The Productivity Show

Some productivity rules are useful—until they become rigid, outdated, or quietly make your work harder. In this Wisdom Wednesday episode, Thanh shares five popular rules we’ve stopped treating as gospel, what we do instead, and how to build a productivity system that works with your real life rather than against it.

Get started at gusto.com/TPS and get three months free when you run your first payroll.

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Links

• Gusto
• 25X Productivity Coaching
• TEA: The 3 Pillars of Productivity

If you enjoyed this episode, follow the podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Overcast, Pocket Casts or your favorite podcast player. It’s easy, you’ll get new episodes automatically, and it also helps the show. You can also leave a review!

Most procrastination advice treats every delay as the same problem. In this episode, we separate task procrastination, when you know what to do but cannot start, from decision procrastination, when you cannot choose a path and everything downstream stalls. You will learn a quick diagnostic, targeted interventions for each type, and a practical reset protocol using smaller next actions, decision criteria, deadlines, and focused work blocks.

Make the switch! MINTMOBILE.com/PRODUCTIVITY.

Try Gusto today at gusto.com/TPS, and get 3 months free when you run your first payroll.

Visit Upwork.com right now and post your job for free.

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Cheat Sheet

• Top 3 Productivity Resources [2:17]
• Why the “I’ll just” trick doesn’t fix every kind of procrastination [4:55]
• The type of procrastination even seasoned productivity nerds fall into [7:28]
• Why working for yourself can be productivity poison [10:21]
• Find the bottleneck before you reach for a hack [16:19]
• The weekly review question that heads off procrastination [20:50]
• Why your side project should happen before work, not after [24:05]
• How an AI agent cut Thanh’s email decision fatigue [31:51]
• What to do when the thing you’re avoiding is a decision [38:20]
• Why talking to AI in the car can untangle big decisions [40:51]

Links

• Mint Mobile
• Gusto
• Upwork
• Base44
• 25X Productivity Coaching
• Decisive: How to Make Better Choices in Life and Work by Chip and Dan Heath
• Pomodoro Technique
• Tomato Timer Stream Deck Plugin
• Elgato Stream Deck
• Bubble in the Sun: The Florida Boom of the 1920s and How It Brought on the Great Depression by Christopher Knowlton
• The Goal by Eliyahu M. Goldratt
• The Phoenix Project by Gene Kim, Kevin Behr, and George Spafford
• Getting Things Done by David Allen
• OmniFocus
• Weekly Reviews: Values, Not Tasks (TPS593)
• Grok Bot
• Fantastical
• Meta Muse
• Hermes Agent by Nous Research
• Atomic Habits by James Clear

If you enjoyed this episode, follow the podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Overcast, Pocket Casts or your favorite podcast player. It’s easy, you’ll get new episodes automatically, and it also helps the show. You can also leave a review!

If your calendar is full but your output still feels weak, the problem may not be time. In this episode, I talk about energy, attention, and cognitive load, and how small shifts like protecting peak hours, planning recovery, and reducing distractions can help you do better work without adding more hours.

Visit www.asianefficiency.com for more productivity tips and tactics.

Visit Upwork.com right now and post your job for free.

Listen to this episode (MP3)

Links

• Upwork
• 25X Productivity Coaching
• Four Thousand Weeks by Oliver Burkeman

If you enjoyed this episode, follow the podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Overcast, Pocket Casts or your favorite podcast player. It’s easy, you’ll get new episodes automatically, and it also helps the show. You can also leave a review!

In this episode, we break down a practical meeting diet you can use to cut 20 to 30 percent of your meeting hours without getting fired or damaging trust. We walk through how to audit your calendar by time cost, use the meeting autopsy question, apply the three filters for recurring invites, and replace the right meetings with async updates, Looms, and shared docs. I also share scripts for saying no gracefully and how to protect the meetings that actually matter.

Masterclass.com/TPS for at least 15% off any annual membership.

Start with a free trial at shopify.com/tps.

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Cheat Sheet

• The iPhone trick that lets two phones share one number [1:11]
• Top 3 Productivity Resources [2:46]
• Why a packed calendar can still feel like a time suck [5:48]
• Why NVIDIA’s CEO skips recurring meetings with his team [7:08]
• The one-second test that tells you if a meeting is worth keeping [9:16]
• Why a 20-minute meeting can beat a full hour [11:40]
• The Shopify bot that wiped everyone’s recurring meetings [17:03]
• How to kill a meeting when you’re not the one running it [23:35]

Links

• MasterClass
• Shopify
• 25X Productivity Coaching
• iPhone Duo
• Situated: Find the People and Places That Bring Out Your Best by Angela Duckworth
• Grit by Angela Duckworth
• Remotion Agent Plugins
• Claude Code
• OpenAI Codex
• The Amazon 6-Pager: What, Why, and How
• The 4-Hour Workweek by Tim Ferriss
• Shopify cancels recurring meetings
• Shopify’s meeting cost calculator

If you enjoyed this episode, follow the podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Overcast, Pocket Casts or your favorite podcast player. It’s easy, you’ll get new episodes automatically, and it also helps the show. You can also leave a review!

When was the last time you said no to something and felt good about it? For most of us, a packed calendar starts to feel like the price of being responsible. The meetings, the dinners and the favours keep coming, and one day you notice that the things you care about most are the ones getting squeezed out.

In this encore episode, Thanh shares the story of a London executive who hit that wall and found his way back using a simple tool called the Focus Filter. In under 10 minutes you’ll hear why “busy” might be the wrong word for what you’re feeling, and get one small, slightly uncomfortable action you can take today to start reclaiming your time.

Visit www.asianefficiency.com for more productivity tips and tactics.

Get 20% off your first order: dripdrop.com and use promo code tps.

Listen to this episode (MP3)

Links

• DripDrop — promo code TPS
• 25X Productivity Coaching
• Focus Filter course
• Asian Efficiency products

If you enjoyed this episode, follow the podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Overcast, Pocket Casts or your favorite podcast player. It’s easy, you’ll get new episodes automatically, and it also helps the show. You can also leave a review!

In this diagnostic episode, we walk through a Time Audit so listeners can see where their 40 hours actually go and create a measurable before and after. We connect the audit to our broader productivity philosophy, show how data and numbers can reveal hidden patterns, and explain why the best improvements are the ones you can actually implement right away.

Visit www.asianefficiency.com for more productivity tips and tactics.

Get 20% off your first order: dripdrop.com and use promo code tps.

Visit Upwork.com right now and post your job for free.

Listen to this episode (MP3)

Cheat Sheet

• Top 3 Productivity Resources [2:02]
• Why tracking every minute backfires (and what works instead) [5:50]
• The time audit you can run with just last week’s calendar [9:13]
• The “we’ve always done it” tasks quietly eating your week [11:40]
• Turning an hour-long weekly chore into a two-minute AI skill [13:51]
• The break-even math that makes automation a no-brainer [24:16]
• Letting AI play neutral third party on how you spent your week [28:45]
• How often Thanh and Brooks actually audit their own time [31:44]
• The one thing to eliminate or automate this week [36:31]

Links

• DripDrop (promo code TPS for 20% off your first order)
• Upwork
• 25X Productivity Coaching
• TEA: The 3 Pillars of Productivity
• Timing
• Toggl Track
• 168 Hours: You Have More Time Than You Think
• TPS 37: Productive Weeks w/ Laura Vanderkam
• Hazel
• Getting Things Done by David Allen
• 4-Day AI Sprint

If you enjoyed this episode, follow the podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Overcast, Pocket Casts or your favorite podcast player. It’s easy, you’ll get new episodes automatically, and it also helps the show. You can also leave a review!

When did you last finish a workday having done what you planned to do, and not just what landed on your desk?

Thanh knows the reactive trap well. A few years ago, while Asian Efficiency was growing fast, he spent his days fighting fires, until he noticed something unsettling about the business. In this encore episode, he tells the story of the small daily habit that turned things around. He also shares two simple practices you can start tomorrow morning to take back control of your day, and it all takes less than 10 minutes.

Try Gusto today at gusto.com/TPS, and get 3 months free when you run your first payroll.

Listen to this episode (MP3)

Links

• Gusto
• 25X Productivity Coaching

If you enjoyed this episode, follow the podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Overcast, Pocket Casts or your favorite podcast player. It’s easy, you’ll get new episodes automatically, and it also helps the show. You can also leave a review!

How did Thanh get his arm from 20 degrees to 90 in a single session, just days after shoulder surgery? His surgeon expected that to take more than a month of physical therapy. The answer has less to do with the shoulder than you might think.

In this encore episode, Thanh sits down with Garrett Salpeter, founder of NeuFit, to talk about why the body sometimes gets in the way of its own healing, and what it takes to get it unstuck. Whether you’re coming back from an injury, trying to get more out of your workouts, or just can’t afford to be sidelined for months, this conversation might change how you think about recovery.

Visit www.asianefficiency.com for more productivity tips and tactics.

Make the switch! MINTMOBILE.com/PRODUCTIVITY.

Try Gusto today at gusto.com/TPS, and get 3 months free when you run your first payroll.

Visit Upwork.com right now and post your job for free.

Get 20% off your first order: dripdrop.com and use promo code tps.

Listen to this episode (MP3)

Cheat Sheet

• From hockey bench to neuroscience: how a torn wrist changed Garrett’s career [1:11]
• Why the existing technology wasn’t good enough [6:46]
• How your body sabotages its own healing (and how to stop it) [8:00]
• Pain doesn’t mean what you think it means [13:26]
• The surgery patients who didn’t need surgery after all [19:17]
• Walking again 25 years after a spinal cord injury [22:59]
• Thanh’s shoulder: five weeks of PT in 25 minutes [28:41]
• The ACL comeback that ended in a state championship [43:27]
• A 60-minute workout in 10 minutes? [48:47]

Links

• Mint Mobile
• Gusto
• Upwork
• DripDrop (promo code TPS)
• 25X Productivity Coaching
• NeuFit
• The Neubie
• Low Productivity, Procrastination, Back Pain…These Are Some Of The Penalties For Neglecting Your Posture w/ Rick Mathes (TPS246)
• Egoscue
• NeuFit on Instagram (@neufitrfp)

If you enjoyed this episode, follow the podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Overcast, Pocket Casts or your favorite podcast player. It’s easy, you’ll get new episodes automatically, and it also helps the show. You can also leave a review!

How many times have you been halfway to the airport when it hits you that you forgot something important? Thanh spent years as a digital nomad, living in places like Bangkok, Budapest and Ho Chi Minh City. Even as a seasoned traveler he kept leaving things behind, until he started using a tool so simple that most of us overlook it.

In this encore episode, Thanh shows why the humble checklist does a lot more than help you pack. He covers what airline pilots know about it, why your brain is the wrong place to store things, and five places where a checklist can save you time and headaches right away. It’s a quick listen, and you’ll probably have one checklist written before it ends.

Visit www.asianefficiency.com for more productivity tips and tactics.

Learn more about how Notion can support your business at notion.com/tps.

Listen to this episode (MP3)

Links

• Notion
• 25X Productivity Coaching
• Getting Things Done by David Allen

If you enjoyed this episode, follow the podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Overcast, Pocket Casts or your favorite podcast player. It’s easy, you’ll get new episodes automatically, and it also helps the show. You can also leave a review!

Q4 is the last clean run at your year, and it’s also the quarter most likely to flatten you. In this episode, Thanh and Brooks walk through a 12-week reset that respects both: how to cut your list down to the one goal that matters, how to pick leading measures you can actually move this week, and how to plan the recovery alongside the work so December doesn’t arrive with nothing left in the tank.

Masterclass.com/TPS for at least 15% off any annual membership.

Learn more about how Notion can support your business at notion.com/tps.

Visit www.asianefficiency.com for more productivity tips and tactics.

Listen to this episode (MP3)

Cheat Sheet

• Why the quarter everyone treats as a sprint is really only two months [0:33]
• Top 3 Productivity Resources [2:05]
• The case for treating Q4 as a continuation instead of a fresh start [6:06]
• Cut your Q4 goal in half — then cut it in half again [12:29]
• The number you can actually move on a Tuesday [16:39]
• Turn your quarterly plan into something you’ll actually look at [27:46]
• The habit that quietly holds every productivity system together [31:56]
• The one quarter where it’s okay to just go for it [34:52]

Links

• MasterClass — at least 15% off any annual membership
• Notion
• 25X Productivity Coaching
• IKEA SKÅDIS pegboard and accessories
• UGREEN Nexode Air 65W 3-port flat USB-C charger
• Best New Year’s Resolution? A “Stop Doing” List — Jim Collins
• Good to Great by Jim Collins
• The 4 Disciplines of Execution by Chris McChesney, Sean Covey and Jim Huling
• Productivity Academy
• OmniGraffle
• Asian Efficiency

If you enjoyed this episode, follow the podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Overcast, Pocket Casts or your favorite podcast player. It’s easy, you’ll get new episodes automatically, and it also helps the show. You can also leave a review!

How many productive weeks do you really have left this year? Probably fewer than your calendar suggests. After more than a decade of running Asian Efficiency, Thanh has seen the same pattern every year, in his own business and with his clients: the last stretch of the year quietly disappears long before December 31st.

In this encore episode, Thanh shares the simple way he reframes the final quarter so it doesn’t slip away. It takes under 10 minutes, and you’ll come away with one clear step you can take today.

Get 20% off your first order: dripdrop.com and use promo code tps.

Listen to this episode (MP3)

Links

• DripDrop — use promo code TPS for 20% off your first order
• 25X Productivity Coaching

If you enjoyed this episode, follow the podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Overcast, Pocket Casts or your favorite podcast player. It’s easy, you’ll get new episodes automatically, and it also helps the show. You can also leave a review!

How much would you pay to never stand in a grocery line again? It’s a question most of us never think to ask, because we assume outsourcing and executive assistants are only for CEOs and millionaires. But when time is the one thing you can’t make more of, using a little money to get some of it back might be one of the smartest trades you can make.

In this encore episode, we share three practical ways to buy back your time, from small tech fixes to delegating things you never thought you could hand off. You’ll hear why letting go is often hardest for tasks you’re good at, a simple budget trick that makes delegation work for everyday people, and a restaurant reservation hack you’ll want to try this weekend.

Get 20% off your first order: dripdrop.com and use promo code tps.

See what ElevenAgents can do for your specific workflows. Start with a demo at elevenlabs.io/tps.

Listen to this episode (MP3)

Cheat Sheet

• The trade most people never think to make [1:23]
• Top 3 Productivity Resources [2:50]
• How one app turned soccer team chaos into hours saved [4:00]
• Why Brooks finally let someone else plan his vacation [10:39]
• The hardest kind of task to delegate (it’s not what you think) [13:42]
• Why Thanh waited six years too long to get help [29:22]
• The restaurant reservation hack that works almost every time [33:41]
• On-demand service or dedicated assistant? How to choose [39:53]

Links

• DripDrop (promo code TPS)
• ElevenLabs / ElevenAgents
• 25X Productivity Coaching
• Jim Rohn
• TEA: The 3 Pillars of Productivity
• Upwork
• Fiverr
• TaskRabbit
• TeamSnap
• Hazel
• Keyboard Maestro
• Apple Shortcuts
• Organize Your Files
• Theragun
• Personal Outsourcing: How To Win Back 5+ Hours/Week (TPS333)
• Instacart
• Amazon Fresh
• MacSparky
• OmniFocus
• Productivity Academy
• Productivity Workflows and Strategies with Alice Ferris (TPS399)
• How to Get Started with An Executive Assistant w/ Tim Francis (TPS190)
• The CEO’s Secret to Productivity: An Executive Assistant (TPS143)
• Generator Athlete Lab
• TripIt
• OpenTable
• Resy
• How I Spend $5,000/Month to Win Back Time
• Fancy Hands

If you enjoyed this episode, follow the podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Overcast, Pocket Casts or your favorite podcast player. It’s easy, you’ll get new episodes automatically, and it also helps the show. You can also leave a review!

When did you last look at your desk and ask whether it’s helping you or holding you back? We put a lot of thought into apps and systems. But the space where you spend eight hours a day might be doing more to your focus and energy than any tool you use.

In this encore episode, we use a surprising comparison to explain why your surroundings matter so much. We also share simple, budget-friendly tweaks that make work feel a little easier. You don’t need to remodel your office. You need about ten minutes and one small change you can make today.

Visit www.asianefficiency.com for more productivity tips and tactics.

Try Gusto today at gusto.com/TPS, and get 3 months free when you run your first payroll.

Listen to this episode (MP3)

Links

• Gusto
• 25X Productivity Coaching
• Krisp

If you enjoyed this episode, follow the podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Overcast, Pocket Casts or your favorite podcast player. It’s easy, you’ll get new episodes automatically, and it also helps the show. You can also leave a review!

AI usually fails to save time for one simple reason: the bottleneck is not the model, it is the workflow around it. In this episode, we break down the most common blockers, like unclear prompts, messy source material, too many tools, review overhead, trust issues, and missing definitions of done. We also show you how to diagnose the friction point, redesign the workflow, and measure real time savings on repeatable work.

Visit www.asianefficiency.com for more productivity tips and tactics.

Try Gusto today at gusto.com/TPS, and get 3 months free when you run your first payroll.

Visit Upwork.com right now and post your job for free.

See what ElevenAgents can do for your specific workflows. Start with a demo at elevenlabs.io/tps

Listen to this episode (MP3)

Cheat Sheet

• Top 3 Productivity Resources [2:41]
• The unglamorous task that finally made AI click [6:16]
• The three-letter test for what you should hand to AI [13:00]
• The capability most people never realize their AI already has [19:00]
• What OpenAI told Thanh every power user has in common [21:46]
• The question that reframes a $200 a month AI bill [25:42]
• The follow-up question that surfaces what the AI left out [33:15]
• Slop grenades, wrong maps, and why the review step still matters [40:20]

Links

• Gusto
• Upwork
• ElevenLabs Eleven Agents
• 25X Productivity Coaching
• 30 Rock
• Beefy Meat Chips
• Tailscale
• CleanShot X
• Setapp
• Lamberts Downtown Barbecue
• ChatGPT
• Claude
• Blake Eastman
• Tobi Lutke on slop grenades
• West Coast Trail

If you enjoyed this episode, follow the podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Overcast, Pocket Casts or your favorite podcast player. It’s easy, you’ll get new episodes automatically, and it also helps the show. You can also leave a review!

How many hours did you work straight through yesterday without once stepping away from your screen? For years, Thanh believed that powering through from morning to evening was the secret to getting more done. Then, while coworking with a friend at an Austin coffee shop, he got an unexpected invitation: a 10-minute walk, right in the middle of a focused work session. That short stroll sparked a habit he’s kept for nearly five years.

In this encore episode, Thanh explains why more hours don’t equal more productivity and how strategic breaks sharpen focus, creativity, and decision-making. It’s under 10 minutes, and it just might change how you spend the next hour of your day.

Visit www.asianefficiency.com for more productivity tips and tactics.

Learn more about how Notion can support your business at notion.com/tps.

Listen to this episode (MP3)

Links

• Notion
• 25X Productivity Coaching

If you enjoyed this episode, follow the podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Overcast, Pocket Casts or your favorite podcast player. It’s easy, you’ll get new episodes automatically, and it also helps the show. You can also leave a review!

In this episode, we break down why clock-based planning often fails and why the real bottlenecks are energy, attention, and cognitive load. We talk about protecting peak hours, matching the right task to the right mental state, reducing attention residue, and planning recovery on purpose. We also share practical ways to notice how sleep, stress, meetings, and device distraction affect output far more than calendar math.

Visit www.asianefficiency.com for more productivity tips and tactics.

Masterclass.com/TPS for at least 15% off any annual membership.

Visit Upwork.com right now and post your job for free.

Learn more about how Notion can support your business at notion.com/tps.

Listen to this episode (MP3)

Cheat Sheet

• Top 3 Productivity Resources [4:03]
• Is a $3,000 phone actually a productivity upgrade? [7:22]
• Why the hour you blocked off still doesn’t get used [8:53]
• The one-hour meeting that’s really costing you two [16:46]
• The classic GTD scheduling advice Brooks had to throw out [21:11]
• Three things to do before you expect your brain to focus [23:09]
• What Thanh’s ring told him after three afternoons of crashing [24:39]
• The “head trash” that makes a messy system even harder to fix [31:06]
• Why your dream job is only 10% the thing you love [36:55]
• The trick that makes an ugly task suddenly doable [39:41]

Links

• Masterclass — at least 15% off any annual membership
• Upwork — post your job for free
• Notion
• 25X Productivity Coaching
• First Blood (1982)
• The Expendables (2010)
• Paperman
• Setapp
• UGREEN USB to USB-C Adapter Combo 4-Pack
• Defrag98
• Apple unveils iPhone Duo
• Claude
• OpenAI Codex
• Oura Ring
• WHOOP
• Getting Things Done by David Allen
• Start Finishing by Charlie Gilkey

If you enjoyed this episode, follow the podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Overcast, Pocket Casts or your favorite podcast player. It’s easy, you’ll get new episodes automatically, and it also helps the show. You can also leave a review!

Did you say yes to something recently and regret it before the calendar invite even arrived? Thanh once turned down an opportunity he was excited about, and it was tied to something he loves. Find out why he said no, and why it turned out to be one of his better decisions.

When the request comes from your boss, saying no gets a lot harder. Thanh shares the simple test that makes most of these decisions for him and the words he’d use to say no to his boss without hurting his reputation. It all takes less than 10 minutes.

Visit www.asianefficiency.com for more productivity tips and tactics.

Get 20% off your first order: dripdrop.com and use promo code tps.

Listen to this episode (MP3)

Links

• DripDrop — 20% off your first order with promo code TPS
• 25X Productivity Coaching

If you enjoyed this episode, follow the podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Overcast, Pocket Casts or your favorite podcast player. It’s easy, you’ll get new episodes automatically, and it also helps the show. You can also leave a review!

A lot of popular productivity advice sounds smart until you actually try to live by it. In this episode, Thanh and Brooks share the rules they’ve stopped following, from inbox zero and rigid morning routines to building elaborate note systems and optimizing every minute. More importantly, they explain what replaced them: flexible systems, useful constraints, and practices that work in real life instead of just looking impressive on the internet.

Visit www.asianefficiency.com for more productivity tips and tactics.

Make the switch! MINTMOBILE.com/PRODUCTIVITY.

Get 20% off your first order: dripdrop.com and use promo code tps.

Learn more about how Notion can support your business at notion.com/tps.

Listen to this episode (MP3)

Cheat Sheet

• Top 3 Productivity Resources [1:47]
• Why chasing inbox zero solves the wrong problem [6:56]
• Triaging your whole inbox from a 15-minute walk [10:39]
• What tracking every single minute for four months taught him [21:20]
• The two-app note setup that ended years of hoarding [28:11]
• The one rule that keeps a blown-up routine from wrecking your day [36:26]
• Principles, not prison cells [43:39]

Links

• Mint Mobile — make the switch
• DripDrop — promo code TPS for 20% off your first order
• Notion
• 25X Productivity Coaching
• Bounce
• How to Try Again by Steve Kamb
• Nerd Fitness
• Apple Refurbished Store
• RefurbMe
• Refurb Tracker
• Quiet by Susan Cain
• Flight Plan by Brian Tracy
• Evernote
• Obsidian
• Drafts
• Day One
• Obsidian Map View plugin
• DevonThink
• Claude
• Atomic Habits by James Clear
• Productivity Academy

If you enjoyed this episode, follow the podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Overcast, Pocket Casts or your favorite podcast player. It’s easy, you’ll get new episodes automatically, and it also helps the show. You can also leave a review!

If you’ve ever spent an afternoon reading productivity articles instead of doing actual work, this episode is for you. Thanh breaks down the four signs you’ve fallen into the productivity content trap, shares a simple audit to catch yourself in the act, and gives you one rule that turns any tip into real behavior change.

Visit www.asianefficiency.com for more productivity tips and tactics.

Visit Upwork.com right now and post your job for free.

Listen to this episode (MP3)

Links

• Upwork
• 25X Productivity Coaching

If you enjoyed this episode, follow the podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Overcast, Pocket Casts or your favorite podcast player. It’s easy, you’ll get new episodes automatically, and it also helps the show. You can also leave a review!

How would you know if you’d never actually experienced deep focus? Dan Clark, CEO of Brain.fm, says that’s the most common thing people write in to tell him — they thought they knew what concentration felt like, right up until they didn’t.

In this encore episode, Dan breaks down the science behind functional music: how neural phase locking syncs your brain to a focus state in three to seven minutes, why lyrics quietly sabotage your flow, and the simple focus sprint setup he recommends for anyone trying it for the first time.

Start with a free trial at shopify.com/tps.

Visit Upwork.com right now and post your job for free.

Learn more about how Notion can support your business at notion.com/tps.

Listen to this episode (MP3)

Cheat Sheet

• Top 3 Productivity Resources [2:02]
• The 12 phone calls that turned a superfan into the CEO [3:14]
• What “syncing your brain to music” actually means [6:30]
• The message Brain.fm gets from users over and over [11:32]
• Why lyrics quietly wreck your flow state [15:35]
• The focus sprint setup he recommends to every beginner [18:30]
• Half human, half math: how each track gets built [21:35]
• The surgery study that convinced him this really works [23:56]
• Video games, EEG, and fMRI: how they prove the effect [27:45]
• The morning ritual he runs before touching anything else [34:23]
• The Google Maps trick for a week that’s going sideways [38:34]

Links

• Shopify
• Upwork
• Notion
• 25X Productivity Coaching
• Brain.fm
• Atomic Habits by James Clear
• Fireflies.ai
• Roam Research
• Hans Zimmer
• Focus@Will

If you enjoyed this episode, follow the podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Overcast, Pocket Casts or your favorite podcast player. It’s easy, you’ll get new episodes automatically, and it also helps the show. You can also leave a review!

You’re busy all day but still feel like you’re not getting enough done. The culprit isn’t your to-do list — it’s hidden workflow friction. In this episode, Thanh and Brooks walk you through a practical Workflow Friction Audit: how to spot the invisible drains like context switching, setup overhead, unclear handoffs, and rework — and how to eliminate them with templates, batching, automation, and clearer decision rules. Small fixes, massive compounding results.

Masterclass.com/TPS for at least 15% off any annual membership.

Visit Upwork.com right now and post your job for free.

See what ElevenAgents can do for your specific workflows. Start with a demo at elevenlabs.io/tps.

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Cheat Sheet

• Top 3 Productivity Resources [2:33]
• Why teaching someone your workflow exposes what you’ve been tolerating [7:19]
• The three-times rule and the “where am I waiting?” test [11:02]
• Ask AI to comb your past sessions and hand you the fixes [20:20]
• The one book idea that changes how you attack any bottleneck [26:56]
• How half a day of “donkey work” shrank to 15 minutes [32:07]
• The counterintuitive handoff fix: more meetings, not fewer [45:31]
• Why the debt-snowball approach beats a fancy priority matrix [49:36]
• The one friction point to kill this week [55:18]

Links

• MasterClass
• Upwork
• Eleven Agents (ElevenLabs)
• 25X Productivity Coaching
• Codex Micro (Work Louder × OpenAI)
• Stream Deck (Elgato)
• Productivity Academy
• Apple Refurbished Store
• Blueair Blue Pure 511
• Granola
• Wispr Flow
• The Goal by Eliyahu Goldratt
• Atomic Habits by James Clear
• MindNode
• David Sparks (MacSparky)

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Rigid time-blocking sounds great in theory, but it falls apart the moment real life shows up. In this episode, Thanh shares five adaptive planning methods that preserve your intentions without making you feel behind before lunch. You will learn flexible focus blocks, rolling Top 3 priorities, time theming, buffer blocks, and energy-based planning.

Visit www.asianefficiency.com for more productivity tips and tactics.

Get 20% off your first order: dripdrop.com and use promo code tps.

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Links

• DripDrop — 20% off your first order with promo code TPS
• 25X Productivity Coaching

If you enjoyed this episode, follow the podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Overcast, Pocket Casts or your favorite podcast player. It’s easy, you’ll get new episodes automatically, and it also helps the show. You can also leave a review!

You’ve read the books, watched the videos, and tried the apps — but your output hasn’t changed. In this episode, Thanh and Brooks break down why consuming productivity content can become its own form of procrastination. They cover optimization theater, endless tool switching, note hoarding, and planning as avoidance — and give you a simple audit to figure out if your “learning” is actually moving the needle or just feeding a dopamine loop.

Visit www.asianefficiency.com for more productivity tips and tactics.

Get 20% off your first order: dripdrop.com and use promo code TPS.

Masterclass.com/TPS for at least 15% off any annual membership.

Listen to this episode (MP3)

Cheat Sheet

• Top 3 Productivity Resources [1:42]
• Why the “productivity valley” is so fun to get stuck in [4:43]
• The “would you also like to…” trap that eats your afternoon [6:58]
• 3⃣ The rule that stops you building systems you don’t need [8:32]
• Four ways optimizing turns into procrastination [11:13]
• The search-first notes setup that skips the Obsidian rabbit hole [14:29]
• Why Thanh ditched markdown files for HTML pages [16:14]
• The automation everyone’s sleeping on right now [21:41]
• How to tell you’re consuming instead of doing [28:23]
• The $600 gadget that fixed his “knowledge debt” [31:01]
• The consume-versus-do ratio worth aiming for [37:05]
• Turning saved bookmarks into a weekly experiment [40:49]
• Want to build your own digest? Start here [46:30]

Links

• DripDrop — promo code TPS for 20% off your first order
• Masterclass — at least 15% off any annual membership
• 25X Productivity Coaching
• Rework
• Basecamp
• Bird by Bird
• Marked
• Setapp
• Claude
• ChatGPT
• OmniFocus
• Obsidian
• Drafts
• Evernote
• Bending Spoons
• Airtable
• Atomic Habits
• MacSparky
• Keyboard Maestro
• Codex
• Nano Banana (Gemini Image)
• Laura Roeder on X

If you enjoyed this episode, follow the podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Overcast, Pocket Casts or your favorite podcast player. It’s easy, you’ll get new episodes automatically, and it also helps the show. You can also leave a review!

Your AI tools keep promising to save you time — so why do you feel more buried than ever? We have a blunt answer: the tools were never the problem. You’ve been bolting AI onto a system that was already broken, like turbocharging a car with a flat tire.

This Wisdom Wednesday, we lay out a different way to think about it — one that changes where AI actually belongs in your day, and where it never will. Ten minutes. One shift. Give it a listen.

Visit www.asianefficiency.com for more productivity tips and tactics.

Visit Upwork.com right now and post your job for free.

Listen to this episode (MP3)

Links

• Upwork
• 25X Productivity Coaching

If you enjoyed this episode, follow the podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Overcast, Pocket Casts or your favorite podcast player. It’s easy, you’ll get new episodes automatically, and it also helps the show. You can also leave a review!

Most productivity systems fail not because you lack discipline — but because you borrowed someone else’s constraints. In this episode, we break down why copying another person’s tool stack or workflow is a recipe for frustration, and walk you through a better build process: starting with your workload reality, energy patterns, and review cadence. You’ll learn how to customize the friction points of a proven framework instead of reinventing everything from scratch.

Visit www.asianefficiency.com for more productivity tips and tactics.

Make the switch! MINTMOBILE.com/PRODUCTIVITY.

Visit Upwork.com right now and post your job for free.

Listen to this episode (MP3)

Cheat Sheet

• Top 3 Productivity Resources [2:18]
• Why almost nobody talks about productivity systems anymore [6:27]
• How AI quietly collapsed GTD’s five steps into one [9:34]
• Why your step-by-step instructions are secretly slowing the AI down [17:35]
• The reason someone else’s “perfect” system falls apart the moment you copy it [26:35]
• The 10/80/10 split that redraws where your real work happens [31:36]
• The one framework that survives even when all your tools change [36:10]
• The “skinnier me” trap that quietly wrecks the system you just built [41:04]
• The single lever to move today before you close the episode [48:42]

Links

• Mint Mobile
• Upwork
• 25X Productivity Coaching
• The Art of Possibility (Benjamin Zander & Rosamund Stone Zander)
• Anker Laptop Power Bank, 25,000mAh 165W
• Midwit Meme Generator
• Getting Things Done (GTD)
• Getting Results the Agile Way (Agile Results)
• The 12 Week Year
• Wispr Flow
• OmniFocus
• Todoist

If you enjoyed this episode, follow the podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Overcast, Pocket Casts or your favorite podcast player. It’s easy, you’ll get new episodes automatically, and it also helps the show. You can also leave a review!

Why do 65% of employees say AI makes them more productive, but only one in ten say it actually changed how they work? That gap comes down to a single skill—and the people who have it are quietly reclaiming 15 to 20 hours a week.

This Wisdom Wednesday, we break down the three levels of AI fluency and the simple audit that shows you exactly where you’re stuck. AI won’t fix a broken workflow—it just amplifies whatever you’ve already got. Here’s how to make it amplify the right things.

Learn more about how Notion can support your business at notion.com/tps.

Listen to this episode (MP3)

Links

• Notion
• 25X Productivity Coaching
• Gallup — Rising AI Adoption Spurs Workforce Changes
• ChatGPT
• Claude

If you enjoyed this episode, follow the podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Overcast, Pocket Casts or your favorite podcast player. It’s easy, you’ll get new episodes automatically, and it also helps the show. You can also leave a review!