How to become more productive
Questions to ask to understand why things are the way they are for you
I’ve been writing a lot about productivity lately. Each time I write something and share it, I hear from a number of you, and then we talk about productivity and what’s worked for you or what’s getting in your way, which generates more insights. This seems to be a topic a lot of founders care a lot about, which makes sense.
Any discussion of productivity needs to distinguish between hours worked and productive time. When I talk about how to become more productive, I’m typically not talking about how to work more hours, since this is not the problem for most founders. Instead, I’m talking about how to actually get the shit done that you most need to get done in the hours you work.
If you think productivity is a growth edge for you, trust your intuition on that. Are you working on the right things at the right time with the right level of effort, attention, and depth? This is a perpetual growth edge for most people (myself included), but what you need to do to get to the next level varies considerably depending on where you are.
If you’re looking for a few light hacks, I wrote a piece that summarized productivity tips from a bunch of different YC founders. Here’s what they are:
Always have a to-do list. Update your to-do list for the day before starting that day (the morning of that day, as the last thing you do before you leave the day before, or sometime in the afternoon the day before).
Always know what the most important thing you need to do each day is.
Block time on your calendar to do your most important task(s) each day, at your most productive time, preferably first thing.
Block time on your calendar to do the “important but not urgent” tasks (e.g., strategy, deep thinking about longer-term problems, etc.).
Make / block time for planning. Weekly planning of tasks for yourself, longer-term planning and goal-setting for your team (yearly, quarterly, monthly, etc. depending on stage).
Take ownership of when things show up in your calendar for your own optimal productivity. If your deep thinking occurs best in the morning, make sure you have the longer blocks you need then for those tasks.
Batch shorter meetings together back-to-back (e.g., 1:1s) to minimize the number of awkward 15 and 30 minute gaps in your calendar.
Set start and end times to your day and honor them. Keep a consistent bed time so you can honor your start time.
Take breaks to give your brain a chance to rest. Whether that’s 15 minutes in the afternoon for a walk or meditation, a longer break when you need it, or a week+ vacation. Rest helps the brain recover and will enhance your creativity.
Keep your phone away from your desk, don’t bring it to meetings, and put it in do-not-disturb or airplane mode during the day. The dopamine-response cycle can massively disrupt our ability to focus.
Some founders I’ve worked with found they hit a wall on productivity. If you know all of these things and are struggling to do one or more of them (or some reasonable substitute based on what makes sense for your context), here’s a few ideas to run down that might help. Depending on what the source of your stuckness is, some of these will be more relevant than others.
Start with vision and goals for the next quarter. What are you really trying to achieve? It’s useful to have some idea of this in the big picture - e.g., the five year vision - but the most important thing is to know what are you trying to do in the next 2-3 months. A 2-3 month timescale is usually enough to see impact that moves the needle, but not so big that it’s overwhelming. And if you can articulate a clear goal for that timescale, it can become easier to step backwards through what you need to do to achieve that.
If you and your company are not 100% on the same page about what you are trying to achieve in the next quarter, block time on your calendar (at least 2 hours) to think about this and write down a vision and goals to share with them. Keep blocking this time until you have this.
If you’ve tried blocking time on your calendar to do this but either seem to blast through that block doing other work or try to do the exercise but get overwhelmed, one of two things might be happening:
You are still overwhelmed by the scope of the exercise. If a quarter feels too big, choose a month. If you’re trying to do a full plan for the company, simplify it to a single metric goal, and then lean on your team to brainstorm and fill in how to get there. Break it into smaller and smaller problems until it is no longer overwhelming.
There’s some part of you that’s not wanting to do this, possibly because of a fear associated with what would happen if you did. To the extent you’re able to get curious about that fear, here are some questions to try asking yourself:
Am I afraid to step fully into leadership?
Am I afraid that if I set a goal, a vision, and a plan, and it goes wrong, that I’ll look bad or let my team down?
Am I afraid to make these decisions because I’m wanting someone else to? (And as a result there would be more distributed ownership if things were to fail)
Am I afraid of how much my life would change if my company were to be wildly successful?
And if you really want to dig deep into why things are the way they are for you, here’s a few more questions to ponder:
What messages about hard work did you get from your parents? (note: there’s a distinction between hard work and productivity) Did your parents care more about effort or outcomes? What was the relationship to discipline in your family/culture?
Do you continue to self-police / self-discipline in the way your parents did (or did not do) to you? E.g., by running a similar script in your own head to what they might have said to you as a child. Is there a voice inside your head saying “you need to work/do more” or “it’s ok to relax” or both? Did that come from one of your parents? Which one?
What messages about responsibility and accountability did you get from your parents? Were they always telling you to sit down and do your homework, or were they more focused on outcomes so you had to learn how to “manage yourself” to achieve?
If they always told you to sit down and work, are you waiting for someone else to do that now?
When you were younger, were you able to “follow the rules” and become an A student? Were you high-achieving and able to focus your time on homework?
Or was the system not well-designed for how your brain works? You’d have moments where you’d exhibit brilliance or genius, particularly in a subject area or a project that was interesting to you, but conventionally studying and scoring well on tests was harder.
The messages we receive around hard work, achievement, and productivity from our families are internalized very early on and can form the subconscious basis for how we operate our companies until we bring them into our conscious awareness. In my own experience as a second generation American from immigrant grandparents who lost everything in the holocaust, I was raised in a household where education and hard work were strongly prioritized and achievement was heavily valued; my grandparents wouldn’t have been able to rebuild their lives without extreme effort. Those values were passed along to me through my parents, and the script in my head is always pushing me to do more even when more isn’t necessary to meaningfully impact my security. It’s as though I’m still rebuilding from losing everything, and no matter how much financial security I have, there’s some autopilot script pushing for more.
When I work with first generation founders, they often carry some amount of guilt and shame from their immigrant parents who may have chosen to give up more easeful lives abroad to come to the US. The founder carries a burden of guilt to make their parent’s sacrifice “worth it”, and the shame comes from always feeling like they haven’t done enough. Guilt and shame are difficult motivators. Digging deeper to find a source of motivation beyond guilt and shame can be helpful here, though the answer to that is entirely your own.
Lastly, for folks who tend to have an easy time accomplishing projects they love but have a very hard time pushing through on tasks that they don’t love, just know that about yourself. And as soon as you can, hire a chief-of-staff or a similar role who’s great at those things. You might be the creative genius of your company, but it doesn’t mean you have to be the person who does everything else as well. Embrace your strengths, note your own Zone of Genius, and start swimming downstream.
If you’re working towards improving your own productivity and want support on that journey, I have a few spots open in my coaching practice and offer complimentary 90-minute deep dives to YC founders. I only work with top-decile founders who are introspective, caring, and disciplined. If this sounds like you or someone you know, reach out via lunarayemail@gmail.com