I just wanted to quickly share a good GMail setup I am trialling to help me stop checking email all the time which can be very counter productive. This little tip could be used for any email client which instantly checks and notifies you of new email. Windows clients like Outlook should have a control to stop checking email so you wont need this.
One of the most important aspects of being productive (perhaps the most important?) is the process of gathering, organising and planning all the "things" you need to do. This process is the building block of any productive system and ensures you have a solid ground to start your productive lifestyle. It ensures you have:-
Is the working week too long for you? Do you look forward to Saturdays (and not a Monday to Friday)? Are your important business activities like marketing slipping behind? You are probably working on customer projects 5 days a week and have no time to work on anything else. No one can blame you for that but why not take the decision to work only 4 days on customer activities and dedicated 1 day a week to working on these other things (or not working at all)?
This blog is a quick tip on freeing up one day a week to concentrate on other non-customer related activities.
Have too much work to handle? Working evenings and weekends? Receiving “chase up” emails or phone calls from customers for late work? Missing deadlines?
We have all been there and know it can be quite stressful to fall behind in work, and of course could negatively affect the business. I was in this high workload situation following the birth of my children due to my desire to spend less time working evenings and weekends and more time with the family. All of a sudden my “catch up” time that I used for work was gone, and I could not process it all during the average work week.
If, like me, you know you have enough work for one person to handle, but it’s just falling behind anyway, it’s definitely time to improve your working processes making you far more efficient and having an easier and more enjoyable life. I had the following goals in mind:
There are so many things, not just my work, that contribute to the above. With a lot of research and experimentation, over the past few months I feel like I have achieved these goals (although I am constantly striving to improve them even more!). I am a far more relaxed person with a far more productive output.
First I read read books, websites and blogs on the subject and tried to follow them closely, implementing the principles within and using tools and techniques to help the process. At first I thought the answer would be in a book, but quickly realised many of these books just talk about the “principles” of becoming more productive and the processes to follow. I highly recommend you read books, websites and blogs on this subject. I subscribe to a few productivity blog RSS feeds that help. The book that started it for me was David Allen’s Getting Things Done and I highly recommend this book to understand the principles or becoming more productive and relaxed.
The trouble with all these books and websites, including Getting Things Done, is they mainly cover the principles and processed to help improve productivity, but hardly ever discuss tools and techniques to implement them. So knowing the process is great, but how do I ensure I follow this process efficiently and consistently in my working day? It quickly became apparent that I needed tools to help me do this. Both software and hardware. The tools to use to become more productive is one major aspect missing from David Allen’s teachings and other productivity books and blogs. This is mostly due to there not being one main tool that would fit everyones’ needs. Everyone is different and will use different techniques and tools to achieve the productivity process, hence they are not mentioned.
But without this help your biggest struggle will be finding the tools to help you implement the processes consistently. I have spent a lot of time researching and trying various tools to allow me to implement the processes I have learned, and have also changed the processed I have learned to suit my needs. This was a difficult task, but I now feel confident in the tools and processes I use and feel far more productive.
This blog is aimed more toward the tools and techniques used rather than the principles of productivity. I wont be explaining the principles behind Getting Things Done and other similar techniques, instead I will highly recommend you first read this book to gain the understanding from David Allen himself.
Once you have an understanding of the processes and principles required to improve productivity, I think this blog would be a lot more useful in helping you implement and maintain the processes of Getting Things Done. So to get started I highly recommend reading the book that kicked all this off for me, and that is David Allen’s Getting Things Done. Then check back here for ideas and help on how to implement the philosophy into your working life.
It’s been a testing few months of working very hard to achieve my goal of a zero inbox and zero tasks, but I am pleased I have finally (sort of) got there and can now focus my time today on business development and other activities like this blog.
I say “sort of” got my inbox and tasks to zero because it’s not quite zero. I always have a few, large, main projects to work on in the business, which span several weeks to months, and they will always be there and ongoing. You need these projects for the business to be successful of course. It would be quite negative for the business if you actually had nothing to do at all! So by zero tasks I am mainly referring to all the small, quick, bits and bobs tasks that come in from customers on a daily basis that take time away from the core business projects that actually earn the money. I have finally managed to clear these out, and can reach a planned and scheduled approach to working on such tasks from now on.
These small tasks have always been an issue… they may not take up much time by themselves, but added up they amount to a substantial time which is taken away from core activities and projects. They are not especially money making activities either… some are bug fixes and free of charge (5 minute) jobs, but when you have so many “urgent” tasks coming in you realise you can spend all day working on such jobs and not get any of the main money earning projects done. I used to be stuck in this rut working on the small jobs that seemed to never end, and finding it hard to work on the main projects.
That has hopefully now come to an end with my much improved working processes which has made me far more productive. My working process mainly focuses around managing email and tasks effectively, using effective tools and techniques to make you more productive. They range from the software you use for emails and tasks, to an organised and clean workspace and right down to the gadgets used in your office. Everything and anything I can use and improve to make my working life not just more productive but enjoyable too, I hope to share on this blog.
So thanks for stopping by, I hope you find something useful.
