CXOs: Steal My Neuroscience Backed Productivity Hacks

CXOs often find themselves grappling with time constraints and the challenge of maximizing their team's efficiency. While many rely on conventional productivity strategies, there are some lesser-known yet highly impactful hacks that can make a significant difference.

I am sharing 5 transformative productivity hacks that has helped me and can potentially help elevate your team's performance and are surprisingly underutilized by 90% of CXOs.

1. The Stage: Optimizing Performance

Assume your Thinking Brain is a Small Stage. Performing on the stage are new ideas, sitting in as the audience your inner knowledge and past experiences.

The stage is unique as performers are not only standing backstage but the audience sitting also comes up the stage to perform (your knowledge). Performance hence is a mix of backstage artists (new information) + audience (what you know).

But everyone needs light to see and perform well. The theater is very dark and the spotlight on the stage is mandatory for any play and overall visibility.

Bad News: The power source of this light is not unlimited but very limited and with every play its efficiency declines until the next day.

That is why it is very important to be focused and focus on performing the most important plays first. Else when the power source of the light declines, it gets very hard to see things clearly and performance drops!

How to Implement: Encourage your team to track their energy levels throughout the day. Use this data to schedule high-energy tasks during peak MORNING's and less demanding tasks during energy dips.

This approach not only boosts productivity but also enhances happiness.

2. Micro-Debriefings: The Power of Immediate Feedback

In the rush of daily operations, feedback often becomes an end-of-week task, losing its immediacy and relevance. I have used something I call micro-debriefings — a quick, 5-minute reflection at the end of meetings or project milestones.

Instant feedback and alignment helps teams course-correct in real-time. But What kind of feedback would be most helpful?

You may be giving daily feedbacks but the person might not find it very relevant for XYZ reasons. The best way to go about giving instant feedback is to give the other person a chance to tell you what they would find most valuable from you that helps them immediately as opposed to showing them a path or vision.

How to Implement: After every meeting, dedicate five minutes to discuss what they think is missing and want advice on. And spend the last 5 on giving that actionable prescription.

3. Time-Boxing for Decision-Making: Combat Analysis Paralysis

Decision fatigue is a real threat to productivity, especially at the executive level. Time-boxing—a technique where you allocate a fixed time period to complete a task—can be a game-changer. For decision-making, this means setting a strict deadline to finalize decisions, reducing overthinking and promoting swift action.

How to Implement: For significant decisions, set a specific timeframe (e.g., 15 minutes) to gather all necessary information and make a choice. Stick to the deadline, and trust your team's expertise. This not only speeds up decision-making but also empowers your team to take ownership of their areas.

4. The 'Two-Pizza' Rule for Meetings: Streamlining Collaboration

Amazon’s Jeff Bezos popularized the 'Two-Pizza' rule: if a team can't be fed with two pizzas, it's too large. This principle can dramatically improve meeting efficiency. Smaller groups lead to more focused discussions, quicker consensus, and actionable outcomes.

How to Implement: Limit meetings to a maximum of six to eight people. This ensures that every voice is heard and reduces the likelihood of unnecessary discussions. For larger groups, consider breaking them into smaller, cross-functional teams to tackle specific issues.

5. 'Reverse Calendar': Prioritizing the Important Over the Urgent

In the sea of emails and meetings, long-term strategic tasks often get sidelined.

The 'Reverse Calendar' method flips the traditional scheduling approach by first blocking time for high-priority, "HIGH IMPACT" long-term goals, & then fitting in day-to-day tasks around them.

This ensures that strategic initiatives get the attention they deserve.

How to Implement: Start by identifying your top three strategic priorities for the month. Block out dedicated time slots in your calendar for these tasks every week. Treat these slots as non-negotiable, just like you would a critical meeting.

This discipline ensures that the urgent doesn't overshadow the important.

Let me know if you are using any of the above or help me learn what's working for you

#productivity