How The 3-3-3 Method Can Make You Productive AND Effective, Daily!

Hey Easy Ager, today we're going to be talking about threes. It's a method that's going to help you not simply be productive, but you're also going to be effective every single day. 

This midlife hack is from Oliver Berkman, who calls this the 3-3-3 Method, and he suggests planning your workday around it. Basically it's just three things divided into three areas.

What is the 3-3-3 Method?

The basic formula is:

1. Complete three hours of deep work on your most important project
2. Complete three other urgent tasks that don't require focus
3. Complete three maintenance tasks

You're going to be doing this 3-3-3 Method during your normal workday. I'm going to do a bit of a deep dive on the first one, explain a couple of different things and make an observation. Then the other two are pretty straightforward, so they'll be simple to understand.

Method step 1: Complete three hours of deep work on your most important project

Deep work is a term coined by Cal Newport who wrote a book called "Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World." In it, Newport defines deep work as a state of "distraction-free concentration" when your brain works at its maximum potential.

Berkman recommends doing the 3-3-3 Method first thing in the morning when you're fresh. This option works for most of us, but I know there are a handful of you out there who are night owls and you may not even get going until it's dark or maybe even late afternoon.

If you start later, I would say do your deep work during your peak cognition period, which is the time when you're at your best. This allows you to focus so you can get things done. It doesn't necessarily have to be in the morning

By this point in your life, you probably already know when your best time of the day is. Are you a night owl? Are you an early bird? Think about when you're at your best mentally.

If you're not sure when your peak time is, listen up. This gets down to understanding your chronotype so you can figure out when you're at your best.

Chronotypes are your body's natural preferences for being awake, for going to sleep, for having energy. Your body has a natural rhythm to it, and you want to make sure that you're working within that time frame, if possible.

You can take the quiz to help you determine your chronotype. It's from a book called "The Power of When: Discover Your Chronotype -- and the Best Time to Eat Lunch, Ask for a Raise, Have Sex, Write a Novel, Take Your Meds, and More" by Dr. Michael Breus. Once you know your chronotype, you'll also learn when your peak hours are to focus.

For example, I found out my chronotype is that of a Bear. That means I wake up when the sun comes up in the morning and I start getting sleepy when it starts to set.

I want to be very clear here. I do not wake up before the sun. I am not the 4am or 5am in the morning person. Nope. I wake up with the sun, which is about 7 or 7:30-ish; sometimes it's even 8am.

I used to try to get up at 5:00 or 5:30 in the morning, thinking it was going to help me get ahead or get a jump on the day so I could be done early and have lots of energy.

All it did was make me very sleepy and very sad. My body was never ready to be up at that hour in the morning. So when I finally gave in and let my body do what it needed to do, my whole rhythm of life became easier. I wasn't constantly fighting the clock to make my body get up.

As a bear, I discovered that my peak cognitive hours (the time when I focus and concentrate best) are 10am to 2pm. I've played with this, I've tested it, and these are my hours.

These hours, 10am to 2pm, work extremely well for me. And let me tell you, I am fierce about protecting this time from distractions, from intrusions, from interruptions, from setting doctor appointments, from answering calls or texts, and more.

When you take this quiz and you find out what your peak time is, just know that it's a guideline. It's a starting point for you to test it, just like I did. You'll still have to determine what's going to work best for your body.

Method step 2: Complete three other urgent tasks that don't require focus

These are shorter urgent tasks, and they can include things in your day like calls, meetings and Zoom calls. They can include delegating activities or offering feedback.

What I'm noticing for myself is that it includes a lot of the stuff that I generally procrastinate on. These three urgent tasks need to get done, but you don't have to focus on them too terribly hard.

Method step 3: Complete three maintenance tasks

These are never going to be urgent, but they do need to get done. Things like staying on top of paperwork; making sure everything's filed and important documents are shredded; making dental appointments for yourself and your spouse so you can get your teeth cleaned; cleaning the house; doing the laundry; putting dishes in the dishwasher; and more.

These are maintenance tasks. You can even include personal time like journaling or meditation as a maintenance task because the way I see it, they're helping you maintain your personal sanity so it counts, right?

Any of these maintenance tasks are going to take you 15 to 20 minutes to do, but staying on top of them is going to save you a lot of headaches in the long run.

So that's the 3-3-3 Method by Oliver Berkman. These three areas are:

1) Complete three hours of deep work on your most important project. You can do this in the morning when you're fresh or whenever you're at your peak focus time. If you're not sure when your peak focus time is, check out this chronotype quiz to learn more about your body's unique daily rhythm.

2) Complete three other urgent tasks that don't require focus or concentration. This includes meetings, phone calls, answering emails, answering chats and the like. These are things that need to get done and more than likely, you may want to procrastinate on them.

3) Complete three maintenance tasks to keep you on top of things. This doesn't just have to be work things. It can also include things around the house, personal appointments, and all of that kind of wonderful, delicious stuff.

The 3-3-3 Method has quickly become one of my favorite ways to get things done at work and at home. I hope you'll give it a try so you can start seeing your productivity soar!

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