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Paul Millerd

Get more done: Eisenhower, Maker's Schedule & Feel Good Productivity

Published 8 months ago • 1 min read

Time management isn’t about frantically ticking tasks off a to-do list. It’s about maximizing your productivity and effectiveness while maintaining your well-being (although some of my former managers disagreed about this last part :-))

When I think about time management, I think about the three 3 Ps:

  1. Prioritize - figure out what matters
  2. Plan ahead - figured out when to do it
  3. and execute Productively - figure out how to efficiently and effectively do it

Prioritization tactics:

The Eisonhower matrix is the OG prioritization tool.

It can help you:

  • Categorize tasks
  • De-prioritize the urgent tasks that fill our days
  • Help you eliminate work

Ok, now you know what to do. Now here are some planning strategies we like:

  • Color-code your schedule. It sounds simple, but it's a visual game-changer.
  • Theme your days. For example, block certain types of meetings on specific days (maybe aim to have at least one “no-meeting” day per week).
  • Group similar tasks into blocks. This minimizes the mental energy lost in context-switching. Paul Graham has a great essay on called "maker's schedule, manager's schedule" that I hight

Now how do you get things done:

Some strategies I like include:

  • Try timeboxing: Allocate specific time slots for tasks. It creates a sense of urgency. Often we struggle to get things done without a deadline, so forcing that pressure on yourself can be powerful
  • The Pomodoro method: Work in focused 25-minute sprints with short breaks. With a child now, I often embrace the "two hour nap pomodoro" - trying to get as much as possible done during her mid-day naps :-)
  • Focus on what "feels good": My friend Ali Abdaal has a great book called "Feel Good Productivity" (which has tons more approaches if you want to go deeper) but frames productivity around the most important focus: doing what feels good. For me, this is the ultimate hack, especially while self-employed. While we all have to do things we'd rather "skip," moving more in this direction can be amazing.
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Paul Millerd

Creator of StrategyU

Freelancer, creator & writer

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