If you’re an aspiring CEO or future leader—or you’re already there and wondering how the heck other CEOs make it look so easy—then this is the read for you. We’re going to share effective, actionable advice for staying organized and at the top of your game while running your business.

We’re going to cover a whole range of solutions, habits and routines which top-performing CEOs use to stay on the ball every single day. We’ll also spend some time looking at how software and tools can be (and should) be used to facilitate elite organization.

Of course not every one of these tips will apply to your specific circumstances. In fact, some might directly conflict with one another—and that’s the point. Every CEO and every company is different, with varying home lives and personalities and drivers. So, creating an article claiming to have one solution that worked for all CEOs would be insane.

As busy as CEOs usually are, identifying just 1-2 helpful, actionable tips from this list could transform your daily routine and save precious minutes or hours every single day. Let’s get into them. 

Embrace asynchronous communication

Any organizational transformation for CEOs can begin with emails. The way most of us interact with emails results in a truly devastating cascade of effects across the rest of our workload.

The reality is that staying organized means consistently getting important jobs done throughout the day. This requires sustained focus, of which poor email habits are the mortal enemy.

If you constantly have one eye on emails, then your brain can’t truly focus on anything else. It is in a perpetual cycle of interruption. At the heart of it, you need to become comfortable being “less responsive” to emails.

This doesn’t mean answering fewer emails or fobbing people off—we know you can’t do that. It simply means scheduling dedicated time for emails and nothing else.

Why “email time” is absolutely essential for CEOs

Many successful CEOs schedule dedicated time for emails—as little as once per day (or once per week if you’re Tim Ferriss) or more commonly 2-4 times per day. Here’s why:

1. It relieves the mental pressure. If you know you’re going to filter and respond to all your emails at 2pm, you can feel comfortable “ignoring” them right now. You can become more fully invested in your present tasks.

At the same time, clearing out this mental anxiety around “being available” will give you clearer thoughts, more energy, and better engagement with your work. After clearing your emails, you benefit from this clarity for the rest of the day too—until your next planned session.

2.  Faster and better replies. By dealing with your entire inbox at once, with no other distractions, is multiple times more efficient than doing it during the “in-between” moments in the day. You’ll make better decisions (since you’re in the zone) and be able to filter relevant and irrelevant messages more quickly.

A useful side effect of scheduling email replies is that colleagues, clients and others know when you’ll reply. They won’t expect or bother you over instant responses, and some “urgent” emails might never be sent; instead, the sender will simply deal with the issue rather than wait. All of this adds up to a huge relief of burden and an improved ability to stay organized throughout the day.

We’ve focused on emails here, but the exact same strategy can be applied for instant messages and even voice calls. The crucial point is to handle communications on your terms, at the time most suitable for you.

Be mindful during “in-between” moments

The natural state of being for many CEOs is calling shots and putting out fires 24-7. Every available minute has you jumping between activities:

• Bathroom break? Check the emails!
• Eating lunch? Squeeze in a call!
• Making coffee? Check our social media!

So here’s the somewhat controversial advice we’ve heard from numerous successful CEOs—stop.

The problem with context switching (see “Themed Days” section for more on this) every 30 seconds is that your brain maintains a high base level of fogginess and fatigue that builds over the day. Say you finish a meeting and have 5 minutes until the next. If you go to the toilet, answer 3 emails, make a call and check your LinkedIn IMs, your brain is whirring at 110% on things completely unrelated to the upcoming meeting.

If instead you leave your phone at the desk and go to the loo unplugged, and even sit for 1-2 minutes doing nothing while you wait in the boardroom, your brain can effectively “catch its breath” and be ready to perform at its peak during the meeting.

There’s no need to do this all day (combining activities is part-and-parcel of the job for many CEOs) but exercising this more regularly—perhaps before your most valued meetings—could pay dividends in the long run.

Hire an executive assistant or VA

You’re the Chief Executive Officer of a company. Hopefully a fast-growing and successful one! Doesn’t matter whether you’re a by-the-seat-of-your-pants startup or a global leader—your time is too valuable for mundane tasks.

For companies in the early growth stage (or small companies in general) a virtual assistant is worth their weight in gold. You can contract them for a limited number of hours per week, and work out the exact roles they should perform. This typically includes:

• Administrative work—This is the big one: accepting, declining and scheduling meetings; answering and directing phone calls; travel arrangements; calendar management; filtering emails or instant messages.
• Financial—Depending on the company, VAs can take over invoicing, bills, transferring funds, monitoring payroll, making purchases and tracking expenses.
• Promotional—Many executives use their VA to schedule and post content on their social media, deal with press, engage with followers, and generally manage their online presence

The reality is that most highly-qualified virtual assistants are the kind of people that thrive under pressure, can learn new skills easily and are nutters for organization. If you’re head of an established large company, a full-time executive assistant is probably more suitable.

While more expensive, your EA is likely to have massive experience and be proactively saving you time and stress every hour of the week. They’re more likely to become strategic partners who can provide valuable insight on everything from C-suite agenda to organizing the team retreat.

At every stage of your business’s growth, investing in an assistant will win you time (the scarcest commodity you have) and improve the quality of your work, since your brain is no longer lumbered with the responsibility for essential, but mundane, duties.

Optimize your meetings

The stats vary, but the average US knowledge worker has 60 meetings per month, more than 4 days of working time on average. More than a third of these meetings add “no value to the organization” and the stats are naturally even worse for executives.

Time spent in unnecessary meetings is time lost on other crucial work. It pushes back your schedule and wreaks havoc on your organization. It’s a significant contributor to the late nights and weekend work. CEOs should start by implementing a culture of essential meetings only—at least as far as your time is concerned.

Consider sharing this graphic with any executives or managers that want to book your time:

The next step is making sure that either:

• Meetings are the necessary length—Most meetings are scheduled in arbitrary 15, 30 or 60-minute increments. They also take far longer than necessary. Encourage your organization to schedule realistic times for meetings: if it’s a small but crucial subject, scheduling a 7-minute meeting is absolutely okay.
• Your part comes first—You want to participate as much as possible, but the reality is that your time is often needed elsewhere. If a meeting is covering multiple subjects, try to run through the areas where you will contribute first so you can then leave the meeting and get other work done. If this sounds brutal, it is. But it’s also key to staying as organized and effective as possible day-to-day.

It is also common to have your assistant attend meetings on your behalf, either to share your input or, more likely, note the important points of the meeting and run you through them quickly at another time. As long as the essential details are passed on (if required—which they often aren’t!) then you may not have to attend meetings at all.

Meetings are a source of frustration and exhaustion for many CEOs, whether they realize it or not. Don’t be afraid to defy the status quo and prioritize your time—after all, it’s quite simply more important to the business than anyone else’s!

Consider “theming” your days

Themed days is a relatively young practice popularized hugely by Jack Dorsey, CEO of Twitter and Square—the social media giant and financial services unicorn respectively.

As an extreme example of CEO of two enormous global companies, it’s unlikely that many CEOs have more on their plate than Dorsey. And since Dorsey is known to take one day off every week—as well as practicing mindfulness and exercising every day—while successfully managing these companies, there might be a thing or two to learn from him.

Dorsey attributes a large part of his success to theming his work days. The idea is to maximize his focus and quality of work across both businesses. It’s similar to scheduling “email time”, but on a grander scale. Dorsey themes his days as follows:

And every day he works half for Twitter and half for Square—thankfully most CEOs don’t have the added complication of switching companies.

It’s not just Dorsey that loves this approach, either. Famed strategy coach Dan Sullivan themes his days a little differently, categorizing them in one of 3 ways:

• Focus Days—Making progress towards an important business result.
• Buffer Days—Catching up on email, making phone calls, holding internal meetings, delegating tasks, processing paperwork etc.
• Free Days—Complete disconnection from work. No calls, no emails, no nothing.

So what are the benefits of themed days?

On a personal level, theme days limit context switching—the problem where jumping between different types of tasks annihilates our productivity and focus. With our ever-more-fragmented work days and instant messaging, staying focused has never been harder.

And when you’re the CEO, you have many different types of work all vying for your attention all the time. So—themed days. Grouping like-tasks together is known to be extremely effective for getting things done efficiently. Doctors have been known to schedule all patients with similar conditions on the same day, for this same reason.

It alleviates the mental burden of thinking, “Oh, I should really get the product testing done first…” because you know that product testing is happening on Wednesday, not today. You can mentally park so many high-pressure tasks because, quite simply, they’re scheduled later in the week. Without context switching, your ability to execute on these tasks also improves considerably.

Benefits across the team or organization

On a deeper level, theme days establish a rhythm and expectation of productivity and attention within the team. If the marketing team knows it’ll be 7 days before they can get your input, they’ll make more autonomous decisions; employees will send fewer unnecessary messages and emails because they know they won’t get seen soon. Accountability shoots up.

Just as important, teams know they only have 7 days to make demonstrable progress on their current projects—you will be back in 7 days and this is an excellent motivator. In tandem with optimizing meetings (on the days you have them!) and scheduling deep work (next section) this powerful practice can be transformational for improving organization for CEOs.

Schedule deep work

We know it’s not realistic for busy CEOs to cut out all of the noise all of the time. However, there’s an unavoidable truth that even on themed days, if you’re constantly answering messages, replying to emails, scrolling your phone or anything else—even if it’s still related to your theme day—it’s going to cause backups, delays and inefficiencies in your day.

And some work simply cannot be pushed back or delayed. Work that is critical to the future of the business that only you can do. In order to get this work done, you need to schedule time wholly and exclusively for these tasks.

How to schedule “no interruption” time

We recommend scheduling blocks of 1 to 2 hours. During this time you will work with 100% concentration on your highest-priority tasks. And if it’s a challenge, stick with it! This is a deliberately long focus period to counteract our default mode of working in 3-4 minute sprints in-between distractions.

After a little adjustment, anyone can focus for 2 hours—without responding to “pressing” comms, without answering knocks on the door, and without checking Twitter on our phones.

What gets done during this time will mostly be “core work” that isn’t collaborative. It’s work that only you can do. Most of us are just not used to deep focus, but after the short adjustment period, you’ll be astonished at how much more you get done, how little your communications suffer (if anything, you’ll have fewer redundant messages to deal with) and how much you enjoy the work.

Make time for self-care

This is the one that virtually no CEO ever wants to hear: don’t work so hard you accidentally kill yourself.

More than 9 in 10 executives reach burnout; that state of total exhaustion that’s brought on by long-term, unresolvable work stress. While most CEOs know the massive health risks of burning out and struggling through exhaustion, they kind of ignore it too.

The problem isn’t necessarily the long hours of the intensity of the work—it’s how you manage your health in tandem with the work. There are 3 immediately powerful ways to preserve your mind and body better, without necessarily working less.

The simplest recommended step is simply taking breaks.

The power of taking a break

It is well-established that breaks—both long and short—have a direct correlation with productivity, clarity of thought and our ability to invent solutions. They’re also crucial for giving mind and body a chance to recuperate during intense working days.

Three ultra-accessible types of break are:

• Low-intensity exercise (e.g walking, climbing stairs)
• Eating good food without distractions
• Napping

Light exercise is the most obvious. If you’re not elevating your heart rate and igniting the nervous system, your body will simply degrade. Don’t forget your brain is part of that body you’re neglecting. During the working day, something as simple as regularly walking around or taking the stairs just gives your body a little more life.

Another crucial part of managing the body is eating foods which actually help you become more energetic and healthy. Chugging soda and eating sugary snacks will kill your body and your mind.

Napping can be controversial, even though it’s proven to improve alertness and cognitive function and even though most CEOs are chronically underslept! Seriously: create a dark space at the office where you can grab 20 minutes (for alertness and energy levels) or 60-90 minutes (for cognitive function) and embrace it.

CEOs need to believe the truth that resting and taking care of their health not only directly benefits the company, it also makes them a more effective and valuable executive.

Moderate exercise every day

Another powerful antidote to burnout is upping the exercise intensity on a daily basis.

Even the CEOs with the most soul-crushingly long hours still, somehow, seem to make time for exercise. It’s one of the few ultra-beneficial habits that most of us can actually stick to. Whether it’s a 30-minute Peloton first thing in the morning, lifting weights at lunch or jogging on the treadmill with telly on, exercise is the most effective elixir for sustaining daily performance.

But how does this relate to organization?

Exercise empties out our heads. When we push our bodies hard, all thoughts of work, responsibilities, and problems get shoved to one side. After, when we’re recovering, there’s a renewed sense of clarity. We’re better able to see whether and how to prioritize our time, what we need to focus on, and what in our schedule can take a back seat.

All of this enables CEOs to more effectively organize their time and priorities. It keeps burnout at bay and acts like a triple-shot coffee straight to the brain, making us feel empowered, purposeful and centered.

Making room for “me time”

An essential component of staying focused, on-track and organized over the long-term is to maintain a rigorously disciplined personal time schedule. Most CEOs spend around six hours per day awake and not working. Around half of this is spent with family and the rest on a combination of exercise, entertainment, chores or doing just about nothing.

This is crucial on many levels. All CEOs are humans first and business owners second, even if they don’t realize it all the time. Making time for friends, family and hobbies enables mental wellbeing and provides a well-rounded purpose in our lives. In a work context, this refreshing personal time also makes CEOs better able to engage with employees and colleagues without becoming distant or detached.

Rigorously enforcing your “me time” routine might not have a visible instant payoff. But over the long term it is paramount for your health and, ultimately, your business.

Get (a lot) more sleep

Thanks to social media, we’re all conditioned to believe that high-performing CEOs are superheroes that need 4 hours’ sleep and leave all those 6am-alarm slackers in their dust. Fortunately, most of this garbage comes from Joe Nobody on the internet who has never actually run a company.

In the words of Matthew Walker, the world’s preeminent researcher and expert on sleep:

CEOs aren’t superheroes: they’re driven and disciplined human beings that need as much (if not more) sleep as everyone else. Chronic sleep deprivation (that is, fewer than 6 hours per night) causes us to generate solutions to problems more slowly, less accurately, and less often. Our work rate naturally reduces and we start prioritizing simpler and less-essential tasks. Poor sleep significantly impairs decision making and creative thinking, and makes us more irritable, more vulnerable to stress, and amplifies emotional responses. For leaders, bad sleep directly correlates with lower charisma, self-control, and tolerance of others.

The ability to function on limited sleep is not the same as performing at or near your best. CEOs have incredibly commanding schedules; in order to work through that schedule every day, you need to be well-rested. In fact, your high-intensity lifestyle probably means you need more than average sleep in order to recover.

While it might feel productive sending emails at 10pm or setting the alarm for 5-6 hours after you go to bed, you’re probably performing between 30% and 80% of your best. Get the recommended 7-9 hours a night and, yes, you might tackle slightly fewer tasks during the day, but your performance will be substantially better. You’ll have more creative ideas and better judgement and take your company in a superior direction.

Investment in sleep should be non-negotiable.

Consider daily meditation

unning a company is incredibly stressful. There is no end to the high-pressure decisions, short timelines, supplier and customer issues, the financial burden—like we said, it’s endless. In order to stay on top of everything, more and more CEOs are swearing by mindfulness practice.

Meditation (one method of practicing mindfulness) has been shown in studies to relieve anxiety and, therefore, boost resilience and performance under stress. CEOs need to keep any panic, fear or despair closely under wraps. Regular meditation allows you to retain your composure, find calm in the storm, and stay focused through the most stressful situations.

Whether it’s overcoming hiccups in a major transaction or managing some market disaster, composure and clarity of thought are your most powerful weapons. Using an app like Headspace to meditate for just 3-10 minutes per day (perhaps during those in-between moments we discussed earlier) probably won’t feel like anything special—but when the chips fall, your ability to calmly navigate the wreckage will speak volumes.

Use bullet journaling

One of the most popular recent trends for improving organization is bullet journaling. This is a simple and effective way to track the past, monitor the present, and plan the future. It’s a place to manage all the balls you’re constantly juggling in one elegant, pen-and-paper solution.

(You could definitely do bullet journaling digitally, but using pen & paper forces you to slow down and stay concise—which is integral to the process)

Everything from upcoming events to to-do lists, birthday present ideas, business ideas, shopping lists, your habit trackers, employee feedback, how you’re going to prank Dan at the Christmas party…it’s all right there, in your bullet journal.

The beauty of bullet journaling is that it replaces the mountain of sticky notes and the dozens of phone reminders. It allows you to purge your mind of busy details until you’re ready to deal with them. Some CEOs swear by bullet journaling for the way it helps them organize their thoughts and stay present—both within and outside of work. Much like some other techniques we’ve discussed (namely scheduling deep work and asynchronous communication) this is all about alleviating the burden of stress and putting it somewhere else.

Somewhere it will be dealt with, but just not quite yet.

(There’s an awesome video by the creator explaining in simple terms how it works in just 4 minutes—check it out!)

Lean on your team

Any CEO that wants to have serious control over their time—and avoid working dawn-to-dusk every day of the week—needs to master delegation.

One of the biggest traps CEOs fall into is believing that no one else is capable of doing a certain task. And occasionally that’s true; the reason you’re the CEO is because of your specific abilities. But you also have to justify your investment in more junior staff. There are two sides to this:

• You don’t have time to do everything, so you need to “let go” of a lot of tasks and accept the results—even if they’re worse than what you would have produced.
• Your people were hired because they can do some jobs better than you. Give them the responsibility to prove it.

Accepting these two ideas and proactively offloading work from your plate to theirs is guaranteed to help you take back control of your schedule and stay organized. If there are tasks you currently manage but which, long-term, you don’t want responsibility for, give it to someone to run with. Encourage them to explore their own ideas for completing the work rather than coming to you for exact instructions.

Not only does effective delegation relieve a mental burden, it improves the ability of your staff to contribute valuable work and has a practical, visible effect on the day-to-day running of the business.

Schedule according to your body

Even if you have mastered the art of delegating tasks, getting good sleep and have hired a super-attentive assistant, you still need to schedule your day for maximum performance. Because in the end you’re still human, and your performance still waxes and wanes like the rest of us.

The trick here is understanding how your body and your brain function throughout the day. If you’re most alert and productive in the mornings, you cannot afford to waste this time on emails or “brute force” tasks. Instead, this is when you should be doing your most creative and strategic work. Later in the day when you have a crash, then you can power through with discipline and get that other work done—the tasks you can steamroll through even if your brain isn’t running at 100% capacity.

But if you get this wrong and start on your most mentally demanding work when you’re tired out, you’re going to come up with less creative and impactful solutions. Or worse, straight up bad ones. Worst of all, if you’re nowhere near “the zone” you might just procrastinate on the task and send the rest of your day and week into disarray.

Follow a “before your phone” morning ritual

It’s no coincidence that many of the highest-performing CEOs have established morning routines compared to average workers. And because they’re massively busy people, part of that routine usually involves light work such as checking emails.

A crucial element of making this habit sustainable is avoiding distractions and going “off course” first thing in the morning. For many of us, the first thing we do after snoozing our alarms is grab our phones and groggily scroll through them—and this is a painfully destructive way to do morning work.

There are two problems:

1. Our brains need breaks from work. By going through a full morning routine (which might only take 20-30 minutes) then jumping into work, our brain and body will feel more energized. We’re less likely to feel tired (immediately or later in the day) and we create a functional barrier between “work life” and “home life” that’s essential over the long term.
2. The quality of our decision making straight out of the bed is appalling. Like working 12-hour days without breaks, we might feel productive (because of that hard grind) but actually the brain is running at well below 100%. Probably well below 50%.

If exercise is part of your morning routine (and it should be—even if it’s a brisk 5-minute walk round the block!) this should definitely come before any phone time. Showering, breakfast, seeing the kids, meditation, making the bed—whatever it is that matters to you in the morning, get it all done in the peaceful quiet of the morning.

Then once you do turn to your phone, you’ll be ready to make faster, more effective decisions than earlier that morning. You’ll get more down and get ahead of the day. Some CEOs extend this “no phone” routine all the way to the office, but we know this isn’t practical for everyone—especially following Covid-19 where we’re spending more time at home.

Book vacations—even if you don’t have plans

The biggest problems CEOs have with vacation is that, typically, it doesn’t feel productive. “I don’t need to take time off” is an extremely common sentiment from CEOs and business owners. Plus the small fact that completely letting go of the company and its problems is terrifying for someone that’s responsible for the entire ship.

The thing is, vacation time is essential for giving leaders proper perspective on the business, their priorities, and their goals. We all know that we appreciate family most when we spend time away from them—well the same is true in business. You have your clearest thoughts and best perspective after returning, fresh, from somewhere else. You’ll notice the cracks and the possibilities. You’ll have a renewed vigour and will be able to deploy your time more effectively than ever.

Your attitude to vacation cascades

As a side note, the other thing is that vacation isn’t just about you; it’s about everyone else in the company. When you never take time away from work, it creates a culture of expectation among your subordinates. And if they take less time off, then the rung below them will feel obliged to follow suit.

Eventually, your entire organization can develop a reluctance to take vacation. Not because they’re so passionate about the work and making the company a success (like you) but because of pressure. And this pressure is a huge source of anxiety and frustration for employees, as well as a leading contributor of churn.

Enjoying your vacation also allows the company to survive without you. As soon as colleagues and clients realize you’re unavailable for a week, they’ll immediately work without you—solving problems, making decisions, and keeping things moving. This is extremely empowering for staff and brilliant for your own peace of mind; after all, the main reason CEOs don’t take vacation is because they don’t trust everything to work without them.

Swallow a frog first thing every day

If you want to stay on top of your day and smash every objective out the park, here’s an incredible piece of advice employed by CEOs all over the world: eat frogs.

This metaphor is basically saying that if you get your worst job out of the way first thing, then you have nothing to worry about the rest of the day—after all, you’ve already eaten a frog.

Even CEOs of successful companies aren’t immune to putting off distasteful tasks and finding ways to be “busy”. Breaking bad news to shareholders, having that awkward performance conversation with a colleague…

These tasks usually aren’t integral to the future of the company. Instead, the problem is that they fester and slowly build anxiety and tension in our heads. They become much bigger than they are, which makes them even more daunting to tackle. Putting off these tasks also wreaks havoc with the CEO’s finely-tuned and precise schedule because it weighs so heavily on their mind.

So whenever you make your to-do list (or your assistant hands it to you) identify the thing you want to do least, turn off your phone and just do it. You’ll feel lighter and more accomplished for the rest of the day, with that cancerous burden finally removed.

Build an internal locus of control

One powerful (and you could argue, essential) psychological characteristic of organized, effective CEOs is the internal locus of control. The “locus of control” describes the extent to which individuals feel in control of the events in their own lives.

• Those with an internal locus of control believe their own actions control what happens in their lives.
• Those with an external locus of control believe things are outside their control and “external variables” (other people, events, etc) are responsible for what happens.

Your locus of control influences how you respond to life’s challenges and your motivation to take action in response to those challenges. Here’s a more detailed illustration of the differences:

It’s worth noting that while people tend to champion the internal locus of control, neither is “better” than the other for all people. However, for a role as challenging, high-pressure and competitive as CEO, the internal locus of control is generally extremely valuable.

For some, locus of control has become synonymous with “outlook” or “personal agency”. If you’re running a serious company juggling endless tasks and priorities, you need an internal locus of control. You need to view every challenge as surmountable, to be constantly motivated by improvement and to believe your efforts will always be rewarded in time.

Staying productive can be hard. There are good days and there are bad days. A lot of great productivity tips and hacks go unnoticed by most people. Without a solid mentor, it can be hard to figure out how to organize yourself to maximum efficiency.

This is where productivity blogs come in handy. Let someone else devise new strategies, workshop them, and then upload the results to the internet. If you know where to look you can access this advice and start applying it to your own career.

We’ve scoured the internet in search of the best blogs on productivity. From fringe ideas to tried and tested methods, there is something for everyone. Take a look through these suggestions to find a mentor that suits you best. If certain ideas aren’t meshing that well with your personality and work habits, give something else a try.

It’s hard to pinpoint exactly what productivity hacks will work best for you but trial and error is the best way to find out. The ultimate goal of productivity is to produce more work, quicker, and hone your processes to be the best that they can be.

Here are 30 of the best blogs on productivity for you to try out.

1. Lifehacker

Lifehacker does one thing and that’s to share ideas on how to do anything better. The editors of Lifehacker write on a wide variety of topics but the best ones are work, money, and tech.

This isn’t just a website to help you work smarter, they help you to live smarter. There’s productivity advice on just about everything.

Under their “work” section they share tips on how to increase your productivity to get more things done. Everything is well laid out on the Lifehacker website so it’s easy to navigate your way around.

No matter what you want help with, they’ve got you covered both professionally and personally.

2. Dumb Little Man

Don’t be fooled by the name, the over 7000 contributors to Dumb Little Man are anything but dumb (and many of them aren’t even men!)

Since its inception in 2006, the blog has grown to cover many topics. The blog’s original goal was to share ideas on productivity, automation, and beating your goals. You’ll be able to find this advice under the business, money, and lifehacks sections of the website.

Their advice doesn’t stop there as the website covers topics such as relationships, dating, health, fitness, and languages. Bookmarking this website can help with every facet of everyday life.

3. Zen Habits

Zen Habits is different from the previous two blogs we’ve mentioned because they don’t cover everything. Instead, they’re focused on two things; simplicity and mindfulness.

The archives of Zen Habits are populated with expert articles on combating the chaos of modern life. It’s through minimalism, mindfulness, and Zen teachings that they share their blueprint for living and working in the modern world.

If you’re struggling to deal with the noise and fuss of your daily life, Zen Habits could be the right mentor for you. They’ll teach you how to stay grounded, stay focussed, and create a more minimalist lifestyle.

4. Tim Ferriss

Tim Ferris is one of the most prominent productivity gurus alive thanks to his book “The 4-Hour Work Week.” One of the best things about Tim Ferris is that he is everywhere. If you prefer to read then he has plenty of books and blogs available. If you’d rather listen to him he has one of the most popular podcasts of all time “The Tim Ferriss Show”

He is an achiever and he shares his knowledge of working harder and smarter on his website. It’s here you’ll find hundreds of articles on productivity and associated topics. If you want to learn from the best, Tim might be the best mentor out there.

Most of his work is offered for free through his blog and podcast. Alternatively, you could purchase one of his books for a more structured experience.

5. Keep Productive

Keep Productive helps you to find the best productivity software for your needs. Modern technology has made it easier than ever to maximize your productivity. However, with so much choice available picking the right products can be time-consuming.

Their team writes detailed reviews of all the best software available. When you’re in the market for new tools, Keep Productive should be your go-to site to help you make your decision.

Alongside reviews, they also post helpful tips to help you get the most out of your chosen applications.

6. Becoming Minimalist

Joshua Becker is the mind behind the Becoming Minimalist blog, where he shares advice on being more productive while using less. Minimalism is a popular movement that typically involves decluttering your home and workspace.

A lot of the articles focus on clearing out clutter at home through selling, donating, and recycling. Minimalism can also benefit your work life in a number of ways. You can apply minimalist values to things like your work desk, computer desktop, and folders.

By simplifying your processes you can increase your productivity because your mind will be more focused and less prone to distraction.

7. Todd Henry

If you work in the creative industries then Todd Henry is the productivity guru you should hitch your wagon to. His podcast “the Accidental Creative” has over 10 million downloads. He focuses on teaching creatives to be leaders, give things their best effort, and how to be authentic in their work.

On his blog, he shares articles that are focused on productivity specifically for creatives. You’ll learn his best tips on how to become prolific at what you do.

He interviews many creative people through his podcasts and the show notes are repurposed as blogs if reading is your preference.

8. Productivity Land

Productivity Land is a useful review website that can help you pick the right software for your needs. Their reviews section keeps up to date with new products coming to market and they give the software a mark out of 5. You’ll get information on how the product works, what the pricing structure is, and if it’s worth the price.

There’s also a dedicated section on Agile methodology that can help you learn how to structure projects. Agile is a type of project management that’s usually used in software development but it can be applied to all sorts of industries.

9. The Digital Project Manager

The Digital Project Manager is an incredible resource for project managers, just like the name suggests. They offer things like mentorship, masterclasses, courses, and resources like templates. The website is all about digital systems and workflows.

It’s useful for beginners and professionals alike and their blog contains lots of value. They share advice on being more productive and how to make your projects more efficient. There are how-to guides on starting your project, monitoring and controlling, and closing the project when it’s finished.

If you’re looking for guidance on project management, this is the website you should refer to. Take a look through their free blogs on methodologies, risk management, and productivity hacks.

10. Barking Up the Wrong Tree

Eric Barker’s blog Barking Up the Wrong Tree wants to help you be “awesome at life.” He must be doing a good job because he’s attracted over 300,000 people to his email list and debuted at #2 on the Wall Street Journal Bestseller list.

His simple blog is a collection of articles on the same topic – how to be awesome at life. This isn’t just about getting organized at work. You’ll learn how to set goals and exceed them.

It’s life lessons that everyone needs to know and can be easily applied to your lifestyle. Eric Barker is a great mentor for anyone who could use some guidance with their personal aspirations.

11. Get Rich Slowly

Money makes the world go round and this blog is the one that can help you make sense of personal finance. Let’s face it, we could all do with some expert money management tips. Being productive with your finances can help you to focus on other things. When things are under control it frees up your brainpower for other tasks.

Get Rich Slowly covers everything you need to know about getting into a money mindset from the basics to savings and investment advice. They have hundreds of articles on personal finance that can help you beat debt forever and work towards early retirement.

12. The Muse

The Muse is a career advice website that helps people to land their dream job. If you’re in the market for a new job, they can help you with your job search. There are articles on things like job interview questions, how to perfect your resume, and how to write a killer cover letter.

It doesn’t end with the job search, they also share ideas on how to be more productive at work. If you want to secure a promotion, they’ll teach you how to stand out and be a valuable asset to your organization.

Their productivity section is a must-read for anyone who wants to manage their time better and get more organized at work.

13. Asian Efficiency

Asian Efficiency is a blog all about productivity that wants to put your health first. After working 80 hour weeks for too long, founder Thanh started the blog as a passion project to help others avoid this kind of crunch. He’s gone on to coach over 15,000 people and shares plenty of advice to help people be more productive.

The team at Asian Efficiency has done all the hard work for you as they’ve looked through as many resources on productivity as they could. Now they present the topic with the understanding that productivity is different for everyone.

It’s a personable approach that has tips, tricks, and hacks for every person.

14. Be More With Less

Be More With Less is another blog all about minimalism and how to apply it to your everyday life. Minimalism is achieved through decluttering your home, simplifying your life, and slowing down. Modern life is hectic and it’s easy to get overwhelmed which is where minimalism can really help.

Minimalism can help you to reduce stress, save money, and focus on the things that really matter. You can apply many of the same principles to your work life to help you create a more productive career.

15. Influencive

Influencive is a website that aims to share unconventional advice on matters like self-development, business, and marketing. They also interview influential people to gain insights into how people work effectively.

Some of the information on the website is quite advanced for newbies to the subject of productivity. They have information on important productivity topics such as choosing the right tech stack. If you want to learn from the best in business, Influencive has everything you’ll need to succeed as an entrepreneur.

16. James Clear

James Clear is someone you may already be familiar with thanks to his worldwide best-selling book Atomic Habits. He’s an advocate for habit-building as a way to increase your productivity and achieve your goals. As well as habits he writes about building processes to maximize your potential and how to do more with less time.

Take a look at his blog for free articles on a variety of different ideologies and practices. He and his team take existing ideas and workshop them to make them even better. It’s a great way to fast-track your productivity by using tried and tested methods.

17. Lifehack

Lifehack, not to be confused with the Lifehacker blog we mentioned earlier, was founded by Leon Ho. Through this blog, Leon tries to teach his students about overcoming struggles and living their life to the fullest. Alongside masterclasses and courses, he gives away a lot of wisdom for free.

The blog is split into multiple categories including goal getting, success mindset, and staying motivated. These helpful topics delve deep into productivity and can help you with your work life.

Aside from work-related articles, Lifehack places a strong emphasis on health, fitness, and mental wellbeing. It’s easy to overlook but looking after yourself is key to staying productive.

18. Marc and Angel Hack Life

Marc and Angel are popular life coaches who know all there is to know about productivity. On their website, you will have access to over 900 articles on topics like happiness and personal development. They’ve been sharing their secrets online since 2006 and have amassed 200,000 subscribers to their email list.

Forbes considers their website to be “one of the most popular personal development blogs.” They’re the experts you need to know if you’re looking for productivity hacks as well as advice on being happier and healthier.

19. Optimal Living Daily

Optimal Living Daily is best known for its highly popular podcast of the same name. The premise of the show is to find and read out the best blog posts on topics such as productivity, minimalism, and personal development. If your preferred method of learning is audio, then this podcast could be exactly what you need.

If you prefer to read then you’ll find a lot of interesting articles in the blog posts hosted on their own website. On the blog, they answer audience questions and fill their articles with lots of useful information.

Of course, you can always ask your own questions and get highly specialized advice.

20. The Art of Manliness

The Art of Manliness is the only bookmark you’ll need as a man (I’m sure women can bookmark this too – they just target the male demographic). The articles shared cover every aspect of a man’s life from looking good to feeling good. You can learn how to get disciplined in work and fitness with their practical, actionable advice.

It’s grown to become one of the most prominent men’s interest websites on the internet. For good reason as well, they write intelligent, thought-provoking articles that any man can benefit from.

21. The Selfish Mother Blog

The Selfish Mother Blog is a crowdsourced information hub written by mothers for mothers. It is not about raising kids, having a family, or being a housewife. It’s about sharing knowledge with other like-minded people from all across the globe.

Anyone can write for the Selfish Mother Blog and there are no barriers to entry. What people write is what gets posted, there are no pesky editors diluting content. The website has an unconventional design, preferring to split the content into boxes so they can fit Instagram.

If you can get past that, there’s a lot of useful wisdom from women who have lived all sorts of lives.

22. Thought Catalog

Thought Catalog is an online publication that writes for the youth. It’s a vast resource built to help young people to live life more freely. They don’t shy away from the hard topics because they understand that people grow through adversity.

When it comes to the articles that are shared on Thought Catalog (by over 20,000 writers) they write about all areas of life. For young people who are coming-of-age, there are articles on how to be productive with your studies and work. They also teach people how to prioritize their mental and work with passion.

23. Thrive Global

Thrive Global has a simple but lofty mission – to end burnout culture. Their strategies have helped thousands of businesses and their employees work smarter. As many as 95% of employees report an increase in productivity.

Stats like that mean Thrive Global is one of the premier destinations for businesses to learn new productivity hacks. Their blog has hundreds of free articles available about new cloud based tools and methodologies on productivity.

You’ll learn how to reach new levels of productivity by incorporating micro-steps. They’re passionate about teaching people how to disconnect from work and still be able to achieve their tasks. It’s a business-led approach, so team leaders and managers will find this website particularly useful.

24. Curious on Medium

Many of the internet’s most prolific writers choose to write on Medium instead of creating and maintaining their own blog. On the Medium platform, there are hundreds of publications covering all sorts of topics. Curious is one of the most popular and they share articles on “time-tested ideas.”

Writers submit their pieces on productivity, mental health, and wellbeing. Most articles are written from a personal perspective with clear takeaways and practical advice.

Curious is a great publication to learn from people who are putting their advice into practise. The stories they share explain exactly how they figured things out.

25. Forge on Medium

One other publication you should be aware of is the Medium-owned Forge. It’s their personal development blog and the editors are very particular about what they post. They only accept the very best articles which means their output is less than Curious, but the advice is guaranteed to be high quality.

Alongside expert articles on productivity, you can find career advice and stories on mental and physical wellbeing. Forge articles are research-heavy and backed by science. Some of the authors are industry leaders, making Forge one of the best publications on the platform.

NOTE: Medium is home to a lot of authors. Not all of them submit their work to publication. If there is a topic you are particularly interested in, try the search bar to find even more articles.

26. Mindful Productivity Blog

Sarah Steckler’s website, Mindful Productivity Blog, is a conscious approach to productivity that focuses on avoiding burnout. She created this idea of productivity that recognizes your unique human attributes.

Things like your state of mind, your natural energy capacity, and outside factors can cause your productivity to slow down. By putting Mindful Productivity’s advice into practice you’ll learn how to work around your natural limitations.

She’s an excellent mentor and luckily for us, she gives away her advice for free through the Mindful Productivity Blog. Take a look through to learn new ideas on an old subject.

27. A Life of Productivity

A Life of Productivity is the home of Chris Bailey’s articles on all things productivity. After graduating from business school he turned down a number of job offers in order to focus solely on the subject. He would read books, watch videos, interview specialists, as well as put himself through experiments.

He did all this so that he would be able to understand new ideas and present them to a new audience. His website and experiment took off and he’s even teamed up with Penguin Random House to publish books. Now he’s a leading expert on the subject and all of his advice is available for free on A Life of Productivity.

28. Productive Flourishing

Productive Flourishing has plenty of articles on its website that can help you be more productive. One of the best features is the free planners they have available. Download these and start your journey of getting more organized at home and at work.

The planners are the pride and joy of Productive Flourishing but there are other productivity ideas here as well. You can join their academy to become a better leader or hire the team as coaches or consults. Or you can simply check out their blog and learn all about their productivity ticks.

29. Productivityist Blog

The name is quite the mouthful but it’s an accurate description of the blog. Productivityist has put together the best tips and tools that everyone can use. They’ve been featured by Lifehacker, 99U, and The Huffington Post, so they’re a genuinely useful resource on the subject.

What exactly is a productivityist? Well, they describe it as someone who is a “productivity enthusiast” which is exactly what they are. They have a blog and podcast full of information on productivity ideas, tools, and hacks. Take a look through their blog for inspiration on how to get more done.

30. Authentically Del

Delaney (or Del) does productivity a little bit differently. She wants to reframe how we think about productivity and avoid the mindset that you have to be productive all the time. The word she uses is “authentically” which means making sure you switch off and get enough rest as well.

Authentically Del has articles on how to do exactly that – be productive while making time for your mental and physical health. If you do too much, too quickly, there’s a very real risk you will burn out and you’ll see your productivity drop from 100 to 0 very quickly. By using Del’s advice you will make sure you can maximize your productivity and get enough “me time.”