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Productivity tips from Ireland’s leading professional organiser
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To celebrate the launch of the all-new AI-enhanced Galaxy 25, S25 Ultra, S25 Edge and S25+ series of devices which can radically enhance and empower your day-to-day, we sit down with Sarah Reynolds, founder of Organised Chaos, to get some insight into how we can use our time more efficiently, remain task-focused, and maximise our morning routine.
When it comes to time management, staying on task, and staying on schedule–I bet we all feel we could do with a little help. How can we streamline our day-to-day life? How can we settle into a rhythm that won’t leave us scrambling around at the last minute to tick all of our boxes?
We spoke with productivity expert Sarah Reynolds, founder of Organised Chaos, to get her perspective on organisation and some practical advice on how we can stay on top of things and take back control of our lives for fresh thinking, creativity and planning for the weeks, months and year ahead.
As expected, her insight was invaluable.
I feel like I’m stuck in the day-to-day tasks and can never quite catch up on myself. Do you see this a lot with your clients?
Absolutely—this is incredibly common! Life today is busier than ever, and often we wear that busyness like a badge of honour. But sometimes, constantly filling our schedules can also be a way of avoiding certain emotions or decisions, so it’s worth gently asking ourselves: “Is that what’s happening here?”
The truth is, we’ll likely never “catch up” on everything. Instead, we need to get better at prioritising—it’s like building muscle. We also need to reconnect with what’s genuinely important to us: what we truly want to create, experience, and who we want to spend our time with. When we step out of the chaos, even briefly, we can start to shape how we spend, use, and protect our time.
Here’s the irony: most of us have more time than we realise. But we only discover that when we slow down enough to actually look. If you want to move faster, you first have to stop rushing. If you want to feel on top of your time, you have to take time to organise it. Slow down to speed up. That’s how you take back control.
How can I start to use my time more efficiently? Please share a few tips.
Prioritise with purpose
Each day, identify the top three things you absolutely need to get done. Yes, your to-do list might be a mile long—but choosing just three forces clarity. Structure your day around those priorities. If you complete them, everything else becomes a bonus—and you’ll know the essentials were handled.
When you’re juggling a lot, it can feel overwhelming to decide what should come first. Some tasks might seem equally important, but remember: doing one thing at a time is prioritising—so why not do it intentionally?
Focus on tasks that will reduce stress, move a project forward, or help someone else keep momentum. Consider dependencies—what needs to happen before others can act? And look ahead: check your calendar, map out deadlines, and work backwards. This will help you make smarter decisions about what needs attention today.
Technology solutions to support you
There are a lot of clever technology solutions out there for you, so you don’t have to do all the hard slog yourself. The new Samsung Galaxy S25 series of devices offers an array of time-saving, productivity-boosting bonus features. The phone’s enhanced AI functionality can transcribe meetings in real-time and pull out action points, summarise emails in seconds while suggesting smart replies, and improve your remote working life with clever noise cancellation that means your voice comes through crisp and clear, even if you’re dialling in from a bustling café or a chaotic kitchen.
Use the Pomodoro Technique
To focus the brain and reduce distractions, use the Pomodoro Technique. This is where you work in focused 25-minute intervals, followed by a 5-minute break. After four cycles, take a longer break (15–30 minutes). It boosts focus, reduces burnout, and helps you work with time—not against it.
Time block your calendar
Scan your to-do list and identify the 4–5 main “buckets” your tasks typically fall into. For example:
- Issue invoice/ Finance
- Write article/ Finish Presentation/ Marketing
- Sales call/ Sales
Most of your tasks will slot into a few key categories. Once you’ve named them, assign each one a dedicated time block in your calendar.
To take it further, colour-code each category—this visual cue helps your brain instantly know what mode you should be in. When it’s “Marketing” time, jump into the next marketing-related task on your list.
If something shifts and you can’t tackle that block today, no stress—you can reschedule the category, rather than every single task. This system gives your tasks a proper place, clears mental clutter, and lets you stay flexible without losing focus
Let’s talk e-mails
The best time to check emails is after you’ve completed your first, most important task of the day. If you live inside your inbox, you’re constantly fighting fires and reacting to what other people need from you. It feels like you’re working, but it’s usually shallow work, and it rarely moves the needle on what truly matters.
To make real progress, you need to get out of email and into deep, focused work that advances a project or your career. Start your day by completing your first, most important task (not necessarily the hardest!), then move into your inbox. Easier said than done — but game-changing when you do!
Batch process instead of constantly checking
Rather than living in your inbox, try checking emails at set times: maybe 9.30am, just before lunch, just after lunch, and again at 4pm. Batching your email time helps you stay focused on the work that matters most.
Turn off notifications
One of the quickest ways to stay trapped in your inbox is letting notifications constantly ping in the corner of your screen. Email taps into our brain’s reward system, distracting us and shutting down higher-level thinking until we click to see what’s behind the alert. By turning off notifications, you take back control of your focus–and your day.
Set expectations in your emails
Consider adding a short note at the bottom of your emails explaining how people can best reach you, and what kind of reply timeframe they can expect. This small change helps set clear boundaries and gently pushes back against the “always on” culture that email can create.
Unsubscribe ruthlessly
Be brutal about unsubscribing from anything you don’t need. For subscription emails you do want to keep, create a separate email address and route them there instead—it keeps your main inbox clean and much easier to manage.
What should be my ideal morning routine to maximise productivity?
An ideal morning routine is completely individual—it depends on your stage of life, your work, your health, and your personal circumstances. A morning routine for an entrepreneur will look very different from someone working a 9–5 job, and completely different again for someone doing shift work. Likewise, if you have children, your mornings will need a different rhythm than someone without. And if you’re naturally a night owl, your key routine might actually happen in the evening instead!
The key is this:
Decide what the one most important thing you want to do for yourself is, and do it first thing. Before work demands kick in. Before emails start flying. Before the kids wake up (yes, that might mean getting up a little earlier).
If your priority is fitness, your workout or walk should happen first.
If your priority is quality time with your kids, get yourself ready first so you can enjoy a relaxed breakfast together.
If your goal is to write a book, carve out 20 minutes—or aim to complete three pages—before anything else.
When you prioritise yourself first, you set the tone for your entire day. Because if you don’t put yourself first… no one else will.
I want to allow more time for creativity and ideation. Could you share some tips?
The truth is, if it’s not scheduled, it’s unlikely to happen. Blocking time in your calendar is essential — it dramatically increases the chances that you’ll actually do the things you say you want to do.
Of course, life happens, and things may occasionally shift, but if you rely on “hoping” to find time, it rarely works out.
I hear this all the time from clients who want more space for creativity, research, catching up on business podcasts, or reading articles they’ve saved. Without deliberate scheduling, these tasks usually get pushed aside. That’s why I always recommend treating creative time as seriously as any other important commitment, and putting it in the calendar.
If possible, try to do creative work first thing in the day, before the busy demands of work take over. Alternatively, Friday afternoons—when the pace of the office tends to slow—can also be a great time. Look across your week for natural pockets of breathing space, and intentionally reserve them for ideation and creativity.
And finally, it comes down to discipline. Once you’ve blocked the time, protect it. Treat it like an appointment with yourself—one that’s just as important as any meeting with someone else. Because when you honour that time, you’re also honouring your bigger goals.
Finally, after implementing these changes, what can I expect?
Hopefully, you’ll feel more in control of your time, giving you visibility on what’s needed and what’s not and what’s important and what’s not. From that, you will see more pockets of time than before.
One client remarked that using time blocking and colour coding gave a visual scan to not only see the noise and bottlenecks in her week, but also to see the success and how much she actually was managing to do! This was a “game changer” for her.
Another busy working mother checks in quarterly with her time management in order to check in on herself. By examining her time at regular intervals, it allows her to catch up on tasks and get ahead instead of coasting along or letting other tasks or people dictate her time. These check-ins keep her accountable and more disciplined with managing her time, which in turn gives her more of it!
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Portraits by Darren Fitzpatrick
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