Developing a Personal Productivity System

How I Track 10+ Projects at Once as a Program Manager at Amazon It’s a question I get a lot: How do you stay on top of everything without letting something slip? Different teams. Different timelines. Different deliverables. And a lot of noise. Here’s how I keep it all moving…and still make it home for dinner: 1/ I use one central tracking system for everything ↳ One doc, one view. ↳ If it’s not in the tracker, it doesn’t exist. ↳ I update it daily and keep it brutally simple. 2/ I start every week with a 15-minute self check-in ↳ What’s behind? What’s on track? What’s at risk? ↳ If I don’t do this Monday morning, the week runs me instead of the other way around. 3/ I color-code by priority and risk ↳ Green means I don’t need to touch it. ↳ Yellow means it needs a check-in. ↳ Red means I need to escalate or unblock. 4/ I follow up with context, not just reminders ↳ “Just checking in” turns into “We need this by Friday to keep X on track.” ↳ People respond to clarity, not pressure. 5/ I keep a running weekly update for leadership ↳ 3 bullets: what moved, what’s stuck, and what I need help with. ↳ It keeps everyone informed without another meeting. Managing 10+ projects isn’t about multitasking. It’s about systems, focus, and momentum. You don’t need to know everything. You just need to know where to look…and what to move next. How do you track your priorities without getting overwhelmed?

I've tried the fancy productivity systems, but here's what works: This 3x5 notecard... Each evening, I sit down at my desk and write down the 3-5 highest impact to-dos for the following day. These are the "important" tasks that directly contribute to my long-term projects or goals. The list is pure—I specifically avoid writing down all of the miscellaneous urgent and unimportant to-dos (more on that later). In the morning, I sit down at my desk for my first focus work block and start at the top of the list, working my way down and crossing off the important items as I get through them. My primary goal is to cross each item off the list by the end of the day. I am intentionally conservative in the number of items I write on the list. It's usually 3, sometimes 4, and very rarely 5. I never want to end the day with open items, so being conservative helps me accomplish that (and get the extra rush from getting through more than I expected). As I go through the day, I stole an idea from Marc Andreessen to use the back of the card to write down and cross off any minor to-dos that I complete (the urgent or unimportant tasks that are not welcome on the front of the card). The process of writing and crossing off an item on the back of the card is a further boost of momentum, so I find it to be a worthwhile exercise. My notecard productivity system is painfully simple, but it's grounded in five powerful realizations: 1. 15 minutes of prep in the evening is worth hours the next morning. By setting out your priority tasks the night before, you eliminate any friction from having to decide what to work on. You hit the ground sprinting. 2. Important > Urgent. By tackling the important to start the day, you guarantee progress against the big picture projects and goals. If my day went to hell after that morning focus block (which it sometimes does with a 1-year-old at home!), it would be ok, because I know I've gotten through much of my important work. 3. Momentum is everything. Crossing important items off your list to start the day immediately creates a winning feeling that you keep with you. Success begets success. 4. Simple is beautiful. If you're spending time thinking about your productivity system, you're studying for the wrong test. That's movement for the sake of movement. You should be focused on progress. 5. Find what works for you. It used to stress me out that I didn't have a beautiful productivity system that would impress others. Then I realized that whatever works for me is the best productivity system. Identify how you operate and find the system that works for you. To get started, just buy a stack of simple 3x5 notecards and give it a shot. If you've ever been overwhelmed by productivity systems and advice, this is an approach to try. Follow me Sahil Bloom for more ideas like this in the future and join 800,000+ others who get these in my weekly newsletter: https://lnkd.in/esGsF85Q

It’s hard to imagine, but compressing “months into minutes” might be too modest an expectation of the impact of AI. Fashion designer Diarra Bousso says AI compressed her months-long design and production workflows into minutes. Scientists highlighted in a recent New York Times article are using AI to condense years of groundbreaking research into days—and in some cases, minutes. But what about “decades into minutes”? Meet Adam Rymer. He's never written a line of code, but in just 45 minutes, he built an AI-powered tool that's on track to save the National Park Service thousands of days of work every year. How? By solving one of the most mundane yet time-consuming challenges every public facility faces: how to properly request new carpet tiles. Don't let the mundane task fool you. Behind every basic maintenance request in our national parks lies a labyrinth of federal specifications, OSHA requirements, ANSI standards, and building codes. Facility managers like Adam often spend 2-3 days assembling paperwork for even routine repairs. And across 433 park sites spanning 85 million acres, those hours add up fast. When the National Park Service invited me to lead a modest upskilling initiative on generative AI, I jumped at the chance. I've spent countless nights under the stars with my family in our national parks, so the opportunity to help these stewards work more efficiently felt like an honor. The program was brief—just two hour-long sessions with about 50 participants—but focused. In our second session, I taught the group how to create simple, personalized GPT tools: lightweight, custom AI assistants that could automate repetitive tasks. I asked everyone to pick something tedious they knew how to do but hated doing. “Finish the sentence, ‘It stinks that…’” Adam spoke up: “It stinks that I have to fill out so much paperwork for basic funding requests.” In just 45 minutes, Adam built his tool. It asked him a series of questions about the scope of work, OSHA requirements, ANSI standards, and other details—and then generated a polished, complete funding request document. Instead of two or three days, Adam’s next funding request was done in two hours. But the story doesn’t stop there… (see how Adam’s innovation had a ripple effect across the entire organization in the full post in the comments below!)

Claude Skills turns AI into a teammate that already knows how you work. Here’s how to use it to save 30–40 minutes on recurring tasks. Most people still use AI like a search engine. Prompt → answer → context disappears → repeat. Which means every task starts from zero. You re-explain: ↳ your role ↳ your tone ↳ your formatting preferences ↳ your constraints ↳ your workflow Claude Skills removes that friction. Instead of re-briefing the model every time, you encode the instructions once  and Claude loads them automatically when the task appears again. That turns AI from a tool into something closer to operational infrastructure. Here’s the simple structure behind every Skill: Role Who Claude is in this context. Rules What to do, what to avoid, tone, formatting, standards. Trigger The phrase or task that automatically loads the Skill. Once written well, the model already understands the job before you even start prompting. A practical way to start: Build Skills for the tasks you repeat every week. Examples: Writing Skill Role: LinkedIn editor Rules: concise, structured, actionable, no fluff Trigger: “Write a LinkedIn post” Research Skill Role: industry analyst Rules: summarize trends, cite sources, highlight implications Trigger: “Research / analyze” Meeting Skill Role: chief of staff Rules: extract decisions, action items, owners, risks Trigger: “Summarize meeting” Each one eliminates repeated prompting. Setup takes about 10 minutes. But you can reuse the Skill hundreds of times. The important shift is this: The AI advantage does not come from better prompts. It comes from designing reusable thinking systems. ↳ writing frameworks ↳ research workflows ↳ analysis checklists Once encoded properly, they become persistent intelligence. That’s how individuals begin building what companies are trying to build at scale: an AI operating layer around their work. Prompting helps. But workflow design creates the real leverage. 🔁 Repost if this helped clarify how to turn AI into a system, not just a tool. ➕ Follow Gabriel Millien for practical insights on AI execution and building real leverage with AI. Image credit: Chris Donnelly

I journal for 15 minutes a day and get my clients to do the same. Here’s the neuroscience behind how daily journaling will rewire your brain: Your working memory can only hold 7±2 items at a time. When you try to keep everything in your head, you're running your brain at full capacity. Here's what I do: set aside 15 minutes daily to write down whatever's making me worried or distracted. Then I close the notebook and put it away. Simple. This one daily routine frees up massive cognitive resources, a technique I also teach to the executives I work with. Here’s what's happening in your brain that makes this so powerful: Neuroimaging studies show that expressive writing activates your prefrontal cortex (your brain’s control center) while simultaneously dampening activity in the amygdala, your threat detection system. Essentially, writing things down works to reverse your brain's default stress response. A study by Ramirez and Beilock proved this also works under pressure. Students who wrote about their anxieties for just 10 minutes before a high-stakes exam significantly improved their test scores compared to those who didn't. The act of offloading worries freed up the working memory they needed for the test itself. One CEO was struggling during fundraising season. Brilliant guy, knew his numbers cold, but kept stumbling in pitches because his brain was juggling too much. We implemented this system for him. Before every pitch, he'd spend a few minutes dumping his mental noise onto paper. Just getting it out of his head and into the universe. The difference was immediate. When his brain wasn't actively holding onto every worry and distraction, he could focus on what mattered: connecting with investors and telling his story. Think of it like clearing RAM on your computer. When we externalize information, we reduce cognitive load, which frees up processing power for our most important work. Your brain has limited bandwidth. Stop wasting it on mental storage and start using it for the analysis and decision-making it was designed for. What do you do to clear your mental space?

Who enjoys repetitive manual tasks? In #Finance, we try to automate them wherever possible. For example, in Treasury. One of their jobs sounds simple enough: Create a forecast of how much money we have available in the days and months ahead. We call this liquidity planning. In the past this meant lots of Excel spreadsheets, copying and pasting, checking, and double-checking. Exhausting – not to forget the tiny little errors that crept in only to be fixed in arduous work later. Forecasts were made for the end of each of the upcoming 12 months, making it challenging to project financial needs in the middle of the month. We’re now using #AI for this task. Many of the Excel spreadsheets are gone. My colleagues trained the algorithm and fed it with tons of data. It now detects patterns in our liquidity data. Every single day it learns by itself, and predictions are refined with each new cash flow. The forecasts have become much more granular: Now we can predict our liquidity on a rolling basis for each of the next 365 days, and we can do it for 31 currencies instead of just one. We know ahead of time whether a planned project will need additional financing – and if we have sufficient funds to rely on. Overall, this means borrowing less money and saving on interest. With #digitalization and AI, our financial planning has become more accurate. And my colleagues have said goodbye 👋 to some of their least-loved repetitive tasks. Instead, they focus more on strategy – and on improving the predictive model. #Teamwork #Treasury #SiemensHealthineers

Want to be more productive? Approach your work week like a science experiment. Every Friday, I set aside 15 minutes to reflect on my week. I use a simple process: 1. I review my timeboxed calendar and note when I did what I said I would do and when I got distracted. 2. I use my distraction tracker to identify what pulled me off course. Was it an internal trigger like boredom? An external trigger like a notification? Or a planning problem? 3. Based on this data, I adjust my strategy. For example, I may need to remove an app from my phone or schedule office hours to reduce interruptions. Treating your productivity as an ongoing, iterative process will help move you closer to the most effective, focused version of yourself.  My weekly newsletter shares other science-backed productivity and focus insights. If you liked this post, you’ll love the newsletter. Subscribe at the link in my bio!

I automated my entire team's workflow—and then THIS happened. Ever wonder what would happen if your team could complete a week's worth of work in a single day? Sounds like a dream, right? Well, that's exactly what we achieved. A few months back, I noticed my team was bogged down with repetitive tasks. Brilliant minds were spending hours on mundane activities. So, I decided to take a bold step. We invested in automating these tasks. The initial push was challenging: - Learning new tools - Changing long-standing processes - Overcoming resistance to change But the payoff was incredible. Results: - Productivity skyrocketed: We accomplished more in less time. - Stress levels dropped: The team felt less overwhelmed. - Innovation flourished: Free time led to creative solutions. - Employee satisfaction increased: Work became more fulfilling. The most surprising outcome? Our team cohesion strengthened. With less time on grunt work, we collaborated more on strategic projects. The takeaway? Automation isn't about replacing people. It's about freeing them to do what they do best. Embrace technology to unlock your team's true potential. Have you implemented automation in your work?

𝗗𝗶𝘀𝗰𝗶𝗽𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗲 𝗜𝘀𝗻’𝘁 𝗔𝗯𝗼𝘂𝘁 𝗪𝗶𝗹𝗹𝗽𝗼𝘄𝗲𝗿 — 𝗜𝘁’𝘀 𝗔𝗯𝗼𝘂𝘁 𝗦𝘆𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗺𝘀 (𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗧𝗵𝗲𝘀𝗲 𝟱 𝗔𝗽𝗽𝘀 𝗛𝗲𝗹𝗽 𝗠𝗲 𝗦𝘁𝗮𝘆 𝗦𝗮𝗻𝗲) Being a working professional means juggling deadlines, goals, and “I’ll do it tomorrow” habits that never get done. For the longest time, I blamed myself for not being consistent. Then I realized — it wasn’t a discipline issue. It was a system design problem. Here are 5 apps I use daily to stick to my personal and professional goals — and actually follow through 👇 🔹 𝙉𝙤𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣 – 𝙈𝙮 𝙨𝙚𝙘𝙤𝙣𝙙 𝙗𝙧𝙖𝙞𝙣 From planning weekly content to tracking goals to journaling lessons learned, Notion is where I think clearly. Bonus: I use a “Weekly Wins” tracker to log even small progress — momentum > motivation. 🔹 𝙃𝙖𝙗𝙞𝙩𝙞𝙘𝙖 – 𝘽𝙚𝙘𝙖𝙪𝙨𝙚 𝙜𝙖𝙢𝙞𝙛𝙮𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙝𝙖𝙗𝙞𝙩𝙨 𝙬𝙤𝙧𝙠𝙨 It turns habit-building into a role-playing game. Yes, I get XP for drinking water and finishing my reading goals. 📌 Tiny dopamine hits = consistent behavior change. Works like magic. 🔹 𝙂𝙤𝙤𝙜𝙡𝙚 𝘾𝙖𝙡𝙚𝙣𝙙𝙖𝙧 – 𝙈𝙮 𝙖𝙘𝙘𝙤𝙪𝙣𝙩𝙖𝙗𝙞𝙡𝙞𝙩𝙮 𝙢𝙞𝙧𝙧𝙤𝙧 I don’t just use it for meetings. I block time for reading, breaks, deep work, even errands. If it’s not on the calendar, it’s not real. 🔹 𝙁𝙤𝙧𝙚𝙨𝙩 – 𝘼𝙣𝙩𝙞-𝙨𝙘𝙧𝙤𝙡𝙡 + 𝙛𝙤𝙘𝙪𝙨 𝙗𝙤𝙤𝙨𝙩𝙚𝙧 Plant a tree. Stay off your phone. Sounds silly — but watching a digital tree die because I opened Instagram? Genuinely painful. And yes, I’ve built real focus blocks using it. 🔹 𝙏𝙞𝙘𝙠𝙏𝙞𝙘𝙠 – 𝙁𝙤𝙧 𝙩𝙤-𝙙𝙤𝙨 𝙄’𝙡𝙡 𝙖𝙘𝙩𝙪𝙖𝙡𝙡𝙮 𝙙𝙤 Simple, clean, and perfect for daily and recurring tasks. I group tasks by energy levels — so even on tired days, I still tick off 2–3 quick wins. 💡 Productivity isn’t about doing more. It’s about making what matters easier to do. And tools don’t replace discipline — they reduce friction so your habits can stick. #ProductivityTools #WorkingProfessional #HabitsThatStick #DisciplineByDesign #SystemsOverWillpower #CareerGrowth

I never thought something this simple would make such a difference in how I work and manage my time. This 15-minute weekly habit changed everything for me: The weekly review. This is one of the most simple yet powerful practices I've built over the years. It helps me reflect on what’s working, what’s not, and what needs adjusting. The concept, introduced by David Allen in “Getting Things Done”, emphasises the importance of closing open loops and staying on top of commitments before they pile up. Over time, it’s become a cornerstone of my productivity system. Here’s what my weekly review looks like: - Review the past week – I list the dates from the past week and, using my calendar and notes, jot down key events and tasks. - Reflect on achievements and challenges – Take a moment to celebrate what went well and spot areas for improvement. - Plan for the upcoming week – Adjust goals and priorities to make sure I’m focusing on what really matters. It’s a small investment of time, but the impact is huge. Every week, those 15 minutes give me clarity, keeps me on track, and make decision-making easier. Instead of constantly chasing the next thing, it gives me a chance to pause, take stock, and plan with intention. Do you have a system for reflecting on your week, or is this something you’d want to try?