The Daily Routines of Highly Productive Founders

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I talk to a lot of people about productivity. I’ve spent the last couple years of my career helping teams and individual developers at companies grow, scale, and be more productive. I’ve come to the conclusion that the biggest and hardest part of my job is helping people get into productive habits.

A productive habit is when a behavior repeats itself multiple times a day without you having to think of it. It’s as if the behavior is a muscle and you’re reinforcing it every time you do it. It’s also very much like a muscle because you don’t have to think about doing it in the first place – your body does it on its own.

It’s also how our mind works when we’re highly productive. When your subconscious mind gets into a rhythm of a behavior, your conscious mind doesn’t have to think about it very much.

But before we get to all that, let’s talk about productivity habits of highly productive people.

The 5 Productivity Habits of Highly Productive People

When you think of highly productive people, do you think of them as busy all the time? Do you think that when you’re busy, you’re productive?

Well yes, sometimes you are. But most of the time you’re not.

Productivity isn’t always about doing a lot of work in a short amount of time. The biggest benefit of highly productive people isn’t simply being busy, but spending the time they are busy with the right things.

Productivity is about doing the right things, not simply doing a lot of the wrong things. It’s about being more selective about your time and your attention.

A lot of people are guilty of wasting time because they have low productivity. They’re so busy, they have no idea what to do.

But if you want to get better at the things you do, there are some things you can do to improve your productivity.

1. Have a Clear Plan

If you want to be more productive, have a clear plan.

You don’t want to work from a mental fog. You don’t want to run in circles. So don’t.

Have a simple plan for what you want to accomplish each day. Having your to-do list is fine, but it’s not enough.

What you need is a plan that’s organized not just in a line on your list but an organized set of tasks that take multiple days to complete.

The reason you need a clear plan is because you can only be productive when you have a plan for what to do. If you have no plan, you’re likely to either be unfocused or overwhelmed by the amount of things you have to do.

2. Set a Schedule

If you want to get more productive, you need to set a schedule.

But this doesn’t mean you need to set a schedule for everything you do. It’s simply a general time period for how you want to use your time.

For instance, do you want to work on your side business during your lunch break?

You could schedule in a two hour block of time every day and use that chunk of time to work on your business.

You could also simply block out half your day before you start work on your business before your work day starts.

Some people do this for all their side business activities. It’s more efficient for them because they’re not wasting time on things they shouldn’t be doing.

3. Cut Out Distractions

If you want to get better at the tasks you do, you have to be more focused.

This has several components – but it’s basically about cutting out distractions.

You have to cut out the noise around you.

You have to cut out the things you don’t really need to do.

You have to cut out the things that aren’t productive.

If you have too much going on around you, you won’t be able to focus on the task at hand. Every time you decide to do something, you have to make sure that it’s something you really want to do.

Distractions are things that get in the way of your focus. You have to decide when and where you will do your tasks so that you don’t get distracted.

4. Do Less

If you want to get more productive, you have to do less.

People don’t realize this, but there’s a big difference between doing stuff and doing things.

When you do stuff, you’re doing something specific to do. When you do things, you’re doing something that you do often.

If you’re always doing stuff, you’re often doing the wrong stuff. It’s hard to do the right stuff if you’re always doing the wrong stuff.

Do less things instead. Do only the things that are important.

Do less tasks instead. Do only the tasks that are critical.

Do less projects instead. Do only the projects that are critical.

Most people can’t finish projects that aren’t critical. They don’t stop to think if they’re doing the right thing and end up doing the wrong things.

5. Prioritize

You have to prioritize your tasks.

This applies to your tasks, and it also applies to your life.

The reality of life is that you can’t do everything. You can’t have all the things you want to do. No one can.

No matter what you want to do, you have to prioritize.

You have to decide what you really want to do and what you don’t really want to do. What you want to do should be the critical things that move you forward.

To be more productive with the tasks you do, you have to prioritize your tasks. To be more successful in life, you have to prioritize your life.

You’re probably thinking that you’re already doing these things.

But most people aren’t.

I’m not saying that these things are revolutionary. But I don’t want you to think of them as radical. These are basic and obvious things that I’ve talked about dozens of times.

If you’re reading this article, you probably have to do these things to be more productive.

But here’s the difference.

If you want to get more productive, you have to do these things.

Most people don't.

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