2) Set units: use the “format” feature to make percentages into actual percentages (ending in %), to make dollar figures into actual dollar figures (starting with $), and so on. This makes it easier to interpret figures at a glance.

3) Use formulas: anything that can be calculated using the “formulas” feature should be (don’t do calculations by hand). Using formulas means numbers are automatically updated if anything changes, reduces human error, and makes it possible to check how a calculation is done.

4) Distinguish inputs and outputs: use a different color for numbers that are automatically-calculated outputs than for those that are inputs (e.g., entered by hand). This makes it easy to see what can be varied (and what is calculated and should not be manually edited).

5) Bold totals and key figures: make totals and key figures stand out by using bold (or color coding) to draw the eye to the most important parts of the sheet.

6) Don’t repeat yourself: If you’re repeating a header more than once in a way that means the same thing each time (e.g., “Total Revenue” appears once in every column), or you find that have another form of repetition, you should restructure your tables to remove the repetition.

7) Use clear names: every column and row should have a name that makes it crystal clear what it actually means. Ambiguous names can lead to confusion and mistakes, especially if others have to read your spreadsheets or if you may return to a spreadsheet you made a long time ago.

8) Center-align column headers and numbers: spreadsheets look neater and are a bit easier to read when the column headers and numbers are aligned in the center of columns rather than using the default (left or right) alignment.

9) Order columns and rows based on importance: put the most important stuff first (to the left and to the top) so that it’s easier to see what’s important immediately.

10) Bonus tips:

• Freeze the header row so that sorting works better and so that it’s clearer what the header is. 
• For columns (or rows) where the bigger numbers are more important than smaller ones, use conditional formatting (with a 3-color scale for numbers that can be both positive and negative or a 2-color scale for ones that are all positive) to make the important numbers pop out.
• Give spreadsheets really clear names so that they are easy to search for (and so that anyone who sees them can quickly understand what each spreadsheet contains)

This piece was first written on May 5, 2023, and first appeared on this site on May 7, 2023.

There is a simple formula for thinking about how to be more productive that most people aren’t familiar with. It breaks down productivity into the product of three factors, namely:

PRODUCTIVITY = TIME x EFFICIENCY x OBJECTIVE

More explicitly:
PRODUCTIVITY
(i.e., the total value – according to your own values – of your work each week on a goal of yours)
= TIME
(i.e., the total hours you work on the goal each week)
x EFFICIENCY
(i.e., the average fraction of the goal you complete *each hour* of time you spend on it)
x OBJECTIVE
(i.e., the total value – according to your values – that would be achieved from *fully* completing the goal)

To make a metaphor for this equation: imagine you’re trying to drive across the country. TIME would be how long you spend driving each day, EFFICIENCY would be the number of miles you make it on average towards your destination each hour (i.e., related to your speed but also to what route you take), and OBJECTIVE would be how valuable it actually is to you to make it all the way to the other side.

This equation assumes that you do eventually achieve your goal (since for some goals, such as getting into a PhD program, not fully completing the goal may produce zero value to you). It also only measures the value in an “average” sense.

To see that this equation really works, consider how the units cancel each other out:

TIME x EFFICIENCY x OBJECTIVE

= (hours) x (fraction_complete/hour) x (value_for_completing_all)

= fraction_complete x value_for_completing_all

= value_for_fraction_you_completed = PRODUCTIVITY

When it comes to PRODUCTIVITY, people are often concerned with spending more time on their goal, but as the equation above makes clear, there are two other unrelated ways to increase productivity. Increasing any of the three factors by the same amount (say, 10%) is equally valuable when it comes to productivity since the equation is fully symmetrical in the three factors. I’ll take a moment now to examine each of the three factors and some of the tricks for increasing them.

(1) TIME in our lives is fixed, so making more time is usually about some form of prioritization, that is, taking time away from something else (e.g., social media, chores, sleep, hobbies, friends) to make more time to work on a goal. Though in some cases, it is about leveraging some resource (e.g., money or people you can delegate to) towards making more time.

TIME-related productivity tips include:

-don’t do tasks that are neither important nor urgent (just ignore these time-wasting tasks)

-make a list of all your goals and then permanently cut out all of them except the one or two or three most important ones, and focus for years on just those

-delegate and outsource as much as you can (e.g., if you manage people, delegate to them, or if you can afford it, considering hiring a part-time assistant)

-if you can afford it, buy time-saving devices (e.g., a laundry machine/dishwasher/cleaning robot like Roomba) and services (e.g., a cleaning service)

-know the value of your time so that you know how much money to spend on time-saving stuff (you can calculate it using our tool here: https://bit.ly/2Fwiy8r)

-get comfortable saying “no” more (in a way that doesn’t offend) when people ask you to do things

-avoid addictive things and time-wasting activities (where afterward you don’t feel good about that use of time) and consider using plugins to block websites you spend too much time on

-automate tasks you do regularly (e.g., by making excel templates, or by using Zapier or IFTTT to connect services together, or using our system GuidedTrack.com to create repeatable processes/reusable tools)

(2) EFFICIENCY is about working effectively during each hour spent.

EFFICIENCY tips include:

-figure out what times of day you are most effective, and do your most important and challenging work at those times

-use caffeine to help regulate which hours are most productive (i.e., to make the most important hours work best for you)

-avoid getting too little sleep and avoid low sleep quality if you can (e.g., don’t drink caffeine at night)

-do restorative activities when you need a mental break from work if you can, such as quick exercise, yoga, taking a walk, or meditation

-turn off all non-essential phone and computer notifications so that you don’t get pulled out of the work you are doing

-avoid multi-tasking since it tends to lead to both slower and lower quality work

-leave long blocks of uninterrupted work time if you can (e.g., at least two-hour-long blocks with no meetings or distractions) so that you can achieve deep focus

-use the Pomodoro technique if it makes you more efficient (e.g., https://bit.ly/1gCYr3U)

-learn to use your tools faster (e.g., learn the key commands on your computer so that you can use the mouse less, and learn the shortcuts for the email program you use)

-if you can, make sure to have high-quality equipment for your work (e.g., if you spend 10 hours a day on your computer/using the internet, make sure your computer and internet run fast)

-get feedback from other efficient people about the process they do to do similar work, and see what ideas they have for streamlining your process

-break down the difficult tasks you do into sub-skills, and practice those sub-skills until you get good at them. For instance, if you are a slow typer, specifically practice your typing if it influences the speed at which you do all your other work.

-plan your route to achieving your objective carefully. Don’t just jump into working on the goal immediately; try to figure out the most efficient path to get you there. Compare multiple possible plans for achieving your goal to figure out the most efficient one.

-get others to critique your plan of how you’re trying to achieve your goal to see if they have ideas for a better path you may not have thought of.

(3) OBJECTIVE is about making sure the goal you are working towards is one that, if achieved, will produce a ton of value (according to what you consider valuable).

OBJECTIVE-related tips include:

-spend time reflecting on what you think is truly valuable, since the better you understand what is valuable, the easier it is to seek value in your goals

-don’t just pick a goal right away; compare multiple potential goals and evaluate how valuable they are before deciding between them

-explain your values to other people whose opinions you trust, and explain which goals you are considering, to see if they have thoughts about which goals to pick

-make sure you are aware of what the actual results of achieving a goal will be. For instance, if your goal is to become a doctor, investigate thoroughly in advance what it is like to be a doctor (ideally by talking both to current doctors and to people that decided to leave medicine).

-make sure that the goals you choose are based on what you believe is valuable and that you aren’t accidentally basing them on what others think is valuable instead (e.g., due to social pressures you experience)

It is in this OBJECTIVE variable that you tend to see the largest multiplier effects on PRODUCTIVITY since some goals are, in an expected value sense, at least 100x more valuable than others. Though typically, in those cases of very large amounts of value, the uncertainty in the value is also high (so one goal might be 100x better in expected value but still have a substantial chance of producing no value).

Oddly, some goals we may choose may have negative expected values (even according to our own value systems). Consider, for instance, someone who works for years towards a goal because they think it will make their parents happy (and it makes them miserable to work towards it). But it turns out they are wrong, and their parents are actually indifferent to them achieving the goal! In that case, due to a false belief about the world relating to their parents, the OBJECTIVE factor in the equation ends up being negative, making the whole productivity equation negative (hence the more TIME that is spent, the *less* value is produced, reversing the usual relationship!)

So, keeping all this in mind, what should you do if you want to be more productive? Well, remember that productivity is about three factors – TIME, EFFICIENCY, and OBJECTIVE.

It’s not just about how many hours you work towards a goal, but also about how efficient each hour of that work is and about how valuable the goal is to achieve in the first place. Each factor has unique techniques and tricks that can help you increase your total productivity.

Note: there is, of course, such a thing as taking a mental break. If you find PW useful as a mental break and recovery between bouts of meaningful work, I’m all for it. Just keep in mind that you are taking a break from the real stuff. Furthermore, note that work comes on a continuum from pseudo work to real work. Here, I’m mainly talking about tasks that have very little or no value. Many of these points apply (but certainly to a lesser extent) to work that’s a bit more useful but still not significantly so.

A related problem occurs with what I’ll call PFPW (pseudo fun pseudo work). PFPW is fun and useful for work goals but not well optimized for either one. Usually, we’re better off dividing our time into real work time, where we try to accomplish our work goals efficiently, and fun time where we genuinely relax or aim to enjoy ourselves. Of course, some jobs incentivized PFPW, for instance, by making you stay at the office when you don’t have much real work to do. Since you can’t have real fun there and don’t have work to do, you do PFPW instead. Unfortunately, this is frequent in some industries and is an effective way to make employees unhappy.

PW is a real problem for individuals, but for startups and small companies, it can be deadly. What makes startup pseudo work (SPW) so bad is that startups are almost always on the verge of death and must drive relentlessly towards their goals to live. SPW, therefore, can be a fatal distraction. Imagine a person standing on a bridge on fire, but who happens to notice he is thirsty. He leisurely drinks from his water bottle to quench his thirst until the bridge collapses into the river. Yes, he was thirsty, but he wasn’t THAT thirsty. There are endless things to do at a startup that feel like work, but that don’t move you strongly in the direction of survival. Don’t quench thirst; run to the other side of the burning bridge.

What pseudo work do you do regularly that you should reduce?

Here is a list of common forms of “pseudo work” and “pseudo fun pseudo work” that I’ve seen (or done):

• giving long responses to work emails when much shorter responses would suffice
• conducting unnecessarily long meetings or meetings with lots of unnecessary chit chat
• agreeing to meet with people (or initiating meetings with people) just because they work in one’s industry, even though it’s doubtful that either party will benefit from the meeting.
• reading the news or reading trade publications (except when one is in the relatively rare sort of work where reading the news is actually important to one’s job). If you like reading the news for some non-work-related reason, then there’s nothing wrong with that, but it doesn’t mean it’s necessarily “work” that counts.
• agreeing to give talks in cases when we have mainly non-work-related motivations (e.g., we like the idea of it), but we pretend it’s because it actually moves our work goals forward. It may be worth giving a talk for those non-work motivations, but it’s useful to know why we’re actually doing it and not count it as work if it isn’t.
• double or triple checking things when minor errors wouldn’t matter
• excessive time spent chatting with teams on slack or sending emails to check in on things when not really necessary

Here is a list of common forms of pseudo work I’ve seen founders at startups fall into especially (and in some significant cases have fallen into myself):

• doing work yourself that could easily be delegated to someone you manage when you have more mission-critical work you should be focused on
• doing work that is not related to the core of your business that could easily and cheaply be outsourced to a 3rd party vendor
• networking with other startup founders too much (e.g., going to lots of startup events without a clear important goal)
• spending too much time and energy worrying about record-keeping over-focus on critical operations
• spending too much time on high-level discussions of the business, market, or future when the product you’re building is not actually good yet
• obsessively checking performance metrics way more often than is useful
• focusing too much credibility or brand when the product is not yet released
• delaying too long on releasing the product or pushing out new features due to perfectionistic optimization
• spending too much time in meetings and not enough time building and problem-solving
• spending too much time on paperwork or formal processes that are not actually improving your business
• spending too much time planning when in the same amount of time one could have already executed a reasonable solution
• micromanaging employees rather than letting them figure out their own solutions

So why don’t we always do what we know we should?

1. Habit. Have you ever tried to correct bad posture? At some point you’ll notice that your shoulders are hunched and you’ll make a correction, only to notice them hunched again two minutes later. Habits are behaviors that are done automatically. Frequently, we’re not aware of doing them as they occur, so our conscious mind doesn’t have the chance to stop them in action. Intellectually knowing what you should do won’t help if you aren’t consciously aware of what you’re doing while you’re doing it.

To permanently correct a bad habit, it often takes a large number of repetitions of a different behavior, in the context where you would normally engage in the habit. Eventually the old habit will be replaced with a new one. Ideally, you want it to be the case that the context automatically triggers the good habit.

Suppose that you are using an ineffective tennis swing. You would ideally practice a better swing a large number of times (starting without a ball, and then eventually doing it with a ball, and finally doing it while hitting back and forth with another player). Eventually, the correct motion would feel more natural than the incorrect one.

To give another example, suppose that you’d like to correct a habit of pronounce certain words incorrectly. Ideally, you would make a list of these words and the correction pronunciations, and practice saying each correctly a few times a day (to yourself, and then eventually in conversation) until the correct pronunciations no longer required thought.

An approach like this requires a lot of effort, and the willingness to put time into repetitive practice, but it can really pay off. Think about what habit you’d like to instill instead of the one you currently have. Now think about what you could practice to instill this new habit. For complex actions, the practice should be simple to start, and then grown in complexity as you master the basic components (e.g. practice your tennis swing without a ball before doing it with a ball). Finally, schedule time on your calendar to actually perform the practice. Note that one practice session very likely won’t be enough (you may need quite a lot of practice to overcome strongly ingrained habits).

Note that even if you don’t currently have a bad habit, it may be well worth it making an effort to install a good habit. Practice doing what you’d like yourself to do, in the context you’d like yourself to do it. Try to do this good behavior as consistently as possible, to make the new habit form faster.

2. Conflicting desires. You may want to lose weight, but you also want to eat that cupcake. To say you know you shouldn’t eat that cupcake, is to imply that overall, the weight loss is more valuable to you than the pleasure you’ll get from the cupcake. The problem is that when these two desires come into conflict at the moment while that cupcake is sitting in front of you, your desire for the pleasurable taste may win out. Since our desires shift due to context, it may well be the case that 5 minutes prior, when the cupcake hadn’t yet been placed in front of you yet, your desire to lose weight was in fact stronger than your desire to eat a tasty treat. But when you start to salivate at the sight of cupcake, your desires change in magnitude.

If conflicting desires cause you to do things that are not in your own long term interest, there are a few strategies you can try. First, you can try making your desire stronger for the good behavior. For instance, try vividly imagining yourself after having lost the weight and mentally basking in how good that will feel, and the benefits you will get from it. Immediately follow this visualization by a second one where you mentally contrast that desired state with how things currently stand. This second part is critical to help build motivation (rather than just basking in wishful thinking).

A second approach is to try to make your desire for the bad behavior weaker, for instance by imagining yourself gaining weight as you eat unhealthy food. The idea is to build a stronger association between your desire and the negative consequences associated with it, so that when the desire is triggered, the negative thought is triggered simultaneously, reducing your overall desire. One way to carry this out is to make a list of the negative consequences of the bad behavior, and then imagine each of these negative consequences occurring.

A third approach to dealing with conflicting desires is to try to arrange your environment so that your desires are unlikely to shift in a way that will yield behaviors that aren’t what you want. For instance, if you’re trying to lose weight, don’t keep unhealthy foods around your house, and don’t go to cupcake shops.

It’s worth noting, that sometimes we have conflicting desires that we aren’t consciously aware of. For instance, you might know that you should start searching for a job, but without having acknowledged it explicitly, be terribly afraid of rejection. Hence, you may find that you mysteriously become anxious every time you start looking at job postings, which leads you to procrastinate.

To better understand whether conflicting desires are involved in causing you to avoid what you know you should do, try the following exercise: Ask yourself “what are the benefits that I get out of NOT doing this good behavior?” Make a list of whatever you can think of. Doing this may make you realize that you have reasons for not acting that you weren’t even aware of. Now, make a list of the costs of not doing the desired behavior. Reflect on this list of costs and benefits, and reflect whether those benefits are really worth the costs.

3. Lack of motivation. Sometimes you’ll know intellectually that something would be a good idea to do, but for some reason feel an utter lack of motivation to actually do it. For instance, you may be aware that it is much more efficient from a learning perspective to take notes on articles and non-fiction books you read, and review those notes later (or better yet, make flashcards from them), than to merely read passively. But there’s a good chance that you don’t feel any significant motivation to actually take notes while you’re reading.

When lack of motivation strikes, it may help to perform a cost benefit analysis. Make a list of the benefits and costs of doing that action (compared to the baseline state of not doing it). Read this list over again. If the action really is worth doing, this list of reasons why you should do it may give you greater motivation.

You also might find it helpful to try to boost your desire through visualization (as in the conflicting desires case above). Visualize your future after you have done the desired behavior, and imagine the benefits that you are likely to get out of it. Now, remind yourself of how things currently stand, and mentally contrast this with the desired future.

4. Forgetting. You might know what is good for you, but simply forget to do it. For instance, for the last two months you may have been in desperate need of a haircut, but what with your busy life, you never think to make an appointment. Or maybe you made an appointment, but forgot to show up for it.

There are at least four strategies you can use to combat forgetfulness. First, write down whatever you want to remember, and put that note somewhere that you’ll be forced to notice it (e.g. stick it on your sock drawer).

Second, put the thing you need to remember in your calendar. So if you think to yourself that you need a haircut, but right now its after business hours, put a reminder in your calendar to book one tomorrow at 10am.

Third, for important things that you keep forgetting to do (especially major things that you really aren’t looking forward to doing), you can ask a friend to act as an enforcer. Tell them how important it is for you to do this thing, and when you want to have it done by. Ask for their help with making sure you get it done, giving them free reign to nag you as much as is necessary. This social pressure can be very effective for some people.

The fourth, and best strategy, is to (whenever possible) act immediately at the moment when you do remember what you should do. So when you happen to recall that you need a haircut, don’t assume that you’ll remember to make an appointment tomorrow, just pick up the phone immediately and book it. You’ll likely be better at getting yourself to act immediately if you start viewing your brain as a buggy machine, which occasionally forgets important things for long periods (I know mine does, at least). Taking this perspective means that when you remember something important that you should do, you can’t just assume that your brain will eventually take care of it. If you don’t act now, who knows when you’ll remember to do it again, if you ever even remember to act at all. So act now, to save yourself from your buggy brain later!

5. Lack of knowledge. Even if you know what you should do to improve your life, you may not know how to do it. For instance, you might want people to view you as being more confident, but have little idea how to get yourself to act in a more confident manner. If you keep telling yourself what you “should” do, but you don’t know the steps to carry it out, you’re unlikely to change your behavior for the better.

When you lack sufficient knowledge as to how to achieve a behavior, take steps to correct your lack of knowledge. Ask someone who knows more, or do some research online, or try breaking down the action by taking twenty minutes to write down the small, simple components that make up whatever you’re trying to do. Even very complex actions can usually be broken into simple steps, each of which is fairly straightforward. For instance, suppose you want to learn to write computer programs, but you don’t know the first thing about programming. You might break this task up as follows: Step 1. Talk to friends who are knowledgable about computer programming, and ask them what programming language you should learn based on your goals. Step 2. Install the required software on your computer in order to be able to write programs in the language that your friends suggested. Step 3. Google to find a few tutorials on the language. Run them by your knowledgable friends to see which tutorial they think looks best. Step 4. Complete one of these tutorials on the language. etc.

To get yourself to do what you know is good for you, the first step is to diagnose what is holding you back form acting. Are you trying to break a bad, sticky habit? In that case, you may need to devote time to practicing a better habit to replace it. Are you dealing with a case of conflicting desires? If so, use visualization to increase your desire for the good action and reduce your desire for the bad action, while you try to avoid contexts that cause your desires to flip in a way that is counterproductive. Are you feeling a lack of motivation to behave how you know you should? Write down a list of pros and cons for the good action, and try visualization to increase motivation. Do you keep forgetting to do the desired behavior? Put notes in places where you’ll be forced to see them, use your calendar to schedule when you’re going to do your helpful behaviors, and try to build a habit of acting immediately when you remember something important to do. Know what you want to do, but lack the knowledge how to do it? Ask those who know more than you do how to start, do some research, and try to break the task down into simple, easy steps.

Unfortunately, all of this advice is problematic: what if you don’t feel like taking the advice, or you do want to take it but will likely forget to do so? What if you have existing habits that will make taking this advice difficult? In other words, how do you get yourself to do what this article says you should? The solution is to set the stage right now for following this advice in the future. Namely, apply the advice of this article, right now, to get yourself to take this article’s advice in the future.
Perform the following steps (right now!) so that you can benefit later:

Step 1. Consider the following reasons for not acting. Which of these do you think is most likely to prevent you from acting on the advice from this article?

(1) Habit (you have existing habits that may stand in the way).
(2) Conflicting desires (you have desires that conflict with your desire to take this advice).
(3) Lack of motivation (you don’t feel motivation to do what this article says).
(4) Forgetting (you are likely to forget to follow the advice of this article).
(5) Lack of knowledge (you don’t know how to follow this article’s advice).

Step 2. Go and reread the section of this article corresponding to whatever you selected in Step 1.

Step 3. Schedule at least two different times on your calendar for when you are going to do what that section you reread suggests.

Step 4. Schedule a time on your calendar when you are going to reread this entire article.

Step 5. When the scheduled events come up on your calendar, actually do them!