Seven productivity tricks that have worked for me
Launching into the new year with some introspection on habits I've built over the years
Before I get into it, happy new year! One of my favourite parts of January is being able to start with a blank slate, particularly when it comes to establishing new habits or starting a new streak for maintaining good habits. In multiple catchups with friends over the past few weeks, a big theme has been swapping tips and tricks for good habits, and I figured I’d compile some of those here. These apply both in a professional and personal context!
1: Start from a rough outline or roadmap and flesh it out as you go along
As the most literal example, I do this at work when I am writing up documents. I always start with laying out my headers and naming the document before I give myself some time to process. Once I’ve had some time to think, I sit down and then draft up the contents. As I write, I adjust and rearrange the headings. I treat the rough outline step as a way to kickstart brainstorming and thinking that also removes the risk of distraction/procrastination with naming/renaming sections, tweaking header formats, and renaming the document repeatedly once I sit down to get started with writing.
In a personal context, this is 100% how I approach planning my travels. I generally drop in a few blocks of key activities that I want to do on a given trip. Then, I fill in the details around those key activities as I get closer to the trip, or even after the trip has started. This approach also reserves space for spontaneity or unforeseen changes in circumstance.
2: Reserve (and protect) time for Tasks
To me, a capital-t Task is something that is quite important. It needs to happen in order to avoid significant repercussions. In a personal life context, this includes things like paying the bills or dealing with bank issues. It also includes more fun tasks like writing a birthday card for a good friend or booking flights for a wedding. Regardless of fun or not, once a task is important enough to be deemed a Task, I will reserve time for it on my calendar. As much as possible, I treat this sort of calendared time as sacred and avoid scheduling over it or moving it around excessively.
Similarly, at work, I’ll use focus blocks for Tasks. I communicate to my manager in advance if there are really big blocks of time that I need to protect. That way, we can work together to avoid scheduling over those blocks.
3: Distinguish between recurring and one-off Tasks
The way in which I reserve time for a given Task depends on whether it’s a one-off or a recurring responsibility. If it’s recurring, I will be more thoughtful about when I slot it in. At work, I try to group relevant recurring tasks together. For example: I'll group together original content creation and checking in with others for status updates for the same recurring weekly meeting. By grouping the relevant tasks together, I reduce some of my context switching overhead. If it’s a one-off and it requires me to work late on one day, I am more willing to accommodate that in my personal schedule. If it’s a recurring Task and will lead to a late end time for me every Monday, I will spend more time thinking about whether it makes sense to do it then, or if I should work with the other stakeholders to adjust the timing.
In my personal life, I further segment recurring Tasks by how quick or lengthy they are. If they’re quick, I like to spread them out over the week so that I can enjoy more of my weekend as true leisure time.
4: Invest in reducing overhead on recurring Tasks
There’s a great XKCD comic on this.
I have pretty high tolerance for manual tasks so this is one where I have to be quite deliberate. I’ve found that at work, my manager and other peers can help keep me accountable. In my personal life, I tend to avoid investing in reducing overhead on recurring Tasks out of a fear of over-complication. However, as time has gone on, I’ve discovered that even just taking the time to review my own process or think about where I might be wasting time on repeated activities can uncover some quick wins.
5: Communicate proactively for accountability and/or support
It goes without saying (lol) that this is pretty important at work. I do an end-of-week review with my manager on everything I’m working on for her to understand what I’m prioritizing, what might not get done in the following week, and where I need her input. However, in my personal life, I’ve learned that talking about what I’m working on or trying to do with friends has also helped tremendously. Sometimes it’s to build accountability so I follow through on something. Other times it’s discovering that someone else has done what I’m about to go do and they have good tips and tricks for me on how to save time. And even if it’s neither of these scenarios, sometimes it’s just nice to have a sounding board and support from others before taking on a Task.
6: Don’t skimp on the prework; it pays dividends
This might sound very work-specific, but I promise it’s not. I’ll start with some personal examples:
If a friend is coming to town, doing some quick research on if there are cool activities or spots we can go see together. This can pay dividends when their visit is much more fulfilling and the time together isn’t spent debating what to do
If I’m going out to dinner with friends, skimming the menu to decide what I might want to eat. Then I can suggest menu items even if we’re mid-conversation when the waiter comes to take our order. This sounds small and silly, but the number of times this has happened to me is not low!
If I have an early start in the morning, I pack my bag the night before. I put the shoes I’m going to wear by the door. I pick out my outfit! It all sounds obvious but it goes a long way in making the morning more smooth and putting me in a better headspace
At work, this translates into examples such as:
Making sure I research someone’s background if I’m meeting them for the first time
Always having an agenda for meetings even if I’m not expected to run them (just in case no one else does)
Reserving a few minutes for prereads before meetings if materials have been sent in advance
7: Derisk, derisk, derisk
The most obvious work example that comes to mind is doing the right level of research before investing in a solution. There are different frameworks for doing this depending on your discipline at work so I won’t get into that here.
In my personal life, a recent example is how I approached unpacking and organizing my kitchen cabinets. I started out with sticky notes to delineate what I wanted to put in each cabinet. I unpacked some of each item to test out how it felt in the given cabinet and how well it fit. Then, I rearranged and reshuffled before unpacking fully, reducing the amount of work needed to unpack overall. (There’s nothing worse than unpacking a box into the wrong cabinet and having to relocate it all to the next cabinet over…)
If I had to sum up derisking in plain speak, it would be: Don’t do all the work at once. Stop partway and take a step back and ask yourself if it looks right. If it doesn’t, play around with it until it feels better and then finish up the rest of the task.