🧘 How to Get Stuff Done
The Sunday Night Review #158
Hey everyone,
Today I’ve got a simple productivity hack for you.
I’ve never been more productive than when I was revising for my final year exams at university.
I would start work at 7:15am and then work in 40 minute blocks with 10 minute breaks until 1.15pm (with one 25 minute break in there). Then I’d do the same in the afternoon for a couple hours, but I got the majority of my work done in the morning.
I was religious about it. I never worked for longer than 40 minutes, even if I was right in the middle of something, because I knew I wouldn’t be able to sustain the whole day if I didn’t take regular breaks.
I powered through my revision and felt as confident as I could’ve done going into my exams.
But for some reason, I forgot this lesson when I got a job. I would work uninterrupted for hours and as a result feel totally drained by lunch.
Working in a team isn’t as straightforward as studying. You have meetings, other people and coffee breaks that accidentally last an hour. It can be a lot tricker to navigate.
But in the face of this chaos, I decided to try bring back some of my university energy and work in timed blocks again where I could.
So a few months ago I bought a timer and stuck it to the wall on my desk. You can see it in this photo I took of a team meeting (ignore me ruining the vibes with my phone).
Now, whenever I sit down to work I set the timer for 50 minutes (40 felt too short) and get to it.
And because I know I’m going to work for 50 minutes, it also encourages me to be clear about what I want to get done in that time.
I try to only set the timer once I have a clear idea of what I want to get done in that block.
Then when the timer goes beep I stop working, even in the middle of a task. For the next 10 minutes I try to avoid going on my phone and drink some water. Then I get back to it.
Everyone has different productivity systems, but this is one that works for me. But even if I don’t have 50 minutes or I have a random slot of time on the weekend that I want to do something, I still like having a timer of some kind and being clear about what I want to do in the that block.
Of course it’s never perfect and meetings do make it trickier, but I use it where I can and it allows me to work hard throughout the day without burning out.
I'd be honoured if you shared your best productivity hack with me by replying to this email.
Have an epic week!
P.s. here’s a great vid on the ideal length of time to focus, from the brain master Andrew Huberman (spoiler, it’s max 90 minutes).
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Hello Tintin. It's a pleasure to read you here. Thanks for sharing this productivity tip. It comes at a good time, because it also happened to me that I concentrated for such long periods of time that at the end of the day I felt fed up.
I will try to use that technique of 50 minutes of work and 10 minutes of rest.
I hope to read you again, greetings.
Thanks for sharing this system, I had amazing writing habit with 1 hour on the clock and moved the same time for different tasks of the day, but I have been inconsistent. I will start the clock system again from tomorrow. :)