How Sam Altman Prioritizes + His Productivity System

“Priorization is hard” - every founder I’ve ever met

So let’s dive into a framework used by Altman.

He has a simple system:

• Make sure to get important shit done

• Don’t waste time on stupid shit

• Make a lot of lists

Wait - ‘make a lot of lists’?

Here is his process, he makes lists for year, month and day.

Why lists? He claims they are very focusing - helping him to easily work on various tasks and reduce the load on multi-tasking.

But - he doesn’t categorize lists. He writes them down on paper to avoid being rude. He puts a star only next to important items.

We imagine it to look something like this:

He claims most meetings scheduled are good for 15-20 minutes or 2 hours. The default 1 hour is usually wrong and leads to a lot of wasted time.

He uses a circadian light instrument in the morning to help him focus and wake up in the morning.

He smokes cannabis and takes sleeping pills while travelling before he sleeps.

Now, I’m not saying this is great advice - some of it is controversial.

I highlighted what I think are his top hacks, but if you’re interested in reading the rest, you can read more here: https://blog.samaltman.com/productivity