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Keys, trees, money freeze: New hacks to survive the #GrindsetMindset
How do you gym-maxx, work-maxx, chill-maxx and socialise-maxx without becoming a productivity bro? We’ve found new hacks to squeeze more life out of your day — without squeezing yourself dry
If you watched The Odyssey and came away thinking that spending 10 years to get back home is a shameful waste of time, it probably means you’ve been sucked into the productivity trap too. We’re at that stage of evolution when we’re “quantifying every aspect of our lives,” says Preeti D’mello, 61, executive coach and founder of Mumbai-based leadership development organisation The Fulfillment Institute. “We’ve started believing that work, workouts, even leisure time has to produce some kind of improvement that you can track.”
Odysseus had his smarts (and Athena). You? You have us. We combed the internet for the best new productivity hacks, born of the same internet that’s trying to kill us with efficiency. Pick what works. Or give up and ask Calypso to feed you some lotus.
Admin nights
Best for: Buddies who chill together but can’t keep it together
Get together with strangers, friends, family, or even co-workers and get it all done. Some people are hanging out just to clear their phone storage. Or to clear 10,000 unread mails. Or to file their income-tax returns. Or sort through their bank statements, or update their CVs. The concept of bringing your unfinished tasks to the hangout went viral a few months ago, and now most cities have someone throwing an admin party. “Most of us live in nuclear families and don’t spend as much time with our communities,” says Lalit Taneja, 45, a Gurgaon-based anxiety and confidence coach. “This is an easy, low-stakes way to be productive while meeting people.”
Focus-maxxing
Best for: Overthinkers, overplanners, overachievers
It’s a fancy way of saying Do Not Disturb, and using technology to defeat technology. Dan Crompton, a UK-based leadership coach, uses ScreenZen to block distracting apps and websites from his phone when he’s working. On most devices, there’s an inbuilt Focus Mode that can push attention-grabbing apps into the background, mute notifications, and move the screen to grayscale for a set time so scrolling seems less fun. Forest, another app, lets you set a timer, plant a virtual seed and have it grow into a healthy plant as you focus on work. If you try to bypass the mode, your tree withers and dies. No one wants their tree to die.
Productivity apps
Best for: Those who thrive on drama and punishment
Write or Die deletes your words if you stop typing after a set time. On Beeminder, the app charges your credit card (an amount of your choosing) if you don’t achieve your goals. You only get a refund if you can prove that something genuinely prevented you from finishing your tasks. Habitica turns your life into an adventure RPG: You set Habits (such as waking up to go to the gym), Dailies (repeat tasks), and To-Dos (one-off goals). The more goals you complete, the more battle armour, pets and magic skills your avatar unlocks.
With Finch, the app assigns you a pet “birb”, whose wellbeing is tied to your goals. As you cross tasks off your list, your birb gets energised and gets to go on an adventure. Miss a goal, and its mood plummets. Surely you’re not so heartless?
Calendar mapping
Best for: Long-term planning
“We are all rubbish at estimating how long a task will take – I still get it wrong,” says Crompton. His solution: Hovering over the calendar for the month and identifying patterns — a busy weekend here, a tired Monday after, but a free Thursday a few days later; a flurry of evenings out that will necessitate a recovery day; a three-day oasis when nothing is planned. Then, fill in tasks accordingly. “That move alone will help you realise so much about your distractions, your procrastination and your wasted time. Track everything honestly. Include the time you spend scrolling through Instagram or staring out of the window.”
Or, “get a dedicated journal or a productivity planner and visualise your days on paper,” says Jasmine Chabria, 35, a motivational speaker and personality development coach from Mumbai. Pencil reset days into your schedule. “The goal is to make your routine easier to tackle, not to let your calendar run your life.”
AI assistants
Best for: Those who need a secretary
Give Sai, a planning bot, a task (“Create a list of 20 events happening near me this weekend”) and it does the research, lists the prices, and saves a document to your folder with the details. Motion, another AI, plans your day, schedules meetings for you, takes notes and prompts you with follow-up tasks. It also keeps track of colleagues’ workflows, so it can notify managers about who’s swamped and who has space in their schedule for a project. There’s Jace, which uses AI to manage your inbox, replies to emails in your tone of voice, and notifies you of what needs your intervention. It even sends updates to your team, depending on the contents of the mail, and downloads documents and attachments. “You plug in your to-do list and how long each task will take, and it maps them across your week around your meetings, sends alerts, and does the organising for you,” says Crompton.
Body doubling
Best for: Minds that are on 71 side-quests at the same time
No cloning involved. Body doubling simply means working alongside a friend over a video call or offline and getting them to “gently hold you accountable” with their presence, says Taneja. Apps such as Focusmate and Deepwrk, let you book sessions with real people so you can both do your thing in each other’s background. “It’s surprising how much you’re able to concentrate just because someone’s working quietly alongside you.”
Or, film yourself as you complete a task, even if it takes hours. Nothing like a camera judging you to keep you going.
Bedtime stacking
Best for: All the things that you promised would be done by EOD.
By early evening, you probably have a good sense of what you’ve completed and what’s left. Use the stacking hack for days when there’s too much left over. Grab your laptop, your task list and a snack. Head to bed. Lay it all out. And speed-work until sleep hits. Lying in bed is often so comfy, you won’t want to get up – a perfect lock-in zone. “If there’s time, end by listing your tasks for the next day, so you go to sleep with some kind of a plan ready. I call it bedtime lifting,” says Chabria. “You’re lifting these unfinished chores off your mind and shifting it to the next day.”
Monotasking
Best for: Anyone with a big deadline looming
Pending tasks have a way of piling up, and people often freeze when they’re overwhelmed. A simple hack: “Match tasks to your energy levels,” says Prarthana Shah, an integrative health coach. “Arrange tasks according to the time of day when your mental focus peaks and dips. Mornings for client calls, afternoons for admin work, evenings for clearing your inbox.” Or the other way around, if it works for you.
An even simpler hack: Create time blocks, says Chabria. Allot a fixed chunk of the day to that task. Chabria has fixed times of the day for emails, WhatsApp, and social media regardless of who pings when. “That way, I’m not constantly pulled in all directions.”
Productivity snacking
Best for: Tacking a long, complicated task.
A gym hack, minus the sweat. It involves completing something in many short bursts rather than one long drag. Let’s say you have a presentation to complete by the end of the week. Use Monday for research, Tuesday to organise it all in four decks (or more if your Boomer colleagues like them), Wednesday for titles, photos… and so on. Smaller tasks seem less daunting, they also allow you to mull over a creative project in a way that a frenzied marathon doesn’t. “When I notice myself avoiding a task, I ask myself, ‘What is the smallest version of this that I can do in five minutes?’” says Dr. Shah. “The small wins motivate you to keep going.”
The soft launch
Best for: Chronic procrastinators who freeze before starting anything
“Just start slow,” recommends Taneja. “About half an hour before you begin work, set up your workspace and power up your tabs.” If it’s exercise you’re avoiding, start listening to your workout playlist to get in the mood. “What this does is help you transition slowly to the state of mind you were avoiding.” Or, try the two-minute rule. “Tell yourself you’ll do something for two minutes, and you’ll stop after that.” Once you’re in the flow, you’re less likely to give up thing you dreaded doing.
From HT Brunch, August 15, 2026
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