17 Ways You Can Be More Productive
Here is a collection of 17 productivity tips that have helped me stay on track so far this year, hopefully you'll find a few of them useful.
See if you can notice a common thread between them (answer at the end!)
🎯 Attention
1. Delete TikTok 🗑️
The problem with TikTok isn't that the content is bad, it's that there's no natural stopping point. I'd open it for five minutes and surface half an hour later with nothing to show for it. Deleting it was the number one thing I did to kill long lengths of time procrastinating.
2. Add friction with OneSec ⏸️
If deleting an app feels too extreme, this is the softer version. OneSec makes you pause and take a breath for a few seconds before it lets you into Instagram, YouTube or whatever you choose. That tiny bit of friction is often enough to make you ask "do I actually want to be here?" and a lot of the time, the answer is no.
3. Lose the need to reply to WhatsApp messages straight away 💬
I've been practising this since January. Most messages aren't urgent, they just feel urgent because there's a red badge shouting at you. Now I reply in batches, a couple of times a day, and nobody has ever been upset with me. If something's properly urgent, people ring.
4. Notification Summaries and Focus Modes 🔕
This one backs up tip three with settings. Turn on Notification Summary on your iPhone so the non-urgent stuff arrives in a couple of digests instead of pinging you all day.
How to use it:
- Open Settings and go to Notifications
- Tap Scheduled Summary and turn it on
- Choose which apps go into the summary and set your delivery times
- Then set up a Focus Mode under Settings > Focus, choosing which people and apps can break through
Do it once and it runs itself.
5. Charge your phone outside the bedroom 🔌
Buy a cheap alarm clock and charge your phone in another room. No scrolling in bed, no checking it at 2am, and your morning starts on your terms. It's a small change you feel almost immediately.
6. Stop wearing your Apple Watch ⌚
Here's the spicy one. I know it's brilliant tech, but for me it felt like a second phone strapped to my wrist. Every tap was a tiny interruption, and I was checking messages and rings without even realising. The physical health benefits of stats collection were outweighed by the mental disadvantages it brought.
If you really do rely on it for workouts or health tracking, keep it. The real question is whether it's helping you or interrupting you. For me, it was interrupting.
⚡ Energy
7. Get outside as soon as you wake up ☀️
Even five minutes of fresh air and daylight right after waking up changes the tone of the whole morning. Morning light is said to help set your body clock, and it wakes you up far better than scrolling on the sofa. If it's raining, just open a window.
8. Take creatine 💊
I'm not a doctor, so this is just why I take it. It's one of the most researched supplements out there, it's cheap, and it takes ten seconds in a glass of water. It's mainly known for gym performance, but there's also research into whether it supports focus and mental energy. Speak to your GP first if you're unsure.
9. Delay your caffeine ☕
Wait a while after waking before your first coffee. The idea is your body is still clearing its natural sleepiness, so caffeine straight away can lead to a bigger crash later. I'm not saying it's magic, but try it for a week and see how your afternoons feel.
10. Take calls as walking calls 🚶
If it's a catch-up or a call where you're mostly listening, put your headphones in and go for a walk. You get your steps in, you tend to think more clearly, and you're not staring at a screen for a fifth hour in a row. Obviously not every call works this way. If you need to share your screen, stay put.
By the way, if you want more of this kind of thing, I've got a free newsletter over at feelproductive.co where you'll get a bi-weekly email with the latest apps and techniques I've been trying. No spam, I promise.
🧘 Focus environment
11. Noise cancelling headphones at home 🎧
Wear them even with nothing playing. I use my AirPods Pro, and this is more about psychology than sound. Putting them on becomes a signal to your brain that it's time to focus, and it tells everyone else in the house not to interrupt. Just take them out now and then so you're not wearing them all day.
12. Get a physical Pomodoro timer ⏲️
The Pomodoro Technique is 25 minutes of focus, then a 5 minute break. There are a million apps for it, but if your timer lives on your phone, you have to pick up your phone, and you know what happens next. A small timer on your desk has no notifications attached, and physically starting it feels like a commitment.
13. Do a 10 second desk reset 🧹
Between tasks, clear the mug, put the pens away, wipe the crumbs. I keep a little handheld vacuum next to my desk so cat hair and packaging bits never pile up. A messy desk creates low-level mental noise, and ten seconds is nothing.
🛠️ Systems and tools
14. Plan your week on a Sunday night 🗓️
I don't mean a giant to-do list. One question for each day: what's the one thing I want to have achieved by the end of each day next week? I put mine in Things 3.
How to use it:
- Sit down for ten minutes on a Sunday evening
- Pick one "must-win" task for each day of the week ahead
- Add each one to your task manager against that day
- On the day, that task is the one thing that makes it a win, everything else is a bonus
15. Make boring tasks fun 🎮
This one comes from the book Feel-Good Productivity by Ali Abdaal. The idea is that productivity isn't just about discipline, it's about energy. One of his concepts is Play, which means making boring tasks more enjoyable. Put a playlist on for your admin. Race a timer. Turn clearing your inbox into a game.
If a task feels like a chore, you'll avoid it. Make it fun and you'll actually do it.
16. Let AI handle the tasks you don't enjoy 🤖
Take meetings. I use Granola, which sits quietly in the background and gives me clean notes and action points afterwards, so I'm not scribbling while trying to listen. Then there's Claude Cowork, which I use to automate repetitive admin.
A good test: if a task is repetitive, boring and predictable, an AI can probably do most of it. It's not perfect, so I still check the output. But the time it gives back is huge.
17. Use a voice dictation app 🎙️
We speak about three and a half times faster than we type, so this is an easy win. I use Willow for long AI prompts, emails and brain-dumping script ideas, and it works in any text field. Willow has a free tier, so it's easy to try.
Dictating in a coffee shop feels awkward, and it takes a few days to build the habit. Start at home, where nobody's listening.
What do you think? 🏁
You'll notice most of these are about taking things away. TikTok, the Watch, the notifications, the pressure to reply instantly. I honestly think productivity is mostly subtraction.
If I could only keep one? It's number three, losing the need to reply to WhatsApp messages straight away. It costs nothing, it needs no app, and it changed how I feel about my phone more than anything else on this list.
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