The Ivy Lee method is a 100-year-old strategy for helping people become more productive at work. Under the method, at the end of each night you write down your six most important tasks to accomplish the following day in order of importance. The next day, you begin working on the tasks one at a time.The strategy works because it reduces "decision fatigue," saves you time, and forces you to prioritise your goals.

Today is Friday. Contrary to the teeny-bopper warbling of Rebecca Black, you do not need to get down tonight (or up, or sideways). Instead, your plan should involve precisely nothing - especially if you have children.

You missed your kid's soccer game again because you've been working on that big client report, the one you're still behind on. Oh, and didn't you promise to bring muffins to the school bake sale tomorrow? And there's that meeting at 10am, and the pediatrician appointment at 11:30, and ugh, you should probably buy toilet paper at some point. Everything seems to be hanging by a thread - your job, your family life, your sanity. And your refrigerator smells.

Your Mac comes packed with a perfectly fine calendar app, but it's lacking advanced features, multiple ways to view your calendar and external service integration. For all that and more, we like Fantastical.

Our workdays often are governed not by priorities or desires but by what's screaming loudest and closest in our faces. Well intentioned as you might be about having a productive day, it's easy for the hours to pass in a flurry of emails, meetings and demands that eat away at your time like a tapeworm -- stealthy, but destructive.

Take control of your projects and make it easy for others to respond quickly to your requests by phrasing them as a yes or no question. This method keeps others' busy schedules from cutting into your productivity.