Balancing day-to-day work with creativity is a problem for a lot of people. You might be spending hours doing work, but do you have time to innovate or try new things?

I use a simple method to deliver many items in my to-do while still innovating.

The 3 Pillars

There are three non-negotiables in my life. They are food, sleep, and exercise. I will not go deeper because there is a megaton of content about this, but let me say that these are the foundation of productive people.

The 3 Pillars of Productivity (and everything else)

If one is missing, your productivity will take a toll.

If you have these three in balance, you will get the energy required for the rest.

Automation

This part focus on efficiency, defined as “doing things right.”

You need to look into the different activities that you do daily and find ways to automate them. Focus on those that are taking too much time and energy.

The rationale is simple if you spend too much energy deciding on futile things like scheduling your next meeting or filing your expenses, you will lack this brain energy when you need it for more important things.

You encounter repetitive tasks, email routines, or admin in this bucket. There is a service for absolutely everything in the age of technology, so use it to your advantage.

Some examples:

• Scheduling — Calendar, Calendly, Outlook
• Expenses / Personal Finance — YNAB, Concur
• Editing — Grammarly
• Writing — Peppertype
• Tasks — Click-up, Asana, To-Do.

The outcome? More time

Creativity

The third part of the framework is about effectiveness, defined as “doing the right thing.”

When you free yourself from all the automatable routinely things is when your effectiveness will spike. Now you go from fumbling with tasks to have actual time to think and create.

You got back the most valuable asset in anyone’s life: TIME.

Finally, when your thoughts transform into new business ideas or projects, you should send them back to the automation phase.

Placing all together

Below is the image of the entire framework with the three parts together: Pillars, Automation, and Creativity.

This method works quite well for me, but I am always looking for ways to improve. Do you have something similar? Tell me in the comments.