We've had several shakeups at work lately due to the crazy labor market in calgary as well as the recent outsourcing at work. I've been given the work of 3-5 people in total to do, essentially to have oversight/governance of IT -- both operations and projects.
To achieve this, I've dramatically revamped my productivity system.
Job #1 was to revamp Outlook. I've never been an Outlook fan and one of the major piss-offs from using it is that there's no real "Dashboard" to allow you to work in any kind of coordinated fashion between your inbox, calendar, and task lists. I found the "Outlook Today" feature which worked great except that it didn't actually show you your fucking inbox, just the number of unread items in your inbox. Big help.
Then I discovered that you can hack outlook today. A few lines of code later, and what I came up with is below:
The left column is a full folder view of my inbox. The middle column is an agenda-style view of the meetings that I have scheduled for today and tomorrow. Top right is today's tasks, and bottom right is my inbox. This allows me to see my whole day at a glance.
Email is the #1 productivity killer out there. I have 4 simple options to keep my inbox clear:
- Scan and delete it. Immediately.
- Respond and delete it. Immediately.
- Create a task or meeting out of it. Clicking and dragging it into tasks or calendar works.
- Archive it. I've got a simple folder in my inbox marked "Archive". Use sparingly.
Tasks
Decompose all of your projects into 1-2 hour tasks if possible. Whole days are the limit. Give each task a schedule and priority so it shows up on your dashboard for that day. 'Nuff said.
Calendar
If a meeting request comes in that you don't understand or doesn't have a clear agenda that is relevant to you, decline or send a delegate.
Daily Warm Up
Book yourself a half hour meeting first thing in the morning to do the following:
- Review today & tomorrow's calendar -- are there any meetings coming up that I can cancel, defer, or need to prepare for?
- Review today's tasks to confirm that the priority, timing, and need hasn't changed.
- Answer the question: What do I want to get done with my day?
Daily Cool Down
Book yourself a half hour to cool down from the day by:
- Reviewing tomorrow's schedule and tasks, updating as required.
- Review the tasks that got done today and the ones that didn't -- reschedule them as needed.
- Clean out your inbox. No excuses. No emails belong in your inbox by the end of the day.
When to get your tasks done?
Between meetings. If you can't find the time, book time out of your calendar or cancel some meetings. Move from the top of your to-do list down. You'll find that some big tasks become quite short once you get into the zone and have clarity about what needs to get done.
Spare time
You might actually find you end up getting your stuff done with time left in your day. The odd day at least. Here's what I use the time for:
- Networking. Linkedin is great for this, but even better is hooking up with your workmates (present or past) and going for coffee, beer, or just a walk.
- R&D. Constantly better yourself.
- Tomorrow's tasks.
- Leave early! If you're done, you're done. A boxer doesn't stay in the ring after he's won the fight. Go home and relish the fact that you're done. This is something I've been very upfront with my boss about -- let me handle my own schedule and you'll be happy with the results. And he has been.
