The best non-tech Productivity tool I've ever seen - by James Clear from "Atomic Habits"

In 1993, a bank in Abbotsford, Canada, hired a twenty-three-year-

old stockbroker named Dyrsmid. Abbotsford was a relatively

small suburb, tucked away in the shadow of nearby Vancouver, where

most of the big business deals were being made. Given the location,

and the fact that Dyrsmid was a rookie, nobody expected too much of

him. But he made brisk progress thanks to a simple daily habit.

Dyrsmid began each morning with two jars on his desk. One was

filled with 120 paper clips. The other was empty. As soon as he settled

in each day, he would make a sales call. Immediately after, he would

move one paper clip from the full jar to the empty jar and the process

would begin again. "Every morning I would start with 120 paper clips

in one jar and I would keep dialing the phone until I had moved them

all to the second jar," he told me.

Within eighteen months, Dyrsmid was bringing in $5 million to

the firm. By age twenty-four, he was making $75,000 per year-the

equivalent of $125,000 today. Not long after, he landed a six-figure job

with another company.

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I like to refer to this technique as the Paper Clip Strategy and, over

?the years, I've heard from readers who have employed it in a variety of

ways. One woman shifted a hairpin from one container to another

whenever she wrote a page of her book. Another man moved a marble

from one bin to the next after each set of push-ups.

Making progress is satisfying, and visual measures-like moving

paper clips or hairpins or marbles-provide clear evidence of your

progress. As a result, they reinforce your behavior and add a little bit of

immediate satisfaction to any activity. Visual measurement comes in

many forms: food journals, workout logs, loyalty punch cards, the

?progress bar on a software download, even the page numbers in a

book. But perhaps the best way to measure your progress is with a

habit tracker.

By James Clear