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My Favorite Productivity Hacks Ever

Today, I’m sharing 9 of my favorite productivity hacks.

Here they are:

  1. Speeding up your mouse. If you’re going at half speed on your mousepad, you’re going at half speed on your day. Increase your mouse trackpad speed settings to the max.
  2. Bed optimization. A few strategies I use…
    1. Get an air filter to avoid your room from being stuffy (I use Winix).
    2. Find the best pillows for your neck comfort (I like T&N pillows).
    3. Get a good mattress topper.
    4. Find the best bed mattress and make sure it suits your sleeping position.
    5. Use the Oura ring (friends of Okdork get $50 off) to track your sleep. It’s been SUPER helpful for me.
  3. Sunday accountability checks in with accountability partners. I text my good friend Adam Gilbert every Sunday to review what I’ve done over the past week and share my biggest focuses for next week. The categories I use: Work, Workout, Relationship and Personal (things for myself). Add it to your calendar when you set them.
  4. Having an index card system. Use an index 3×5” card to list your 3-5 most important tasks. Use a big ole checkmark to mark the MOST important thing to do. This keeps you super focused as things come up during the day.
  5. Use the Strides app. This is how I build better habits.
  6. Daily Mantra. There are keywords and themes that I want each day. It’s a living document so it keeps updating as you’re evolving. You can use an app like Strides, or set a Siri or calendar reminder.
  7. Daily reminders on things you’re grateful. I use Siri to remind me every morning (“Siri remind me every morning at 9am to do my daily happiness”). Then write down 1 thing every morning that you’re grateful for, today mine was for microwaves.
  8. Don’t bring a charger when you’re going to work in a coffee shop. Because you only have a limited time, this forces you to work on the things that matter.
  9. Get an assistant or use timeetc.com to find one. Your time is everything. Leverage services or people. Paying for people or services that save you time is a no-brainer.

Which productivity tip will you be implementing in your daily life today? Leave a comment below to let me know!

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13 responses to “My Favorite Productivity Hacks Ever”

Sheralyn S Jones
July 11, 2019 at 3:40 pm

Searching mattresses NOW! And getting up earlier every morning to throw on clothes and take a walk, just a quick walk, to truly wake up and Breath!! Thanks and Cheers, Noah

Olman
July 11, 2019 at 3:36 pm

You know what’s a good one instead of those apps that “block” sites, etc…

Create a second profile on your computer with only basics on there… go into that profile when you want to get shit cranked out without any distractions…

Skye
July 11, 2019 at 9:21 am

Check in with a friend on weekly goals.

Tim
July 9, 2019 at 3:56 am

Never realized the gmail keyboard commands were so powerful. I found a cheat sheet to help learn them. https://www.cheatography.com/fredv/cheat-sheets/gmail/

Rohan Bhardwaj
June 24, 2019 at 12:48 am

I guess I will give Strides app a try. For now, I track my daily goals in an excel sheet. Let’s see if it helps me deliver more.

Steven
June 23, 2019 at 1:55 pm

So many nuggets here. Oura on its way, index cards coming (forgot about that pmarca hack.)

One hack I use as a business owner: when planning the week, assign hourly expected value to tasks on an order of magnitude, and prioritize accordingly. Many things we work on can feel useful but are easier to delegate, while other things feel like a bad use of time but actually move us far forward

Haider Al-Mosawi
June 21, 2019 at 2:53 pm

Love the tips.

I think it’s important to begin our productivity quest by acknowledging that our best friend and worst enemy when it comes to productivity is our brains. My top tips would be:

1- Be clear on what productivity means to you: What does DONE look like? (i.e. what are you trying to accomplish?) What does DOING look like? (i.e. HOW will you achieve your goal)?

2- Identify the obstacles standing in your way: Maybe your productivity struggles have nothing to do with time management, but juggling too many commitments. Maybe it’s dealing with toxic people. Maybe it’s working on projects you’re not passionate about.

We all have our own goals to achieve and obstacles to overcome. Defining goals and identifying obstacles is a great starting point in determining what tips to follow and what’s most relevant to us, where we are right now.

Daniel P Sweeney
June 21, 2019 at 2:31 pm

Gotta say what pillows!

The chillipad is a game changer for sleep.

Bob “Dr. Mac” LeVitus
June 21, 2019 at 10:38 am

Hi Noah,

Love the podcast… Keep up the good work.

I liked your daily index card idea and have done something like that for many years. Check out my daily full-page worksheet known as SuperPlan™ (available at https://www.workingsmarterformacusers.com/s/SuperPlan.pdf for free).

SuperPlan offers separate spaces for daily activities, MITs (Most Important Tasks), goals, and random notes; I fill one out (by hand) every morning (or the night before).

For what it’s worth, I use the daily activity section to schedule Pomodoro sessions. If you haven’t tried the Pomodoro Technique, I recommend it without hesitation. It’s easily one of my favorite tricks for keeping my ass in the chair and doing more work in less time.

One more thing: I live in North Austin and my favorite tacos are at Veracruz All Natural, followed by Torchy’s and/or TacoDeli. I know you like tacos; where is your favorite Austin taco outlet?

Reuben Swartz
June 21, 2019 at 7:15 am

Interesting tip on the air filter. Does that cure Austin allergies?

David
June 21, 2019 at 10:48 am

Hey Reuben,

I’ve used an air filter in another highly pollinated city (San Diego), and it helps — but it doesn’t completely cure it. I use slickdeals.net to find good air filter deals, and then compare to reviews on wirecutter.com or consumerreports.org. I don’t really trust Amazon reviews much (and when I use them, I always use fakespot.com to see how many are fake).

Overall, based on personal experience, I’d recommend an air filter — but keep in mind it helps but doesn’t cure (at least based on my experiences).

-David from Team Dork

Kuba
June 13, 2019 at 12:57 am

Hi Noah, for me it’s obvious, but I will mention it.

EXTERNAL MONITOR. Just go and buy decent external monitor for your laptop screen (it doesn’t has to be fancy if you are not pro photograpger / video maker).
Increase of productivity is huuuge. Doing spreadsheets? You have to have this. You will be able to actually SEE more, thus DO MORE!

Pro tip: On mac go to prefrences –> monitor –> “arrangement” (if it’s called like this in eng.). Put your bigger monitor above your laptops. This mimics the actual arrangement of your hardware – laptop before monitor. By default there is side by side arrangement, which is confusing. When I discovered that is’t possible to put it like this it was game changer and I am using it at work and at my home. It’s awesome.

Take care everybody,
Kuba

Nisar
June 11, 2019 at 12:50 pm

Hey Noah.. Bad sleep is killing my productivity most these days. I’ll get the ring you recommended.. Funny I never heard about it before. Thanks for the gyan.

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