So many of us have felt the struggle of always on, always connected, always on the clock work cycles.

Feelings of being constantly overwhelmed, overworked and underpaid are accepted as it comes with the territory.

Work for a startup? Be expected to put in 90 hour work weeks, fueled by red bull and ramen. Even more, it’s often worn as a badge of honor … like some kind of startup workload fetishism.

The truth is, most people that are great at what they do are only great at certain times. And those periods of greatness don’t always start at 9am sharp and end at 5pm.

The modern construct of the ‘butt in chair’ office hours is not only antiquated, but in many cases downright harmful to great work output.

If you take a serious look at the way you work and architect your days, weeks, months, life around certain principles: you’ll get more done in the same amount of time and feel less overwhelmed.

Most of us went into business to feel productive and do great work that helps us feel fulfilled.
Don’t get into the business of busyness.

To those new to the science of productivity, a lot of the basic rules can seem a bit counterintuitive to say the least. Spend more time away from work and get more done? Spend less time doing what I’m great at and increase the quality of my work?

One on end of the spectrum, we’re all familiar with the friend who works all day, every day. Every spare second they have (if they admit to having any) is taken up with work tasks or screen time. Popular pass-times include emails, spreadsheets, reviewing reports, catch up calls and calendar review.

I’d argue that in past times, the traditional 9-5 had hard-line constraints embedded that helped with separation of work and home. With so many people working on ‘knowledge work’ in an always connected world, the lines become blurred very easily. The goal of any work-life balance discussion is to help bring the blurred lines into focus.

If everything is a priority, nothing is.

In reality, everyone has the same amount of time as everyone else. It’s how you spend that time that influences what you get done, how you feel and how you are perceived.

To plan effectively, you’ll need to have a good understand of your roles and their requirements. What are your areas of focus?

Below is a quick mindmap that I created detailing mine, at a high level. I’d recommend you go much more granular than this, but it’s a good start.

Begin by listing your major focus areas. If you’re like most people, you’ve got work and home. Then list out each area of focus within those. What are your projects? What are you responsible for within those roles? Be as specific as you can.

This should be a living document. As new things come into your life, go back and make updates to keep the document as accurate as possible.

Now that you know what you’re responsible for, you’re probably already coming up with ideas on what you’re ignoring and missing out on.

The next step is to prioritize and plan. Not everything has to be done today, but all of the flowers should get a little water every now and then.

• Plan a weekly schedule for long term goals
• Plan a daily schedule
• Make sure to schedule downtime
• Remember: Date nights and activities are very important to overall health and happiness.
• Say no more often. Success is as dependent on the things that you say no to, as it is on the things that you say yes to.
• Review your progress / journal / task lists regularly to look for improvements and gauge progress.
• Delegate tasks that someone else can do and focus on the things that only YOU can do.

It’s kind of an old trope at this point, but what gets measured, gets managed. And truthfully, how can you possibly know what to fix if you don’t know where the issues are?

I find it tedious to record time and activity on everything that I do all day. It’s time consuming and annoying. I like the hands off approach of programs like RescueTime – one of the best apps out there that automatically tracks what websites you visit, the programs you spend time in and create a neat overview of your computer usage over time. It’s also important to remember that you don’t have to do this all of the time, forever. Just a week or two to establish a baseline view of how you spend your time can be incredibly helpful.

• Spend a week tracking your time. Eliminate or delegate unnecessary tasks that aren’t worth your time

One of my favorite productivity tips is the OHIO principle. It stands for Only Handle It Once.

The basic idea is that you save the work for a time when you can comfortably sit down and complete it in on session, as opposed to kicking the can forward a few times before you handle it.

The main thing addressed here is context switching, which is extremely costly to productivity.

• Only hand it once
• Respond to your emails when you know you have time
• End your day with an empty email box
• Respond to things as they come up
• No looking back or dealing with things later
• “I’ll deal with it later” actually adds more time hunting down what you were dealing with, constantly reminding yourself to deal with it, and reviewing what you are actually dealing with before you come up with your required solution. Deal with it then.
• Streamline your work flow. Over time your extra “dealing with” moments will become available for more productive or FUN time

Next, we have the ever popular Pomodoro technique. There are a ton of apps and tomato-flavored browser extensions to help you with this one.

The idea is to batch your work into 25 minute intervals with scheduled break periods that get longer with momentum & progress being made.

It’s like a mini work-life balance routine for your work day.

• Break your time into 25 minute intervals called “pomodoros”
• The idea is frequent breaks improve mental agility (become a brain ninja)
• How it works.
  • 1. Determine task
  • 2. Set the pomodoro (typically a 25 min. timer)
  • 3. Work on tasks until timer dings (if distracting thoughts come in, write them down and keep going)
  • 4. After time dings put down a checkmark on a piece of paper
  • 5. If you have less then four checks take a short break (3-5 min) then repeat at step 1
  • 6. After four pomodoros take a longer break (15-30 min) then repeat at step 1
• These steps integrate planning, tracking, recording, processing, and visualizing (hits varying types of motivators)
• Tasks are prioritized in a “Today To Do” where you estimate time needed for each task
• Provides a sense of accomplishments and a tool for tracking and self observation
• Any time left in pomodoro after task is completed is dedicated to over learning.
• Over learning is the theory that practicing newly acquired skills beyond mastery leads to automaticity
• Try to go for the physical approach – paper, pencil, mechanical timer
  • Incorporates physical acts
    • Winding timer confirms dedication to task
    • Ticking externalizes desire to complete task
    • Ringing announces a break
      • Flow and focus become associated with the physical stimuli

Whew, that was a long journey. Any primer on a topic as large as this one would be remiss without a handy dandy list of resources for further study. And I insist that this is just the tip of the iceburg, but here are some that I’d encourage you to check out.