I don’t think I’d be wrong to say that we’re all looking for productivity’s silver bullet – that one system or method that suddenly solves all your problems. Working in this way you know exactly what you’re doing, when and why. You become less distracted and more focused. And you bound out of the office on time every day.
We’ve tried Getting Things Done, the Bullet Journal method, the Pomodoro Technique, Personal Kanban and many many more. Nothing quite works, right? Do you know why? It’s because productivity is personal. We can take aspects of any or all of these approaches but we must find a way that works for us.
From this point on I can only share with you what I’ve learned about my own relationship with productivity over many years experimenting with different methods:
- be realistic about what you can achieve in one day
- connect daily tasks to weekly and monthly goals
- be able to zoom in (to individual days) and out (to week/month/year)
- build in opportunities for review and reflection
- keep track of what gets done and recognise achievements
Understanding these needs, I’ve finally settled on a system (of my own making) that seems to be working. I won’t go into the details here, but if you’re interested get in touch and I’ll share more.
For now I’ll leave you with two questions. What observations would you include on your own list? And, how could they translate into the development of a productivity system of your own?
Featured image by Andrej Lišakov on Unsplash
