Assigning tasks to blocks of time helps reduce procrastination and overestimation of how much I can achieve in a week. This includes my weekly writing process (outlining, drafting, rewriting) and chores. Recurring tasks are put on autopilot so I don’t have to think about them.

My weekly schedule is organized around the ideas of two great thinkers.įirst, Cal Newport and his ideas of autopilot scheduling and time-blocking. Without it, I spend too much time thinking what to do next, and sometimes the week passes with nothing accomplished. Tools for creation: Coding (Jetbrains IDEs), Writing (Roam and Ulysses)Ī scheduler is essential for planning and tracking my time.Tools for organization: Scheduling (WeekPlan), note-taking (Roam), reading (Kindle, Adobe, Instapaper).Tools help us accomplish more by automating the details and extending our abilities. A poor good craftsman blames credits his tools

I’m also curious about your productivity systems and would love to hear about them. So here’s a write-up about the tools and routines that make up my system.

While this is humble compared to those superhumans, I do get questions about it from time to time. It helped me to graduate, and now, it’s helping me to write weekly. Four years later, I’m happy to share a system that worked well for me. But I had to find out when I started the Georgia Tech Masters in CS while working full-time. How do they accomplish so much with the same amount of time? We all have that friend who has a full-time job, completed a part-time postgrad degree, and built an income-generating side business.

Macdown cheatsheet