Aditya Sheth

Yet another productivity book? I get it…

But as the great Ray Dalio says, “Principles > Tactics.” If you can focus on figuring out the “how” over the “what”, you will achieve great things relatively faster. In this context, learning the principles behind productivity on some levels before setting out in your career helps you achieve more than your peers in a shorter time but at the same time & maybe more importantly: helps you make time for things that truly matter to you.

To keep things simpler this time, I’ll simply share 9 of my best tips from the book “Make Time” to, well you guessed it…make more time in your day for the stuff that truly matters.

1. Pick a highlight. Every day pick a single activity to prioritize & block your calendar for doing said task. This is simply assigning utmost importance to a task & doesn’t mean you’ll only do this task & call it a day. Rather picking this task as the highlight of your day helps you prioritize your day around this task. Further Reading: From Focusing on “One” Thing to Why You Should Say No — Lessons from “The One Thing.”
2. How do you pick what should be your highlight for the day? Simple, ask yourself: (i) What’s the most pressing thing I have to tackle today & (ii) At the end of the day if I were to do this tackle this single issue, will it still be considered as a good day?
3. Pick a highlight (task) that takes ~60-90mins to complete at the very minimum. If you pick something that takes <60mins, you’ll not be able to get into the zone & if you pick something >90mins you’ll end up needing a break. The key to getting things done is single-tasking & working on the same task with uninterrupted focus till it’s complete or you’ve made a solid dent on the project. Further Reading: On Attention > Time, Why Multi-Tasking is the Enemy & How to Enter Hyperfocus — Takeaways from “Hyperfocus.”
4. “My to-do list! It’s not yours anymore…” Realize that most to-do lists are just reactions to other people’s tasks & not yours. To-do lists obscure what’s really important by mixing a bunch of easy tasks / tasks someone else wants you to do with tasks that are hard but important. While I still use to-do lists because of its utilitarian function, I suggest you follow 1. to prioritize what’s really important. Because, Signal > Noise.
5. Get a distraction-free phone. This is the simplest thing you can do right now (read further reading) to increase focus, eliminate distractions & get shit done. Start by disabling notifications for every app & using the DND mode when you’re starting work on your highlight. Nothing is ever that urgent, people can wait. Also, because a constant stream of notifications short-circuits your brain & attention. Companies like FB, Snapchat, etc have business model that relies on stealing as much of your your time / attention as possible because it makes them money. You’re at war with attention engineers working at FB / Snap / IG who will do anything to get you to spend as much time on their sites as possible. Quit social media, your brain will thank you for it. Further reading: How to Configure Your iPhone to Work for You, Not Against You.
6. Don’t watch the news. It’s a waste of time, irrelevant to your goals & doesn’t contribute to your end goal which is crushing it in life. I recommend you get your daily fix of news by talking to random strangers on the bus, train, work, etc. Let everybody else spend their limited time on this planet watching depressing & mostly sensationalist nonsense on the Internet / TV designed to grab your attention to make $$$ from you, while you have a brand new excuse to talk to girls. I wrote more about why news is stupid here.
7. Create a not-to-do list. I get it, you have a lot to do & have a hard time figuring out how to execute 1. on this post. Might I suggest, you make different lists like: someday/maybe list, not-do-list? They’re exactly what the name suggests. You’re doing this to create a clear divide between things that need to be done now vs things that don’t need to be done now but later. Peace of mind is an added bonus. Further Reading: Create a Not-to-Do List
8. Use sites like RescueTime to track time & Freedom to block distracting sites. Both of them have desktop & app versions of their software. There’s also Screen Time for iOS & Digital Wellbeing for Android. Set time limits for certain apps / categories of apps. Because, what get’s measured gets managed. For example, I block all social media apps on my Desktop using Freedom, Rescuetime & set a 1hr time limit for accessing the same social media sites / apps on my phone.
9. Lastly, the time you enjoyed wasting is not time wasted. For someone with a Type-A personality, watching movies, playing my favourite video games & jogging used to be a waste of time ~2-3 years ago. I stopped doing the things I loved because it somehow didn’t contribute to my end goal, but now I was miserable. So, the moral of the story is to do things you like because they help you recharge & preserve your sanity. The next time your neighbour asks you why you’re wasting your time playing your frisbee in the park or binge-watching Stranger Things on Netflix when you should be studying show them this piece. They’ll thank you for it.

Hope you enjoyed what you read & plan to put some of these things into action. However, this piece doesn’t even come close to containing all the tactics (& there are 80 of them!) in the book so I suggest you make even more time by grabbing the paperback here.

I love triangulating my views with others to further develop & solidify my own understanding, feel free to comment below & let’s talk about it!