For years I felt like running on a treadmill — constantly moving but getting nowhere. My schedule was a chaotic mix of back-to-back meetings, unforeseen interruptions, and constant fire-fighting. This relentless pace led to missed deadlines, disappointed colleagues and frustrated clients. It left me most days feeling exhausted, stressed, and inefficient. Not a good way to be and it had to end.

My journey to reclaiming my time and enhancing my productivity was marked by four pivotal strategies

1. Simple Time Management - My first breakthrough came with Reclaim.ai, a tool that intelligently buffered time between my meetings, preventing the dreaded back-to-back schedule. It was a revelation, allowing me the space to breathe and prepare for what was next. It sounds simple but it was a game changer and from there I was able to set up more complex rules to help defend time in my calendar. #winning

2. Efficient Task Management - I found I was being bombarded by tasks coming in from all angles; Slack, email, meetings, phone calls, impromptu conversations. It was easy to say, “Yep, I’ll get that done” only to completely forget about it as soon as I got back to what I had been doing. Todoist emerged as my saviour.

   • The mobile and desktop apps allowed for easy capture of tasks from meetings and conversations wherever I was.

   • It integrates with Spark (the email client I use) and Slack meaning I could create tasks from emails / messages quickly and easily.

   • And it integrates with Reclaim. It meant I had all tasks aggregated in one place (Todoist) and I could start to schedule time in my calendar for things that I had committed to doing via Reclaim’s Planner function. Even better, if I didn’t tick a task off as complete, Reclaim would reschedule it in my calendar.

     The end result was not only a unified task list of pretty much everything I had to do but time set aside to actually get things done.

3. Strategic Prioritisation - there are a stack of different approaches to managing your time. I use three;

   • The Eisenhower Matrix: This framework categorises tasks into four quadrants based on urgency and importance: Do First (Urgent & Important), Schedule (Important & Not Urgent), Delegate (Not Important & Urgent), and Eliminate (Not Important & Not Urgent). This helps you identify what to tackle right away, plan for later, delegate, or ditch altogether. The trick is to ensure that you don’t end up with everything in the Do First quadrant otherwise you’ll never get out in front.

   • The 3/3/3 Method: you divide your day allocating 3 hours for focused work, set aside time to manage 3 short urgent tasks or meetings, and complete 3 maintenance activities.

   • The 2-Minute Rule - If you can do it less than 2 minutes. Then do it now.

     How does all that work in practice? Well, I have the tooling to manage tasks and defend my calendar (Todoist + Reclaim), I have a formula for managing my day (3/3/3), and then I have a view on what needs to be done each week (Urgent vs Important). So at the end of each week, I can plan out what the following week is going to look like making sure that I am spending my time on the right things.

4. Achieving Flow - The ultimate level of productivity was reached by creating conditions for flow state, where focus intensifies, productivity soars, and time flies. Understanding and triggering flow became a daily goal, transforming my work experience from draining to energising.

   I learned that you could construct the right conditions to engineer flow. To achieve flow, a combination of the 22 triggers are typically required*:

• Internal Triggers - clear goals, unambiguous feedback, challenge-skill balance (you are capable but being stretched), concentration on task, curiosity / passion / purpose, autonomy

• External Triggers- High consequence, novelty, complexity, unpredictability, deep embodiment

• Creative Triggers - creative and pattern recognition

• Group Flow Triggers - shared goals, deep listening, complete concentration, blending ego’s, being in control, equal participation, familiarity, open communication, moving forward, shared risk

• Bonus Trigger - the desire to prove someone or something wrong

With this formula, I was then able to ensure that the key strategic task I had scheduled for my focus time each day was set up to allow me to get into flow.

And in doing so I completed the transition from a frustrating and exhausting workday feeling like I was moving one step forward and two steps back to being not only super-productive but energised and motivated to do more (in fact, studies have shown the benefits of achieving flow include positive emotions, reduced stress, improved performance, improved creativity, greater motivation and greater happiness. And in my experience, this absolutely lines up).

In summary, this wasn’t an overnight journey. What I’ve described transpired over years but I’ve now developed a productivity strategy that not only makes me more effective but also brings a profound sense of satisfaction at the end of each day.

In fact, it’s rare these days that I get to the end of a working day and think to myself “That was a waste of a day - I haven’t achieved anything.”

And that’s a pretty great place to be.

TL;DR

• I was trapped in a cycle of inefficiencies, with my days consumed by back-to-back meetings and unexpected interruptions, leaving me stressed and unproductive.

• By adopting smart tools and strategies, I transformed my approach to work, prioritising effectively and maximising productivity.

• Evaluate your current productivity strategies critically. Small changes, such as introducing time buffers between meetings or adopting a unified task management system, can significantly impact your effectiveness and satisfaction with your workday.

PS: I’m not affiliated with tools I’ve mentioned other than Reclaim of which I am an affiliate partner. There are are bunch out there that do similar things. I’ve tried many of them - these just happen to be the ones that work best for me.

*According to Steve Kotler: “What are the flow triggers? 22 Examples to Unlock Flow State'“