The hottest Productivity Substack posts right now

And their main takeaways
Category
Top Business Topics

How to Run Effective Sprint Planning Sessions

The Incrementalist • 4 HN points • 30 Jul 23
💼 Business Management Planning Execution Teamwork Productivity
  1. Bulk of the sprint planning should happen 2 weeks leading up to the sprint start, allowing time for preparation and setting the stage for success.
  2. During the sprint planning session, focus on high-level sprint review and alignment, while detailed discussions should occur prior to the meeting.
  3. Each team member should take ownership and drive their work stream, creating tickets and breaking down work into manageable chunks, ensuring a proactive and self-driven approach.
Get a weekly roundup of the best Substack posts, by hacker news affinity:

GRANTED: The real reason you procrastinate

Granted • 19 implied HN points • 10 Mar 20
🏥 Health & Wellness Procrastination Emotions Productivity Burnout Self-compassion
  1. Procrastination is often driven by the desire to avoid negative emotions like anxiety and boredom, not laziness.
  2. Showing compassion towards yourself can help reduce procrastination by acknowledging that it's a common human experience.
  3. Effective strategies to combat procrastination include creating a 'to-don't' list, scheduling tasks like meetings, and facing tasks you fear but are worth pursuing.

Pour tous ceux qui n’ont pas le temps

Venture Prose • 19 implied HN points • 11 Nov 19
🏥 Health & Wellness Time management Productivity Self-care Personal Development Well-being
  1. Define a routine to structure your day and maximize productivity; set boundaries for meetings and tasks to maintain focus.
  2. Organize yourself by managing notifications, delegating tasks, and learning to say no to non-priority items.
  3. Step out of comfort zones, expand your network for new opportunities, and communicate honestly to save time and foster growth.

5 Excuses You’re Telling Yourself to Start Over Again and Again

Oren Cohen • 3 implied HN points • 24 Sep 23
🏥 Health & Wellness Self-Improvement Productivity Motivation Time management Personal Development
  1. Feeling stuck in a loop is common when starting new projects; success takes consistency and time.
  2. Getting traffic and results takes effort and patience in the world of online content creation.
  3. Prioritize focusing on results over starting something new; commit and invest in your current project.

Why engineers need to be bored.

On Engineering • 3 HN points • 05 May 23
🕹 Technology Engineering Innovation Productivity Automation Creativity
  1. The Pareto principle applies to engineering work and problems, with a small group often responsible for a majority of the outcomes.
  2. Innovation and creativity in engineering often stem from incorporating boredom into the workday.
  3. Encouraging free-form boredom time can lead to increased creativity, innovation, and unique solutions in engineering teams.

GRANTED: The value of going outdoors, outside your expertise, and to the outsiders inside your team

Granted • 19 implied HN points • 03 Mar 19
💼 Business Productivity Leadership Remote work Communication Company Culture
  1. Spending time outdoors has benefits like increased test scores for kids in Finland and lower mental health disorders for adults near green spaces
  2. Hiring versatile individuals who excel in at least one area can lead to more innovation in companies
  3. Creating a sense of belonging for remote workers is important for their well-being and productivity

AI Anxiety

Marcio Klepacz • 4 HN points • 14 May 23
🕹 Technology AI Language Models Productivity Automation Ethics
  1. Large language models have the potential to revolutionize software development by simplifying the process from coding to output.
  2. While AI can boost productivity, it's important to be specific about intentions and details to avoid misunderstandings.
  3. AI can take on repetitive tasks, but humans should remember the importance of critical thinking and understanding consequences.

GRANTED: What psychological safety is not and why we choose the wrong careers

Granted • 19 implied HN points • 02 Feb 19
💼 Business Career Choices Psychological safety Productivity
  1. When making career choices, prioritize who you want to become over what you want to achieve.
  2. Psychological safety in organizations is not about being relaxed, comfortable, or nice - it's about fostering a culture of respect, trust, and openness.
  3. To boost happiness, consider spending money to save time and making time-saving habits like canceling a meeting each week.

How to work efficiently, how to efficiently get things done, and how to make the team operate efficiently.

Howard’s Newsletter • 1 HN point • 22 Jun 23
🕹 Technology Productivity Collaboration Tools Efficiency Workflow
  1. Efficiency in work is achieved by breaking down tasks into smaller segments and following a time management rule.
  2. Utilizing tools like Git, Sublime Text, and Org mode can enhance team collaboration and productivity.
  3. Assigning specific tasks, maintaining documentation, and focusing on action helps in achieving project efficiency and FDA compliance.

2023 - Year in Review

trydeepwork • 2 implied HN points • 01 Jan 24
🕹 Technology Features Improvements Integration Community Productivity
  1. In 2023, over 2,000 users completed 17,000 sessions totaling 17,100 deep work hours.
  2. Highlights of 2023 for trydeepwork included new features like sign-in with Google and Twitter, weekly challenges, and more.
  3. For 2024, plans include improving platform features, growing the community, and adding social features for support in achieving personal goals.

005: My Evening and Morning Routines

Harnessing the Power of Nutrients • 39 implied HN points • 29 Apr 16
🏥 Health & Wellness Sleep Productivity Nutrition Podcasts
  1. The post discusses how to design evening and morning routines to improve sleep quality and productivity.
  2. Various tools and practices like blue-light deprivation, list-making, and nutritious breakfasts are highlighted for enhancing routines.
  3. The importance of activities like making the bed, morning walks, and incorporating low-decision, high-nutrition breakfasts are emphasized.

Explore and Exploit: Importance of Side Projects

trydeepwork • 1 HN point • 02 Jun 24
💼 Business Project management Personal Development Productivity Self-Improvement Career growth
  1. It's important to balance trying new things (exploration) and focusing on what you already know (exploitation). This balance keeps life interesting and engaging.
  2. Side projects can be valuable for exploring your interests. Don’t feel guilty about them; they help prevent burnout by adding novelty.
  3. When starting new projects, label them as exploratory or exploitative. This helps you know when it's okay to abandon something and when you should commit fully.

Is There a Simpson's Paradox Lurking In the Wage Growth Data?

Gideon's Substack • 1 HN point • 02 Feb 24
💰 Finance Economy Jobs Wages Productivity
  1. Today was a good day for economic news, boosting Biden's political fortunes and allowing the Fed to go slow with rate cuts.
  2. Changes in the educational composition of the workforce may have caused a surge in productivity and influenced wage growth data.
  3. It's important to look at the data from different angles to understand discrepancies and reveal important complexities.

TfT #9 / Meaningful structures

Tools for Thought • 3 HN points • 16 Feb 23
🕹 Technology Productivity Automation Structure AI Organization
  1. Chaos and disorganization harm productivity by draining energy, focus, and causing cognitive taxes
  2. Meaningful structures are essential for productivity and should simplify choice, perception, and computation
  3. To create an effective structure, start with first principles, maintain universality, build a Minimal Viable Structure, simplify, keep it lean and antifragile, and automate

Làm thuê và làm chủ

Thái | Hacker | Kỹ sư tin tặc • 19 implied HN points • 28 Mar 18
💼 Business Employee Management Corporate culture Work Environment Productivity
  1. As an employer, it's crucial to create a working environment where employees are valued, developed, and potentially given opportunities for growth to retain talent.
  2. Employers need to offer competitive benefits to attract and respect their workforce, striving for a mutually beneficial relationship rather than viewing employees as replaceable.
  3. There's a need to shift the mentality in Vietnamese society to value employees and their contributions, fostering an environment where skill development and commitment are encouraged.

Eisenhower Matrix Kanban Style

Exploring Tools for Thought • 1 implied HN point • 28 Feb 24
🕹 Technology Productivity Time management Tools CSS
  1. The Eisenhower Matrix is a time management tool that helps prioritize tasks based on urgency and importance, enhancing productivity and decision-making.
  2. Divide tasks into Urgent and Important, Important but Not Urgent, Urgent but Not Important, or Neither Urgent nor Important to focus on what truly matters.
  3. Implementing the Eisenhower Matrix in tools like Obsidian, using methods like Kanban boards, can simplify task organization and enhance visual appeal.

Thời gian

Thái | Hacker | Kỹ sư tin tặc • 19 implied HN points • 11 Sep 17
📖 Philosophy Time management Productivity Digital detox
  1. When feeling overwhelmed with work, it's important to prioritize daily activities and break free from unproductive habits to manage time effectively.
  2. Valuing your own time leads to respecting others' time, reflected in punctuality and consideration for others in public spaces.
  3. Regardless of background or wealth, everyone has 24 hours a day—how time is utilized greatly impacts individual lives, where every phone notification could be a subtle invasion of personal time.