Scott Hanselman's Complete List of Productivity Tips

Hanselman’s talk treats productivity as a matter of scale: define the right work, reduce interruptions, and keep attention on what matters. He separates effectiveness from efficiency, argues that email and constant checking create noise, and recommends dropping, delegating, or deferring work that does not need immediate action.

Reading notes

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• Use danger signs like “I need to work late” as a cue that the current approach is failing.
• Distinguish effectiveness, which is choosing the right goal, from efficiency, which is doing things in a process-oriented way.
• Spend time defining work instead of only sorting a to-do list after interruptions arrive.
• Apply the Four Ds to inbox items: do it, drop it, delegate it, or defer it.
• Saying no can be better than accepting work that creates guilt and pulls attention away from actual priorities.
• Use Stephen Covey’s quadrants to separate urgent and important work from tasks that only feel urgent.
• Split email into folders for messages sent directly to you and messages where you are only cc’d.
• Avoid checking email in the morning or late at night because it expands into the day and trains others to expect immediate replies.
• Use trusted aggregators to filter information instead of reading everything yourself.
• Stay in your flow and avoid constant alt-tabbing to email or news.
• Keep emails short and move longer explanations to a blog, wiki, FAQ, or documentation.
• Triage the inbox of your life by sorting data streams into signal and noise.
• Treat pending media and unfinished commitments as psychic weight and drop what is hanging over you.
• Reserve Friday for reflection by reviewing the week and asking what went well and what could change.
• Use the Pomodoro Technique to work in 25-minute sprints and track interruptions.
• Busyness can be a form of laziness when it replaces thinking about what should be done.
• Multitasking is framed as task-switching and context switching, which breaks focus.
• Some activities can overlap, such as walking and chewing gum, listening to podcasts while working out, or using idle time.
• Clear mental clutter by asking whether a task supports your actual personal goal.
• The talk ends with homework: audit sources, schedule work sprints, turn off distractions, triage inboxes, and examine your personal toolbox.