50 years of time management advice in 5 minutes

A few years ago, I read a 1990s time management book that cited 200 related books from the 1970s and 1980s.

Lesson: All modern time management advice is not new.

Do the hard thing first

Willpower is finite.

Do what you know you must do first thing in the day.

Before emails.

Before Slack.

Before requests from friends, family, and colleagues.

Rate yourself on a scale of 1-5 in each of the following areas of your life:

If any area is below 3, focus on it. If all areas are 3 or higher, choose the one you want to improve most.

Then determine what one thing, if you were to do it immediately with all your energy and attention, would most improve that area of your life.

Do that first. Every day. Until it’s done.

If you can multi-task while doing it, a machine can do it—and soon will.

Put all your attention to that which matters most.

Shut off all distractions.

No phone.
No email.
No Slack.
No interruptions.

If it helps, noise-cancelling headphones and binaural beats on.

Don’t stop until either 1) you’re done or 2) it’s been at least 50 minutes.

Do that 2-3 times per day, and you’ll be more productive than 99% of your peers.

The other day, we picked up a new Tesla Model X for my wife next to the Gigafactory in Austin.

The size of that building is breathtaking.

I couldn’t help but imagine one guy, Elon Musk, walking through that building.

So much scale, just one person.

The only difference between Elon and you is that he has hundreds of thousands of employees.

He gets 24 hours in a day.

He has to sleep and eat.

At some point, there’s only one way to scale: delegation.

Continually look for that which only you can do. Delegate everything else.

Continue that cycle every month.

Eliminate what doesn’t need to be done at all.

Automate what can be automated.

Delegate everything else.

See you at the next level.

—Matt