5 science-backed ways to boost your productivity

Do you want to enhance your productivity and make the most of your day? By incorporating science-backed strategies into your daily routine, you can boost your productivity, accomplish more, and lead a more fulfilling life, explains productivity expert Andrew May, founder of  StriveStronger.

As a mental skills coach with clients that include elite athletes, CEOs, and organisations, I’m on a mission to wake people up to a better way of living, working, and leading.

So here are five science-backed strategies that leading CEOs use to achieve goals more efficiently and anyone can adopt.

1. Wake up your circadian clock

Starting your day right can have a profound impact on your productivity, health, and overall satisfaction with life. Dr. Andrew Huberman, a Professor of Neurobiology and Ophthalmology at Stanford University School of Medicine, suggests that managing cortisol levels is crucial for optimising productivity. To synchronise your body’s internal clock and enhance alertness, aim to expose yourself to bright sunlight within 30-60 minutes of waking up. This helps regulate cortisol levels, which play a role in your immune system, metabolism, and focus throughout the day. Additionally, waiting 90 minutes before consuming your morning coffee allows cortisol and caffeine to have maximum effect, preserving your natural cortisol pattern and reducing the chances of caffeine dependency.

2. Plan your day

Productivity requires planning. When you write down your goals, tasks, and their specific timings, you significantly increase your chances of accomplishing them. Laura Mae Martin, Google’s executive productivity advisor, recommends prioritising your top three tasks and focusing on them until they are completed. By planning your day at a micro-level and including smaller tasks that can be done between meetings, you can maintain a sense of progress and avoid distractions.

3. Align work with your chronotype

Understanding your body’s energy patterns, known as your chronotype, can help you structure your tasks for maximum productivity. Some people are naturally more energetic in the morning (larks), while others are at their peak in the evening (owls). Most individuals fall somewhere in between. To optimise your productivity, Dan Pink, author of “When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing,” suggests scheduling your most important tasks during your energy peaks and less demanding tasks during energy troughs³. Taking regular breaks throughout the day can also help you stay focused and avoid burnout.

4. Batch tasks for efficiency

Batching tasks can create a sense of momentum and improve efficiency. It’s not just about batching emails; you can also batch meetings, calls, or virtual events. Research shows that having a meeting scheduled within the next hour or two decreases productivity by 22%. To avoid distractions and maintain focus, try to schedule meetings within a specific time frame, leaving buffers between them to catch up on other tasks. This way, you can allocate dedicated periods for deep work and accomplish more in less time.

5. Implement the Better Week method

The Better Week method is a proven productivity process that helps you go from knowing what needs to be done to actually achieving it. By externalising your memory, restoring control in your life, stimulating action, and creating a vision of a great week, you can free up an average of half a day each week⁵. Here are 5 steps to take control of your week and make it a Better Week:

1. Start with a blank slate and plot 3 non-work-related activities into your week. These activities energise and stimulate you. Eg. Time with loved ones, physical activity, hobbies, etc.

2. Colour code your diary. Categorise your activities by colour so you can easily assess your week with a glance. Eg. Physical activity is blue, travel is yellow, hobbies are purple, deep work is pink, internal work meeting grey, external work meeting orange, etc.

3. Plot your work-related activities and remember to colour code.

4. Add a daily warm-up and daily warm-down to the start and end of every day. 15 minutes is sufficient. This time allows you to plan what you need to achieve in the day and to assess what you did in the day and to carry onto tomorrow.

5. Prune your calendar. Your life is every changing. Continuously assess how to make your week “better” by assessing where you can batch colours, cut down meeting times, and plug in more non-work-related activities to give you energy.

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