10 Cheap Buys for $252 Total That Dramatically Improved My Productivity6 min read

Today, I’m going to show you how to spend $252 and at least double your productivity in one week (if you choose rushed delivery).

Hundreds of advertising campaigns and marketing schemes promise that if I “buy this organization software,” I will 10x my productivity. If I buy this fancy clock, I will be able to focus for 6 hours straight. They never work. I revert back to the same tactics, strategies, and lackluster work efforts. Ten years of this have allowed me to identify the surprisingly cheap and actually game-changing interventions. The ones that do work.

The problem is that most software or services hide behind great design or advertising while forgetting what matters: the result to the user. Being organically exposed to a product is increasingly rare, with most of the things you buy being a result of advertising or marketing. Most people will stick to this status quo. Most people will continue to purchase bloated software or awful clocks that have 0 impact.

A $5 coffee is better than a $5,000 productivity course.

These are all real things that I’ve used, at least for the past year, that have moved the needle. The benefits of these interventions are:

• Ignoring Motivation
• Developing a Plan
• Using Your Brain’s Natural Abilities
• Having Fun

Here’s your wish list for your next $252:

*There are affiliate links throughout this post, to read more about why I put them click here*

Buy #1 – Graph Paper ($8)

Organized scratch paper. This is what professional engineers, consultants, and architects use across the world for a reason. Blank sheets of paper can lead to missing information or, worse, lost information due to disorganization. Key advantages are:

• Math
• Structure
• Data representation
• Precision

Buy #2 – Uber and a Coffee ($15)

If you can commit 2-3 hours a day for a year to deep work, your life will be changed. I promise.

Every other morning, I drive, walk, or bike to a coffee shop or library and commit 2 to 3 hours to work on my content or another side project. I buy a coffee—an iced latte when it’s hot and black coffee when it’s cold—sit in a corner, open my MacBook Air, pop in my AirPods on noise-canceling mode, hit play on a classical music playlist on Spotify, and often don’t move for three solid hours.

I am so magically effective in these 3 hours that even the fattest, stinkiest, most scary-looking frog looks like an ice cream sundae. It is no match for my 8-11 am super-sayan productivity superpowers.

Make sure you combine this with buys 3-7 for maximum efficacy.

Buy #3 – Spotify ($11) + Noise Cancelling Headphones ($44)

See above.

Buy #4 – Pomodoro Timer ($10)

50 minutes of work → 10-minute break → 50 minutes of work → 30-minute break, that’s one Pomodoro session. Repeat x3 times a day, x5 days a week, x 40 weeks a year, x1 year, and you will be ahead of 99% of your peers.

Another good option is 25 minutes of work → 5-minute break → 25 minutes of work → 5-minute break → 25 minutes of work → 5-minute break → 25 minutes of work → 30-minute break.

Both equal about 100 minutes of work and 40 minutes of break.

I prefer to use a simple, ugly app on my computer called Focus Timer. The ones where you grow forests on your phone or build armies make it too easy to be distracted by games or other things on our phones.

Buy #5 – Things App ($50)

It is the most expensive purchase, but this is my favorite ToDo tracker to keep track of every single idea or to-do that pops into my head. My life organization looks something like this:

1. Figure out priorities and yearly goals
2. Break those down into monthly, weekly, and daily plans
3. When new ideas or todos come up, I instantly put them into the Things App using the action button and voice-to-text on my iPhone 15 Pro.
4. On Sunday, my day off, and when I plan my next week, I go through all the ToDos and either do them or sort them into the four notes sections.
5. Plan a big goal or two for every day of the week, and an hour-by-hour plan for Monday.

Buy #6 – Post-it Notes ($1)

I use post-it notes for two main things:

• Planning the next day, the night before, and then putting that Post-it into my journal
• Posting place-specific reminders throughout my house, like, “Read More!” on my bookshelf
• I was trying to use it to even out a bookshelf and then quickly realized it was a big mistake and had 100 books fall on me and proceeded to hate Post-it notes for 3 hours until I realized it was actually my stupid fault in the first place using slidy paper to support >100 pounds of wood and books…

Buy #7 – LEUCHTTURM1917 Notebook ($27) + Muji Pen ($2)

I’ve tried 7 notebook brands and 13 pen brands, these are the best two. Plain and simple.

Usually, I have 3-5 physical notebooks that I am always using at one point of time:

1. Notebook for weekly life planning and normal YouTube/Website/Newsletter content
2. BIG Zach Highley Ideas and plans
3. Personal Journal
4. Project 1
5. Project 2

Buy #8 – Smart Light ($13) + Smart Home ($17)

Evidence shows that certain light intensities and wavelengths are better early in the morning and during the day, and another quality is better at night. Morning and daylight cannot usually be accomplished by artificial light; natural light is the best bet to wake you up. However, at night, an orangey-hued soft light is our best bet to help us fall asleep. You can arrange these lights to fade at a certain time, turn on at a certain time, and react to certain things (like when you arrive or leave home).

Buy #9 – WhiteBoard ($40)

Whiteboards are great for problem-solving, brainstorming, and visual collaborative communication:

• Mind-Mapping
• SWOT analysis
• Post-it Notes organization
• Pros/Cons
• Fishbone diagram
• Storyboarding
• Flowchart

Really anything you saw written on a whiteboard in the show Silicon Valley will do.

Buy #10 – Yoga Mat ($15)

A sedentary lifestyle is one of the quickest ways to damage not only our physical health but also our mental health. At every Pomodoro break, I either use the yoga mat, go for a walk, or do something active to break up my not moving. I also love yoga. 2 for one, BAM, that’s the double-super-awesome productivity tips you can expect from Zach Highley.

I use all of these things, every single working day. Hope it helps!