For as long as I can remember, I've been thinking about "how can I be more productive". In other words: I want to get as much done as possible. Both professionally and in my personal life. Whether that's healthy or not is a topic for another day.

As part of that, I've come up with principles for myself. They're a work in progress, and I continuously refine and iterate what doesn't work, or what stopped working. Fundamentally, I want to reach a flow state. I want to be in control my energy levels throughout the day. They're written as lessons to myself. Maybe they help you too.

Take care of yourself.

Ultimately, this is the one to get right. If you don't take care of your physical, mental, and spiritual health, don't even bother continuing. What works best right now is a healthy and regular sleep schedule, reading every day, a solid (enough) diet, restful evening routines, and a semi-regular workout routine.

I know what needs improvement, and I'm working on ensuring that is in harmony before over-fixating on anything else. Also: what works for me likely doesn't work for you. But it might.

It starts the night before.

You want to start your day with a relatively clear idea of what's ahead you. This can be your "top 3 tasks", this can be your "I want to get this thing done", whatever — what matters: think about tomorrow. Your subconscious will work through it overnight and do a lot of the heavy lifting.

I find that many times, you won't even have to check your to-do list the next morning. You will just know. And every now and again, you'll even have a clear idea for how to solve it.

Wake up properly.

You were not designed to stare at a screen when waking up, so don't do that. For the last ~1.5 years, the first thing I do when waking up is grab a book, and read for 30 minutes.

(Un)surprisingly, I've read more books than I ever have before, and I feel energized starting my days. It also gets my brain working. I primarily read non-fiction, and with this, I've also found a way to incorporate learning into my day-to-day.

Straight to work (or play).

After that, you want to go straight to work or whatever side project or quest you have going on. Do not check social media, do not check email, do not get lost in an infinite feed.

What that does is that it loads things into your RAM, and you don't want that. Every bit of unnecessary information will distract from what's ahead of you, make you lethargic, and significantly increase the amount of activation energy required to get anything going. I find that whenever I get "lost", even if only for a few minutes, I pay for it with an immediate decrease in ability to focus. My brain just wanders.

Of course, you can still set up your phone in a way that the "important" (read: loved ones, closest friends) notifications still come through to you.

Keep your mornings clear.

I personally have my best ideas in the morning, and can reach the deepest flow states either then, or very late in the evenings. I find evenings more suitable for creative work, however. What it means in practice is that whenever I can, I try not to have any meetings before 11am. Until then, it's just me and the toughest problems on my list. You should audit your calendar at least once a quarter anyway.

I do know plenty of people that have no problem immediately going into meeting marathons. It's just not for me. And it's paramount I design systems that work for me.

Close the open threads.

A lot of suffering comes from thinking about the past and the future. We don't spend enough time in the now. Whenever I can, I try to close my open threads the same day. Slack later is one hell of a drug, and I was also addicted once. So is snoozing emails.

What it did was just give me an easy way to defer something, but it also kept it in my working memory, somehow, by reminding me the day after at 9am. Whenever it can get done the same day (and it very often can), do it. Or delegate it. Or decide that it's not important enough to do.

Hyper-focus on what you can control.

I love writing. And one helpful prompt I repeat semi-regularly is the exercise of "circle of control, circle of influence". I came across it first in a book but couldn't tell you which one. Essentially, you write down everything that's on your mind. Everything. Ideally, things that weigh on you.

Then, you structure them. Whatever goes into the circle of control is what you can directly control, and what you should spend an outsized amount of time on. Within that, you can still prioritize. I like following Shreya's LNO framework. Whatever goes into the circle of influence are things you should already care significantly less about. You cannot control them. If you care enough, influence them. And everything else? Everything else gets ignored. You need your mindspace.

Write. A lot.

To me, writing is thinking. Writing is decompressing. Writing is setting goals, and reviewing them. I won't prescribe any formulas, but what's worked well is daily, weekly, and monthly notes. It feels like overkill, but it really isn't. It helps me get things out of working memory, and forces me to review. I can't count the number of times I've solved problems that way.

Concretely, I just keep a daily note running to drop thoughts into. I might use it for to-dos, I might just use it for thoughts. I score my days, and write down highlights for my week, including a couple of other prompts. I pull it together in a monthly doc. It helps me stay present, be grateful, and work through what's on my mind.

Additionally, it's fun. To me at least. Writing is a high-leverage skill, after all.

Inspiration is perishable, act on it.

If you have a great idea or something comes to you, try to work on it immediately. You might think you'll remember, but you likely won't. If there's no chance for you to immediately act on it, then at least get out your phone or a piece of paper and write down everything related to it. It will help you capture the essence of that moment, and maybe, just maybe, you'll be able to get back into the zone that helped you come up with it originally.

The key takeaway is that inspiration doesn't persist. It's paramount you act on it, and try to manage your energy around it.

Do it for 15 minutes. Or: Hard things first.

It's paramount that you tackle the hardest things on your list first. And it's even more important you work on them for at least 15 minutes, and just focus on that one thing. What happens too often is that we get discouraged, pick up something else, and then the cycle repeats. Before you know it, you started 10 things, and they're all kinda ass.

Activation energy is something to be managed. It just takes longer to get into the zone for hard things (I find at least). The trick for me is to keep pushing until I start seeing the first results. Longer focus blocks help.

Properly wind down.

Too much is put purely on the "doing", not on the resting. Whether you go for the sprinter or the marathon runner analogy: rest is important. Have a clear wind down ritual. This can be as simple as "once we've had dinner, my brain is allowed to rest". The trigger can also be picking up your book in the evening, whatever.

What's important: You need to find the space for yourself to wind down, and give your body the signals that it can now enter into recovery mode, rather than constantly being under tension.

Energy is all you need.

There's a lot that I didn't write down here. I'd rather boil it down to the essence, the things that really move the needle. There's too much that's been written about how to structure your to-do list or email inbox already. I wanted to make this a bit more meta.

That's what did the trick for me. When I stopped obsessing about which app to track my to-dos in, I started thinking about how I can manage my energy more effectively. A lot of the above won't seem particularly new or exciting. And that's precisely the point.

This is what works for me, and it might not work for you. If anything does resonate, I'd love to hear from you :)