Top 10 Elon Musk Productivity Secrets for Insane Success

1. Habits - Start your day with fighting the top priority Dragon first

2. Use Feedback Loops

3. First Principles Thinking

4. Use Asynchronous Communication

5. Master Communication

6. Batch Tasks

When I was in college, I wanted to be involved in things that would change the world. - Elon Musk

Musk multi-tasks strategically. Whenever possible, he combines several tasks together in a productivity hack known as batching. For example, he answers emails while eating or having a meeting over lunch.

Here’s a quote from Elon on the subject:

“But what I find is I’m able to be with [my kids] and still be on email. I can be with them and still be working at the same time… If I didn’t, I wouldn’t be able to get my job done.”

Another example is going through emails and invoices while on phone meetings or interviews.

Application in daily life

Studies have confirmed that multi-tasking is normally less efficient than single-tasking. The brain needs time to adjust when navigating different tasks, also known as task switching. Switching makes you tired and unproductive, not the tasks themselves.

But if you batch similar tasks that call for similar mindsets you can efficiently work on multiple tasks without losing your workflow. In other words, your brain is focused on one type of task at a time.

Here are a couple of examples:

1. Outlining all your blog posts for the upcoming week in one sitting
2. Processing all emails, Slack, phone calls, and other communications at once
3. Updating several related worksheets at the same time

To find more activities you can stack, write down all your general activities for the day and week and identify the ones that can be batched together. Try the batch a couple of times and rearrange tasks if necessary.

To process batches even faster, use the Pomodoro Technique.

7. Scheduling

8. Embrace Stretch Goals

9. Develop a Growth Mindset

10. Develop a Wide Knowledge Base

11. BONUS: Showering