Summary: Lenny Rachitsky shares effective time management techniques to boost productivity. He suggests using your calendar for to-dos, keeping a “waiting for” list, and blocking out time for deep work. Additionally, he emphasizes the importance of saying no and delegating low-impact tasks to improve efficiency.
Whenever you ask someone to do something for you, add them to your “waiting for” list. I keep this alongside my to-do list (View Highlight)
Before you open up your to-do list—and definitely before you dive into your work—pick one to three things that, if you got done today (and if you did nothing else), would make it a great day. (View Highlight)
Kill all of the apps that often distract you (View Highlight)
This is going to sound absurd to most people, but I currently have a rule of no meetings before 3 p.m. (View Highlight)
it isn’t just the meeting time itself you’re wasting. It’s also the time before the meeting, when you aren’t able to go deep on anything (it’s almost meeting time!), and the time after the meeting, when you have to rebuild context on whatever you were doing. (View Highlight)
when we get the ask, we often make one of two mistakes:
Communicating but not prioritizing—saying yes, jumping on it, and dealing with the consequences later
Prioritizing but not communicating—saying no to avoid slowing down other work, but without a great explanation as to why
Instead, try prioritizing and communicating. (View Highlight)