Most productivity systems are bullshit.
I realized this at 2 AM on a Tuesday, staring at my perfectly organized task manager while my actual work sat untouched. I had spent three hours reorganizing my to-do list instead of writing the proposal due the next morning.
Sound familiar?
We’ve been fed the lie that productivity equals more tasks completed, more hours worked, more emails answered. It doesn’t. True productivity isn’t about doing more—it’s about measuring what matters and ignoring the rest.
Let me show you a better way.
The Productivity Paradox
The more tools we have to measure productivity, the less productive we feel.
Think about it: your parents didn’t have Notion templates, time-tracking apps, or digital Kanban boards. Yet somehow, work got done. Buildings were built. Books were written. Companies were launched.
What’s changed isn’t our capacity for work but our obsession with measuring it.
The typical entrepreneur now spends 76 minutes per day just managing their productivity systems. That’s over six hours weekly spent on meta-work instead of actual creation. Imagine what you could build with those six hours back.
What Actually Matters (And How to Measure It)
Productivity has only three ingredients that matter:
- Value created
- Time invested
- Energy maintained
Everything else is just window dressing. Here’s how to measure each:
Value Created
Value is the only productivity metric that matters to the outside world. Nobody cares how many hours you logged or how busy you felt—they care about what you delivered.
For entrepreneurs and creators, value takes different forms:
- Revenue generated
- Problems solved
- Assets built
- Relationships deepened
How to measure it: At the end of each week, ask yourself: “What did I create that didn’t exist before?” Be brutally honest. If the answer is “I organized my task list” or “I answered emails,” you didn’t create value. You just moved things around.
Action step:
Create a “Value Log” in Notes app on your iPhone. Every Friday, list what you actually produced that week. Keep it simple—three bullet points max. Review monthly to spot patterns.
Time Invested
Time isn’t about hours worked. It’s about attention directed.
I worked with a programmer who claimed to work 80-hour weeks but produced less code than his colleague who worked 35. The difference? The 35-hour programmer worked in focused, 90-minute blocks without distraction. The 80-hour programmer was constantly switching tasks, losing up to 40% of his productivity to context switching.
How to measure it: Track focused work blocks, not hours at desk. A focused 30-minute session is worth more than three hours of distracted “work.”
Action step:
Use the built-in Focus modes on your Apple devices. Create a custom “Deep Work” focus that blocks notifications and distracting apps. Track how many 60-90 minute sessions you complete per day—aim for 3-4 max.
Energy Maintained
Your energy—mental, physical, emotional—is the resource that makes everything else possible. Without it, time and tools mean nothing.
Most productivity systems ignore this crucial factor. They assume you’re a machine with consistent output. You’re not. You’re human, with rhythms and limits.
How to measure it: Rate your energy level (1-10) at three points daily: morning, midday, and evening. Look for patterns in when you’re strongest and weakest.
Action step:
Add a shortcut on your iPhone that prompts you three times daily to rate your energy. After two weeks, review the data to identify your natural energy patterns, then schedule your most important work during peak times.
The Myth of the Perfect System
I’ve tried them all:
- Getting Things Done
- Bullet Journaling
- Pomodoro Technique
- Time blocking
- Task batching
- OmniFocus, Things, Todoist, Notion
Each promised productivity nirvana. Each eventually failed me.
Why? Because systems don’t create output—they just organize input. The perfect task manager won’t write your novel, build your product, or close your deal.
The uncomfortable truth: Your productivity system should be invisible. If you’re spending more than 15 minutes daily maintaining it, it’s not serving you—you’re serving it.
The Minimum Viable Productivity Stack
After a decade of trial and error, here’s what actually works for most entrepreneurs and creators:
- A capture tool for thoughts and ideas (Apple Notes works perfectly)
- A calendar for commitments (Apple Calendar)
- A simple task manager for daily work (Things 3 for Apple users)
- A project hub for larger initiatives (Notion or Apple Notes)
- A documentation system for knowledge (DEVONthink for Apple ecosystem)
That’s it. Five tools, all integrated with the Apple ecosystem. Anything more complex creates friction, and friction kills productivity.
The Weekly Productivity Audit
The secret to improving isn’t more tools—it’s regular reflection.
Every Sunday evening, I spend 20 minutes asking these five questions:
- What value did I create this week?
- When was I in flow state, and why?
- What drained my energy unnecessarily?
- Which activities had the highest ROI?
- What one change would make next week better?
This simple ritual has doubled my meaningful output while reducing my work hours by 30%.
Action step: Set a recurring calendar event for Sunday evenings titled “Weekly Productivity Audit.” Use the five questions above as your template. Be relentlessly honest with yourself.
The 1-3-5 Daily Method
Forget elaborate daily planning systems. Use this instead:
Each morning, identify:
- 1 essential outcome that must happen
- 3 important tasks that should happen
- 5 small tasks that could happen
That’s it. Write them on a single index card or in Apple Notes. Cross them off as you complete them.
This method works because it forces prioritization. Most days, you’ll complete the 1 and most of the 3. The 5 small tasks are bonus items. If you don’t get to them, they weren’t that important anyway.
Action step: Create a note in Apple Notes with the 1-3-5 template. Duplicate it each morning and fill it out before checking email or messages.
When to Break Your System
Sometimes, the most productive thing you can do is abandon your productivity system entirely.
I learned this while writing my last book. For three weeks, I ignored all productivity tools and simply wrote every day from 5 AM to 9 AM. No email, no tasks, no system maintenance. Just pure creation.
Those three weeks produced more value than the previous three months.
The rule of immersion: For truly important creative work, consider temporarily abandoning your productivity system. Set an out-of-office message, clear your calendar, and dive deep into a single project.
Measuring What Actually Matters
At the end of your life, nobody—including you—will care about how many tasks you checked off. They’ll care about what you created, who you became, and who you helped.
Measure your productivity by those standards.
Ask yourself:
- Am I creating work that matters?
- Am I spending time on things that energize me?
- Is my system serving my goals, or am I serving my system?
True productivity isn’t about doing more things—it’s about doing the right things, at the right time, with the right energy.
Start measuring that, and everything changes.
The best productivity system isn’t the one with the most features or the prettiest interface. It’s the one that gets out of your way and lets you create value that matters.
Now close this article and go make something worth measuring.