How to Manage Your Time ⏱️

Tactics and tools to tame the mess, plan reliably and be productive.

Over the years I have spoken with hundreds of engineers, managers and founders.

The most productive ones I know all have one trait in common: they are very intentional about how they manage their time. They organize tasks in a certain way, have rules for their calendar, meetings, and focus time.

These are no small tweaks. Many recall having a real breakthrough after they changed specific aspects of their daily schedule, and could never go back.

I am one of those people.

Over time I have experimented with various ways of organizing my work. By doing so I have learned more about myself, and I feel now the most productive I have ever been.

In the past couple of weeks I have reached out to tens of incredible people, plus friends on the Refactoring Community, to collect patterns and strategies.

I matched them with my own experience and wrote the very best advice on personal productivity that I am capable of.

We will talk about:

• 🕰️ Time is an illusion — why using time is not the best way to plan your work.

• 🍅 Pomodoros — a simple technique that changed everything for me.

• ⏱️ Timeboxing — how to leverage your calendar for productivity.

• 👥 Meetings — how to arrange meetings for your sanity.

• 🔄 Feedback Loop — how to keep going and get better over time.

• 🔨 Tools — how to implement all of this with tools.

Let’s dive in 👇

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Hey 👋 this is Luca! Welcome to a 🔒 weekly edition 🔒 of Refactoring.

Every week I write advice on how to become a better engineering leader, backed by my own experience, research and case studies.

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