A few years back, I was grinding 8–10 hours a day and still felt like I was drowning in work.

Tasks piled up, my mind was fried, and I kept wondering: “Is there a way to do less but still get results?”

After a lot of trial and error, I’ve cut my workday down to just 2–3 hours while staying just as productive — if not more.

The secret?

Three key strategies: prioritizing tasks, automation, and batch processing.

Here’s how I did it, with real examples from my journey — give it a shot yourself!

Prioritizing Tasks: Focus on What Matters Most

What I Used to Do Wrong: I’d dive into everything at once — emails, meetings, reports — only to realize by day’s end that I hadn’t tackled anything meaningful.

How I Fixed It: Now, I live by the 80/20 Rule (Pareto Principle):

20% of my tasks drive 80% of my results.

Each morning, I spend 10 minutes picking my 3 Most Important Tasks (MITs) and don’t touch anything else until they’re done.

Real Example: Last week, while building an MVP for an app, I could’ve spent hours tweaking the UI. Instead, I zeroed in on the core features — login and data processing. The MVP launched on time in 3 days, not a week, because I skipped the fluff.

Quick Tip: Ask yourself: “If I only get one thing done today, what would make the biggest impact?”

Tools I Use: Notion or Todoist to track my MITs and ditch low-value distractions.

Result? I knock out the high-impact stuff in 1–2 hours instead of wasting a whole day on busywork.

Automation: Let Tech Handle the Grunt Work

What I Used to Do Wrong: I’d waste hours on repetitive tasks like replying to similar emails, logging data, or scheduling meetings.

How I Fixed It: I started using tools to automate the time-suckers:

• Email: Set up Gmail filters to sort messages automatically and use Boomerang to schedule replies.

• Task Management: Zapier links my apps (e.g., auto-adding tasks from emails to Trello).

• Content: ChatGPT whips up rough drafts for blogs or marketing emails in minutes.

Real Example: Recently, I had to send weekly reminder emails to 20 clients. It used to take an hour of manual copying and pasting. Now, Zapier pulls the list from Google Sheets and sends them via Gmail — I just spend 5 minutes checking if it worked.

Favorite Tool: Zapier’s saved me nearly an hour a day by syncing my email with my calendar.

Automation frees me from mindless chores so I can focus on creative work.

Batch Processing: Do It Once, Do It All

What I Used to Do Wrong: I’d bounce between tasks — writing a bit, meeting a bit, checking email a bit — leaving my brain scrambled and wasting time getting back in the groove.

How I Fixed It: I group similar tasks and tackle them in one go:

• Writing: Spend 1 hour cranking out all my daily content (blogs, emails, captions).

• Email: Check and reply only twice a day (10 AM and 4 PM), 15 minutes each.

• Meetings: Stack all my calls into one weekly block instead of scattering them.

Real Example: Last week, I needed to write 3 blog posts for a side project. Instead of spreading it out over days (which would’ve taken 3–4 hours total), I sat down Monday morning with instrumental music, banged out all 3 in 1.5 hours, and saved nearly 2 hours — not to mention the mental clarity.

Pro Tip: Turn off phone and email notifications during deep work sessions.

Batch processing cuts down on task-switching time, saving me 30–40 minutes daily.

Wrapping Up: Work Less, Work Smarter

Now, with just 2–3 hours a day, I get done what used to take a full day. It’s not about rushing — it’s about doing the right things, letting tech handle the heavy lifting, and streamlining how I use my time. The best part? I’ve got hours back for family, hobbies, and guilt-free naps!

What’s your trick for optimizing time? Try my approach and let me know how it works for you — I’d love to hear!