It starts the same way every morning. You check your inbox, and suddenly, your day isn’t yours anymore. Meetings get added to your calendar. One of your direct reports swings by with a “quick question” that ends up taking 20 minutes. By midday, your to-do list hasn’t budged, and by 5 p.m., you’re staying late to do the Deep Work you never got to.
Sound familiar?
I recently ran a workshop for high-potential leaders at Bunnings, and one conversation stood out. A senior manager—let’s call him James—came in feeling overwhelmed. Despite working long hours, he was constantly behind. His days were filled with back-to-back meetings, responding to emails, and helping his team.
But when it came to his own high-value work, he had no time left.
As we unpacked his schedule, a pattern emerged. His entire day was structured around other people’s demands. Email dictated his priorities. His calendar was open for others to book meetings. His door was always open for anyone who needed him.
In the workshop, I taught James and the rest of the participants 3 simple bit powerful hacks designed to help him take back control of his workflow for greater productivity and wellbeing. These are things I regularly apply myself and have pressure tested with literally thousands of leaders like James over the past 2 decades.
Let me share them with you.
Laser focus: stop multitasking and distraction-proof your day
Most people believe they’re good at multitasking. Science says otherwise. Research shows that switching between tasks can reduce productivity by up to 40% and increase mental fatigue. Every time you jump from emails to trying to focus on complex tasks, your brain struggles to refocus, creating cognitive overload.
The fix? Unitasking.
Instead of spreading your attention thin, focus on one task at a time. And to do that, you need to distraction-proof your environment:
- Put your phone out of sight (even seeing it reduces performance – in fact, literally reduces your IQ).
- Turn off notifications (emails, Slack, Teams, social media—these all hijack your attention and break your flow, creating overwhelm and inefficiency).
- Batch-check your emails instead (setting time aside to efficiently clear your inbox, rather than responding each time an email arrives).
- Use email filters to prioritise what actually needs your attention.
Small changes like these create space for deep, uninterrupted work—without feeling like you’re fighting distractions all day.
“Preductivity”: plan before you execute
Most people wake up and dive straight into their inbox, but starting the day like this puts you in a reactive mindset that means you spend the whole day playing catch-up.
High performers take a different approach. They plan before they act.
I taught James (and the other Bunnings leaders) four simple tools to prioritise effectively:
The Eisenhower Matrix.
Categorise tasks as urgent/important, important/not urgent, urgent/not important, or neither.
Focus on the urgent/important things first. Schedule the non-urgent/important things for later. Delegate the urgent/non-important tasks. Delete the rest.
The 80/20 Rule.
Identify the 20% of tasks that create 80% of your impact—and prioritise those first.
And to make sure you actually execute on high-value work? Time-block your calendar.
Schedule your most important tasks during your peak energy times.
Find out when you are cognitively at your best during the day. For me, that’s first thing. But for some people I talk to, this can be later in the day.
Once you find your sweet spot— protect that time. Block it out and treat these periods like unmissable meetings.
Beware the Planning Fallacy.
When Nobel laureate (and author of Thinking, Fast & Slow) Daniel Kahneman was doing his seminal research on cognitive biases, he recognised that people tend to underestimate how long tasks will take to complete.
Do you do this? I certainly do.
Roger Buehler and his colleagues from Wilfrid Laurier University found in their research that most people tend to underestimate the time it will take to complete tasks by as much as 30%!
I encouraged James and the rest of the Bunnings group to take this into account when scheduling tasks (and to factor in “buffer time” for delays and those little things that inevitably pop up). Being realistic reduces stress and avoids that pervasive sense that you never get anything finished.
Deep flow: work smarter, not harder
The most productive people aren’t just working longer hours—they’re working in flow.
Flow happens when you’re fully immersed in a challenging but meaningful task. It’s a state where time disappears, creativity peaks, and productivity soars.
But here’s the secret: flow isn’t random—you can trigger it on demand.
How? I taught James and the rest of the workshop participants my “Deep Flow Formula”:
Use the Pomodoro Method.
Research suggests that the brain works best with focused sprints followed by short breaks.
The canonical “Pomodoro Set” is 25 minutes of focus followed by a 5 minute rest. However this is just what worked for Italian computer scientist Francesco Cirillo (the inventor of the Pomodoro Method).
A 2019 study showed that the optimal timing is actually 42 minutes of focus followed by a 17 minute rest. Personally, I do 50 and 10, which fits neatly into my calendar.
Take restorative breaks.
Here’s the clincher: doom-scrolling, checking emails, watching YouTube videos—these things are not breaks.
They keep you in what’s called your sympathetic nervous system, activating the flight/flight circuits. This system helps you focus but if you never turn it off it leads to fatigue and stress.
Instead, as I told the Bunnings leaders, during your Pomodoro breaks you do something that activates your parasympathetic nervous system (actually recharges you). Meditate. Take some deep breaths. Stretch. Go for a walk outside. Talk to an actual human.
Doing this lets your system reset (and your brain cool down), meaning that when you start focusing again in the next set, you have more in the tank.
Protect deep work time.
As Cal Newport (who invented the term) points out in his bestselling book Deep Work, while some tasks can be done in distracted ways, at times we need sustained, uninterrupted focus to get through the high-value tasks that only we can do (and that value-add to our organisation).
I encouraged James and his colleagues to open up his calendar there and then and block out time for complex, high-value tasks. And then to honour that time, pushing back against the temptation to schedule shallow work tasks (emails, meetings, easy wins and “busywork”) during Deep Work time.
I know from running this workshop countless times in the past that next week when I check back in with James and his colleagues that applying the above hacks and accessing Deep Flow will mean that they have all had one of the most productive (and relatively stress-free) weeks they have ever had.
This is the shift that separates busy professionals from truly productive leaders.
The productivity secret that nobody talks about
Because I am a leadership coach and an experienced Clinical Psychologist, I went beyond just teaching productivity tools in the workshop.
I invited James and the rest of the Bunnings leaders to look within and see where their reactive, shallow-work habits were coming from.
Straight away, they saw there were two main causes—one external to them and the other happening inside their heads.
First, the group saw that despite being a group of motivated, intelligent people, their teams were unconsciously operating within (and co-creating) a “shallow work culture”.
This isn’t just them, either. I have spent the last two decades working with some of the world’s most successful organisations, and I can tell you from experience that most of them have shallow work cultures.
(Most people don’t even know what a Deep Work culture is when I first mention it to them.)
So I encouraged the Bunnings leaders to start discussions with their team around the importance of Deep Work, and then to model this behaviour as much as possible. Setting aside non-negotiable Deep Work time (and sticking to it) empowers the people you lead to do the same—significantly boosting the overall productivity and wellbeing of the team.
And what about the internal cause of shallow work?
I helped James see that he was making himself constantly available for his team (sometimes at his own expense) because deep down, he felt he had. His self-worth was tied to being seen as reliable and responsive. But in trying to be there for everyone else, he was neglecting his own most important work.
This is where true productivity shifts happen—not just with productivity hacks, but with a mindset shift.
Over to you
If you want to double your productivity while simultaneously reducing stress, start with these three steps:
Step 1: Stop multitasking.
Start unitasking and notice the immediate boost in your performance, creativity, wellbeing and enjoyment.
Here is the cheatsheet I gave the Bunnings leaders that will help you do this.
Step 2: Start the day with priorities, not email.
Spend the first 5-10 minutes every day planning what you are going to do before starting. Do some time blocking. Then focus on what really matters.
Here is the worksheet I gave James to help him prioritise tasks using the Eisenhower Matrix and get clear on the 20% of his workflow that produces the greatest impact and value.
Step 3: Access Deep Flow for maximum efficiency.
Use focused sprints and take real breaks. And make sure you block out time to do the high-value tasks that require sustained, uninterrupted focus to do properly.
The real key to productivity isn’t working harder. It’s working on the right things, at the right time, in the right way.
And if you’re ready to take your productivity (and leadership) to the next level, let’s talk. 🚀
