Personal & Workplace Productivity 2007
Every year around this time of year scores of people are thinking and writing about their goal of being more productive then ever this year, and their techniques for accomplishing those goals. I’ve been implementing various processes both personally and here at the Voodoo office this past year to help with our productivity, so I thought I’d share them with our readers here.
Enhancing Office Productivity
Daily “to-do sessions” with our team here — identify and assign tasks that need to be accomplished and review assignments from previous days. We work very democratically and consider ourselves “jack of all trades” so much of our work can be done by either of us, we split tasks in different ways to keep our workdays balanced.
Regular conference calls with our team in Russia — We communicate with our Russian team using a combination of instant messenger, Basecamp, and occasionally email. We have used Skype on a limited basis in the past, but we are ramping up its use through scheduled video conference calls this year. We want to bridge the distance between us as much as possible and there’s nothing that does it like seeing and hearing each other. Not too mention it is a lot easier to explain site UI revisions over a call than it is to write it all out in Basecamp.
Primary daily goals are due by noon — the morning is when we are most energized, but it is also the time that is most easily wasted. We are working to present the deliverables on each of our primary daily goals by noon, then move onto secondary tasks in the afternoon. These days that means accomplishing tasks on siteMighty in the morning and then on to blogging, customer communications, and business tasks in the afternoon.
Implementing “Getting Things Done” strategy — I’ve been reading a lot about David Allen’s “GTD time and stress management” framework. We’re making an effort to implement it here, and I’ve purchased copies of the book for Blake and myself.
Have the right tools for the job — this means no slow computers. I upgrade my laptop every year or so. Same with our office computers. If something doesn’t work, get rid of it. People’s time is way to valuable to waste fooling around with bad technology.
Enhancing Personal Productivity
My Moleskine is in my pocket at all times — I started carrying a Moleskine with me last year and its been great. I write daily to-do lists in it and have it by my side all day long as I work. I mark finished tasks with one highlighter and carry the ones I don’t get done over to tomorrow with another color highlighter. As GTD recommends, getting stuff out of your head and onto paper really helps clear the mind.
Spend the first 30 min of each day doing strategic planning — It’s too easy to sit down at your desk and start checking email, reading blogs, shopping, etc and next thing you know you have no idea what you want to get done that day. I sit down and plan my day based daily, weekly, monthly and yearly strategic goals. We learned this technique from our EO strategic planning workshop last fall. It’s been incredibly helpful for me.
My 8525 is synched with my outlook for calendar — I like the sync on the Cingular 8525 Windows Mobile platform. I’ve never been a PDA carrier, but having your calendar on your phone is handy.
Getting your thinking time in — I relish the time I get to think with a clear head and no distractions. I come up with my best ideas when I am taking my morning jog or riding my motorcycle to and from work.
We’ll be working hard to be more productive than ever this year. Here are some great resources on the GTD program. If anyone has any thoughts or suggestions for us I’d love to hear them. Happy 2007!