By Dan Remon · Evidence checked October 2026
Most productivity lists ask you to add something. The tips that last take something away: a decision, a distraction, a task that was never yours.
I call work pro-activity. The word is the instruction: act on the day before it acts on you. You default into your day or you design it, and the design happens before the day starts.
When I first wrote this list in 2021 it had 20 items, and some were apps that have since changed. These are the 10 that have held up, each with the reason it works and the evidence where it’s solid.
How to be more productive
To be more productive, decide what matters before the day starts and protect the time for it. Pick the few tasks that produce most of the result, put them in your sharpest hours and give each one an end time. Work on one task at a time with notifications off, check email at set times and keep every open task on one list instead of in your head. Close each day with a plan for anything unfinished, and have someone check that the plan happened. Energy sets the ceiling on all of it, so sleep and movement come first.
How to plan a productive day
1. Run the same first hour every day
Your morning rules your day. If you work from home or travel, nothing outside you sets the start time, so set it yourself: the same wake time, no snooze and the same first hour every working day. A fixed first hour means the day starts on your plan instead of your phone.
Put movement in that hour. I work better all day when I’ve moved first, even if it’s a 5-minute mobility session. If your office is the spare room, get dressed for work anyway. It tells you the working day has started.
None of this holds on 5 hours of sleep. Sleep sits under every tip on this list, and I’ve covered it in peak performance: the daily practices that work.
2. Use the 95/5 rule to find what matters
You’ve probably met the 80/20 rule: most of your results come from a small share of your effort. With coaching clients I take it further, to 95/5. Treat 5% of your tasks as the ones that produce 95% of the outcome, and give them your attention first.
The numbers are a rule of thumb, not a measurement. What matters is the ratio: most of your list keeps things running and a few items move the business. Go through this week’s list and mark the 1 or 2 items that would change the most if they were done by Friday. Those are your 5%. The rest is maintenance, and maintenance can wait for your lower-energy hours.
3. Give the 5% your best hours
Everyone has a few hours in the day when hard thinking comes easily. Find yours by noting, for one week, when focus is easy and when it drags. Then sort the week with the Calendar of Kings, the tool I use in the Stealth OS to decide what gets your time first:
- Ships first: your 5%. It goes into your best hours and gets booked like a board meeting.
- Waits: email, routine calls and admin. Real work, but it doesn’t need your sharpest thinking, so it goes into the lower-energy hours.
- Killed: anything that shouldn’t be yours or shouldn’t happen at all. Delegate it or drop it, and it stops taking your attention.
Do the sort once a week, on Monday, before the inbox gets a vote. When someone asks for a ships-first slot, offer them another time. The full weekly rhythm, with the Monday plan and the Friday review, is in a productivity system that survives a bad week.
4. Put an end time on every task
Parkinson’s Law says work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion. Give a task the afternoon and it takes the afternoon. Give it an hour and you make the decisions you were putting off, because the hour ends.
Before you start anything, decide how long it deserves and put it in the calendar with a start and a finish. If a task should take an hour, book an hour and stop when it’s up. Then judge what’s left: finish it in a second block or call it good enough. I go further on time limits in 5 systems for intentional focus and action.
How to focus at work
5. Work in blocks, one task per block
Output comes from focused blocks with a clear end. I work in 30-minute blocks of Stealth Work: one task, phone in another room, no meetings. Then 5 minutes of movement: walk, mobilise, a few squats. When I first wrote this list I used 20-minute bursts on a timer. The length matters less than keeping one task per block and a fixed finish.
The research on break timing supports that. Three experiments with university students compared fixed Pomodoro-style breaks, a short break after about 25 minutes of work, with breaks people took when they chose. None found a difference in how much work got done. The effects on mood and fatigue pointed in different directions: one study favoured the fixed breaks,1 one found no overall difference2 and one favoured the breaks people chose.3 So pick a block length you’ll keep, protect the single task and use the break to move.
6. Turn notifications off and check email at set times
Your phone is the biggest distraction in the room, so take it out of the room. Turn on Do Not Disturb or a focus mode that only lets work apps through, close social media during work hours and keep the TV off. Each alert pulls you off the task you chose.
Email works the same way. In a 2-week experiment, 124 adults spent one week checking email 3 times a day and one week checking as often as they liked, in random order. In the limited week they reported lower daily stress and felt less distracted by email. Their self-reported productivity didn’t change directly.4 I batch email for the calmer, less distracted day and let the focused blocks produce the output. Pick 3 set times, tell your team when they are and agree one channel for anything that can’t wait.
7. Set up your workspace for focus
Your environment shapes your behaviour, and your behaviour shapes your results. Set the desk up so the focused version of the day is the easy one: natural light if you can get it, a clear surface, only what the current task needs and the phone out of reach. Keep one or two reminders of what you’re working towards where you’ll see them. In the Stealth OS this is W6, the Environmental Advantage Audit: change the room before you rely on self-control.
8. Keep one list in one place
Lists give you clarity, direction and accountability, as long as there’s only one. Tasks spread across notebooks, inboxes and your head pull at your attention all day. Put every open task in one app and check it at set times. I’ve used ClickUp for my own tasks and recommended Trello for team projects. Which app you choose matters less than having one.
Write each item as a micro goal: the next step you can finish in one block. “Draft the 3 pricing slides” gets done. “Board deck” sits on the list for a week. When you’re clear on the outcome, the daily actions get clear too. If one task keeps moving to tomorrow anyway, the fixes are in how to stop procrastinating.
How to stay productive every week
9. Close the day with a shutdown routine
Set your working hours and keep them, whether that’s 9 to 5 on weekdays or 7 to 12 every day. Then end each day the same way: tick off what’s done, note what worked and what didn’t, and write down where, when and how each unfinished task will get done. Set tomorrow’s first block. Then stop.
The planning step has evidence behind it. A study that tracked 103 employees and 1,127 work goals found people had more trouble switching off later in the day from goals they hadn’t finished, especially the ones they cared about most. In an experiment in the same paper, writing plans to finish the incomplete goals helped people detach from work, mainly those who usually struggle to switch off.5 A day that ends with a plan lets you recover, and recovery is where tomorrow’s energy comes from. More on switching off in stress management for executives.
10. Get someone to hold you to it
Most founders already know what to do. What slips is doing it on the weeks that go wrong. A mentor, coach or peer group you report to catches the slip early, because someone else is watching the numbers with you.
Close each week with the Friday Debrief, 15 minutes in writing: what moved, what didn’t and what changes next week. Then send the answers to one person who will ask about them. Treat books and podcasts the same way: take one idea, apply it for a week and keep it only if it changes the week. If you want a room as well as a system, that’s what The Quest is for: founders and executives running the same system in 28-day cycles.
How to start
Don’t start all 10 on Monday. Install one, run it for 28 days, then add the next. In the Stealth OS that’s the Monthly Lever: one change per cycle, held until it runs without thinking. If you’re not sure which tip to start with, measure first.
- The 1% Scorecard. 8 questions, 2 minutes, free. You get a score out of 100 and the one thing to install first.
- The Quest. The performance membership that runs the Stealth OS in 28-day cycles, with founders and executives running the same system. Cancel anytime.
Pick one tip and put it in tomorrow’s calendar.
Related reading: How to get into a flow state: 5 ways to get there faster, Productivity coaching for founders: install a system and Habit stacking for busy leaders.
FAQ
How can I be more productive at work?
Decide your 1 or 2 most important tasks before the day starts and book them into your sharpest hours. Work in focused blocks with notifications off, check email at set times and give every task an end time. Close the day by writing a plan for anything unfinished.
What is the 80/20 rule in productivity?
The 80/20 rule, or Pareto principle, says most of your results come from a small share of your effort. With clients I use a stricter version, 95/5: treat 5% of your tasks as the ones that produce 95% of the outcome. The numbers are a rule of thumb, and the habit they build is doing the few tasks that matter first.
Does the Pomodoro Technique work?
In studies so far, fixed Pomodoro-style breaks haven’t produced more work than breaks people choose for themselves. Three experiments with university students found no difference in how much work got done, and mixed effects on mood and fatigue. Use a timer if it helps you start, and keep one task per block.
How often should you check email?
Set a few fixed times a day instead of checking all day. In a 2-week experiment, adults reported lower daily stress and less distraction in the week they checked email 3 times a day than in the week they checked freely. Tell your team your email times and agree one channel for anything urgent.
Sources
- Biwer, F., Wiradhany, W., oude Egbrink, M. G. A., & de Bruin, A. B. H. (2023). Understanding effort regulation: Comparing ‘Pomodoro’ breaks and self-regulated breaks. British Journal of Educational Psychology, 93(S2), 353-367. doi.org/10.1111/bjep.12593
- Smits, E. J. C., Wenzel, N., & de Bruin, A. (2025). Investigating the effectiveness of self-regulated, Pomodoro, and Flowtime break-taking techniques among students. Behavioral Sciences, 15(7), 861. doi.org/10.3390/bs15070861
- Göksu, A., Wiradhany, W., & de Bruin, A. B. H. (2026). When to take a break: Comparing effects of systematic short (Pomodoro) and self-regulated breaks on subjective experience and actual learning. Behavioral Sciences, 16(7), 1158. doi.org/10.3390/bs16071158
- Kushlev, K., & Dunn, E. W. (2015). Checking email less frequently reduces stress. Computers in Human Behavior, 43, 220-228. doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2014.11.005
- Smit, B. W. (2016). Successfully leaving work at work: The self-regulatory underpinnings of psychological detachment. Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, 89(3), 493-514. doi.org/10.1111/joop.12137
This article is general information, not medical advice.
