The Art Of Doing Everything: Our complete guide to maximizing your productivity in an increasingly distracting world

THE ART OF DOING EVERYTHING

OUR COMPLETE GUIDE TO MAXIMIZING YOUR PRODUCTIVITY IN AN INCREASINGLY DISTRACTING WORLD.

BY DRAKE BAER

SECRETS OF THE MOST PRODUCTIVE PEOPLE

When it comes to being productive, we are a nation obsessed. Look no further than the launch last February of email-management app Mailbox, which allows users to put off dealing with certain emails until a later date while prioritizing others. Email–that great productivity destroyer–was transformed into a productivity enhancer. Almost immediately, nearly 1 million people joined a waiting list to receive the app, and on March 15, before it was even available to the public, Dropbox acquired Mailbox for a reported $100 million.Today, the App Store currently features more than 3,700 productivity-related apps.Bowker

, which lists nearly all books sold in the U.S., counts close to 5,000 titles released on the topic in the past three years. Productivity experts from the mild-mannered David Allen to the flamboyant Tim Ferriss have achieved celebrity status, with 20,000 other such proselytizers behind them.

The sheer vastness of the field speaks to the unavoidable fact that no one piece of advice fits all. For Michael Bloomberg, the mayor of New York, the secret to being productive is hardly ever taking a vacation, or, for that matter, a bathroom break. ForLeo Widrich

, cofounder of the social media utility startup Buffer, it’s a daily nap in a bunk bed–in his office.

The solutions out there are as varied as we are. The trick is finding out what works for you.

We suggest starting with identifying what kind of creative machine you are. Take our quiz, and get a from-the-hip assessment of characteristics you might identify with, plus ideas and apps to keep yourself running at optimum efficiency, all while keeping your originality–and sanity–intact. Then share your type with friends and get feedback.

Or scroll through the eight types of productive people we’ve identified and pick and choose which suggestions for each type work for you.

In today’s creative workplace, time will inevitably be wasted as we work toward generating new, innovative ideas. We can make ourselves crazy trying to eliminate the waste, or we can embrace the daily chaos and use it to our best advantage. By our calculations, it will take you about 23 minutes to read this entire package. We promise it will be time well spent.

THE PROCRASTINATOR

WHICH TYPE ARE YOU?

BY FAST COMPANY STAFF

Instead of making a decision right away, you wait for more info to come in. You are intimate with deadlines.

LEADING PROCRASTINATOR:

ROLE MODEL:

Hunter S. Thompson. “I don’t say this with any pride,” he told The Paris Review in 2000, “but I really couldn’t imagine writing without a desperate deadline.”

TIP:

Start the day with your most important goals at the top of your to-do list, but let them be pie-in-the-sky, says law professor and procrastination expert Frank Partnoy–such as “write the Great American Novel”–with more concrete tasks below. You’ll procrastinate “about something that doesn’t need to be done so that you end up doing something that does.”

HOW TO BE MOST EFFECTIVE ON EMAIL OR TWITTER:

Your brain is biased toward easy tasks like these. Put them at the bottom of your list.

GOT 15 MINUTES TO SPARE?

Take the time to break a large (read: scary) project into bite-size pieces.

KILLER APP COMBO:

Empower your inbox with Boxer, which allows you to set reminders for emails, and even “like” them, instead of typing a full response. Then manage your day with Do It Tomorrow, the to-do list app tailor-made for procrastinators, which lets you easily push tasks to the next day. More apps for the Procrastinator >>

THE CONNECTOR

WHICH TYPE ARE YOU?

BY DRAKE BAER

You’re constantly meeting new people–and these relationships are the foundation of your productivity.

LEADING CONNECTOR

ROLE MODEL:

The Dalai Lama. Dude has met with three popes and nearly every major religious leader alive. That’s consensus building on the highest level.

TIP:

Angel investor and cause marketer Susan McPherson says that when it comes to events, “Go on your own and make a bet with yourself that you’ll meet five new people.”

HOW TO BE MOST EFFECTIVE ON EMAIL:

When McPherson meets someone new, she follows up over email right away. “If you wait a few weeks,” she says, “they won’t remember.” And add some value: an article, a link, an invitation, or, of course, an introduction.

GOT 15 MINUTES TO SPARE?

Ping someone. Keith Ferrazzi, author of Never Eat Alone, says to use extra time in your day to send an article, make a call, shoot a text. “Taxi time is pinging time. Plane time is pinging time,” he says. “I reserve those [moments] for relational curation.”

KILLER APP COMBO:

With Evernote Hello, you can create detailed profiles for each contact, scan in info from business cards, and pull in relevant clues from emails (and Evernote) to help jog your memory when you see someone again. And you’ll love calendar app Sunrise for its social features: RSVP to Facebook events and wish your friends a happy birthday right from the app. More apps for the Connector >>

THE LONE WOLF

WHICH TYPE ARE YOU?

BY DRAKE BAER

You work solo, loading complex problems into your head and working them out from there.

LEADING LONE WOLF

ROLE MODEL:

Henry David Thoreau. He wanted to reduce life to its barest essentials and, in his isolation, found something universal.

TIP:

Your isolation might be great for your productivity, but it can be hell on your team or clients. Kellogg professor Leigh Thompson says that the lone wolf should start the day doing her own work but emerge to the campfire around noon or 1 p.m. offering the group a satisfied, “This is as far as I got, and now I need some feedback.”

HOW TO BE MOST EFFECTIVE ON EMAIL:

Deep-focused work requires lone-wolf privacy. So save your shallow-focused work–such as email and calendaring–for more public, social places, such as your open office.

GOT 15 MINUTES TO SPARE?

“Fifteen minutes of face-to-face time with someone on the team could make their day,” says Thompson. “Colleagues eventually need feedback. People feel connected when they’re in the presence of others–our whole physiology responds.”

KILLER APP COMBO:

Yammer is perfect for keeping up with collective work flow, while Quip will allow you to work with others on documents. (Or not.) More apps for the Lone Wolf >>

 

THE FIREFIGHTER

WHICH TYPE ARE YOU?

BY DRAKE BAER

When you’re at work, you’re on, putting out one blaze after another, without distraction or delay.

LEADING FIREFIGHTER

ROLE MODEL:

FEMA head Craig Fugate. Confirmed by the Senate in 2009, Fugate has turned a disastrous department into a point of problem-solving pride.

TIP:

Make your best work friend be a contemplative soul. Why? As Kellogg professor Thompson says, you’ll provide a complementary contrast to each other. And as much as you can, relax. “The best way to put out a fire is with equanimity from as centered a place as possible,” says Huffington Post president and editor-in-chief Arianna Huffington.

GOT 15 MINUTES TO SPARE?

A brief period of mindfulness “allows things to flow out of the mind rather than preoccupy it,” says Dawa Tarchin Phillips, CEO of Empowerment Holdings, a mindfulness-based leadership program. In that release, “mental and emotional real estate open up.”

KILLER APP COMBO:

Use Any.do to quickly swipe off tasks as they’re completed, and at the end of the day,iDoneThis will send an email reminder asking what you accomplished, finally giving you a moment to stop, reflect, and plan as needed. More apps for the Firefighter>>

THE NIGHT OWL

WHICH TYPE ARE YOU?

BY DRAKE BAER

You reach peak productivity after everyone else has gone to bed.

LEADING NIGHT OWL

ROLE MODEL:

Inventor Thomas Alva Edison, who once wrote that “most people overeat 100%, and oversleep 100%, because they like it. That extra 100% makes them unhealthy and inefficient.”

TIP:

Take a filament from Edison’s bulb and start to use sleep (or lack thereof) strategically. InThe 24-Hour Genius, attorney and author Eric Epstein recommends completely forgoing sleep several times a month. “There’s a loss of efficiency when you have to stop work midstream,” Epstein says. “With an all-nighter, you can com­press a whole phase of a project into a single work session.”

HOW TO BE MOST EFFECTIVE ON TWITTER:

Scheduled tweets are your friend. Wait until more of your audience is awake.

GOT 15 MINUTES TO SPARE?

Take a nap! Insufficient overall sleep will make you less responsive and more easily distracted, says Duke–National University of Singapore cognitive neuroscientist Michael Chee.

KILLER APP COMBO:

Gmail extension Right Inbox lets you schedule emails for the next day. Buffer does the same for your social media updates. More apps for the Night Owl >>

THE EARLY BIRD

WHICH TYPE ARE YOU?

BY DRAKE BAER

You get up early. Insanely early. You find your peace–and most productive hours–in the first slice of the day.

LEADING EARLY BIRD

ROLE MODEL:

The godfather of productivity, Benjamin Franklin. As he put it in Early Rising: A Natural, Social, and Religious Duty: “There is a feeling of life about the morning sunshine, provoking cheerfulness and vivacity, and he is a great loser who has not his eyes and his heart early open to welcome it.”

TIP:

Spend these quiet hours on your most high-value tasks. Energy Project CEO Tony Schwartz wakes
up and immediately throws 90 minutes at the most crucial job for the day. Author and investor Whitney Johnson wakes up and writes before her inner critic can start criticizing it. How to be most effective on email: Don’t do it first thing, says Julie Morgenstern, author of the clearly stated Never Check E-mail in the Morning. “Early birds get a jump-start before the true pressures of the workday hit,” she says. “Use those hours for the deep-thinking work.”

KILLER APP COMBO:

Fantastical lets you scroll through a full-day view of your events. Carrot offers prizes for completing tasks–and (hilariously) reprimands you if you fall behind. More apps for the Early Bird >>

 

THE MULTITASKER

WHICH TYPE ARE YOU?

BY DRAKE BAER

You wish your phone’s browser could handle more than eight windows. Perhaps you’re using that phone right now.

LEADING MULTITASKER

Tory Burch; CEO and designer of lifestyle brand Tory Burch

ROLE MODEL:

Leonardo da Vinci. He took his core skill, observation, and applied it to cartography, robotics, and siege weaponry, among other things–all while cranking out some rather decent paintings.

TIP:

“If you’re doing a lot, you have less attention to monitor your own activity, so you’re not aware that you’re missing some details,” says University of Utah psychology professor David Strayer. “Plus, the parts of the brain you use to be creative are being tapped when you switch from phone to email to text.” So, really, try to focus on one thing at a time.

HOW TO BE MOST EFFECTIVE ON EMAIL:

Turn your notifications off. Responding and getting back into the flow can cost you 23 minutes per interruption, says Gloria Mark, informatics professor at the University of California, Irvine.

KILLER APP COMBO:

IFTTT is your new best friend. Create automatic actions between apps, like sending an email greeting when you save a new phone contact. Wunderlist lets you create limitless lists of tasks. More apps for the Multitasker >>

THE MONO-TASKER

WHICH TYPE ARE YOU?

BY DRAKE BAER

You sneer at multitabs, loathe push notifications, and grab each task with both hands.

LEADING MONO-TASKER

Alexis Ohanian; Cofounder, Reddit, and author of Without Their Permission

ROLE MODEL:

Franz Kafka. As a 29-year-old lawyer, he wrote his breakthrough short story, “Das Urteil,” in a single eight-hour session at his desk. “Only in this way can writing be done, only with such coherence, with such a complete opening out of the body and soul,” he said.

TIP:

Being focused is awesome; succumbing to Sedentary Death Syndrome isn’t. Business strategist and speaker Nilofer Merchant has helped us realize that sitting is killing us. So if you deign to take a meeting, make it a walking one. “Mono-tasking is great for focus and execution,” Merchant says, “but a monoculture isn’t great for coming up with new ideas.”

HOW TO BE MOST EFFECTIVE ON EMAIL:

Limit your read-and-respond sessions to two or three times a day. That way, says Zen Habits blogger Leo Babauta, emailing becomes a mono-task, rather than a constant, low-level distraction.

KILLER APP COMBO:

RescueTime lets you temporarily block websites you deem distracting and alerts you if you’re spending too much time on certain tasks. AwayFind will halt your daily barrage of email notifications–except for ones that include send­ers and keywords you designate as urgent. More apps for the mono-tasker >>