Charles Duhigg's guide to living a productive life

From note-taking to grocery shopping, we are growing more dependent on productivity apps in our race to get things done quickly and easily.

According to Flurry Insights, productivity app usage jumped 125 percent just between 2014 and 2015, but Pulitzer Price-winning New York Times reporter Charles Duhigg believes it takes more than technology and to-do lists to be productive, as he explains in his new book, "Smarter, Faster, Better: The Secrets of Being Productive in Life and Business."

After studying over 400 individuals - artists, entrepreneurs and military officials -- what Duhigg found in common among the most productive people is that they "build systems into their days, to take time to make themselves think a little bit more deeply about what's important to them and how to get it done," he told "CBS This Morning" Monday.

What's more important than simply piling onto your "to-do list," is choosing the "right goals" to focus on, Duhigg said. A LinkedIn survey found that just 11 percent of global professionals said they accomplished the tasks they set out to do on a given day, although more than half created to-do lists. According to Duhigg, the order in which you list those goals could make all the difference.

"We write some big goals at the bottom of the list and some things that are easy at the top of the list because it feels so good to check them off and get them done," Duhigg said. But it turns out that psychologists and neurologists say the right way to it is to put the toughest goals at the top of the page and underneath, break that into a plan, where you can specify specifically what you want to get done, how you're going to measure it. That's what's going to make it easy to start and make sure that you don't lose track of the most important things."

Duhigg's research helped him in his own life to prioritize family dinners, which has enormous benefits, including boosting school performance, encouraging healthy eating, lowering risks of depression, smoking and drinking and fostering better parent-child relationships, according to the Washington Post.

By asking "why" the family couldn't manage to have dinner together, Duhigg and his wife were able to trace the problem back to the time wasted on the delayed start to the day because of time wasted on choosing the kids' outfits in the morning.

Looking at successful groups such as Google and Saturday Night Live, Dugghis also found that an environment where everyone can speak up equally and is skillful in reading each other's emotions creates a sense of psychological safety, togetherness and control that allows for the most effective teamwork.

Duhigg explained that this science of productivity was the reason behind the success of Disney's hit movie, "Frozen." While the film was initially on "the brink of catastrophe," its creators reached a "creative breakthrough" once they took charge in their decision to make it a movie about sisters.

"Putting all the smart people in one team - that won't work, unless you have a smart culture, a smart process or people really feeling like they could say what they need to say," Duhigg said.