Productivity is one of the most divisive words out there. Productivity enthusiasts are often evangelical about their systems and speak in a lexicon that derives from iterations of processes and experience. A layperson to the productivity space may be intimidated by the barrier to entry of research and study of the many productivity systems and applications that could be part of a personal plan. Much of the productivity literature focuses on how to build a better mousetrap. And this often misses the point of why to play the game at all. Each person's reasons for implementing a productivity system will depend mainly on the type of job they do and their motivation for achieving better output. I believe the commonality among all systems and processes is to reduce stress and increase the value of the work you do.
What is a Productivity System:
At its bare bones, a productivity system is:
- a way to capture the things that you have to do
- organize them in a way that ensures things that you have to do will show at the appropriate time
- a way to prioritize your most finite resource - your time.
Further articles will explore systems for beginners and go on to discuss advanced productivity topics in an approachable way. A Productivity System can be as simple as a pad of paper or as complicated as an integrated digital system but the important part is finding one that works for you.
But before one worries too much about why you may need a productivity system, I suggest you look at the why you need one? I believe that work will be the biggest reason to consider implementing a productivity system. Your role will broadly define your reasons and benefits.
Employees
The biggest reason for someone who is an employee of someone else to practice productivity is to reduce personal stress. A productivity system will help you keep on top of everything you need to do when you need to. The right system will also help you accomplish more in the same amount of time. As an employee of a company, you are often paid for a unit of time (hour, week, month, etc.) rather than by a piece of output. Suppose you are finding that you are always feeling behind and feeling stressed and working late or on weekends to complete tasks and projects. In that case, a productivity system will help you prioritize and focus on your important tasks and become aware of the time sinks in your day.
When I first looked into productivity, almost 20 years ago, I found a life-changing idea in the bookGetting Things Done by David Allen. To paraphrase his core idea - getting things out of your head and into a trusted system reduces your stress.
If you have ever woken up at 3 am realizing that you forgot to do something at work, or worrying about something that you have to do the next day, you may not have a system that captures and reminds you about the things that you need to accomplish.
There are many ways to build out a system. I will discuss some of the paths to get started with Productivity in later articles.
Employers
As an employer or manager, your interest in Productivity likely comes from a different place. Financial limitations mean tightly allocated human resources have. There always seems to be some customer-induced panic along the way. Metrics in business are the default way to manage, but they can also come at a cost.
Most managers have systems that get in the way of staff accomplishing their tasks. How many meetings do you have for status updates? What project reports do you have? As a manager, you need will always battle the need to be on top of employee performance and production to avoid unpleasant and career-ending surprises. Still, often the individual needs of staff may be forgotten in the race to the objective.
Take some time to consider what behaviours are institutional norms in your organization? If a senior manager calls, is an employee expected to drop everything to take the call? What internal instant messaging systems do you employ, and how quickly are people expected to respond? How many meetings do you have per week? How many are truly essential - and why are they necessary? Do attendees show up prepared to discuss critical actions, or do meetings become a leisurely and meandering discussion that fills the time allotted to it?
Bringing in corporate-wide productivity initiatives can make a tremendous change to the staff's productivity and the entire organization's morale. Looking at the available time through the lens of corporate objectives will help reduce the busywork and the stress to employees of meeting corporate norms for unimportant work. Allowing for Deep Work periods will help employees reach previously unknown quality output levels. Reducing interruptions and busywork will reduce stress for employees and give a greater sense of accomplishment. And when employees have clear agendas, with actionable items, productivity increases.
As a bonus, employees will free up time for deep thinking about your business as a whole if they embrace a productive mentality. Ideas, improvements, and revolutionary changes come from a quiet time not filled with constant TPS reports, emails, and instant messages.
As a leader, you will have to be clear in both directions and priorities. And productivity will require more trust than many managers are comfortable giving. Implementing software tools that work for the employee, rather than requiring meetings or status checks, can go a long way to solving some of these management concerns. Scrum tools like Asana and Trello may be options.
Self-Employed
Self-employed people are perhaps the most in tune with productivity naturally. Time is money for many self-employed people, and having more time can often translate into more financial returns and less stress.
However, there are still many traps that self-employed workers can get into that will still benefit from a productivity system. Self-employment requires a delicate balance of output, new customer acquisition, and administrative work. A productivity system will help put these in their appropriate place and time and ensure that the value-adding work gets done first.
The output is usually the most value-generating activity that any self-employed person makes. Whether it is creating knowledge-based work for a contract or producing physical goods for sale, this must be the highest priority for you to generate revenue. And likely, this is where a person working for themselves loves to be.
But, if you have ever come to the end of a contract with no more work and have to start from scratch, or have thrown all of your eggs in with one company, you may realize that there has to be attention to the other things as well. Most self-employed people are independent businesses. They have to deal with accounting and collections, customer support, sales, and marketing. And this all takes time.
If you neglect to send out an invoice for work you have done, you would quickly run out of cash because you are busy doing the work. Not putting any regular effort into sales and marketing are also easy to put off activities until it is too late. A small-time commitment - one sales call a day, one marketing content post per week, one conference (should we ever have those again) per quarter. You may defer many activities because of critical work on a marketable output. Still, it is impossible to achieve good results if you continually neglect them until you don't have any work and need to find the next gig.
Planning time in your day or week can help you become a more sustainable self-employed business. You still need to spend time working on your business rather than just in your business.
Final Thoughts
No matter what your current role is, there are possible reasons for developing your individual productivity system. A system doesn't have to be complicated or time-consuming to maintain. There are just a few simple things that you will need to consider to ensure that you trust the system and review it regularly.
I will be introducing some key concepts and steps you could take to try out a simple productivity system in my next articles. And I will also discuss more complex Productivity Systems for you to consider depending on your personal and professional needs. But I hope you have at least understood how a productivity system could benefit you, regardless of the role you have.