A conversation with a busy client


The other day, I was chatting with a client.

She’s extremely busy, with many responsibilities at work and at home. She values her time very highly.

Because she has so much going on, it’s tricky for her to find time to focus on her most important projects.

She said:

“I’d love to have regular blocks of focused work on my calendar.”

“And then, from my master task list, I want to drag tasks into those focus blocks.”

Her first question: what’s the right tool for this?

I immediately thought of Akiflow. It excels at time blocking and has a “time slots” feature that does this dragging-and-dropping of tasks exquisitely well.

Akiflow is also a combined to-do and calendar app, which means you don’t have to figure out how to make two apps work together.

That said, another strong option would be combining Todoist and Fantastical.

Todoist has been developing incredibly rapidly. In fact, I’ve been testing its “deadline” feature, which is being implemented really intuitively.

Can you spot the deadline feature in this screenshot?

Of course, talking about apps only gets us so far.

Choosing the right app helps. Learning how to use it helps even more.

But as I’ll be telling my client, while apps can be a good place to start, they are always only part of the solution.

Apps illuminate the choices available to us.

Take on this commitment or that one? Spend time on this part of our life—or dive into that other project?

The real work is in choosing.

The real work is prioritizing, based on our values.

Only then, after we’ve prioritized, can we get into the nitty gritty, like where in our week we’ll slot in this particular task.

Are you clear on your priorities?

Peter Akkies

Hi, I’m Peter from Amsterdam. I’ll help you get organized and be more productive. Every Sunday, I send a productivity-themed newsletter to 10,000 people. Join us!

Read more from Peter Akkies

What’s the difference between an amateur and a professional? An amateur messes around. He doesn’t take things seriously. He doesn’t have an objective in mind. He’s just playing. That’s fine when we’re building a model railroad or learning to bake our own bread or playing tennis with friends. The stakes are low. Who cares if the end result sucks? But your personal productivity is too important to take this approach. We’re talking about your career, here. We’re talking about your life! Don’t...

Tomorrow it’s Labor Day in the United States, a federal holiday. It’s the unofficial end of summer. School holidays are over and people are getting back to work. Even if you don’t live in the States, statistically speaking you probably live in the northern hemisphere. A new season is starting. A season of more work and less play. That makes this a good time to refresh some work skills. Why? Let me illustrate with one of my favorite activities: skydiving. Skydiving is an expensive sport that...

You might not want to hear this. I debated whether to tell you. But I’ve never shied away from saying it like it is. Perhaps that’s because I’m Dutch—we’re famous for being direct. Or perhaps it’s that I secretly enjoying needling people a little. Either way, I’m going to tell you. Recently, I sent out a little survey, asking people what they struggle with the most. Here’s one guy’s answer: I am so busy that whatever I do, I am still unable to do the minimum. This makes me so overwhelmed. So...