Question of the week: What do you do to increase productivity at work? Here are some essentials for myself:
Automation: I’ve always had a love/hate relationship with automation tools, because while they can be huge time savers, I often find myself spending more time making and debugging automations than I save with them. One reason I loved TextExpander long before I worked here is that Snippets are simple to make and predictable—I never have to worry about them going off the rails.
Speaking of automation that can go off the rails, like many people I find myself using AI more and more, and consistent prompting often makes for consistent results. This is another place where TextExpander shines, and many users save their favorite AI prompts as Snippets, like @jettbriggs, who showed us the many elaborate ChatGPT prompts he uses for screenplay analysis.
Health: If I sleep poorly, my day is over before it even starts, so that’s a priority. Another one is exercise. I do cardio 3 days per week and lift weights 3 days per week. Sometimes it’s hard to convince myself to make the time, but I find my productivity drops if I don’t.
Music/Noise: I loved listening to audiobooks and podcasts when my work involved more data entry. But I found I can’t do that with more mindful work, like writing, because it distracts me, or even worse, I start writing what I’m hearing! These days, I either:
- Keep the room quiet
- Listen to the same song on repeat so my mind tunes it out
- Throw on instrumental music
There’s evidence that instrumental music helps productivity, while music with vocals diminishes it.
For instrumental, one of my favorite go-tos is the “Lofi Girl” on YouTube.
Timing: Another big one for me is timing. Before I had kids, I was most productive in the wee hours of the night, but I can no longer get away with that. So now I find I have the most energy in the first half of the day, especially for things more mentally taxing like writing or recording video, so I try to tackle those tasks first thing.
I’m also an introvert who finds meetings draining, so again, I try to complete the tasks that require the most energy before any meetings.
How do you maximize your productivity at work?
I align these blocks to the time of day I naturally have the most energy and creativity. I save the “small stuff” that still needs to get done for other parts of the day.
