Chart to track what work youve completed during your 90-minute productive sessions, similar to how the dieters tracked their food consumption.To easily implement one into your daily routine, simply create two-columns on a piece of paper, Google Docs spreadsheet, or even a whiteboard.Column 1 will list the time-span of one of your productivity sessions.Column 2 will list what tasks youve accomplished in that limited time-span.Dont include any columns for your 15-minute breaks, as those times are for your own sake and means to replenish your willpower.This seemingly simple strategy works incredibly well for 2 very specific reasons:Tracking your progress in this way has been proven by Dr. Kentaro Fujita to increase self-control because youll be exposed to the work youve actually accomplished, and not the (inaccurate) assumption of work you might construe in your head. (Forcing yourself to write down the fact that you spent 2 hours on Reddit doing no work guilt trips you into not doing it again ).Progress tracking is also a known strategy for stopping yourself from engaging in robotic behavior (also known as busywork), a habit that researcher John Bargh describes as the #1 enemy of goal striving.Productivity & MultitaskingWith a work schedule, an energy management strategy and a task-tracking system in place, the last challenge we have to face is that of multitasking.The danger surrounding multitasking lies in how our brains perceive it: according to a 1999 study, we have a tendency to view multitasking as really effective from the outside... after all, shouldnt productivity increase if we are doing multiple things at once?The science shows us that this is an absolute falsehood: Researcher Zhen Wang was able to show that on average, multitaskers are actually less likely to be productive, yet they feel more emotionally satisfied with their work (creating an illusion of productivity).Worse yet, Stanford researcher Clifford Nass examined the work patterns of multitaskers and analyzed their ability to:Filter informationSwitch between tasksMaintain a high working memory...and found that they were terrible at all 3!According to Nass:We were absolutely shocked. We all lost our bets. It turns out multitaskers are terrible at every aspect of multitasking.How can we fight back?The best way is to simply block ourselves from distracting elements that may cause us to multitask.When working on the computer, be sure to use tools like Controlled multi-tab browsing andStayFocusd (Chrome extensions) to block distracting sites and limit the amount of tabs you can have open.The next best strategy is to create an evening planning ritual where you select a few priority tasks to accomplish the next day.The reason this method works far better than planning your daily tasks in the morning is because research from the Kellogg School (not the cereal ) has shown that we drasticallymiscalculate the amount of focus well be able to maintain in the future: that is, we strongly believe that well be able to quickly plan our day the next morning, but when tomorrow rolls around without a game plan to get us started, well likely fall back into our old multitasking ways to avoid doing anyreal work.You can