12 Tips to increase your productivity at work
There’s something most entrepreneurs do every single day — and they don’t even stop to question it.
They answer messages while building proposals. They take calls while reviewing numbers. They have three browser tabs open, a Slack notification pending, and an unread email from a client — all at the same time. And at the end of the day, they feel exhausted. Like they gave everything.
But the results don’t match the effort. The to-do list is longer than when they started. The important work didn’t get done. And that quiet, frustrating gap — between how hard they’re working and how little they’re actually moving forward — has a name: it’s a productivity problem.
In this article, you’re going to learn exactly why it happens, what science says about it, and the 12 actionable strategies that will change the way you work — starting today.
Originally published: January 23, 2016 — Updated: May 05 2026
QUICK ANSWER
To increase productivity at work, stop working longer hours and start working smarter. The most effective strategies include working in 90-minute focused intervals, eliminating multitasking, setting self-imposed deadlines, and protecting your deep work time by turning off notifications. Every minute you reclaim from distraction is a minute invested in real output.
TL;DR
Working harder is not the answer — working with a system is.
My Productivity Wake-Up Call
I remember the week I launched my first serious web design project while also managing three clients, responding to emails constantly, and trying to build my portfolio at the same time. I thought I was being productive. I was online 14 hours a day. I was busy — visibly, aggressively busy.
But at the end of that week, I looked at what I had actually completed. Not what I had touched. Not what I had responded to. What I had finished. The number was embarrassing. I had produced almost nothing of value.
That week taught me something I now consider one of the most important lessons of my career: being busy is not the same as being productive.
Filling your day with activity is not the same as advancing your goals. And the faster you understand this difference, the faster your business will move.
In short: Busyness is not productivity. Output is.
The Productivity Trap No One Talks About
Here is the real problem: most people are trying to solve a productivity issue with more hours.
If they’re not getting enough done, they add more time. They start earlier. They stay later. They work weekends.
But this approach treats time as the constraint — when the real constraint is focus. We only have 24 hours in a day, and more hours don’t create more results if those hours are fragmented by distraction, interruption, and the illusion of multitasking.
The research is clear. Studies suggest only about 17 percent of people can accurately estimate how much time they spend on tasks. The rest — the vast majority — are operating on a broken internal clock, underestimating distractions and overestimating their focus.
The solution is not more time.
It is better use of the time you already have.
In short: You don’t have a time problem. You have a focus problem.
Every time you switch tasks, your brain pays a price. Those prices add up — and they come out of your best work
The Science: How Your Brain Actually Works
Your brain is not designed to work for 8 continuous hours. That is not an opinion — it is neuroscience.
Research on ultradian rhythms shows that the human brain cycles through periods of high focus and recovery approximately every 90 to 120 minutes. After that window, cognitive performance drops sharply.
The brain is also estimated to process roughly 11 million bits of information per second from the environment — which means it is constantly managing stimuli, even when you think you are focused. Every notification, every open tab, every background conversation pulls at that bandwidth.
But the research goes further.
A landmark study published in the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine found that integrating physical movement into the workday — even brief walks — measurably improved productivity and cognitive performance.
The body and the brain are one system. You cannot exhaust one without affecting the other.
The practical conclusion from all of this research is simple: working in structured 90-minute intervals, followed by genuine breaks, is not a productivity hack. It is working in alignment with how your brain is physically designed to function.
In short: Your brain has a 90-minute peak performance window. Work with it — not against it.
The Myth: Busy Equals “Productive”
Our culture has built an entire mythology around busyness.
Being busy is worn like a badge of honor.
The entrepreneur who works 80-hour weeks is celebrated. The executive who answers emails at midnight is considered dedicated. The freelancer who is always available is seen as professional.
But this mythology is actively destroying our output. Psychologists have consistently found that attempting to do several tasks simultaneously results in lost time and reduced quality of work.
What we call multitasking is, in neurological terms, rapid task-switching — and each switch costs cognitive energy and focus recovery time.
The myth that multitasking is a skill — something to be proud of — is one of the most expensive beliefs an entrepreneur can hold. The entrepreneurs who consistently produce the most are not the busiest. They are the most focused.
In short: Multitasking is not a skill. It is a productivity illusion.
What Happens to Your Business When Multitasking Becomes the Default
When you operate without a productivity system, the business consequences are concrete and measurable:
• Proposals take twice as long to write because you keep switching context.
• Client deliverables slip because your focus is fragmented.
• Strategy never gets built because every day is consumed by reactive tasks.
The most expensive cost is invisible: the work you never got to.
Every hour lost to distraction is an hour not spent on the work that actually moves the business forward — the content, the clients, the systems, the growth.
For entrepreneurs building a brand from scratch — especially in competitive markets — this is not a soft problem. It is the difference between a business that grows and one that stays stuck in place, busy but not moving.
In short: Every minute lost to distraction is a minute your competitor used to get ahead.
The 12-Tip System: How to Work Smarter Starting Today
These are not abstract ideas. Each one is a specific, actionable behavior change you can implement immediately.
1. Work in 90-Minute Intervals
Structure your workday around focused 90-minute blocks aligned with your brain’s ultradian rhythm. Work on one task for 90 minutes, then take a genuine 15-20 minute break. Walk around the block, step away from screens, or do something that requires zero cognitive load. Your brain will recover fully and perform at peak again for the next cycle.
2. Track and Limit Time Spent on Tasks
Most people dramatically underestimate how long tasks take them. Tools like RescueTime give you an honest account of exactly where your time goes — across social media, email, applications, and actual productive work. When you see the real numbers, you cannot unsee them. Awareness is the first step to control.
3. Take Regular Breaks — Always
Breaks are not a reward for finishing work. They are part of the work cycle. Research consistently shows that working without breaks leads to a steady decline in performance over time. Scheduled breaks maintain a constant level of output throughout the day. Skip the break, and you pay for it in quality and speed in the hours that follow.
4. Set Self-Imposed Deadlines
Open-ended projects expand to fill all available time — a phenomenon known as Parkinson’s Law. Setting your own specific deadline for every task, and committing yourself to it, activates a productive level of pressure that sharpens focus and drives completion. You will be surprised how much more you produce when there is a clear finish line — even one you created yourself.
5. Give Up the Illusion of Perfection
Perfectionism is procrastination in disguise. The pursuit of perfect is the enemy of done, and done is almost always better than perfect — especially in early stages. Complete the task to the best of your current ability, ship it, and improve it in the next iteration. The goal is momentum, not flawlessness.
6. Take Exercise Breaks
Physical movement is not separate from your productivity — it is part of it. A study published in the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine found that building movement into the workday improves both physical and mental performance. Even a 10-minute walk resets your focus, oxygenates your brain, and returns you to your work with renewed clarity.
7. Quit Multitasking
This deserves its own article — and I wrote one. (See: Multitasking — One of the Worst Enemies of Productivity.) The core point: committing to one task until it is complete is not just more pleasant — it is measurably more productive. The mental cost of switching tasks, called ‘attention residue,’ lingers for minutes after each switch, dragging down performance on the new task.
8. Be Proactive, Not Reactive
If your day is dictated by incoming messages, calls, and notifications, you are working on someone else’s agenda. Take back ownership of your time by designing your day the night before. Set a specific window for emails and calls. Outside that window, they do not exist. You control the day — or the day controls you.
9. Follow the Two-Minute Rule
If a task will take two minutes or less to complete, do it immediately. Do not log it, defer it, or schedule it — just do it now. The administrative overhead of tracking a two-minute task often costs more time than simply completing it. This rule keeps small items from accumulating into a mental backlog that weighs on your focus.
10. Give Yourself Something Nice to Look At
Your environment affects your output more than most people acknowledge. Research suggests that workspaces designed with aesthetically pleasing elements — plants, personal photos, objects that bring genuine pleasure — can increase productivity by up to 15 percent. This is not decoration. It is environmental design for performance.
11. Turn Off Notifications
Every notification is a micro-interruption with a macro cost. The average knowledge worker takes over 20 minutes to fully recover their focus after an interruption — even a brief one. During your 90-minute work blocks, all notifications are off. No exceptions. You check communications during the designated windows you have already set aside for them.
12. Minimize Interruptions
Brief interruptions produce measurable changes in work patterns and corresponding drops in productivity. For deep work sessions, this means closing your office door, setting your status to unavailable, or working from a location with no foot traffic. Protecting your focus is not rudeness — it is professionalism. Your best work requires your full attention.
In short: The 12 tips work because they treat focus as a finite resource that must be protected — not a willpower issue to be overcome.
AUTO-EVALUATION
Is This You? Self-Assessment
Before you move on, take 60 seconds and answer these questions honestly:
• Do you end most workdays feeling exhausted but unsure of what you actually completed?
• Do you frequently switch between tasks without finishing any of them?
• Is your phone or computer showing notifications while you are trying to do focused work right now?
• Have you worked more hours this week without producing more results?
• Do you find yourself redoing or fixing things because they were rushed?
If you answer yes to two or more of these, you are not dealing with a time problem. You are dealing with a focus problem — and focus is solvable.
In short: Awareness of the problem is the beginning of the solution.
Productivity Is a Business System
Every one of these 12 tips shares a single underlying principle: a business without a system for how its people work, is a business that runs on chaos. The same thinking applies to your brand, your website, and your marketing.
At LFStudio, we help entrepreneurs build clear, focused business systems — from a complete brand identity in 3 days with Marca en 3 Días (M3D) to digital strategy that removes the noise and points every effort toward measurable results. Because a business that cannot focus on what matters — in its people, in its brand, in its strategy — cannot grow.
If you want to talk through where your business is losing focus, a free diagnostic session is the starting point. No pressure. Just clarity.
In short: A productive business is a focused business — and focus starts with the right systems.
FAQ — 12 Tips to Productivity
How many hours a day should I work to be most productive?
Research suggests that most people perform at their cognitive best for 4 to 6 hours of truly focused work per day. Beyond that, additional hours tend to produce diminishing returns. The key is not how many hours you work — it is how many of those hours are genuinely focused, protected, and used on high-value tasks.
Does the 90-minute interval system actually work for entrepreneurs?
Yes. The 90-minute interval is based on the brain’s natural ultradian rhythm — biological cycles your nervous system runs regardless of your work schedule. Working in alignment with these cycles means you are producing at peak capacity, then recovering fully, rather than grinding at 60 percent all day. Most entrepreneurs who adopt this system report getting the same output in less time within the first two weeks.
What is the biggest productivity mistake entrepreneurs make?
Multitasking. It feels productive because there is always something happening. But neurologically, each task switch costs focus and time. Committing fully to one task until it is done — then moving to the next — consistently produces better results and lower stress.
How do I stop being reactive and start being proactive at work?
The most effective method is to design tomorrow tonight. Before you end your workday, write down the three most important tasks for the next day — not the most urgent ones, the most important ones. When you sit down the next morning, those three tasks are your agenda. Everything else — emails, calls, messages — gets scheduled into a designated reactive window, not scattered across your entire day.
Can small changes really increase productivity significantly?
Yes — and the research backs this up. Something as simple as adding plants to your workspace has been shown to increase productivity by up to 15 percent. Turning off notifications during work blocks removes the single biggest source of micro-interruption in the modern workspace. Small, consistent changes compound over time into significant output differences.
The Bottom Line
Every minute of your life is gold. The question is whether you are treating it that way.
The 12 tips in this article are not theory. They are practical, science-backed behavior changes that entrepreneurs at every level use to protect their focus and multiply their output. Not by working harder. By working with a system.
You already have 24 hours. The entrepreneurs who outperform you are not working more hours — they are working better ones.
Start with one tip. Master it. Add another.
Build the system that makes your best work possible — not just possible, but inevitable.
In short: The goal is not to be busy. The goal is to build something that matters. That requires focus. And focus requires a system
Ready to Build a Business That Actually Moves Forward?
If this article resonated with you — if you recognized yourself in any of those self-assessment questions — it might be time to take a closer look at how your business is actually structured.
At LFStudio, we offer a free diagnostic session where we look at your brand, your strategy, and your systems — and identify exactly where the focus is leaking. No pitch. No pressure. Just clarity on where you are and a clear path forward.
[ Schedule your free diagnostic session here. ]
