Vasishta Chary

Hello PH We are working on a task management feature in our product, and are looking for to speak with people that currently use a simple task manager. If you fit that bill and have 20 mins this week I'd love to talk to you! Email me (matt@taskablehq.com) or hit me up here. Thanks in advance!

Hello! I'm Julien Smith, co-founder and CEO at Practice, a platform that allows coaches to run the entire scope of their business in one place, from scheduling to invoicing. We re backed by Andrew Chen at a16z, Tony Robbins, Austin Rief, Brian Norgard, Greg Isenberg, Josh Buckley, Lenny Rachitsky, Emily Kramer, Nikita Bier, Shrug Capital, Sahil Bloom and a lot of other great angels. Previously, I co-founded Breather, which raised over $150m, and was its CEO for over 5 years to Series C. Breather was a network of private work spaces built for productivity and was used by millions; I ve been working my whole career to empower individuals, and the mission at Practice is no different. I m also a NYT best-selling author, having written Trust Agents, The Impact Equation, and The Flinch. The Flinch is probably my most famous book - it was one of the top downloaded and highlighted books on Kindle since the day it was published. It s about the moment of fear that holds people back from reaching their potential and has influenced a lot of startup leaders. I also coach a few first-time CEOs as a way of giving back to the startup space. Let s talk about startups, Practice, coaching, managing fear, and CEO-life! AMA

Given I'm working on a productivity tool, I spend *a lot* of time thinking about productivity and tweaking my own routines to boost my focus and output. At the beginning of this year, I switched around my productivity system, driven by a new timeblocking feature we released for our product (Taskable). I've found a dramatic improvement in my efficiency and how I feel about where I am spending my time. I can feel good about taking time away from work and spending more on personal endeavors like exercise and reading. Here's how it works for me. Obviously, it's personal, but perhaps this can inspire other makers looking to boost focus and productivity. My system is built around planning rituals. The first is a weekly planning session on Monday. Everything in my backlog has a priority level assigned. So I sort by priority and start with the items at the top of the list. I then slot them in for the days I want to work on them during the week. This helps me feel less stressed about my backlog because I've now added structure and a plan. It also helps me visualize what I can accomplish each week and be more realistic about my priorities. My second ritual is regular calibration throughout the week. Obviously, new fires start burning, so I have to plan when I can address those throughout the week. Or I have too little or too much scheduled for each day and need to reschedule certain things for later dates or move them back into my backlog. The third ritual is evening planning. For me, this is the most critical. I look forward to the next day at the end of each day. I take stock of the meetings I have and look at all the planned tasks. I then timeblock them all in my calendar. This prevents anyone from booking appointments with me in my Calendly. It also lets me go to bed knowing how my next day will go. That means no surprise meetings or deadlines, and when I wake up, I know exactly where to start. The final ritual I have is daily morning planning. This is taking a look at my inbox quickly to see if there are any emergencies I need to address. That way I know nothing is slipping through the cracks. While this might sound like a lot of overhead, IMO the most critical thing you can do to increase efficiency and focus is plan. If you don't you are liable to be working on things that aren't as important, or just going through the motions rather than working on things that truly move the needle. It's really easy to let your day be dedicated by your inbox, rather than your priorities and what's most important. Planning, timeblocking, etc help you prevent this. Plus, I am able to do most of these rituals in less than 5 minutes - weekly planning usually takes a bit longer (maybe 10 minutes). I hope that s helpful for others out there! I wrote up a full blog on this, plus how I make it happen practically here if you re interested in reading more: https://taskablehq.com/blog/prod...