OK Productive

023. 3 Hat Productivity with Christian Genco

Jun 22 '19

Introduction

A little about Christian and how he first met Leo
Mister Money Mustache, spending less
Patrick McKenzie, inventor of Bingo Card Creator
A day in the life of Christian Genco
Prepopulate your task list, start with your most important task and include lots of easy wins
Put healthy snacks, hard tasks, and what to do if tired or feeling overwhelmed in your task list
Plan for spending time in the sun, meditating, journaling, and cooking

Why 3 hats?

Challenges that Christian faced in order to balance all of his responsibilities:
- Putting off difficult work
- Lots of distractions from new or exciting opportunities
- The constant questioning of priorities
"You can take it seriously, give it the time, money and attention it deserves and build it into something real. But what you’re doing is not working, so either shut it down or double down." — Hiten Shah to Nathan Berry about ConvertKit
What didn't work to solve these problems:
- External accountability didn't align with his personality
- Homegrown todo lists simply added more distractions
- Pomodoros didn't help understand why work was important or handle administrative tasks well
- No framework for breaking down tasks

3 Hat Productivity explained

Separate work into 3 modes:
- CEO - picks the direction
- Manager - makes a list of tasks
- Worker - completes the tasks
Use Things app to communicate between the three roles
Before developing the 3 Hat system, Christian was mostly in Worker mode.
Clear tasks get higher priority than undefined tasks
Do not change direction until the most important task is done or a 4-hour daily limit is encountered

Dealing with distractions

Don’t try to prevent distractions from happening — that would take an extraordinary amount of willpower
Acknowledge distractions and use Things to send them away so you can intentionally revisit them later
Review your list of distractions:
- CEO triages the list
- Review it every three days
- Group related tasks
- Remove the tasks that aren’t relevant anymore
- Keeping something in the list means you’re ruling every other possibility out, so don't hold back when trimming the list!
- The analogy of a donkey trapped between water and hay
To keep the list from growing over time, separate the times when you have the idea, prioritize it, and do it

Batching administrative tasks

Bonus tips

If you find Things to be expensive, try Fantastical
Avoid introducing tools and tech into your process at first, they'll be distracting
And a few more things for listeners to try 😉

Where to find Christian

Related links and apps