Productivity in 140 Characters

Since the beginning of this year I have had a growing desire to make it my mission to be truly productive.

That sentence in itself is a lesson in productivity. Note I did not say I had made it my mission, or actually made progress. I said “growing desire”. This means it is still largely a dream rather than something I have actually achieved :)

The truth is I have made some progress, along with my friend Cindy King who has been helping to keep me on track.

My productivity systems are coming together gradually.

Where I made a break through though was to focus on providing “value”, not “work”. Focusing on effort or work got me into trouble where I nearly burned out (more than once). By making sure I put value first, with reward later, I have been much happier and actually created better results for people.

A subtle difference, and maybe being pedantic, but makes a profound difference to the way I approach things :)

I’ve also discovered it helps to go with what comes natural to you rather than what other folks think you “should” be doing.

Due to some forced offline bouts, speaking engagements and recent trips, I have had a massive email productivity panic and this forced me to sort out my inbox for once and for all. First had to go all the non-essential email lists, either unsubscribed or filtered into folders.

In addition to “nuking the noise” I created two folders called “_action” and “_read” (the underscore puts those at the top of the folder list in my email client).

So now when I check my email I either

  1. Delete
  2. Mark as spam
  3. Move to read – once read they are either deleted or archived in particular folders
  4. Move to action – stuff that needs me to do more than read

Those actions are then part of my to-do list for the day, even if the action is that I need to acknowledge receipt.

I am still working on adding rules, for example I have a folder for lists that is for emails from list that are not noisy but still don’t require me to read as they come in.

Of course I have also bought the famous “GTD” book that everyone bangs on about, but I have yet to read it (too disorganized to find time to read the ultimate organization book!).

So now I am ready to learn from you guys, and here we get to the point of the subject line :) I asked on twitter if you have productivity tips, and I would like to open it up to you too if you have anything to add. Here are the responses so far:

Twitter / @chrisgarrett

Twitter / @chrisgarrett

Twitter / @chrisgarrett

Twitter / @chrisgarrett

Twitter / @chrisgarrett

Twitter / @chrisgarrett

Twitter / @chrisgarrett

Twitter / @chrisgarrett

Twitter / @chrisgarrett

Twitter / @chrisgarrett

Twitter / @chrisgarrett

Posted on May 15, 2009 by Chris Garrett 
Filed Under Productivity

Comments

One Response to “Productivity in 140 Characters”

  1. SATISH on May 20th, 2009 12:32 pm

    Great contribution guys/girls… And thanks for mentioning my tweet too..If anyone of you missed it, then here is what I said about productivity – “Have good sleep inorder to be productive. I have experienced lack of productivity when I don’t sleep properly and work over ni8″.

    Great response from others too. Will try to implement all these advices one-by-one, who knows my productivity may also improve :)

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