Overwhelmed, anxious, frazzled. That’s how you might be feeling already as you face an inbox full of problems, deadlines set last year suddenly looming, and the feeling that you are back on the work treadmill.
Last year for me, work wise, was the clichéd rollercoaster ride – characterised by feverish bouts of work, listless lulls in productivity and a mad race to the finish line. My aim this year is to do less work but do it better.
That will require an upgrade in my productivity. As a nation we struggle with low productivity, a decades-old problem that shows no sign of abating. The Productivity Commission pondered the issue for years but wasn’t able to satisfy the new government that it had compelling answers. It will wind up its operations this month.
Employers have their own pet theories on how to boost productivity, including, bizarrely, holding more meetings, and forcing a return to work in the office where they can keep a close eye on their worker drones.
If we want to achieve a productivity boost, we each need to own the problem, take control of our time and finetune our ways of working. Most of it is behavioural, but technology can help, too.
Here are 10 things I’m putting in place this year to get more done and avoid work consuming my life.
The behavioural hacks
Do the hardest task first
Mark Twain said it best: “If it’s your job to eat a frog, it’s best to do it first thing in the morning. And if it’s your job to eat two frogs, it’s best to eat the biggest one first.”
I’ve known and understood the power of the Eat the Frog method for years, but never fully committed to it. But if there’s a difficult conversation to be had, or a complicated tax return to be filed, it’s worth getting it out of the way first. Once the hard task of the day has been completed, everything else is a breeze in comparison, and you’ll fly through tasks knowing you’ve got the monkey off your back for now.
Break the workday into 30-minute chunks
Someone once said that no meeting should last longer than 30 minutes, and they were right. Most meetings are a waste of time for most of the people involved. The dynamics of Zoom and Teams meetings exacerbate the problem. A few people dominate the discussion, off-topic chats chew up time, the agenda is too lengthy to address before everyone’s energy and interest dissolves. Keep all regular meetings to 30 minutes, ideally 25 minutes, so you avoid going directly from one meeting to the next. Save the important brainstorming meetings or where a complex issue requires more time, for infrequent hour-long sessions.
Minimise distractions
Last year I was logged out of the social network X and a problem with my account prevented me from logging back in. So, I still haven’t. I’ve saved at least 30 minutes each day through not interspersing my work with regular visits to my social media feed. I’m not suggesting ditching social media entirely but when you are in work mode, remove all the digital and distractions that are going to pull you away from the task at hand.
That may mean you need to find a quiet space to write your report away from the buzz of office conversation, or you let your calls go to voicemail for an hour or two. So be it, it will pay off in the long run.
Set one big goal for the day
Have you ever finished the day thinking, “what did I actually achieve today”? It’s a deflating feeling we’ve all had. You may set out with the best of intentions but find you get waylaid or distracted to the extent that nothing gets finished.
If you can set out with one goal for the day that must be completed, you can compete with yourself to get it done, and feel that sense of satisfaction when it’s squared away. It helps me to write it down in the notebook on my desk, so I can cross it off with a satisfying stroke of my pen at knock-off time.
Learn to say no
Too many of us are too eager to please. We get the tap on the shoulder and agree to join the meeting that has just kicked off, or we agree to give a presentation that will chew up half a day to prepare for. I’m certainly guilty of this, fearful of missing out on opportunities or coming across as someone who isn’t a team player.
But it’s a productivity killer. Know what needs to get done, how much time you will have to devote to the task and fend off all efforts to dilute your attention to it. Let everyone else know that you are in project mode and won’t be available for selection. By freeing up more time to address what is important, you’ll also end up with more time overall to answer the call for help - once your immediate work is done and dusted.
The tech hacks
Write down and track your tasks
Google Tasks has become my way of prioritising what I need to get done each day. It’s a sidebar that opens in Gmail and allows me to quickly type in the various tasks I’m tackling, as well as set deadlines for completion. It’s very simple, but effective. The list is displayed on my screen all day, reminding me what needs to be done. It’s such a good feeling tapping on the task icon and seeing the task disappear. Microsoft Outlook also has a task list. Having this integrated into your email client makes a big difference. Most of us spend a big chunk of our days working in the email client, so having your task list in close proximity makes it more likely you will refer to it to stay on track throughout the day and week. Blocking out time in your calendar app to complete tasks will also help you stay on track, and if you have a shared calendar, will signal to others that you are not to be disturbed.
Use a kanban board app
If you have a lot of different projects on the go, a digital kanban board is a great way to visually identify in one place everything that needs to be done. My go-to app for this is Trello (free account, or from $5 a month for additional features), a tile-based system that lets you organise and track projects and tasks at an individual or organisational level.
Sharing your screen during a meeting so that everyone can see your kanban board is a great way to keep the meeting moving, the agenda progressing, and people accountable for what they need to do.
Auto-transcribe meetings
If you attend a lot of meetings, it makes sense to record them, so you can go back to the recording to remind yourself what was discussed and the actions everyone agreed to. Make sure you get everyone’s permission to do this - the record function built into video conferencing services like Teams and Zoom will alert everyone to the fact that the session is being recorded.
I use Otter to record my meetings, and have been experimenting with Fireflies.ai, a great tool that gives a transcript of the meeting discussion and allows you to jump to a specific point in the recording to replay the audio. Otter and Fireflies.ai (both offer free versions or premium accounts from US$10 a month for additional features) also use artificial intelligence to summarise the key points from the meeting, and listen for your name, so you know exactly what actions you need to take. Teams and Zoom have AI tools built in, so if you are using one of these platforms, check what features are available with your subscription.
Keep notes digitally in one place
As a long-time scribbler, it has taken a lot of discipline transitioning to digital note taking, which I do with a stylus on my iPad using the Goodnotes app. I’ve created a series of notebooks for projects I’m involved in, and my handwriting is converted into text with pretty decent accuracy.
I sometimes write in text mode, too, and add photos and audio clips to the notebook I’m working on. The notebooks are synced in the cloud so I’ll never lose the notes contained in them. There’s a free version, but the US$9.99-a-year version has useful additional functionality. Available across Apple, Android and Windows devices, but ideal for Apple users.
Use AI-powered content assistants
ChatGPT is a valuable tool to help you develop content for your emails, documents, and reports. Just remember that what you enter into the free version of ChatGPT is fed back into the large language model, so avoid inputting sensitive content. A host of AI tools can help you find, create, and organise your content. I use Google Bard’s plug-in to search for and summarise information contained in Gmail and my Google Drive. It’s free and does a fair job of retrieving information more effectively than using the search bar.
I use Wordhero to help create content. It’s designed for content marketing people allowing you to generate snappy headlines, product descriptions, and website content, by entering short text prompts. But it can extend to writing fully-fledged articles and blog posts. These tools will only improve as 2024 progresses and represent a big timesaving opportunity, particularly if report and document writing isn’t your forte.
