Carol Dweck (2007):
A growth mindset (which helps you to be resilient) is correlated with higher productivity.
Deep Work by Cal Newport
Your "value added" is high-level intellectual labor. The more time you can spend doing this, the more value you will create. (As Malcolm Gladwell argues, it takes on the order of 10,000 hours to become an expert, so your expertise is unique and relatively irreplaceable.)
Don't spend time on low-value (but easy) activities. Outsource or delegate tasks that someone else can do (comparative advantage).
Distractions take a long time to recover from (as much as 15-30 minutes to return to work, if you do at all).
Your brain takes time to digest new information and to come up with ideas. Slow and consistent work allows for your brain to do this work in the background.
Efficiency is not always Effectiveness
Don't try to do everything. “There is nothing so useless as doing efficiently that which should not be done at all.” -Peter Drucker
You cannot take on every opportunity. Don't evaluate a new opportunity or commitment in isolation, but ask what (if anything) you're willing to give up to do it. Successful people say “no” all the time.
There are 24 hours in a day and you can only do one thing at a time. Things take longer than you expect (planning fallacy). Try tracking your time to find out how long different tasks take and use past patterns (not future optimism) to estimate how long similar tasks will take in the future.
Try 'time-blocking' all the things you want to get done during the week (see below for how to generate a list of everything you need to do). Start with the most important and assume realistic amounts of time. Once your week is full, you'll know what you won't have time for and can plan accordingly. Timeblocky, todoist
Have one place where you keep track of everything you want to do. Trello, todoist, onenote, google tasks, etc.
Create an inventory. If you know what you’re committed to (and you know how long those commitments will take) you will be more intentional about what you take on and how much time you can reasonably spend on it.
Tasks (prioritized and done as time allows) are distinct from calendar appointments (unbreakable, prearranged, and scheduled commitments). If you use your calendar for time-blocking, be sure that tasks are obviously distinct from scheduled commitments so that you know which are 'movable' and which are not.
Our brains are much better at thinking and problem solving than remembering. Have a convenient way to jot down things you don't want to forget. This reduces the distraction and anxiety of trying not to forget something.
“Mind Sweep” for 5 minutes every day: brain dump everything you're trying to remember to do (and everything you've jotted down during the day) into your task management system or calendar.
Make a daily and weekly plan to ensure the best use of your time.
Take enough time to plan carefully, so you aren’t mindlessly hamster wheeling or jumping into the first thing you see.
Don't time block your entire day with work. Schedule times to eat, relax, exercise, do a hobby, etc. This allows you to do things when you're at your best for that task. Often, the best time for focused, deep work is in the morning while the best time for a nap is early afternoon.
Let go of things you’re not currently working on.
There are only two priorities: What you’re doing NOW and everything else.
Once you’ve decided that this is what you should be doing right now, devote everything to it. Be fully focused and present.
The Art of Procrastination by John Perry
Structured Procrastination: If you avoid doing the most important thing by doing less important things, you're still getting a lot done.
Sometimes while you're ignoring a task or commitment, it goes away.
Hard truths:
You won't feel any differently about doing this task tomorrow. (Usually, you'll feel worse!)
Feeling good (or merely avoiding unpleasantness) now comes at a future cost.
Some tips:
Think about what makes you feel good after working (checking off to-do lists, reward chocolates, showing your advisor your new chapter, etc.)
Think about what makes you feel good while working (background playlists, cozy blanket, cup of tea, sunny spot by the window, etc.)
If you are going to browse the web for a while, preemptively decide when and how you’ll stop. (Use a timer, only do it when you have an upcoming meeting, or you already are hungry or have to use the bathroom.)
Just get started.
Find an accountability partner (check-ins, appointment at the writing center, trade drafts with other students, send draft to mom by [date], NCFDD, etc.)
Atomic Habits by James Clear, Tiny Habits by BJ Fogg, and The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg
Habits (repeated behavior, good or bad) form when there is a reliable and consistent cue for (something that reminds or prompts you to do it) and a reward for (something pleasant and immediately after) the behavior. Be sure that the behavior is so easy, you can always do it (even when you're busy or sick).
Choose habits that further your most important long-terms goals.
Short-term goals should be SMART: small, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound.
Making something a little bit better every day will add up to massive improvement over the long run. Don't underestimate how much you can do in, say, 20 minutes every day for a year. My colleague, Iskra Fileva, argues that embracing this incremental progress is how to defeat self-sabotage.
Specify when, where, and how you will do your habit. Just saying, “I need to do this,” won’t make it happen. The more specific you are in your plan, the more likely you are to do it.
Make the habits you want to adopt (or keep) more pleasant to do and harder to avoid. Begin with an ‘intro’ task that is pleasant and easy and that transitions smoothly to the more difficult. Make any existing bad habits less pleasant and easier to avoid.
Switch: How to Change Things When Change is Hard by Chip Heath and Dan Heath
Think of yourself as both an elephant and its rider. The rider needs reasons, the elephant needs motivation. The rider provides the plan, the elephant provides the energy. It's much easier to get an elephant to walk along a downhill path than uphill through jungle.
Restructure your environment to make tasks easier rather than relying on your 'willpower'. If you focus better in a library than a coffee shop, go to the library. If you stay off social media when you don't have your phone, leave it in your backpack. Don't fight yourself unnecessarily.
Eat That Frog by Brian Tracy
Ask (a variety of) successful people what they do. Role models are helpful and different people can model different behaviors.
"The ability to concentrate single-mindedly on your most important task, to do it well and to finish it completely, is the key to great success, achievement, respect, status, and happiness in life."
Eat the frog:
Do the most difficult or most unpleasant thing first. (If you have two, choose the worst one first.)
Waiting doesn't make it better.
Cultivate a habit of doing your most important, unpleasant task immediately and to completion.
Be clear about what you want (write it down). Use this for means, ends, plans, tasks, deadlines, etc., and execute first step immediately.
Make some progress on your goal every single day.
You do not have time for everything. Many things will be left undone. Prioritize. The ability to distinguish important from unimportant is huge.
A (important), B (should-do), C (nice-to-do), D (delegate), E (eliminate)