Productivity Methodology

Many of us have tried various approaches to being more productive — apps, spreadsheets, whiteboards, journals, calendars, timers, and accountability partners — that lie discarded on the altar of past decades’ New Year’s resolutions. Strategies that rely on establishing and following rules for productivity don’t motivate everyone.

People who hate productivity tools, but need to be more productive, may find success using more organic strategies. Consider finding ways to take small steps toward a goal, and enjoying the resulting sense of progress. When you start to get distracted, think about how the time you’re frittering away could be spent on things you really want to do, like spending time with your family. Knowing when to stop focusing on a task is as important as knowing when to switch.

Frustrated sitting at your desk? Take your work outside. Computer screen making your eyes go buggy? Switch to working on paper or using voice recognition. When your fuel is running low, take it as a signal to do something else for a bit. When all else fails, try the cure-all strategy of taking a power nap.

Productivity is never an accident. It is always the result of a commitment to excellence, intelligent planning, and consistent effort. I would like to add another element that is helping individuals to be more productive is — productivity techniques. As the times have become a little too much competitive, it makes sense to take help from a myriad of productivity tools available in the market however in this post I like to share about tools that I use. The techniques that I use is confluence of kanban, calendar and Mission Control (which I learned in Mekong Capital).

I use trello on my phone, laptop and almost anywhere. My trello has the following key columns:

• Notes. These are my random and temporary notes that I keep and after awhile I clean them up or delete them.
• Waiting. Everytime in any meeting that there are tasks being assigned to me, I capture all of those in individual cards under this column “waitin”; which means it is waiting for me to prioritize these items.

• review & decide what’s next. Every morning on my calendar I have an occasion “Daily Agile Standup review” which I go through the list in “review & decide what’s next” then I decide what to do, these are possible decisions:

1. I also look at the items in “Waiting” then if things are relevant then I add them into “review & decide what’s next” or follows below.
2. If I choose not to do anything about it anymore then I move the card to “won’t take any action” which means I won’t do anything about it anymore
3. If I choose to work on it then I estimate the task how long will it take and what is the deadline of it then I add occasions on my calendar and if needed to re-prioritize other items, I will handle it without impacting any promises otherwise I inform others for any change on my promise then I move the card to “Done” which means task is added to my calendar and going to be delivered according to the promised timeline.

Then at the end of each week on Fridays at 17:00 I have an occasion on my calendar which is called “Read my capture tool and add it into my plan” which I review the past week and see what is done and what is incomplete, I review the trello board again and repeat all above steps and arrange my next week plan.

It is a very simple technique but has been very useful for me and has helped me in last 8 years. It is also fun to go back and review your old cards on trello.