How often does this happen to you: you start the week with a list of very feasible goals but by Friday, the project launch has been pushed to next week, the blog post remains in draft mode, and sales calls haven’t been made.

No one knows busy days quite like entrepreneurs so we asked some of them what habits they rely on to keep their productivity high.

Click to read the productivity strategies used by founders of companies like Twitter, LeWeb and Buffer:

Evan Williams: Workout When You’re Least Productive
Erin McKean: Schedule Easy, Small Tasks as Work Breaks
Loïc Le Meur: Meditate – It’s the Productivity Trick People Are Afraid to Talk About
Chris Messina: Build Tiny Habits: They Can Be Surprisingly Powerful
Joel Gascoigne: Optimize Your Daily Routines
Buster Benson: Experiment with New Habits Regularly
Marshall Kirkpatrick: Hack the Science of Behavior Change

Download Lift’s iPhone App or Join the web beta

Thanks to all of the entrepreneurs featured and to Power Lifters Jason Shen, Erika Carlson, Lauren Bacon, Mark Suman and Peter Boyce II and Walter Chen.

Evan Williams isn’t at work in the middle of the day. You’ll find the founder of Blogger, Twitter and Medium at the gym instead. 

The potential for productivity fluctuates at different times of the day for different people. Clue into your energy changes and then plan your work schedule so that you’re doing your most important work during your most productive times. 

I used to go to the gym first thing in the morning. Exercise is, of course, great for energy levels and I believe it makes me more productive no matter what. But energy and focus naturally ebb and flow throughout the day.

My focus is usually great first thing in the morning, so going to the gym first is a trade off of very productive time. Instead, I’ve started going mid-morning or late afternoon (especially on days I work late). It feels weird (at first) to leave the office in the middle of the day, but total time spent is nearly the same with higher energy and focus across the board.

This only happens to work because our office is across the street from the gym (which is part of the reason the office is there). If there were more travel time involved, it might not be worth it (or it might be worth switching how you exercise). 

More productivity tips from entrepreneurs:

Erin McKean: Schedule Easy, Small Tasks as Work Breaks
Loïc Le Meur: Meditate – It’s the Productivity Trick People Are Afraid to Talk About
Chris Messina: Build Tiny Habits: They Can Be Surprisingly Powerful
Joel Gascoigne: Optimize Your Daily Routines
Buster Benson: Experiment with New Habits Regularly
Marshall Kirkpatrick: Hack the Science of Behavior Change

All of these entrepreneurs have built habits with Lift. 

Download Lift’s iPhone App

Sign up for the web beta

Evan Williams isn’t at work in the middle of the day. You’ll find the founder of Blogger, Twitter and Medium at the gym instead. 

The potential for productivity fluctuates at different times of the day for different people. Clue into your energy changes and then plan your work schedule so that you’re doing your most important work during your most productive times. 

I used to go to the gym first thing in the morning. Exercise is, of course, great for energy levels and I believe it makes me more productive no matter what. But energy and focus naturally ebb and flow throughout the day.

My focus is usually great first thing in the morning, so going to the gym first is a trade off of very productive time. Instead, I’ve started going mid-morning or late afternoon (especially on days I work late). It feels weird (at first) to leave the office in the middle of the day, but total time spent is nearly the same with higher energy and focus across the board.

This only happens to work because our office is across the street from the gym (which is part of the reason the office is there). If there were more travel time involved, it might not be worth it (or it might be worth switching how you exercise). 

More productivity tips from entrepreneurs:

Erin McKean: Schedule Easy, Small Tasks as Work Breaks
Loïc Le Meur: Meditate – It’s the Productivity Trick People Are Afraid to Talk About
Chris Messina: Build Tiny Habits: They Can Be Surprisingly Powerful
Joel Gascoigne: Optimize Your Daily Routines
Buster Benson: Experiment with New Habits Regularly
Marshall Kirkpatrick: Hack the Science of Behavior Change

All of these entrepreneurs have built habits with Lift. 

Download Lift’s iPhone App

Sign up for the web beta

The godfather of behavior change apps Buster Benson learned a lot when building quantified self startups like 43 Things, Health Month and 750 Words. He discovered his most productive habit, writing, by trying new habits until he found the productivity hack that worked best for him.

Pay attention to the actions you take during the day to find out what habits make you more or less effective. Buster tracks everything: emails, tweets, photos, meals, exercise, meditation, mood levels, words, etc. He’s still trying out new habits like meditation and running, too. You don’t have track habits as intensely as Buster, but you could learn a lot about what makes you more productive by experimenting with new routines and reflecting on the results.

All of my favorite daily habits include letting some unfiltered stream-of-consciousness to the surface. Walking to and from work, meditating, and taking a picture at 8:36pm all fit this pattern. However, the most valuable of these unfiltered streams has been my habit of writing 3 pages of unfiltered, stream-of-consciousness, brain-dump *BLAH* on 750words.com.

The actual words rarely matter, it’s all about getting them out. It’s the best way I currently know that consistently helps me untangle something that’s bothering me, solve problems that I can’t quite articulate, or get something out of my system so I can move on. I always feel noticeably lighter after writing 750 words.

More productivity tips from entrepreneurs:

Evan Williams: Workout When You’re Least Productive
Erin McKean: Schedule Easy, Small Tasks as Work Breaks
Loïc Le Meur: Meditate – It’s the Productivity Trick People Are Afraid to Talk About
Chris Messina: Build Tiny Habits: They Can Be Surprisingly Powerful
Joel Gascoigne: Optimize Your Daily Routines
Marshall Kirkpatrick: Hack the Science of Behavior Change

There is one thing that all of these entrepreneurs have in common: they’ve all built habits using Lift. 

Download Lift’s iPhone App

Sign up for the web beta

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Erin McKean, the founder of the online dictionary Wordnik, interrupts her schedule with small, easy tasks in order to increase her productivity.

What’s the science behind “productive” distractions? Dr. Shelley Carson of Harvard University discovered that focusing on a problem limits creativity because you become more selective when responding to brain signals.  Switching to a task that requires less focus reverses the bias and therefore increases your ability to think creatively.

Working on something else is a great way to clear your mind of the ‘primary problems.’ There’s only so far you can run and only so many showers you can take to try to trigger that creative distance. Sometimes stepping away from the problem is the best way to solve it.

When I want a little break, I look at my daily Lift goals and tackle one of them. I like Robert Benchley’s maxim: Anyone can do any amount of work, provided it isn’t the work he is supposed be doing at that moment.” Doing that ‘work I’m not supposed to be doing’ is much more productive than looking at funny cat pictures!

More productivity tips from entrepreneurs:

Evan Williams: Workout When You’re Least Productive
Loïc Le Meur: Meditate – It’s the Productivity Trick People Are Afraid to Talk About
Chris Messina: Build Tiny Habits: They Can Be Surprisingly Powerful
Joel Gascoigne: Optimize Your Daily Routines
Buster Benson: Experiment with New Habits Regularly
Marshall Kirkpatrick: Hack the Science of Behavior Change

There is one thing that all of these entrepreneurs have in common: they’ve all built habits using Lift. 

Download Lift’s iPhone App

Sign up for the web beta