7 Hacks For Productivity Junkies From A Therapist Who Got Off The Hamster Wheel Without Losing Her Edge
by Laurel van der Toorn, LMFT
If you're like me, you love a good productivity hack.
Double-tasking?
Try triple-tasking.
Systems and processes to keep things flowing from your inbox back out? You've got em.
Many of the high-achieving professionals I work with in therapy (lawyers, founders, physicians, and executives) operate this way too.
And yet... we never feel totally fulfilled, do we?
Here are seven things that transformed my relationship with productivity to help me focus on what matters and what's on my list without burning out.
1) Find a List System That Really Works For You
While I was in college I stumbled upon the perfect to-do list app. It uses principles from Getting Things Done, the productivity framework developed by David Allen. It color-codes tasks, has customizable repeat intervals, reminders, prioritization indicators, tags, and categories. I've put a lot of time and energy into making it work for me. It's called 2Do, and it has been serving me well since 2007.
But what works for me isn't what will work for you. A list you never check might as well not exist. Find what works for you, whether that's an app, paper, a spreadsheet, or something else entirely.
The most important thing is that your list holds everything that must be done so your nervous system can relax, knowing it's documented and in the pipeline. You don't need to spend energy worrying you'll forget to buy a birthday gift for your assistant because the list will remind you. That freed-up mental space adds up.
2) Get Strategic About Your To-Do List
Many of us make the mistake of treating all tasks as equal.
Think of the things on your list as falling into four categories: Do Now, Schedule, Delegate, Delete. Most productivity junkies put far too many things in the Do Now column. But there are only so many hours in a day. You'll feel more accomplished if you strategize.
Get clear about what's actually a priority. If you treat everything as equal, you'll feel frustrated when important work gets bumped because you were sorting email or cleaning the fridge. This is especially true for people who work from home.
One thing I see consistently in therapy with high performers is that everything starts to feel equally urgent. When that happens, people stay busy all day but feel strangely unproductive. That's one of the earliest warning signs of burnout. Your nervous system can lose the ability to distinguish what's urgent from what's merely important.
Try this: every morning as you scan your list, identify as many things as possible that could be delegated or deleted entirely.
3) Schedule Blank Space For Deep Work
Cal Newport's book Deep Work makes the case for long stretches of uninterrupted time on tasks that require real brain energy. I'm writing this on a plane from Los Angeles to Atlanta, sandwiched between a stranger and my spouse. No wifi, no movies. Flights are some of the best uninterrupted time I get.
If you don't have blank space built into your week, find a way to create some. Some workplaces restrict meetings on certain days. If yours doesn't, you may have to protect the time yourself.
I reserve Mondays and Wednesdays as off-stage days: no meetings, no appointments. I have the privilege of setting my own schedule, and I know not everyone does. But most workers have more control over their calendar than they're willing to exert. Push on it.
Our brains aren't built for constant task-switching. When your nervous system is bouncing between Slack, email, texts, and back-to-back meetings, you never fully enter a focused state. Deep work gives your mind a chance to settle into one channel of thinking, which is where real creativity and problem-solving actually happen.
4) Use Technology To Help You Focus.
Getting a handle on your tech use will improve both your productivity and your mental health. I've written about this before, and you can read more in my posts on 6 essential boundaries for mental health and how to set boundaries with your phone.
A few apps I actually use and recommend:
OneSec — When you tap a distracting app, OneSec makes you pause for a breath before it opens. That moment of friction is often enough to make you realize you don't actually want to open Instagram right now. Simple and surprisingly effective. You can set the time length and limits.
OffScreen — Sets hard limits with certain apps during certain hours. Also shows you how much time you're spending on your phone and which apps are eating it. Most people are genuinely shocked when they first look at their numbers. Awareness alone changes behavior.
LeechBlock — A browser extension that blocks time-wasting sites during hours you set. You can make it impossible to override during deep work blocks, which removes the willpower equation entirely.
Pomodoro Timer — Works in 25-minute focused intervals followed by short breaks. If you've never tried structured time-boxing, start here. It makes long tasks feel less daunting and keeps your brain from fatiguing as fast.
Self Control — The nuclear option. You set a block list and a duration, and once it starts you cannot undo it, not even by restarting your computer. Use this when you have a deadline and zero trust in yourself.
Rize — Runs quietly in the background and tracks exactly how you spend your time on your computer. Unlike manual time tracking, you don't have to remember to log anything. At the end of the day and week you get a clear picture of where your hours actually went versus where you thought they went. For high achievers who pride themselves on efficiency, this data is often humbling.
5) Fun Is Just As Important As Work
If we don't have fun, adventure, and connection, our hard work isn't for anything. We feel empty no matter how much we produce.
One thing that helped me make sure I was actually living the life I was working so hard to build was scheduling fun deliberately. I was inspired by time management researcher Laura Vanderkam to plan one small adventure and one big adventure each week.
A small adventure is usually spontaneous and takes under an hour: a walk in a new neighborhood, a new coffee shop, a boba place you've been meaning to try.
A big adventure takes a half day or more and usually requires planning: a concert, a hike, a beach day with friends, a long lunch somewhere worth it.
Productivity junkies resist things that don't feel immediately productive. But scheduling this kind of fun consistently gives you more mental space and creative energy the rest of the week. It also actively protects against burnout and deepens the relationships that make the work worth doing.
6) Moving Your Body Is Non-negotiable
The argument that you don't have time to exercise is shortsighted. Time is elastic. Our experience of it speeds up or slows down depending on our mental state, and exercise is one of the most reliable ways to reset that.
Exercise is the one thing I recommend to every single client I see, without exception. The return on time invested is always positive.
Consider the lawyer who wakes up at 7, makes coffee, and sits down to work without moving their body first. By noon, their brain is struggling to stay engaged with lengthy documents and a full inbox. They have a choice: push through, or reset with a 30-minute walk, cycle, or swim. Most people push through. This directly causes errors, lower quality work, and heightened stress. The lawyer who takes the break logs off 90 minutes earlier than their sedentary counterpart.
If you genuinely can't carve out separate movement time, get a walking pad with a height-adjustable desk and do 30 minutes while you go through your inbox or attend a meeting off camera. (Please stay off camera while on the walking pad. It makes people seasick.)
You already know why movement is good for you. Put it on your calendar and treat it like a client appointment.
Many of the professionals I work with in burnout therapy, especially lawyers, physicians, and tech workers, try to solve exhaustion with more caffeine and longer hours. But movement works better than another productivity hack.
Me sailing somewhere in the Caribbean enjoying the peace that only comes with being unreachable.
7) Perfect The Art of Going Dark
II am never quite as at ease as when I'm on a cruise ship.
Not because of the food or the views or the entertainment. Because I'm intentionally unreachable. No wifi, no phone, no email. In the last three years I have not checked my email once while aboard a ship.
One pattern I notice consistently with high-achieving clients is that they haven't been truly unreachable in years. The nervous system never gets the signal that it's safe to fully power down. You can't actually recover from something you never step away from.
When I travel, I arrange coverage for any client emergencies, set my out-of-office response, and log off completely. I come back genuinely refreshed. Yes, it takes a few hours to work through my inbox when I return. But it takes less time than I would have spent on email during the trip.
Cruises may not be your thing. Find your version. Something you do once or twice a year where you are genuinely, fully unreachable.
Productivity Alone Doesn’t Solve Burnout
These strategies can help you organize and prioritize. But if your nervous system is chronically stressed, no app or time-management framework will solve the problem.
This is why so many high performers eventually burn out despite doing everything right. Sometimes the work is less about optimizing your schedule and more about helping your mind and body actually recover. If that resonates, therapy for burnout might be worth exploring.
Work With A Therapist To Lower Your Anxiety Without Losing Your Edge
If you want a therapist who understands the psychology of high-achieving people, schedule a free consultation.
Many of the people I work with are ambitious professionals who want to reduce anxiety and burnout while keeping the parts of their drive that actually serve them.
