I’ve already written 2 pieces about my CEO, and that’s because I think there’s a lot to learn from a guy that sold his company for $30 million dollars, at least in terms of business and entrepreneurship. I worked for 3 years with him. My desk was 10 meters away from his office, and his door was almost always open. I had long meetings with him, talked to him on the phone, even had lunch with him on multiple occasions. He’s a very approachable guy, and so I thought I’d do something I haven’t done yet: ask him about his favorite productivity tools.
I always prefer to read (and write) business/entrepreneurship content when it is connected to a somehow “real-life” case study. It makes the advice a lot more tangible, and depending on what person the advice is coming from, it can really motivate you to apply it to your own framework.
With that in mind, here are 5 tools my multi-millionaire CEO uses to stay productive.
Short disclaimer
My CEO works non stop, from 7am to 10pm, he’s extreme. His only priorities in life are work and family, and he’s told me he sometimes regrets that he lost touch with a few of his good friends. My point here is: one, this lifestyle is not for everybody. And two, you won’t become a successful CEO just because you start using those tools. This is inspirational advice only, remember to adapt this type of content to your own reality.
“I’m 40 but my Garmin Watch (and my doctor) tells me my body has the condition of a 25-year old.”
When my CEO gets a bit of free time, he likes to run. He also likes to remind us how important it is to exercise, and that his doctor told him his heart is doing amazing. He uses his fancy (very expensive) Garmin Watch to track all his physical activity.
I once was in his office and asked him about his new watch out of curiosity, and he proceeded to explain to me all the features, options and buttons, as if we were at Walmart and he was a vendor there. His number of steps was off the charts. The daily recommended average is 8K to 10K, which is not that easy to reach when you work in an office all day. His secret? He’s on the phone 80% of the time, and he uses that time to walk around the building (or his house since the pandemic) instead of sitting at his desk.
“I don’t like taking notes on my phone, it’s too small and impractical. I write everything in my notepad and filter out important stuff in my digital notes later.”
As much as technology is taking an increasingly important part in our everyday lives, I don’t think the good old pen and paper will ever completely go away. I also use a notepad all the time, and it was one of the most popular answers when I asked 50+ productivity experts about their favourite tools.
My CEO uses his journal like a lot of productive people do: not only for meetings and notes throughout the day, but also for personal journaling. He also practices gratefulness on a dedicated page (write down 3 things you’re grateful for everyday).
“I would say my sneakers are a productivity tool, because I used to wear pointy dress shoes all the time, and the day I switched to sneakers, it just made my life so much more efficient. No more feet pain, shoe cleaning, or buying new shoes every few months.”
If you’re trying to make your life more efficient, your feet might be an unexpected area to investigate. I remember the day I asked my CEO about his sneakers. We were having a coffee break, and I had been thinking of switching to more convenient shoes for a while. All I was wearing back then were black leather boots. Then, I started training for a marathon, and I realised my feet were killing me on Mondays after the long weekend runs.
I managed to find his specific shoe model with a quick Google search. The Revolution 5 is great, but when I went to the store and tried a bunch of different models, I preferred the Tanjun. It’s also the shoe that comes up in 90% of the search results when you Google “most comfortable sneaker”.
Sometimes we overlook parts of our productivity life that are easy to fix and have a huge return on investment, not just figuratively. I buy a new pair of Nike Tanjun every 6 months, I don’t spend time deciding what to wear, and my feet are not killing me anymore.
The screenshot at the beginning of the article shows what a typical week looks like for my CEO. The Google Suite is used company-wide at my work, so everyone has access to everyone’s calendar. My CEO is super transparent with his use of time.
“I use Google calendar all the time, but only on desktop. I never add events from my phone, because one, the interface is not that great, and two, I have 1000 notifications on my phone, so I’m too distracted to think straight. I do check how my day is going to go and I get reminders, but I don’t input stuff there.”
As you can see from the screenshot, my CEO’s week is organised in blocks of 15 minutes to a few hours, and they go from 7am to as late as 9pm on any given day. This is known as the “time-blocking” approach, and it can be really efficient if you learn to actually stick to the allocated time slots, and move from one task to the other once your time is up (very hard in the beginning).
This technique also tends to naturally eliminate distractions and unproductive multitasking, because it makes time feel faster. For even more efficiency, and to get a better overview of how you spend your time, assigning colours to event types helps. Here are the colours my CEO uses:
“I could never get out of bed as early as I do, especially in the winter, without this thing. I’ve had it for years and it’s been a game changer for my morning efficiency.”
I couldn’t agree more with my CEO. We both live in Northern Europe. In the winter, the sun doesn’t rise before 9am, and it can make it very hard to wake up early. When you get out of bed at 6am and the sun doesn’t start shining before 9:30, it can take a toll on your productivity and motivation.
I’ve had my own wake-up light for years, and it’s amazing. It gradually increases from 0 to full brightness over 30 minutes, and then the alarm goes off. On the entry-level model, there is only one alarm sound, and it’s the annoying beeping sound we all know. To cope with that, I set the light’s alarm 10 minutes later than my phone’s much calmer alarm sound (I use Alarm Clock Xtreme Pro with this soundtrack). Usually though, the light acts as an artificial sunrise, and I wake up a few minutes before my alarm goes off.
Not only does this light help you wake up more naturally, it also helps feeling less groggy in the morning. If you’re like me and sleep in complete darkness, you know how painful it is to have to turn on the light in the morning, or step outside of your bedroom and get hit by the daylight right away. With this light, your eyes are already accustomed to the ambiant brightness when you wake up.
There you have it. Again, trying out those tools probably won’t make you a millionaire CEO overnight, but I hope they can help you try out different productivity techniques, and maybe find something you will stick too.
Speaking of money, my CEO never did it to become rich. He did it because entrepreneurship is embedded in his personality, and he always wanted to create his own thing. He understood that this drive had to be fulled by constant motivation, productivity, and a ruthless desire to improve himself. Hopefully you enjoy a hell of a ride too.
