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Eva Redpath

“If you’re the type of person who fills your day planner with all your appointments – lunch dates, hair appointments, meetings – then schedule in your workouts. Because if it’s not a forethought,  you may not get it done.”

Eva Redpath, Nike Master Trainer

​​​​​​​Saadia Muzaffar

“My favourite productivity hack is reverse-engineering drop-dead dates: If I have a plan due on a particular date, I break down the clusters of work that need to happen before the plan can come together and work back from the due date to ensure that I take care of the right tasks first.”

Saadia Muzaffar, creator of the non-profit TechGirls Canada

Ali Rayl

“Sleep is the most precious and valuable thing. If I get a solid seven or eight hours, I am a much happier and productive and healthy human the next day. And for every day that I have sufficient sleep, I execute better the next day and feel the difference in terms of how productive I am at work and how good I feel about the work I am producing.”

Ali Rayl, head of global customer experience at Slack

Brittany Forsyth

“To boost my morning productivity, I meditate. Taking a calming moment and creating space to collect myself before needing to ‘Get Shit Done’ (one of our company values) helps me become my most strategic and thoughtful self. After this, I create a daily list of all the things I need to accomplish and pick my top one or two focus areas for the day – anything extra is a bonus.”

Brittany Forsyth, senior vice-president of human relations at Shopify

​​​​​​​Bianca Harris

“I think part of being productive is turning off. So, yoga at end of day; listening to music and relaxing in the morning. This gives me space to want to work when I do. Taking time to stop and have fun.”

Bianca Harris, founder of Women Inspiring Passion and Purpose

Susannah Rosenstock

“Keep work time for work. It’s hard to avoid being social — and it doesn’t make you the most popular person in the office — but if you really focus on work, you can get a lot done in a day.”

Susannah Rosenstock, director of Art Toronto

LaTiesha Fazakas

“I had a terrible habit of checking and responding to emails in the middle of the night. I wear glasses and have a love-hate relationship with autocorrect, so that resulted in some interesting responses from me. I learned that sending out immediate gobbledygook is not better than a clean response a few hours later. So I created a rule for myself: My cellphone is not allowed in my bedroom, even during the day.”

LaTiesha Fazakas, owner of the Fazakas Gallery and Artwise Consulting

​​​​​​​Wei Li

“After years of battling procrastination, I finally realized that it’s necessary to prioritize important tasks over urgent tasks. When important things get delayed, they turn into important and urgent tasks — that leaves you with very limited room, and you suffer mentally.”

Wei Li, artist

Naki Osutei

“Working out in the morning always boosts my productivity. Even if I can’t get to the gym, I’ll do three sets of my ‘25-10s’ — 25 squats and sit-ups and 10 push-ups and burpees — just to get me in the right headspace. I also find that sending my friends and family members a quick good-morning message and positive thoughts helps keep my own energy up throughout the day. At the end of the day, I’ll journal about things that happened that I’m grateful for. Sometimes I do this in the form of a short story about my subway ride that I’ll share with my friends and family to make them laugh.”

Naki Osutei, director of partnerships and engagement for TD Bank Group’s Community Relations and Corporate Citizenship and the founder of Presence by Naki O

Helena Loureiro

Courtesty of Helena Loureiro

"I depend on my team, my employees a lot. I try to transmit my passion and motivation as much as I can. Always remind ourselves why we are here, why we are doing this. Without passion there wouldn't be a restaurant, which means no productivity. We always try to reinvent. I invest as much as I can to give good tools to my employees to raise their productivity level. We work best as a team."

Helena Loureiro, chef and owner of Helena in Montreal

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