⏰ Tomatoes and Eisenhower's secret to getting more done

Don’t call it a comeback…errr, roundup…

Today I wanted to share some productivity methods and tools that I’ve covered on the YouTube channel recently - things that you can practically use everyday.

I’m going to guess that you have heard of most, if not all, of these, but like myself a reminder from time to time can help resurface these ideas and methods to make my day more productive and easier.

Let’s go!

First Up - The Tomato

The tomato? Yep, that little old things called The Pomodoro Technique!

In the very small chance you haven’t heard of this it’s a simple method to create work and rest blocks to help you get more done in a limited amount of time.

The reasoning, and it works, is that when you know you have a limited amount of time to get something done you’ll work faster to get it finished. Just like the opposite - work expands to fill the time allotted - we’re allowing a self-enforced limit to help ourselves.

Here’s the rest of the idea in a nutshell:

• Set a timer for 25 minutes

• Set a task that can be reasonably accomplished (or broken into pieces)

• Work

• Take a break for 5 minutes doing something else - get up and move

You can use a physical timer, your phone alarm, Egg Timer, whatever works for you. (Several mentioned here)

Adjust the time as needed, but most people max out around 45 minutes of “on” time and have to take a longer break after several of these on / off cycles…

Personally, I just use them to make myself get something done when I’m procrastinating and rarely do more than 2 or 3 at a time, but do what works best for you.

Here’s a video explanation if that’s your thing:

This Week’s Favorite

Enter The Matrix

This next one is a good way to help yourself prioritize.

When you’ve got a lot of tasks, projects, or decisions to make, it can be overwhelming and stop us in our tracks.

We of course don’t want that, so having some tricks to help us declutter our brains and get back on track can help.

Enter the Eisenhower Matrix.

This handy method has you draw out 2 lines that cross and then add your tasks or projects into the quadrants according to this outline:

Anything that is in the top left (Important and Urgent) means you need to get going on it ASAP.

Anything in the top right (Important and Not Urgent) means you can schedule it.

Anything in the lower left (Not Important and Urgent) means you can delegate it (to a person, automate it, etc).

Anything in the lower right (Not Important and Not Urgent) means you should seriously consider deleting it.

I find that these types of prioritization practices help clear out your brain and while it may not result in 100% correct categorization, just going through the practice helps clarify what is important and what isn’t so that you can make a decision.

It’s the same principle behind my Focus Finder sheet that I use to rank ideas and projects in terms of importance to me, short and long term impact, in order to find what it is that I really should be working on. It’s in Google Sheets, if you’d like to check it out you can make a copy of it here.

And wouldn’t you know it, I’ve got a video of this too - check it below:

Extra Extra

• I’ve gotten around to publishing more of my book reviews and now have a couple that overlap with productivity, time management, and tools:

The Alignment Problem

The Alignment Problem is a great book for anyone (technical or not) to get an overview of Machine Learning and AI history, issues, where we’re at, and where we’re going. Great stories woven into the tapestry of the book.

The Notebook - A History Of Thinking On Paper

The Notebook is a fun historical look at how we have arrived at the modern day notebook/journal and the author, Roland Allen, weaves interesting stories into the technical history to make this a fun, interesting, and easy read.

One quick question 👋

I love hearing from readers, and I’m always happy to hear feedback from active subscribers. How am I doing with the Productivity Academy newsletter? Is there any content you’d like to see more or less of? Which parts of the newsletter (or articles, or podcast) do you enjoy the most?

Hit reply and say hello, happy to hear from you!

P.S. Looking for resources to improve your productivity? Check out the tools I use right here.