Jack Dorsey uses a weird trick to stay productive while running two companies simultaneously

After getting ousted from Twitter seven years ago, Jack Dorsey has returned to his post as CEO.

He's also staying on as CEO of Square, the mobile payments company he founded in 2010. He plans to continue working eight hours a day at each company.

To those of us who struggle to juggle our responsibilities at one organization, Dorsey seems somewhat of a time-management guru.

Over at Forbes, Kevin Kruse recently highlighted one of Dorsey's key strategies for staying sane while handling multiple priorities.

In a 2011 interview at Techonomy, Dorsey said (bolding ours):

[T]he way I found that works for me is I theme my days. So on Monday at both companies I focus on management and running the company which is - we have our directional meeting at Square and we have our OpCom meeting at Twitter. I do all my management one-on-ones on that day.

Tuesday is focused on product. Wednesday is focused on marketing and communications and growth. Thursday is focused on developers and partnerships and Friday is focused on the company and the culture and recruiting. Saturday I take off. I hike. And then Sunday is reflections, feedback, strategy and getting ready for the rest of the week.

In the last few years, Dorsey's also shared some other aspects of his daily routine.

As he told Forbes in 2012, he blocks off time simply to stroll and ideate: "The best thinking time is just walking." At the time, his favorite path was that between Square headquarters, his old apartment, and Twitter's offices, all within a few blocks of each other.

In 2013, The Next Web recapped Dorsey's contributions at Y Combinator's Startup School event. Apparently, Dorsey outlines both "do" and "don't" lists that he follows daily.

Some items from the "don't" list: Don't avoid eye contact, don't be late, don't set expectations and not meet them.

And from the "do" list: Be vulnerable, drink only lemon water and red wine, get seven hours of sleep.

Assuming he really does spend seven hours in bed, that basically means Dorsey's got one hour of leisure (8 hours at Twitter + 8 hours at Square + 7 hours sleeping = 23 hours). So perhaps the real time-management secret that keeps him going is simply insane dedication.