Raise your hand if you’ve ever felt personally victimized by sales funnels masquerading as “free value” in workshop form. I feel like I’ve gotten so jaded lately after investing an hour of my time on a “workshop” only to be pitched on a $3,000 course (true story) that I probably (definitely) don’t need anyway. But today. Oh how the turn tables. Today, I attended one of the best free workshops I’ve been to in a while: Productivity Fundamentals for Overbusy Professionals with Brian Ford, host of the Self Improvement Daily Podcast. I took furious notes on all his productivity tips for entrepreneurs and, lucky for you, went back and made sense of them below.

No joke—my fingers were flying across the keyboard, dropping typos in every other word. But I was genuinely engaged. At the very least, Brian’s productivity fundamentals inspired me to ask for more feedback in my day-to-day. At most, they redefined “discipline” for me and helped me see the importance of designing strategic systems that actually work with my life—not against it.

Let’s dive in.

Part 1: Knowing What to Do

Fundamental 1: Task Management

This is about keeping yourself organized and knowing what matters most. But more importantly, it’s about maintaining that system long term. Having a system to support your productivity is the real key—not just being “productive” on the fly.

Side note: I love this topic. For a superrrrr deep dive into the system I built for my own task management, read this.

Fundamental 2: Outlined Strategy

Can you define the gap between where you are now and where you want to be?

There’s never just one path that leads to the result (ugh, IKR). The goal is to figure out which path is most likely to get you there based on your strengths, capacity, and energy.

Your strategy doesn’t mean diddly squat if you don’t have the ability—or the system—to take consistent action on it.

You have to:

• Define the tactics that support your goal
• Understand what you’re capable of right now
• Set up a structure that helps you follow through step by step

My post on how to build routines as a small business owner talks about this in more detail!

Part 2: Doing the Dang Thing

Fundamental 3: Time Management

This isn’t about squeezing more in but rather about protecting the time you do have.

Brian talked about daily task scheduling and referenced the book Indistractable by Nir Eyal. A few standout quotes:

“Being indistractable will be the skill of the future.”

“You can’t know what a distraction is unless you know what you’re being distracted from.”

As much as I blame my lack of productivity on it, distraction isn’t Public Enemy No. 1. Lack of clarity is. If your schedule isn’t clearly defined with tasks that align with your goals, everything becomes a potential distraction.

One of the best productivity tips for entrepreneurs? It’s okay to go off schedule if it serves you. You just need to know what your time is actually for so you can redirect when needed and not default to general busyness.

Strategic Planning

Make time to plan weekly, monthly, and quarterly. Literally put it on the calendar. Everything else should be built around that time. If you don’t strategize up front, you’re just reacting.

Part 3: Doing It Really Well

Fundamental 4: Energy Management

Brian shared this visual I loved:

Think of your energy as a pizza (ironic, I know). You’ve got slices for work, health, and relationships. Most of us treat health as a luxury or an extra slice we don’t have room for. But in reality, investing in health gives you more capacity for the other areas.

Taking care of yourself creates better quality time, not less.

What’s funny is that as soon as I prioritized these things, I realized that they all crossed over into the quality time with friends and loved ones category that I was craving more of.

Fundamental 5: Skill and Know-How

Your experience, education, and feedback loops all play a role here. But the biggest thing? Ask for feedback.

This is one of those golden nuggets of advice I’ve never heard emphasized in the realm of productivity tips for entrepreneurs.

I learned about real, raw, honest feedback the hard way during my marketing agency days. Prior to launching my own business, I constantly had someone looking over my shoulder, critiquing my work, and adding their two cents in, to the point where it got overwhelming at times.

But when I finally parted ways? All of a sudden I missed that feedback SO much. It’s what anchored me, helped me acknowledge my own shortcomings, and ultimately what made me a better marketer. I never take constructive feedback or candid opinions for granted now.

Brian shared this experiment framework for refining your systems and processes:

Try something → Observe the results → Adjust → Repeat

Follow Through: It’s Not About Willpower

This part hit me hard. Brian described productivity like being in a canoe. If you don’t paddle, you drift wherever the river takes you. Willpower helps you paddle upstream…for a while. But it runs out.

The key isn’t to just paddle harder. It’s to change the river.

What if you rerouted the current entirely? What if you built a dam and redirected the water to flow the way you actually want to go?

That’s what systems and environments do. They take the pressure off of willpower and make progress feel easier.

And here’s how Brian redefined discipline:

Discipline is faithfully following through on the things that serve you, consistently, regardless of the chaos around you.

The more you reduce resistance and design your environment for success, the more likely you are to follow through. Not because you’re strong enough—but because it becomes the obvious next step.

Read More: How to Clear Your Mind and Get Out of A Work Rut

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More Workshops Like This!

Looking for more productivity tips for entrepreneurs? I had the opportunity to attend this free workshop today through Collective—the team that takes care of all my bookkeeping, taxes, and financial setup as a small business owner.

Seriously, Collective has been a game changer. Not only do they handle all the backend financial stuff that used to overwhelm me, but they also offer incredible community resources, workshops, and opportunities to connect with other members. It’s so much more than just an accounting service!

If you’re curious about my experience, I wrote more about it on the blog.

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If this resonated with you…

Brian’s teaching style is clear, actionable, and actually rooted in real-life experience! I connected with him after the workshop and he recommended two great resources to keep the momentum going:

Listen To The Podcast

Self Improvement Daily has 20+ million monthly listeners and episodes are packed into super digestible, 3-4 minute takeaways.

Sign Up For the 9 Super Habits of Success

These habits are designed to multiply your productivity and you’ll even discover a process for doing them in less than 15 minutes a day!

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If you’ve ever felt like productivity advice just isn’t built for real life, these tips might be the mindset shift you didn’t know you needed. They were for me!