36 Ways to Live More Productively
Understanding our productivity obsession. Practical tips for novice hustlers. Anonymous banker explains T-Mobile's latest acquisition. The power of flower.
This week we explore the cult of productivity.
Below, our collective wisdom on practical ways to navigate modern performance pressures.
PLUS: Anonymous Banker explains why T-Mobile bought Vistar for $600M.
Watch PvA on YouTube. Or listen on Apple | Spotify | other podcast platforms. Out Friday AM.
Do more. Do you.
TROY: Brian, you’ve wanted to do a productivity episode for a while. I was skeptical, mostly because I am just not a “productivity” guy. I am moderately disorganized. I have attention issues. I play around alot. My inbox is the opposite of zero. Admittedly, people like this kinda stuff… the newsletter I wrote on personal Power was among my most read.
I poked around a bit to get my head in it. Churchill credited two-hour afternoon naps for doubling his productivity (I like to nap). Mark Twain famously did his writing in bed, at all times of day (seems like a decent way to work). Maya Angelou rented hotel rooms to write and free herself from distraction. She described keeping the room intentionally sparse and bringing only essential items: a Bible, a deck of cards for solitaire, yellow legal pads, a thesaurus, and a bottle of sherry (I would swap out the sherry, but I love hotels). Jobs and Einstein both believed in simplification and ruthless prioritization even in daily uniform selection. I have Lacoste shirts in every imaginable color. Purple is especially nice.
Productivity is personal. I have little time for people who want to teach me how do it right. My advice… do what works for you. That said… here are a few things I would put on the tip list:
1: Caring less about what other people think is essential to productive creative living. This is my number one goal.
2: Run mindlessly at the things you hate, but have to do. Like taxes and routine administrative stuff. It’s never as bad as you think when you get into it. The entry is hard for me. I’ve learned that the start is everything. Too much analysis is just procrastination.
3: Find the simplest way to establish a feedback loop. The Elon thing… challenge assumptions, massively streamline requirements. Measure incremental gains. I am naturally impatient and like process that enables me to see contours and iterate fast. Maybe this is obvious, but I’ve found many people are not good at this.
4: Learn to process and internalize information quickly. I aspire to be a good skimmer. I want to waste less time on stuff that I feel like I should learn but really don’t care about. AI summaries are a useful new tool. Much of what I read evaporates, so when stuff is really important to me, I jot down informal notes on my iPhone Notes app. BTW, I used to use Evernote, then Notion. Notes is a fine replacement for me.
5: Match media type to activity. Walking is great for silence. Ideas naturally drip in. Driving is great for podcasts. The best focused work time is the morning or late at night. Nights and bathrooms are good for reading. I multitask when I watch sports. Multitasking doesn’t really work elsewhere.
6: Stop wasting time on bullshit. So much of what is on TV is high carb filler. Get YouTube Premium. There’s an endless library of fascinating, niche stuff. Relax and get smarter.
7: The only way to write… just write. Brian, you taught me this. Don’t edit while you write. Get your thoughts out. Edit later. You will be surprised by how much good stuff just comes out if you let it. This works, trust me. Remember good writing is good ideas. The writing itself isn't going to save you.
8: Short bursts of deep concentration makes me more effective. Zyns are a useful aid for some people.
9: Minimize useless contextual over-verbalization. Something I have observed, mostly by using ChatGPT. So much of what we communicate verbally is bla bla bla. We spend far too much time saying things people already understand while trying to shape how they interpret our thoughts.
This is mostly just niceties and a huge waste of time. I get why we do it as social creatures. I aspire to minimize verbal waste in professional settings.
10: Naps. 30 mins. Shorter than Churchill’s.
Also… what is the point of rinsing the dishes before putting them in the dishwasher.
BRIAN: Let’s pull back… Economic growth requires productivity. Labor productivity – more outputs for similar inputs – is both critical not just to the overall economy but to raising wages. It’s lagged since the productivity boom as companies digitized from 1995 to 2005. Labor productivity grew during that period 3.2% annually, only to drop in subsequent years to 1.3%. And that’s with the advent of the smartphone, cloud computing and all the rest that were supposed productivity boons.
AI is now held out as the latest savior to productivity. One study found that AI has already made developers 26% more productive. The quest for productivity is bigger than AI, it’s become something of a secular religion. Silicon Valley is discovering its masculine energy of martial sports and extremely hard core performance cultures. YouTube is filled with productivity creators like Ali Abdal. The 4-Hour Workweek guy Tim Ferris moved on to the 4-Hour Body and the 4-Hour Chef. He’s now arrived at the point where he admits you just gotta say No to more stuff. Amazing he turned that into an entire book, again confirming that nearly all business books could be articles.
The quantification of everything inevitably leads to the optimization of everything. The most extreme manifestation of this is the longevity lunatic Bryan Johnson, who had a Polymarket going on his nighttime erections.
Modern productivity culture is an outgrowth of optimization obsession. We can measure more than ever, so we gravitate to squeezing out incremental gains and sometimes lose sight of the direction we want to go. A sustainable approach to productivity, as Alex points out in our podcast, is to focus on prioritization and boundaries. Economic productivity is important, but it’s not something that will earn us eternal salvation or get much more than a passing comment at our funerals. “He was very productive.” Some things I’ve observed:
11: Measuring only outputs is problematic. Ask the Soviets. Instead focus on inputs in the form of good habits that over time lead to superior results.
12: Paul O’Neill’s unorthodox approach to improving productivity at Alcoa is worth examining. He focused on the keystone habit of worker safety.
13: Resist the productivity treadmill. You’ll never feel truly productive, so better accept that this is like any other religious belief: aspiration of reaching an ideal.
14: It’s important to “sit in your chamber” and focus on deep work, but do not discount the power of daydreaming if you’re in some kind of creative or creative-adjacent field. If your work involves ideas, you likely won’t get many at your desk. I’ve had very productive time at the beach, looking at cumulus clouds.
15: There are Notion People. They’re often product managers. You want to find these people if you’re not a Notion person.
16: Nobody is coming to save you. No AI app or YouTube goon has the secret code.
17: Batch work types to avoid context switching. I divide my days between content in the morning and business in the afternoon.
18: Productivity is an economic measurement, not a moral judgment. Your labor productivity is not your self worth.
19: The most productive people I know get to start quickly and never overthink things. As Chip Kelly told Nick Foles during a game in the snow: “Grip it and rip it.” While we’re on the subject of football, the best running backs get north-south quickly rather than go east-west and wait for the hole to appear.
20: Distraction is our modern scourge. Kill all notifications. Do deep work without your phone in the room.
21: The best productivity hack is realizing you cannot do it all and being ok with that.
22: Doing fewer things better creates long-term leverage, but is very hard to do in the moment.
23: Don’t constantly check email; nuke Slack if you can. Being always on call to your team can make you a crutch. They will figure it out.
24: Realize that those “day in the life” stories where people are up meditating at 5am are mostly if not entirely fiction. Same for the 18-hour workday people.
25: Sleep is the original productivity tool
26: Other PvA, use walks and runs to be alone with your thoughts and take a break from media.
27: The productivity obsession fills an existential void left by a decline in family formation, organized religion and social bonds.
ALEX: Because of various things going on in my brain, I’ve had to become pretty intentional and organized just to function in the world. This means I’ve tried every tool, process, and hack you can think of. Mileage may vary since everyone is different, but I believe the following are pretty universal:
28: Predictable blocks for predictable work. My week and days are divided into chunks assigned to specific types of work: meetings, email, deep work, creative work, etc. Blocking these out helps me establish a routine. It’s not rigid, but the rhythm is helpful.
29: Focus mode. I used to work across three screens, respond to every alert, and multitask all day, thinking I was a productivity genius. Not anymore. Now, I work on a single screen, set up different devices and spaces for different types of work (e.g., I make music in a different spot than where I do other work), minimize tools, and turn off every notification except for calls, messages, and the occasional important app update.
31: Pick your tools. I’ve spent a lot of time ensuring I have the right tools in place. The problem is that you can easily end up with too many tools or constantly switch between them. I’ve gotten better at avoiding this. Part of the solution is starting with the default apps that come with my phone or computer and having a high bar for replacing them. The goal is to spend less time wrestling with technology and more time getting things done.
32: Learn how stuff works. The number of successful people I know who are too busy or important (ahem, Troy) to learn basic keyboard shortcuts or time-saving features is baffling. The more senior they are, the worse it gets. At some point in their careers, they seem to think learning how to do things is beneath them. It’s not. Do yourself a favor and constantly ask if there’s a better way to do something—there usually is.
33: Don’t let email get out of hand. I only check email 2-3 times a day, and when I do, I aim for inbox zero. This means aggressively culling emails that aren’t useful, unsubscribing, or setting up rules to archive things automatically. For each email, I either respond, ignore/archive, or snooze. (Snoozing can be risky, but I believe in you.) If your inbox is overflowing with thousands of unread emails, archive everything and start fresh. Troy thinks I’m a serial killer for doing this, but I think anyone with thousands of unread emails is a baby.
34: Write daily notes. I jot down daily bullet points as things happen. Instead of opening new notes for every topic, I drop everything into a single note for the day. I use an app called NotePlan, but there are plenty of options. This approach makes it easier to find things I might otherwise lose in random notes, helps me recall what I did three days ago, and lets me schedule reminders for future dates. Pen and paper works for this too.
35: Slack is the enemy of productivity. Don’t check Slack constantly, and definitely turn off notifications. Slack is a productivity killer because people send messages anytime without thinking twice. Across an organization, this quickly spirals out of control. It’s also terrible for tracking decisions or finding information. I get why executives love Slack—it gives them instant access to their teams—but they’re often trading team productivity for their own convenience.
36: Boundaries. I’m getting better at knowing what I won’t work on. It’s a journey, and I can afford to say no more now than I could when I was younger, but I wish I’d started earlier. Ask yourself what you shouldn’t take on—it makes a huge difference.
That said, I also know plenty of incredibly productive people who don’t do any of this stuff but I expect that most of us have things we do every day that we don’t enjoy that add up to hours of time wasted every month. Productivity should also be about making things more enjoyable, less strain and stress on your body, mind and soul. A lot of the tasks we do every day are not additive to our success or wellbeing and the most important thing is figuring out what those are.
T-Mobile Acquires Vistar Media
Despite the unfavorable outlook on traditional media, there are still bright spots. Unique companies can be built that achieve significant scale, positive growth, and strong EBITDA. A prime example is a transaction announced on Monday, with T-Mobile acquiring Vistar Media for $600mm (EBITDA multiple for the deal is rumored to be in the mid-teens).
Vistar is a programmatic platform that gives advertisers direct access to out-of-home (OOH) media across the U.S. and Europe. Historically, OOH companies (think billboards) relied on in-house sales teams to secure months-long placements. As more billboards go digital and connected screens multiply the opportunity to dynamically place ads at scale for shorter, more customized durations becomes highly relevant. Layer in advanced technology for multi-screen targeting, sophisticated consumer insights, campaign management tools, and ROI measurement, and you have Vistar’s robust offering.
So why is T-Mobile buying Vistar? By integrating consumer location and demographic data with Vistar’s platform, T-Mobile can enhance targeting and ROI measurement - making the solution more valuable to advertisers. While AT&T and Verizon tried and failed to break into adtech, they were aiming for larger digital advertising markets and lacked the capital to compete effectively. In contrast, T-Mobile sees an opportunity to lead in OOH by combining its strong ad sales team and data-driven targeting with Vistar’s expanding network of screens. A company like Foursquare could also be a prime M&A target for T-Mobile, allowing it to deepen consumer location data.
Fresh cut flowers are life. Everybody should have them as often as possible. Here are some to get you started.
Bonus: Medjool dates are worthy of more consideration. You may think they are gross but you are likely misinformed.
A prized variety of date, native to Morocco, they are known for their taste and nutritional value. A natural flavor of caramel and butterscotch. Nice as sweetener in smoothies.
Good article. Can i translate part of this article into Spanish with links to you and and other writets, and a description of this newsletter?