1% vs. 2%
Creating leverage by putting healthy habits on auto-pilot
1% vs. 2%.
“The difference between 1% and 2% is not just 1%, it’s 100%.” — @YS
In your personal life and business, the effect of a 1% increase can have a leveraged impact on downstream results.
The trick is to fix problems where they're small.
"A common rule we should always try to heed is to detect and fix any problem at the lowest-value stage possible." Andy Grove, High Output Management
Good personal productivity systems serve the purpose of creating small habits that:
a) put healthy behaviours on auto-pilot
b) means you no longer have to think about where to capture information, tasks, and ensure nothing important falls through the cracks
I’ll start by saying that I find personal productivity to be fun, so I do end up spending a lot of time and money on trying new products to see if they make a difference. The result is my system may be overkill for most people.
Each item below serves a clear and distinct job to be done in my health and happiness.
Putting healthy habits on auto-pilot.
Sleep - the foundation of a great day is great sleep. The Oura ring has been a game changer for me, someone who has always struggled to prioritize sleep.
Water - HidrateSpark water bottle to ensure I drink enough water throughout the day.
Focus - To get into and stay in a flow state I’ve been using Endel with a good pair of noise-cancelling headphones.
I’ve recently been trying out Opal to help block distractions on my phone. RescueTime runs in the background and tries to coach me into spending more time in deep work.
Emails - I’ve been using Sanebox for years to separate important vs. non-important emails from my inbox.
Relationships - Clay is a personal relationship management app and Call Your Friends simply texts me to remind me to message my closest relationships.
Vitamins - I’ve been trying Athletic Greens for a couple of months however I’m likely to consider trying some less expensive options.
Alcohol - I like the taste and refreshingness of beer but wanted to drink less. I’ve been subscribed to a non-alcoholic beer brand called Athletic Brewing and it’s been great.
Cooking - HelloFresh since I enjoy turning off my mind at the end of the day, putting on a podcast, and cooking dinner. I like being able to blindly follow the recipe and know that everything I need will be in the box.
Don’t have to think about where to capture information and to-dos.
Task Management - After many years of searching and switching I’ve finally stuck with Sunsama for the long term. The killer features are calendar blocking (i.e. time blocking) and integrations with my email and calendar for turning Outlook emails into Sunsama tasks and Sunsama tasks into Outlook calendar event blocks.
Reading and Learning - For capturing snippets of books, Readwise.io is great because it emails you a digest of your favourite snippets to reinforce the insights. Readwise Reader is a great read-it-later app. I watch a lot of video podcasts on YouTube Premium means I can listen to them on my phone with the screen off and not have to listen to ads.
Password manager - one password app to rule them all, I use 1Password.
Writing - Reflect for note taking and Grammarly for writing feedback.
I hope you enjoyed reading. Let me know if any of these apps are part of your productivity toolkit or if you have something you’d recommend I try out.
This article is part of a new series of deep dives into building personal and work systems to give you back time to focus on more important things. Subscribe to this newsletter and get an alert once those articles are posted.