productivity hacking with Dr Peter Attia (card system)

if you haven’t yet heard of Dr. Peter Attia, then congratulations, you’ve now got a lot of content to binge read, listen to and enjoy.

in his recent podcast it really sparked my attention when he started talking about productivity hacks. i love listening to the in-depth (and sometimes way over my head) insights of Dr. Attia, but to hear him talk about something as simple as productivity and list-hacking, was amazing. i really enjoy learning about other peoples’ routines and how they produce as much as they do.

as a side, Tim Ferriss has gone into detail about his morning routine, evening routine, breakfast routine and the routines of many other high-performers.

Dr. Attia mentions how maniacal he is about lists. he carries note/index cards in a leather-bound organizer to keep tracking of tasks that he has to do. his cards are color coordinated

white (or green) card – everything that needs to get done for the day. he usually completes all tasks on the card, but there are obviously times that he doesn’t, so they move to the next day’s tasks.

pink card – everything that has to get done for the week (by Sunday)

orange card – personal tasks for the month (i.e. get wife’s birthday present, etc.)

white card – long term tasks (items that aren’t extremely urgent, can be done in 2 months time)

last card – things he likes to do. not much purpose here from a productivity standpoint, but he includes it anyway and writes new things he likes to do on it whenever he thinks of something.

creating a system like this may be your first step to creating great habits. i just wrote an article on forming positive habits here. feel free to give it a read and let me know what you think!

if you want to hear Dr. Peter Attia explain his note card system, you can do so in episode 63 of his podcast.