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Boost your Productivity

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Seventy tactics to boost your effectiveness at once and easily.

The Forward View asks: what can I do now to make the future easier?

Once a week, review your diary, personal and business, for the next six months. Identify tasks to start now and add them to your Master List.

Vague language feels non-threatening, but it prevents action. You cannot execute vague instructions. You cannot measure vague progress.

Never accept vagueness; demand precise answers.

Write down your tasks. The List is your main productivity tool, so keep it in a format or location that you can always access.

The Master List is one list, in one place of everything you must do and want to do: home and work, short-term and long-term.

People value directness paired with courtesy.

You Can Do Anything, but You Cannot Do Everything

Decide, before any meeting that you start, to circulate a document that states: The purpose: why are we meeting? The desired outcome: what decision or clarity do we need by the end? The items to cover: a small list of specific topics, with time distributed to each. The pre-reading: anything people should review beforehand.

The Personal Compass Productivity requires clear direction: set your Personal Compass by considering your six compass points of Career, Health, Money, Relationships, Fun, and Contribution. It’s a simple system which I put together many years ago; your six directions are unique to you, and only you can decide them. I have reviewed my Personal Compass monthly for a couple of decades. Many productivity systems fixate on work: get more done, hit targets, optimise output. But we are not machines, and work is only part of life. Your Personal Compass keeps you moving in the right direction across what matters to you, recognising that those priorities will shift over time. Every month (month-end is a logical point), spend 30 minutes reviewing the six points. Normally, a couple of minutes on each will suffice: Career: am I learning? Growing? Moving toward something meaningful? Health: Am I treating my body with the respect it deserves? Money: am I earning enough, spending wisely, saving appropriately? Relationships: am I present with the people who matter to me? Fun: am I experiencing joy, not just achievement? Contribution: Am I making a difference beyond myself? Rate each direction on a scale of 1 to 10, where 10 is perfect, and 1 is miserable; if your rating is not 10, decide the action you will take this month to close the gap and note it on your Master List. Perfect balance is not the goal. But regular adjustment through regular attention is; neglect any compass point too long, and you will drift off course without realising it. The Personal Compass does not dictate your destination; it reminds you to navigate intentionally. Action: Complete a Personal Compass review within 48 hours of reading this. Repeat the process at the end of every month.

Inbox Management: Delete, File or Action.

Break, Break and Date the Task Large tasks can be daunting. Break them down until they are manageable. Then, set a firm delivery date.

In The Mood to Be Productive: The Playlist Create a playlist specifically for deep work.

Template Everything Emails, proposals, reports; if you do it regularly, template it. Each time you write a similar email from scratch, you waste time and energy. You also risk inconsistency: sometimes you include all details, sometimes not. What to template: Email responses: Common inquiries, meeting requests, status updates, thank-you notes. Proposals: The structure and standard sections remain consistent; only the specifics change. Reports: Monthly, quarterly, whatever you produce regularly. Meeting agendas: Same format every time, just update the specific topics.

Identify regular tasks you perform and create templates for them so next time you start from a template, not a blank document.

Set up automatic payments. Eliminate mental effort spent on routine bills. The burden of remembering and manually paying is not worth the sense of “control,” or the worry about security. Ensure all backups occur accurately and promptly. Create a checklist for your startup routine.

Margins are the white space between commitments. Protect them.

Margins are where thinking happens. Without margins, you’re just reacting all day.

The 2 by 2 Matrix Sketch a simple 2 by 2 matrix. Label the axes left to right, low to high payoff. Vertical, low to high effort. That creates four cells. High payoff, low effort: do these first. These are your leverage points. The quick wins that change a day for ten minutes of work. Replying to the client who is ready to sign. Asking the one question that unblocks a stalled project. The five-minute phone call that saves a week of email going back and forth. High payoff, high effort: schedule these properly. They are critical and need focused, protected time. Writing the book. Building the pitch for the account that would double your year. Designing the course you will run for the next decade. This is the work that actually moves you forward, and it loses every fight with the cells below unless you block time for it in advance. Low payoff, low effort: batch or delegate these (ideal for AI if you can make it happen). Formatting a document, tidying receipts, drafting a routine reply, summarising a long thread, transcribing a recording. None of it deserves your morning. Hand it to AI or pile it up and clear it in one pass on a Thursday afternoon.

Low payoff, high effort: eliminate these. The weekly meeting nobody acts on. The report you have produced for two years that no one opens. The fiddly task you keep doing by hand because you always have.

The Self-care basics are:

Treating yourself with the kindness you would extend to others. Self-care is not a reward for productivity.