Marketer and Content Creator Mady Dewey Shares Her Top 3 Productivity Tips

Plus, the SI Swimsuit rookie offers her go-to practices for work-life balance.

Mady Dewey.Ivan Apfel/Getty Images

When it comes to productivity tips, there’s no shortage of resources available. Whether you’re looking to streamline your workdays or gain a better work-life balance, there are numerous books, podcasts and business leaders to advise. However, when we need some actionable productivity hacks, we have a go-to source: 2023 SI Swimsuit rookie and tech entrepreneur Mady Dewey.

After a jam-packed summer of SI Swimsuit events, the 26-year-old is kicking off the fall season with an exciting new career move. Dewey recently joined Try Your Best as head of product marketing, and is thrilled for this next step in her professional journey. We chatted with the San Francisco resident to learn her top productivity tips, understand how she balances her career with her personal life and more.

Plan for success—literally

Dewey’s role allows her to work from home, and she has a few best practices for setting herself up for success before the work week even begins. Most notably, taking inventory of her week before it starts.

“I believe that a good week is built from a good Sunday night or Monday morning, so I schedule in pretty much everything in my life, and that includes breaks, that includes time for myself,” Dewey shares. “I’ve found that if I don’t put on my calendar, for example, like I’m going to go on a walk on Tuesday morning, even if it's for 15 minutes, I have a harder time holding myself accountable. So it’s really about putting the things in my calendar that I want to make time for so that I make the time and then instead of deleting things as the week gets busy, just shifting them.”

Workdays often end up looking different than what we initially plan for, so Dewey stresses that it’s important to be flexible without allowing your work hours to cut into your personal time.

“I think it’s really important to show up for yourself in order to show up as your best self for work,” she says. “So for me, that includes having time with my partner, having time with my friends, spending time with myself and moving my body. Whatever those things are from you, [you have to] just be really adamant about sticking to the time that you set aside for yourself.”

And with the changing of the seasons just around the corner, Dewey makes sure to shift her schedule around in order to get outside while it’s still light out.

“Oftentimes in the fall, I’ll make sure that I have my day ending at the time it needs to so that I can get outside and go for a walk or go do something where I’m able to be in the light before it gets dark,” she shares.

Try monotasking

Monotasking, or single-tasking, is exactly what it sounds like: focusing on one task while blocking out distractions for a specific period of time. Dewey uses a tool called Spacetime Monotasking that allows her to hone her focus in a group setting.

“You can go on and find sessions where you’re essentially on Zoom with a bunch of other people that work remotely, and you say the one thing that you’re going to do and you turn off all your notifications and you focus on that one task,” Dewey explains. “For me, that’s actually helped a ton with my work-life balance because I’m just more effective and more efficient, and so I’m able to actually get the things done that I need to get done versus feeling like I get 10 things started and nothing done.”

Check out Dewey’s favorite productivity tool here—drop-in classes start at just $10.

Make time for yourself outside of work

In order to boost her productivity, Dewey makes sure to start and end her day with dedicated time for herself, whether that’s going for a morning walk or stretching for 10 minutes, or taking a yoga class with her partner in the evening.

“I think it’s so easy to live for the weekends when you have a corporate job,” she says. “I really found in the first two years of my career that I wasn’t making any time for fun things after work. And so now I just plan it and schedule it, and I’ve found that if you have a commitment to someone else outside of yourself, it’s also really much easier to make sure that you stay true to that commitment.”

And once the weekends roll around, Dewey typically schedules at least one fun activity with friends while also making sure to prioritize rest before the new week begins.

“I just try to commit to one thing and then I let the rest of my weekend kind of fall into place around that,” she says. “It gives me a good balance of feeling like I’m prioritizing the things I want to prioritize, but also giving myself the space to lay in bed for a little bit longer if I want to or just go and watch a movie spontaneously.”

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