Schedule large blocks of time for deep work, we’re told. An hour or 90 minutes a day to work on our most important projects and do things that require focus and concentration.

But our work doesn’t always allow us to schedule large blocks of time. Not consistently, anyway. Our days are often fragmented with appointments and calls and other work that needs to be done as and when it needs to be done.

The good news is that you can get a lot of work done in the spaces between calls and appointments.

Throughout the day, as you go from one task to another, there are many unused chunks of time. We often waste that time, telling ourselves there isn’t enough of it to do something meaningful.

Sure, you need breaks. Time to clear your mind, think, or get another cuppa. But don’t assume you can’t also do something valuable when you only have a few minutes.

You’ve got ten minutes until the next appointment? Make a few calls and leave messages (since most people don’t pick up these days). Write the first draft of an important email, or bang out one or two-word replies to several emails. Highlight key paragraphs in a pdf or organize your notes from a recent meeting.

You’ve got five minutes? How about brainstorming a few ideas for your next article or post, or doing a quick edit of your last one?

In five minutes, you might review a file you haven’t looked at in a while and dictate instructions to your staff. Check your email and clear out the spam. Or skim a few saved articles and decide which ones to read next, when you have another five minutes.

Five minutes here, ten minutes there, and you might get a lot done. Maybe enough to let you block out time for deep work.

My calendar is set to remind me about appointments, meetings, and other time-specific activities, but I don’t use reminders for anything else.

I check my task app, see what I’ve planned for the day, and do it. If I’m not sure about something, the app is only a click away.

I’ve also turned off most push notifications.

I don’t need or want to be reminded about everything in my life. Too many beeps and buzzes and pop-ups—it’s annoying. And distracting when you’re trying to concentrate.

“I’m in the middle of my skin care routine! Thank you for reminding me to take out the garbage, but go away!”

I also don’t like the idea of depending on reminders.

What if they fail? What if I don’t see the reminder? What if I’ve become immune to those pop-ups and beeps and alarms and ignore the little bastards?

I prefer self-reliance, not app-reliance.

I know, some people depend on reminders to gete them through their day. It’s like they’re back in school, waiting for the bell before they go to their next class.

Some folks are addicted. Their watches and phones are their overseers, constantly telling them what to do, when and where, and if they don’t do it, they nag them until they do.

I don’t want to be nagged, do you?

Here’s the thing.

We generally don’t forget to do things we want to do. We don’t need to be reminded to watch our favorite show, play our favorite game, or do the horizontal hokey-pokey.

It’s the chores, the errands, and the work we don’t want to do we find easy to forget, and for those, reminders might help.

So use reminders if and when they serve you, but not for everything.

When I drive by the grocery store, I don’t need my phone to remind me to get pickles.

It’s on my list, okay? (I just need to remember to check my list.)

You may have heard that you can accomplish more by doing less. The idea is that when you have fewer things to do, you have more time and energy to do those things and do them well.

Many productivity systems suggest using “WIP Limits” to structure your work, WIP standing for “Work in Progress”. By limiting yourself to fewer (but more important) tasks, you can be more effective than having a dozen lesser tasks on your list that you may or may not get done.

I usually schedule 2 or 3 “most important tasks” for the day. If I get those done, it’s a good day, even if I do little else.

WIP limits are an example of “constraints,” limits to the amount of work you commit to. They acknowledge that we only have so many slots to fill each day and we should fill them with activities that deliver the most value.

One way to implement constraints is by the way you use your task app.

The task management app Todoist allows you to have up to 300 projects in their paid version. A project could be a case or client, an “area of focus” (e.g., work, family, finances, etc.), a time frame (e.g., this week, next week, this month, next month, future) or something else.

You might have 300 clients in your system, each one a project, but you can’t expect to focus if they are all “active” at the same time. You’ll find it easier to focus if you limit yourself to perhaps 5 or 10 active projects.

If you have trouble limiting yourself, you might choose an app that doesn’t allow so many projects or areas, or, in the case of Todoist, downgrade to the free version, which only allows 5 active projects.

Having only 5 slots to fill forces you to choose those slots wisely. It forces you to figure out what’s most important to you, so you can focus on it.

How many active projects, areas of responsibility, clients, or cases do you currently have in your task management system? What might happen if you reduce that number? And what might happen if you schedule fewer tasks each day to do your work?

Over the next few days, consider these questions and how WIP limits and other constraints might help you to focus and be more effective.

I’m trying out a new task manager. It’s not that I’m looking to replace the app I currently use, it’s that trying out a new app makes it easier and more fun to do a “task reset,” something I do periodically but especially at the beginning of a new year.

Basically, that means I’m cleaning house.

I’m purging old tasks and projects I realize I’m not going to do, organizing the ones I still want to do, and moving my most important tasks and projects front and center.

No matter how effective our systems are, they tend to slow down after we’ve used them for awhile, often to the point of overwhelming us. When you feel like you don’t want to look at your lists anymore, it’s probably time to do a reset.

Moving things to a new app makes that easier because it forces you to go through everything one by one, and consider its importance. A new app helps that process because it is unfamiliar. You have to slow down as you figure out how to use it, what you want to add or keep, and where to put it.

When you’re done, you should have a smaller number of important projects to focus on and fewer things to distract you.

But you don’t need a new app to do this. You can do a task reset in the app you currently use.

First, move all your tasks and projects and routines from their current place of “residence” in the app into a temporary home, a new project labeled “reset” for example, leaving the rest of the app empty.

Then, go through everything you just moved, item by item, and move them back to either their original home (project, area, file, folder, etc.), or a new one.

Make each task, project, or goal earn a place in your new setup.

New year. New you. New setup.

No doubt you’ve head the expression, “If you want something done, give it to a busy person”.

Why would you give it to a busy person? They have no time.

Maybe you’ve heard another version, “If you want something done, give it to a lazy person.”

Why give it to a lazy person? They’re… lazy!

But both versions make perfect sense.

Busy people and lazy people seem to be at the opposite ends of the productivity spectrum, but they’re actually on the same page.

Both want to get things done quickly and efficiently, with as little time and effort as possible. Busy people don’t have time to waste. Lazy people have time but don’t want to waste it.

Being busy (or lazy) forces you to be (a) more selective about what you do, and (b) more creative about how you do it.

Both lazy people and busy people avoid taking on projects that aren’t the “highest and best” use of their time.

They’re both good at delegating.

Both use shortcuts, templates, forms, and checklists.

Both look for ways to leverage their efforts, such as re-purposing content and (in the case of professionals) prioritizing repeat business and referrals over marketing to the cold market.

And both say no to good ideas to make room for great ones.

In short, both are effective and productive, because they’ve figured out how to make the most of what they have.

If you want to be more productive, be lazy. Or busy if you like that better. Either way, you’ll get more done.