Upping your game: Tips from highly productive people

Leaders from the innovation community share advice on how to get it all done — without burning out.

Work smarter, not harder. Create a better work-life balance. Land that promotion. As we slide further into the new year and our to-do-lists and inboxes fill up, those aspirational commitments we optimistically made at the turn of the clock on January 1 can suddenly seem much harder to pull off. Resolutions, by nature, tend to be overly large and fuzzy, which makes it difficult to map out the precise steps that will lead toward that ultimate goal. To home in on specifics, we reached out to experts in the innovation community for tips and tricks on improving productivity and winning at work.

Vincent Ircandia

Build a ladder to your goal

As the chief executive and co-founder of StellarAlgo, an AI analytics company that helps connect sports teams with their fans, Vincent Ircandia always has multiple projects on the go. Since launching in 2016, StellarAlgo has worked with close to 240 sports teams and leagues, using data analysis to deliver tailored advertising to fans. To help balance all those priorities, Ircandia keeps his company’s strategic plan front and centre. “After our annual objectives are set,” he says, “I’ll make quarterly objectives to best support achieving those outcomes.” Those targets inform his weekly goals, which he writes down every Sunday night, and subsequently breaks down into “must-dos” for each day.

To Ircandia, his to-do list is like a ladder: each task builds to a bigger goal. “Usually it’s the one thing I have to get done that day to feel productive,” he says. Setting that daily intention and having clarity about which responsibilities take precedence allows Ircandia to prioritize the company’s larger needs. He’s able to determine “what I can do that nobody else can,” he says, “so I don’t spread myself too thin.”

Charles Plant

Deep-clean your inbox

It’s easy to get overwhelmed by the constant ping of new requests. So Charles Plant, a serial entrepreneur, fractional chief financial officer and founder of the Narwhal Project, an organization that helps technology startups scale internationally, takes a rigorous if upside-down approach: “I organize my inbox oldest to newest,” he says. Plant tackles older emails before he can see any new ones that have come in, assigning correspondence to files categorized by project and client and storing all messages from former collaborators in a “dead” folder. “Anything I haven’t answered is still in the inbox, which really means it’s my to-do list,” he says. Plant also schedules all his own meetings to preserve ample blocks of time to properly concentrate on particular projects without the risk of interruption.

Ahmad Ghahreman

Trim the fat from meetings

Back-to-back meetings can make it particularly overwhelming to tackle a to-do list. Just ask Ahmad Ghahreman, the CEO and co-founder of Cyclic Materials, a startup that recycles rare earth materials. On any given day, he might have as many as 15 meetings. “By the end, my brain feels like it almost doesn’t function,” he says. To avoid overload, Ghahreman has learned that size matters. “I’ve found extra-large meetings are not efficient,” he says. Instead, he schedules smaller sessions to help facilitate decision making. In an effort to stop wasting time with production check-ins, Cyclic Materials uses project management apps. And Ghahreman has also made it a personal policy to decline meetings — internal or external — if there is no agenda.

After securing $71 million in Series B funding last fall, the startup is gearing up to expand internationally in the coming months. But no matter how busy his schedule, Ghahreman likes to sneak in a quick walk around the block near his office on Toronto’s Bay Street. The practice helps him “get some pressure off, get the blood flowing again and come back more energized,” he says.

Lisa DeMarco

Create connections through food

Lawyer Lisa DeMarco has found a way to make networking more effective and way more enjoyable: breaking bread together. As CEO and senior partner at Resilient LLP, a legal firm that practises exclusively in the areas of climate change, clean energy and Indigenous rights, DeMarco frequently travels for work and often speaks at conferences. She’ll pre-book restaurant reservations; then, when she meets interesting people, she’ll invite them to dinner. “It’s very easy to get people talking over food,” she says. “There’s physical nourishment in addition to intellectual nourishment.” When she visited Baku, Azerbaijan, for the COP29 conference last fall, DeMarco brought 10 clients and contacts together around a table.

And make time for yourself

“It’s important to take care of your health so that you don’t burn out,” adds DeMarco, who’s careful to follow her own advice. Last fall, between COP29 and other high-profile meetings, DeMarco spent only about nine days in her hometown of Toronto. To recharge after the three-week stint in Azerbaijan, she treated herself to a spa visit. Exercise is also a top priority. “Getting moving, getting some excess energy out of the body is pretty necessary for me,” she says. DeMarco’s schedule can be punishing — in addition to being a senior partner and CEO at her firm, she’s also a member of the MaRS Climate Innovation Board, the Carney Task Force and the board of the International Emissions Trading Association — but the avid marathon runner will often wake up early to fit in a run in before a busy day of meetings.

She attributes her ability to stay grounded in the chaos to weekly runs with a group of friends. “We are all from very different walks of life. There are artists, information specialists and a couple other lawyers. When you get in your own bubble, they kind of pop it for you,” DeMarco says. Sometimes, she adds, just stepping (or jogging) away can be the best way to tackle workplace stress.

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