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:

  1. Get more things done in the same time frame
  2. Stop working evenings and weekends
  3. Improve the quality of work
  4. Have happier customers
  5. Have a happier family
  6. Be happier and more relaxed myself

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.

How Have I Achieved This?

Books, books and blogs

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.

Tools of the Trade

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.

Where Do I Start?

David Allens Getting Things Done

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.