There is a lot written about productivity “hacks,” on social media as well as in books. The promise is appealing: a small, easy-to-understand technique that could help you work more efficiently starting today.

Just ask an AI for a few ideas and you will get a list like this:

  • Drink coffee.
  • Apply the two-minute rule.
  • Use keyboard shortcuts.
  • Pause your notifications.

I would not say these tips are worthless. Some were developed or popularized by perfectly capable people. What bothers me is how much emphasis we put on discovering them compared with the time it takes to get something out of them.

A tip alone will not change your daily life

Reading a list of tips can easily feel like progress. You discover a technique, decide it makes sense, and perhaps try it once. Then you move on to the next one.

In my definition of productivity, I focus mainly on the energy we have and how we use it. From that perspective, collecting tips does little on its own. Progress comes from the actions we actually put into practice and manage to sustain.

Hacks can certainly be part of that. Take the two-minute rule: do a task immediately if it takes less than two minutes. Applied to everything that comes up during the day, it can become an invitation to constantly interrupt whatever you were doing.

But it becomes useful in a different way when you give it some boundaries. During a time slot set aside for processing messages, for example, you can handle small requests straight away instead of putting them off. You are applying the same rule, but within a defined period and to a specific type of task.

What makes the technique useful is repeating it in the right context. Over time, it becomes a familiar way of handling things, without having to rediscover a method every morning.

Generic advice needs adjustments

Another limitation of these lists is that they rarely say who they are for or when to apply them. Even the same person may find a technique very useful for one task and a nuisance for another.

Turning off notifications can help protect a period of concentration. But you still have to decide when to do it, for how long, and how to handle the messages afterward. The tip fits into a single sentence; fitting it into your day takes a few more decisions.

In my view, the best hacks, or at least the ones we keep using over the long term, often emerge through trial and error. A YouTube or TikTok video can give you an idea to try. Experience then tells you whether it deserves a place in the way you organize your work.

Let me share a few personal examples. They are not a method to copy: they mainly show how much a tip can depend on the person using it.

A few tricks that work for me

Being deliberate about coffee

My coffee intake is one of the things I adjust throughout the day. My usual baseline is two coffees in the morning and one in the afternoon, then I adapt depending on the day.

That baseline describes my own routine. What interests me here is observing the place a habit occupies and what it does for me, instead of simply following the advice to “drink coffee to be productive.” The number of coffees alone says nothing about how I organize my work.

Tidying up when I start to lose focus

When I start doing several things at once and jumping from one task to another, tidying up is a way to let my mind wander. That might mean tidying my home or organizing my digital space. Preparing food serves the same purpose.

These activities let me do something concrete while giving my thoughts more freedom. They fit those moments when I struggle to stick with a single task. For me, that change of activity can help me regain momentum.

Pairing certain tasks with a podcast or video

I also sometimes work with a podcast playing or a YouTube video on a second screen. I do this for tasks that require less mental effort: a technical operation in a tool I know inside out, sending quotes, or scanning paper documents.

That may seem counterintuitive in an article about productivity, but it works for me! The type of task is essential here. I am talking about familiar actions, not everything I do throughout the day.

It would therefore be hard to turn this into a general rule about working with background audio. The value lies precisely in having identified a combination that suits me in certain situations.

Finding what fits your life

These examples may not suit you. For me, they are real hacks because they usually give me an energy boost or help me move forward. Finding them took months, even years of experimentation.

To find your own, you can start with a specific moment when you struggle to make progress. Try an adjustment, then observe what changes when the same situation comes up again. Is it easier to get started? Can you finish the task? Do you want to keep doing things this way?

A tip does not have to be spectacular to be valuable. Above all, it needs to address a real difficulty and fit into your daily life. Ideas from elsewhere can feed these experiments, but the habits you keep will be the ones you have adapted to your own life.