Practical Productivity: How to get things done without burning out - blog post featured image by Pete Cataldo

By Pete Cataldo 

A former stay at home dad and solopreneur shares practical productivity advice that actually works. Here’s how to get things done without burning yourself out.

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People are shocked when I tell them that my kids stay at home with me during the summer vacation.

Like it’s an affront to their abilities as a parent because I’ve opted not to spend thousands of dollars to distract my two kids with ongoing camps all summer long.

Yeah, they both stay at home with me.

We go on adventures in the city: Museums. Playgrounds. Parks. We play video games. We run around and chase each other. They call it “Camp Daddy.”

And during the summer, I still manage to:

  • Stay in great shape with minimalist exercise approaches
  • Write 1,000s of words per day for this newsletter
  • Keep my business up and running without suffering from burnout

How?

Because as a former full-time stay at home dad (who’s now seasonal), I’ve mastered the art of practical productivity.

I know how to get shit done.

While being a stay at home dad, I …

This is not a flex.

Okay, okay … it’s a little bit of a flex.

My point is that I’m uniquely qualified to tell you about practical productivity that actually works

I get a kick out of the productivity advice we see all over Al Gore’s Internet.

Bunch of 20-something year old dudes without kids telling you about vibes with little to no actionable advice.

They’ll tell you to:

  • Win your morning with deep work
  • Get up before everyone else at 4:17 a.m.
  • Do lots of breath work and cold plunges
  • Say “no” to everything
  • And download all of these productivity apps or create spreadsheets in Notion, Trello or some other fancy tech.

Cool, dude. I love that for you.

But real people, parents of kids, working professionals don’t need vibes and aesthetics or a cold fucking shower.

And we certainly don’t need more apps to distract us.

What we do need is actual, practical productivity advice so we can take action.

Oh also: we’re tired as fuck.

So telling us to get up at 3:47 a.m. when we’ve got kids keeping us up all night because of random shit is just wholly unserious.

Instead, today you’re going to get real advice. Practical productivity advice.

I’m going to help you get shit done without burning yourself out. Maybe you’ll even have a little time left over to fall asleep to that Netflix limited series you’ve been wondering about.

Let’s get into it.

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We get productivity all wrong

You sit down to map out your day.

Write a bunch of things that you want to achieve as your To Do List.

But then the meetings and calls and lunch breaks and your workout that you haven’t also accounted for all start getting in the way.

Not to mention picking up the kids from school and shuttling them to whatever extracurricular activities they may have on tap.

Now you’re way behind before you’ve even started your day and there’s simply no time to get it all done.

Sound familiar?

Over 40-percent of people say they cannot finish their To Do Lists.

Those uncompleted tasks take a toll on your mental health and productivity.

It’s called the Zeigarnik Effect

Soviet Psychologist Bluma Zeignarik discovered that our mind tends to remember the unfinished action items on our To Do Lists better than it remembers the accomplished and finished ones.

“Our minds quickly forget about finished tasks. However, they are programmed to remind us incessantly of those we do not finish.”

— Dr. Bluma Zeigarnik

Meanwhile, researchers at Florida State University (shoutout to my alma mater) then discovered that incomplete tasks can also reduce productivity by 10-percent.

Not only are you not getting things done.

But it’s also stressing you out.

And it’s leading to getting even fewer things done.

If we can fix how you approach your daily action items, we might be able to alleviate some anxiety and increase your productivity.

It requires a less is more approach.

And a deeper focus on your time and calendar.

 

Practical productivity begins with prioritization

We’re going to do a little exercise: Grab your pen and paper or whip out your journal for this one.

I want you to craft your perfect day.

Ask yourself one big question:
What would a perfect day of productivity look like for you?

You wake up feeling energized and motivated.

Hit that morning routine without feeling rushed and pressed for time.

Maybe even get a decent breakfast without scarfing half a piece of toast down while you scramble out the door with the kids.

You are able to focus on that big project at work.

The additional annoying admin tasks are handled.

Meetings and calls are navigated without them stealing your focus away from the big projects.

Perhaps you can squeeze in a workout and a walk.

There’s even a little me time in there with a nice enjoyable dinner with the family before a restful night of sleep.

Is this possible? If not, why not?

What do you need to do to get here (on most days)?

Where do you need to prioritize or maybe eliminate things to unlock more time for this perfect day scenario?

I like this little exercise because it gives you something to work towards.

You might realize that several changes to your routine and your schedule might be needed in order to make this perfect day vision a reality.

Our breakneck pace is unsustainable

Your job starting today is to find a way to break free from that ridiculous pacing.

When you do, you’ll alleviate that anxiety over the unfinished action items on your To Do List.

You might even start to embrace the less is more concept of slowing things down to focus and concentrate on the priorities.

This vision exercise is the first step in crafting that plan.

Now we need some actionable steps so you can develop your strategy even further.

 

Practical Productivity: 9 “Hacks” that actually work

Over 69-percent of U.S. workers regularly suffer from that weekly episode of anxiety called the Sunday Scaries.

Monday is rearing its ugly head and they stress out about things they need to do for the upcoming week.

Research shows that one way to defeat this is to have a solid plan of attack.

Every single night as I wrap up my work for the day (I call it my shutdown ritual … more on that below), I list out my priorities and action items for the next day.

And I set an intention for when I’ll accomplish those tasks.

My biggest priorities are the first things I handle each day.

That’s the crucial difference from your traditional To Do List approach.

This daily ritual gives me a plan to jump right into my work first thing the next day.

If you’re sitting down in the morning and still mapping out what you have to do for the day, you’re already way behind the ball.

Plan ahead.

Then use some of these “hacks” to crush that To Do List once and for all.

1. Find your Do or Die tasks for the day

People report on average having about 15 things that they want to get done at any given time.

That is way too many.

It’s cognitive overload: Too many things pulling your attention, focus, energy in too many directions.

Starting today, let’s make that To Do List a bit better.

It starts with prioritization.

Each day, you should know the most important action items that must be completed in order for the day to be considered successful.

Call these your “Do or Die” tasks.

If they don’t get done, your day was a failure.

2. Make a 2-Do List

You need to understand that everything cannot possibly be considered a priority.

The goal is to do fewer things at any given time, but then focus intently on the quality of those things.

When you finally learn to effectively prioritize your tasks and projects, that’s when you’ll finally start being more productive with far less anxiety.

I know that my first priority each morning is to write.

From there, I’ll break down the next important item.

But, I never give myself more than 2-3 important things for each day. Anything more will be next to impossible to complete with high quality.

Find your one or two biggest (“do or die”) tasks for the day and make those your primary focus.

What is/are the one or two things that must happen for today to be considered productive and successful?

  • Do you have an upcoming presentation to finalize?
  • A new client pitch?
  • New chapter of your book to write?
  • Editing a newsletter?
  • Brainstorming a marketing course?

I.D. them. Then take action.

What do you do with the rest of the items? Great question …

3. Develop systems

Automate. Eliminate. Delegate. Outsource. As much as possible. Here’s a comprehensive guide to making it work.

Sometimes, you’ll just need to acknowledge that you cannot get it all done. That you need help.

Nothing wrong with that.

Emails can be a chore to have to answer. They can pull you away from quality work on your Do or Die projects.

So I created a system to answer emails at one or two blocks of time during my day.

This works in my personal life, too:

I pay for everything (but my monthly rent) with my AMEX card.

Then I pay that off in full each month.

My savings are automatically deducted and allocated.

It’s all automated in a system that I developed after reading I Will Teach You to be Rich by Ramit Sethi.

(click bait, terrible name, but the book is well done and packed with actionable systems to develop and automate your finances)

This saves me so much time.

I log into my accounts once a month for about 15 minutes at a time to make sure it’s all running smoothly.

What can you outsource or automate?

  • House cleaning
  • Dog walking
  • Laundry

Can you delegate a few action items to your partner, family member, or hire a virtual assistant?

We outsourced our house cleaning to weekly service. I’d rather pay a little extra to save time and stress by taking that off of our plate.

Or maybe you can just eliminate some things altogether.

Make a list of the endless array of tasks that you have to do daily, weekly, monthly and quarterly.

Determine if you can remove even five to 10-percent of those tasks … or at least develop a better system to handle them.

4. Create a back log for the admin stuff

We’ve all got those random adult things we need to do that get in the way of our everyday stuff:

  • Scheduling doctor appointments
  • Following up with kids’ teachers
  • Getting back to your mother about her visit next week
  • Ordering that appliance for the kitchen
  • Figuring out why [insert capitalist overlord] charged you twice on that bill last month

None of it is fun.

All of these tasks require a few minutes of your time.

But there’s never a convenient time to do them.

And since none of these things are terribly pressing, they just hover in our conscience like a damn mosquito.

So damn annoying.

Let’s swat them once and for all.

I started creating a backlog for these tasks.

When something pops up, instead of stressing over it or dropping everything to complete it, I add the mosquito task to my backlog.

Then I set aside an hour per week (or more depending on the list) which I call my Power Hour and I just go through each task one by one.

Make a game out of it to see how many things you can get done in that hour.

5. Smash the 2-Minute tasks

Sometimes little fires will pop up throughout the day.

And in some cases, it makes better sense to just knock it out right away.

Here’s a good rule of thumb:

If a task takes under two minutes and doesn’t completely derail your current project, just do it and move on.

If it takes longer than two minutes, add it to your backlog or even schedule it in your calendar and block out the time to complete it.

6. Build momentum first

This is perhaps counterintuitive to the advice about prioritizing tasks.

But sometimes, our brain works in a way that needs help getting fired up, or warmed up, to the idea of working hard.

In these cases, sometimes doing a bunch of little small tasks can help warm you up to transition over to the big rocks.

7. Put your phone away

In the digital age and economy, your focus and attention are the currency.

You’re the product for sale on social media. And you become more valuable the more you give into the urge to be glued to your phone, mindlessly scrolling away.

Stop that shit right now.

Take back control of your time, your energy and your peace and calm by resisting the addiction of your smartphone.

Challenge yourself to slowly reduce your weekly screentime average by 15-20 percent this week.

And try to continue improving each week until it is at a more manageable and acceptable level.

I cut my screentime almost 70-percent by following a few simple steps that I broke down in this previous newsletter.

8. Block out time

Time blocking is all the rage right now as a way to focus deeply on one specific task so you can complete it with high quality.

This is where the idea of deep work was popularized by author and productivity guru, Cal Newport.

Once you’ve determined your biggest tasks of the day (the Do or Die project that you must focus on intently) you’ll literally block out the time required for that work in your calendar.

No meetings. No emails. No phone.

Just you and your work for that period of time.

Yes, you can take breaks.

And if you are new to this idea of time blocking, you’ll want to start small with maybe a 30-40 minute block of time. Your ability to focus intently for any longer might need some practice and reps before you get too serious.

Eventually you can work up to larger blocks of an hour or more.

It’s a system I’ve used before when I couldn’t escape to the mountains to do “monk mode” like all the influencers preach.

9. Develop a shutdown ritual

This is a tad less about getting shit done in the moment, but more like one of those return on investment things.

If you take care of yourself, you’ll be more energized to do more later.

Which means protecting your time and energy by shutting your work down for the day at a specific time.

And adding a little personalized ritual as a signal to your brain that work is over and you’re transitioning into your own time (or family time).

For years, I adopted the hustle culture approach of always being on, never resting.

I’d answer emails at all times throughout the day and night. Take coaching calls over the weekends. Work relentlessly through the holidays because it was slower and I had more time to focus.

I never rested. Never had boundaries on where work ended and my own personal life began.

As you can imagine, it led to burnout.

One way to ensure I’m not working all throughout the night is to have a shutdown ritual. It signals the end of my workday so I can activate dad mode.

I shut down my laptop at 4:00 p.m., write out my 2-Do List plan for the next day, then play video games for 30 minutes or so before I get my kids from their after school programs.

Come up with your own ritual that helps you to decompress:

  • Play a fun song
  • Read a little bit of a book
  • Perform some light mobility or yoga
  • Knock out a big workout
  • Do a little fun dance
  • Crank out 10 push-ups or burpees or something

Get creative with it. But build a cool little ritual that you can look forward to that helps you transition away from work and into your personal life.

Practical Productivity is about doing what works for you

This is not about adopting a bunch of unrealistic, fancy things because some dude on YouTube said it works for him.

It’s about removing the excess from your life.

Getting serious about your daily and weekly priorities.

Then being ruthless about protecting your time and energy to accomplish them.

You have the power to get shit done; you just need to focus.

Prioritize your biggest action items and then remove as many distractions as possible. That’s how you’ll harness your ability to actually focus.

Once you do, you’ll finally unlock productivity you never thought possible.

Let’s get to work.

I hope you found this useful. If so, I’d appreciate it if you sent this newsletter to one person you think would benefit from my writing today.

And as always, if you have any questions, please feel free to reach out.

I answer all of my emails at pete [at] petecataldo [.] com … Hit me up with the subject line “practical productivity” and I’ll answer any questions you have to make this work for you.

Until next time,
Pete