Personal Productivity Part 3 of 3: Do we need more than a task list?

Is it sufficient to be on top of what you need to do, when you need to do it and for whom it needs to be done for? Well the simple answer is "no". The reason is a little more complicated. The very nature of task lists is that they never diminish. As you complete tasks at the top, more items are added to the bottom. Further more, it is rare that any single activity is done in isolation of everything else. More often, even the simplest of activities is linked to a chain of activities or part of a group of activities. The activity may involve one or more people or teams. Those people and/or teams may appear multiple times in your list activities and you will likely want to visit activities in related blocks and not in isolation.

There is one further complication that is far more important. "Ticking" off Tasks does provide you with a list of mini-achievements, but do these "ticked" off items give you a sense of where you have come from and where you are going? The underlying and fundamental human need at play here is linked to goal recognition or having a sense of accomplishment. If we do not often reach this sense of accomplishment we slowly but surely get tired, worn-out and bored with what we are doing. The things that used to have us bouncing out of bed in the morning, do not matter any more. A sense of accomplishment comes simply by seeing in every action you take, no matter how small, your own progress against a bigger picture goal.

Whilst at the core of the challenge that confronts us is the ability to quickly and easily capture, process and dispatch or revisit requests, true success and fulfilment requires something more.

A possible answer involves a method for putting all those requests and tasks into context.

The context is the goals and desires that govern our daily life. If the task lists discussed above, were grouped and facilitated in such away that they were clearly identifiable again goals then each "tick" would be a step closer to that goal. By seeing these completed tasks as steps towards a goal we will have a better chance of achieving the sense of accomplishment on a daily, hourly or even minute-by-minute basis.

Personal Productivity Part 2 of 3: The Task List

The humble Task Lists offers a flexible way to identify things that need to be done. Even the paper version or manual art of listing things to do in the calendar page of a future date is quite effective.

Electronic equivalents like the Task capability of Microsoft Outlook® provide additional capabilities in that you can configure "Reminders" so that your computer or even hand-held diary alerts you of pending activity.

The method with regards to Task Lists is simple: As requests land at your feet, you quickly appraise the request and then generate a Task to manage the response appropriate to the request. You can also use the Task List to track items you have requested of others.

An extension to this method is the activity of blocking out future parts of your diary to "address" or "review" a request. If you are using the electronic equivalents, another little trick is the use the body or notes area of the Task Item to make comments about your activity. You also might choose to note when you received the request or what you asked of whom and by when. In this way you have a "mini-journal" of your related activities that can be reviewed later reducing the time you spend coming back up to speed. Have you ever found yourself asking "when did I send that" or "what did I say to him"? The notes inside your tasks can help elevate that problem.

Personal Productivity Part 1 of 3: The Challenge

The job of the modern knowledge professional is neither straightforward nor routine. We must capture, process and track requests and activities from any number of sources and incorporating any number of complexities.

We need a flexible method that not only records and tracks our activities but also drives our productivity in a proactive manner. If we are to perform to our maximum potential we need both skills and time. The skills are necessary to deliver something of value and the time is required in order to deliver that value.

The modern work environment places massive demands on our time. We are subject to continual bombardment from colleagues, staff, customers and bosses. It is not realistic to hide away, free from interruptions. If we are to be effective we need a powerful and rich method for capturing, tracking and acting that is both flexibility and easy to use.

Archive: Ultimate Productivity = Remove the interference

In June 2006, I started to capturing my thoughts in relation to what has now become TPAssist 2007. Below is the first of three pieces I wrote on the subject:

"Welcome to TPAassist, a project of personal interest to me in that I use the methodology and tools in every aspect of my life from work to play.

In this opening blog, I am going to capture a few ideas and explore the notion of productivity. In time I hope to add insights into my methodology and provide general details of where and how to learn more.

“Productivity” - so what is all the fuss? I guess the term productivity is generally found in the work or business context, where owners, bosses and strategy consultants use it liberally in relation to any new technology, system, solution, tool or process they are trying to adopt. So what does it mean? I like the definition found at the U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics web site: “Productivity is a measure of economic efficiency which shows how effectively economic inputs are converted into output.” And in plain English, “less in, more out”.

Ok, so what does “less in, more out” translate into for you and I? It could be as easily as saying, “productivity = job and promotion”, because these days, if you can’t manage to do more with less you are likely to be shown the door. Now that is well and good, but of what use is this ramble? I like to think of productivity in terms of your ability to perform. If you are performing well, you are more likely to be able to achieve more with less.

So what is performance? To answer that question, you should look at the work by Timothy Gallwey, called the Inner Game. The Inner Game as developed by Gallwey in 1974 builds on the notion of “Potential” and “Performance”. There is a gap between potential and performance which Gallwey describes as the thoughts which you have when going about an activity. These thoughts can be better described as “Interference”. Interference then is the self doubting thoughts you have that get in the way of your potential and reduce your resulting performance. In his 2003 book on effective coaching, Myles Downey in addition to explaining the Inner Game in more details, expands this notion in order to conclude that performance therefore, is equal to “potential” subtract “interference”.

So if performance is linked to your ability to be productive, and performance is a function of your potential and the interference you create, then perhaps ultimately productivity is about removing the interference. Ok, that was a long winded way to say that in order to be productive, you need to offload all the distractions. In a practical sense, distractions include the volumes of email, phone calls and basically the numerous requests we are subject to every day due to increasingly complexity in working life and often vague job descriptions.

REFERENCES:

Myles Downey, 2003; Effective Coaching, Lessons From the Coach’s Coach, Thomson Texere

U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics web site:
http://www.bls.gov/lpc/peoplebox.htm "