Nicholas Bate

Boost Your Productivity 7, Take 2

There is no shortage of systems out there to help you with your productivity, be it branded ones such as Getting Things Done or ingenious home-made rubber-banded collections of 3 by 5 cards.

Seven questions worth asking of your personal system as you give it an Autumn/Fall Overhaul:

1. How do I decide priorities? If a decision is not made on this then the likely prioritiser will be 'work, urgent'. This seems a natural thing to do until you realise it neglects say long-term strategy and one's personal health.
2. How do you stay proactive rather than just reactive? The ping of e-mail and the pull of the social media interface can encourage a 'just-about-keeping-up' feeling. How do you stop, think and make choices based upon your true priorities (see 1).
3. How do you anticipate? How do you avoid being caught out by the conference which is suddenly next week or by competitive activity which must have been happening for months?
4. How do you prepare big/chunky/daunting tasks for preparation? Small, easy tasks do get done. Cups of coffee do get made. But the new expenses policy is not getting written. How does any task become brain and time friendly?
5. How do you get the best of your greatest asset, thinking time?
6. How do you avoid simple overload?
7. How do you boost your creativity?

Simple suggestions:

1. Create a 'Personal Compass' : career, wellness, personal finances, relationships, fun and contribution. And align your priorities against those.
2. Switch off distractors.
3. Do a regular 'Forward View' where you scan your diary for weeks ahead. Do this the same day every week.
4. Break them down and break them down until they become time and brain friendly.
5. Schedule 'nothing' time and walk. And walk.
6. Prioritise (see 1) and accept that you cannot do everything.
7. Combine 5 and 6.

Detail and tips in free PDF here.

Boost Your Productivity 7

There is no shortage of systems out there to help you with your productivity, be it branded ones such as Getting Things Done or ingenious home-made rubber-banded collections of 3 by 5 cards.

Seven questions worth asking of your personal system as you give it an Autumn/Fall Overhaul:

1. How do I decide priorities? If a decision is not made on this then the likely prioritiser will be 'work, urgent'. This seems a natural thing to do until you realise it neglects say long-term strategy and one's personal health.
2. How do you stay proactive rather than just reactive? The ping of e-mail and the pull of the social media interface can encourage a 'just-about-keeping-up' feeling. How do you stop, think and make choices based upon your true priorities (see 1).
3. How do you anticipate? How do you avoid being caught out by the conference which is suddenly next week or by competitive activity which must have been happening for months?
4. How do you prepare big/chunky/daunting tasks for preparation? Small, easy tasks do get done. Cups of coffee do get made. But the new expenses policy is not getting written. How does any task become brain and time friendly?
5. How do you get the best of your greatest asset, thinking time?
6. How do you avoid simple overload?
7. How do you boost your creativity?

Some simple suggestions tomorrow.

Productividad Personal

This guy is awesome on productivity. And the perfect chance to sharpen up your Spanish.

How To Boost Your Productivity 20

1. (Re-) Set your goals. Prioritisation cannot be done in a vacuum, it needs to be done against a higher focus i.e. your goals. Ensure these are not solely work based.
2. Decide the tasks which need to be done to support these goals. Given your goals, some of these tasks will be work based  but some should clearly be personal/family/you/'Life' based.
3. Sort the goals i.e. prioritise them according to impact on achieving your goals. Consistently search for the vital few  (i.e. high return for least effort) tasks rather than the trivial many.
4. Find your work style. Morning person? Evening person? Short, sharp bursts? Steady, consistent? Once discovered, create a day and environment that supports that style as much as possible e.g. do your best to not be stuck on an over-crowded commuter train during your peak 'doing' time.
5. Each 'end of working day' before leaving for home, ask these questions: What's important about tomorrow? About next week? About next month? The answers will stretch your planning horizon, getting you anticipating, spreading the work-load and avoiding crises of work and unnecessary surprises.
6. Whatever your style, we all benefit hugely from the 'deep-dive' work period. Incredible concentration and high output. This needs to be totally distraction-free which is increasingly harder to do in times of beeping e-mail and accessible data. Switch it all off for a while.
7. Remember the mind-body connection. For us knowledge workers we consider our mind to be the producer of productivity. True. But the body must be at its best to support that mind. Stop to stretch, walk, get fresh air and drink some water. Take proper breaks.
8. Organise systems so that you can get what you need quickly whether it is a fresh seet of paper for the printer or the client's file. 
9. Remember efficiency vs. effectiveness. Efficiency is getting things done. Effectiveness is getting the right things done. Hence the reason for number 1 above.
10. Remember strategy vs. tactics. Ask the question: do I need to get more detailed here? Or in fact, am I so detailed that I am losing the wood for the trees?
11. Remember decision vs. action. It is easy to make a decision 'I will do more prospecting to find new business'. It is the action (picking up the phone) which causes increased productivity.
12. Remember meeting vs. indulgence. A meeting with little or no output is an indulgence. 'N' people for 'm' minutes at 'x' cost.  What's the RoI?
13. Remember bullet vs. narrative. The increasing tendency to brief by sending someone a slide-deck while easy, perhaps even efficient is not productive. People need a joined-up brief. Invest the time for a proper return.
14. Avoid fatigue at all costs. Its impact on efficiency may not be that dramatic initially but its harm to creativity is frightening.
    
15. Real breakthroughs in productivity come from being creative: seeing the fresh angle. That requires energy and reflection time. Protect them at all costs.
16. Allow regular re-focus time. And go back to 1,2 and 3.
17. Have a list but just one list. Of all you want to do and have to do.
18. Have a schedule.  Of when you plan to do things.
19. In essence productivity is what and when. Work at getting those two elements to be at their best.
20. Remember that ultimately productivity is a philosophy. It is knowing what is important to you and allowing your mind to work at its optimum to release the best version of you. It is unlikely to be (solely) a bit of software nor an additional bit of hardware.

Matthew Cornell Shares

some great productivity thinking.

How To Get Focus 10

1. Switch off phone and e-mail.
2. Clear the desk.
3. Capture the yellow stickies onto one list.
4. Write on the same list as 3 above, what else needs to be done.
5. Take a break, walk and get fresh air.
6. On the walk decide your priorities.
7. Return: grab pencil and paper.
8. At speed, re-prioritise the list against current goals decided on 6, your walk.
9. Work the list.
10. Decide not to get into this state again.

 

Seven Handy Productivity Strategies

1. The Forward View: roll out the schedule and ask: what's coming up? Note a few and start preparing now. Avoids surprises.
2. The Break, Break and Date: take a big project and or task and smash it to pieces and then decide when you will do each piece.
3. The Postpone: when under pressure and stress is saying 'do everything', sit back and ask 'what could be safely delayed?'.
4. The Top Of The Mountain; take an hour out and gain perspective. What is really important here?
5. The 3 by 5 Card: all you need for the day. On one small card.
6. The One List, One Place: all you need to do, all you have to do. In one place.
7. The R&R: time to rest and recuperate.

 

How Do You Identify A High Priority Task?

"It's Done". Merlin Mann

Mmmm

How Good Is Your

multi-tasking?