Productivity

“Busy is a trap.”

I heard someone say this on a podcast a few weeks back. Then, this past Sunday, the message at church was about not allowing ourselves to be so busy that we neglect our relationships. A double-dose of this idea, that busy is bad, made me analyze my busy-ness level.

First, it’s important to note that I do not have a full time job. I freelance and I’m in between major projects so my load is lighter than normal. I have things to do every day, but I am not busy. Nor am I terribly productive.

Because nothing is pressing, my days are lazier than normal. I don’t need to be as regimented as I was when I was writing the book because there’s plenty of time to get everything done. I don’t need to plan my meals because there’s no need to save time. I can spend an hour and half on lunch and all my assignments will still be checked off at the end of the day. This leaves me with extra time for wasteful things like social media, projects I’m not excited about, excessive house-cleaning, etc.

In order to stay productive, I need to stay busy.

When you have tasks to accomplish, you stay on track. When there is no agenda, you bounce around aimlessly until something “urgent” comes up and you chase it like a cat chasing a laser pointer. These shiny objects don’t lead anywhere but they give you something to do. When the sun sets, you realize not much was accomplished even if you felt like you were doing something all day.

Be busy to stay productive. This means planning. Many freelancers and small business owners fail because they don’t know how to plan their day. This includes setting objectives and consequences if these tasks aren’t accomplished – just like you would at a job. For example, to combat this unproductive spell, I have front-loaded all my tasks in the morning. I don’t allow myself to eat lunch until all of my daily tasks are done. Even if my afternoon is a waste, my morning was productive. I typically get everything done before distraction sets in; hunger is a strong motivator.

Photo courtesy of jeanbaptisteparis 

Be busy to stay productive. This means creating a buffer and prioritizing. If you’re overloaded and your calendar looks like a game of Tetris, be sure to build in buffer. I was unproductive for years. I created massive to-do lists with everything from “Call Reggie” to “Take out the trash” and at the end of the day, my most important job duties, like “Finish forecasting Q1” didn’t get addressed. Because I tried to do everything in a day, I wound up checking off as many things as I could. Many of these tasks were menial, but they added up to a full schedule. This sometimes left me neglecting the duties that were significantly more important than taking out the trash.

Be busy to stay productive, but not too busy. If you’re overloaded, find space in your schedule and say, “NO” a few times. If you’re underloaded, look for ways to give yourself deadlines or consequences so you stay on track. There is no perfect answer for how much work is right, each person has their own threshold. One thing’s for sure, it’s not on the extreme end of the spectrum.

As much as we would all love to have another 2 hours added to every day, the 26 Hour Day is not happening anytime soon. We all have the same amount of time in each day. Yet some of us can’t seem to get as much done.

We take longer on projects, we can’t finish as quickly as our peers, and we always seem to be one step behind “that guy” across the hall. Productivity can be very elusive to many of us unless we are deliberate about it. I guarantee you Productivity Man across the hall is very deliberate about his actions.

Productivity Man

Nobody that is considered productive has ever come out of the womb that way, they had to work at it! Self-discipline plays a big part, but so does planning. I gave out my Top 8 Productivity Tips back in November, but here is how to squeeze 2 more hours of work out of your day with a few more productivity hacks and plans.

Wash the Dishes

Before you settle down to get into a big task or important work, take some time to do the dishes. It gives you a mindless activity that will allow you to start thinking about your upcoming task(s) without having to put action into it. By the time you settle down to actually work, you have already been in the mindset for 15 minutes and it’s like you got a running start!

That’s an interesting idea, Mike… But I work in an office & we don’t have a kitchen!

Fair enough… I’ll admit, this is kind of tricky if you don’t have a kitchen in your office or work from home as I do. This just have to be a little more creative in how you get things done:

• Clean your Desk (see next point)
• Rearrange your Desk/Office – This will also give you a creativity boost from changing up your sceneary
• Clean off your Desktop on your computer – *REVISION* This will not speed up your system unless you uninstall programs and delete unnecessary files, but it can still help you get warmed up for the rest of your day.
• File/Delete/Clean your email folders (NOT YOUR INBOX) – If that email about a PO from 2 years ago hasn’t been useful yet, it isn’t going to be anytime soon. Delete it and let yourself be liberated of it!

Most of these will only take 5-10 minutes. They will allow you to breeze through big projects afterwards you may have gotten stuck on without that running head start.

Clear Desk = Less Distractions

Have you ever noticed that Productivity Man usually has a clean desk? That’s not a coincidence.

People who are productive have systems in place. They know that their strength does not come from knowing everything, but rather from knowing where to find everything. Ipso facto: they have a place for everything.

Their offices have files, folders, and cabinets. Their inboxes have folders, sub-folders, and categories (any decent email system, including Outlook, has a search function anyways). They know that it will take some time to get setup in the beginning, but once it’s done they can give a “home” to everything as they come in contact with it.

What, you’re not a naturally organized person? That’s fine, most people aren’t. Here are a few tips to get you started:

• Eliminate Clutter – The less around you, the less there is to distract you. Look into minimalism, it will help you stop holding on to junk.
• Create files/folders for repeatable things – Do you receive a lot of emails from one customer? Make a folder for Clients and then a sub-folder for that person/company. Put ANYTHING you get from them inside, no matter what! It’s OK to have some catch-all folders, just make sure that whatever you put in there is labeled with key words/terms so you can find it amongst other things.
• Saving Old Stuff – We all have that nostalgic piece of paper with our original goals on it that we can’t bring ourselves to throw away. That’s fine, keep it. But put it in a drawer or frame it on the wall, don’t let it migrate all over your desk so you occasionally see it, coffee stains and all.
• Get a Whiteboard – It helps to jot down ideas/reminders and it’s much more effective than an army of sticky notes all over the place.
• Get a Notepad – These cost $1.50 at Staples and I would pay $10 for them. Keep all your to-do lists and doodles notes in this notebook and take it with you everywhere. Label the front of it with the date you opened it and add major topic headings like “3/28 Performance Review Notes” so you know what it contains. When it’s full, write the closing date on the front and put it in a file cabinet somewhere you can reference if need be.

DISCLAIMER: This is all helpful stuff, but if you are just out to “get organized” in one day it’s not going to happen. I’ve seen people take an entire day, eliminate clutter, create files for everything, empty their inbox, and then go back to letting stuff pile up on their desk as soon as their office looks clean.

You have to stick with the filing systems you put in place, that’s what the key to this process is. If not, all you are doing is wasting time to get your head clear before you sit down to do your real work. Having good systems in place can eliminate 15-30 minutes each day just by knowing where everything is that you need to access.

Stare Your Objectives Down

How many times have you sat and stared at your computer thinking “What in the world was I just doing before I took that call?”

It has happened to me more times than I’d like to admit. Here’s how I combat that blank stare: Write down your daily objectives.

• Step 1: Write down (with a pen and paper) your top 3/4 most important things to do for that day only.
• Step 2: Keep your big “To-Do List” somewhere hidden so it does not distract you (I put it on another page of my notebook). The only thing you need to focus on are those 3/4 tasks. If there is other stuff you need to focus on, than you should have picked a different top 3/4. Productivity Man doesn’t work on multiple things at once, he focuses all his energies on one task at a time.
• Step 3: Put that list right in front of your face all day long. Some people use a sticky note, some people use a white board, and I use a notepad (with a good pen) flipped to a clean sheet of paper.
• Step 4: Do not check your big to-do list, rifle through emails, or check Facebook until you get those 3 things done for the day. If you can knock those off your list before 11:00 AM you have the rest of the day to put out fires, waste time with your email, or take a client out for a 2 hour lunch.

When you have these looking you in the face every minute, there is no way to get off-track. You can easily waste 30-45 minutes each day by just trying to figure out what to do next. If it’s already laid out, you can stay focused easier waste less time.

Batch Similar Tasks

Picture this, your to-do list has a few minor things on it like returning a couple calls, checking your email, drafting a cold email, and then 2 major work projects that will each take you an hour +/-.

Some people would probably jump on the calls and emails first. They see it as, “this is how I warm up for the day.” I see it as a waste of your valuable brain space. See above if you want to “warm up” before diving into work.

Taking on those smaller, mundane tasks will sap us of our creative energies and will make that hour-long project turn into a 2 hour project if we’re mentally drained. And on top of that, putting back-2-back hour-long projects together is basically saying that the second project doesn’t matter to you.

By the time you get to number 2, you are totally empty. It takes twice as long to do something we don’t have the energy for. We take more breaks, we look for distractions, and we draw out the work.

*Some people will have urgent calls/emails, but most of the time it can wait for an hour*

Productivity Man would take one of those hour-long projects and dive right into it, setting a timer on his work to cut him off when an hour hits. He’d put a great hour of work into the task and let himself get lost in it without distractions. Then to regain his strength, he would take on those smaller tasks all at once.

Productivity Man understands that his strength lies in doing one task well with full concentration, not doing 48 things halfheartedly. 

Unless they are major calls and he hasn’t checked his email in a week, all of that will probably only take him 30-45 minutes. He can then take a quick break. Maybe get some coffee, maybe text the wife, maybe take walk around the building, it’s up to him.

Then he can sit down and be refreshed to tackle the second hour-long project he needs to work on. Batching similar tasks allows us to focus on the bigger projects with less distractions. That focus allows us to get more done in shorter periods of time.

We all have mundane tasks to take care of, it’s when we allow them to determine our schedule that we really waste time. This can save you 30 minutes to an hour every day!

Plan for the Next Day

A big part of productivity is planning. Having a plan allows us to not waste time doing frivolous activities. And when we have a plan, we are able to go from one task to the next without lag time.

What does your morning routine look like when you settle in for work? Some people check email, then get up and get coffee, then get distracted and check their voicemails. And then after an hour or so, they settle into their work for the day.

BOOM! There goes an hour (or more) of your day!

Take the time the night before and plan out your day. As I mentioned above, write out your top 3 things to do that you cannot waiver from. Think of them as “do or die” tasks that if nothing else got accomplished, you can point to those to keep your paycheck.

Since everyone’s job is different, here are a few other ideas to get ramped up for the next day’s success:

• Pre-type emails so all you have to do is proof-read them
• Prepare forms/documents for meetings so you don’t scramble around right before, allowing you to work right up until the meeting
• Pull out study materials you may need
• Pull out customer records if you have to make cold-calls
• Clean the meeting space if you are hosting clients
• Pack your briefcase/backpack/laptop bag if you are working out of the office
• Check the weather
• Write out your top 3 most important things to do
• Set up the coffee machine so all you have to do is hit “Brew” when you walk in

In the beginning, these tasks may feel like more work for you since they are new concepts. But when you can begin to put them into practice and make them habits, your work will begin to flow and you will jump seamlessly from task to task without skipping a beat.

Productive people sometimes seem like they aren’t as busy as the rest of us. In reality, they are just getting more done and not wasting time in between their work. If you have a plan to take you from Activity 1 to Activity 2, you are much less likely to get distracted and waste your day.

What other productivity hacks do you use to help you get more accomplished in a day?

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I’d love to hear what you have to say about freelancing and building a business from this process. Leave me a comment below or chat with me on Twitter: @mikemccann3

Have a great week!

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Sometimes when you write as often as I do, you feel like you are going to change the world with your words. And then as soon as you hit publish….CRICKETS. Other times, you think your words should have been trashed and somehow that gets more attention than you ever imagined.

Still other times, you get called out for one thing or another. This week I’ve been sloppy with my editing (I really hope I edited this well enough to talk about it) and the comments I’ve received brought me down a peg or two. Since Wednesday was a rushed morning, I decided to resist hitting “Publish” and wait another day until I could properly edit and proofread my work.

Grammatical Errors

Last week I received a comment from someone about some sloppy errors that I made while hurrying through a post I really wanted to get out there. It was important (to me) and I knew thought it had the potential to receive a lot of attention in the form of traffic to my site. As soon as I was called out, I went back and skimmed through my work. Sure enough, I found a number of simple errors.

Problem fixed, right?

Less than a week after that, I receive another message about sloppy mistakes. Again, I sheepishly went through and fixed the errors so my blog doesn’t look like an 8th grader penned it. The second time through is what it took for the error of my ways to really sink in.

When I first started, I used to thoroughly edit each post before I published it since I’ve been known to have simple, sloppy mistakes like these. But somehow I got too comfortable and I’ve reduced that editing process to a skim, thinking I’ve overcome my sloppiness.

Sometimes technology does that to us. We think that we’ve mastered a craft because we move faster on it. I can type way faster than I can write with pen and paper. But if I wrote long-hand instead of typed, I would make exponentially fewer mistakes.  But you wouldn’t be able to read my handwriting.

Measure Twice, Cut Once

A guy I worked with for years was a carpenter in his previous life. He had lots of odd sayings and a temper that was as short as a candle wick. When he was doing woodwork he would constantly bark, “Measure twice but cut once. We don’t have time to go back and redo all this.”

I obviously forgot that saying when I was rushing through my recent posts. In carpentry, once you make a cut you’re stuck with it. You can’t go back and “uncut” wood, you have to start with a fresh piece or shave something down to fit. A good carpenter needs fewer pieces of lumber because he makes precision cuts.

In other words, it takes more time and resources than it would have to just measure a second time. Although I can hit the “Update” button on my blog, I’ve already shown sloppy work and probably lost some credibility.

Lean Startup Methodology

I have talked at length about The Lean Startup and just starting something, which may seem contradictory to this subject.

But allow me to clarify. When we look at lean management, we are talking about intentional experiments. We are not talking about final products, such as blog posts. When using lean management, we know the process/product/service will evolve from it’s current state, that’s the point.

When I’m writing a blog post or typing an email, nothing is planned once I publish it: that’s the end of the process. Nothing changes after I hit “Publish” (unless I get called out for having sloppy grammar).

With lean methodology, there are experiments that have desired outcomes and unknown consequences. Meaning we do something to find out what happens next and we plan on making adjustments after that experiment is run. This is not the same thing as rushing through a task and doing it sloppily.

If you don’t have time for a second look…

Then when do you plan on finding time to fix it? Too often, we are more focused on crossing something off our to-do list than we are on doing it correctly. We have driven ourselves to be infinitely productive, yet we’re losing our effectiveness.

One of the biggest areas in which we see this is the health industry. Everyone wants shortcuts and nobody wants to put the time into being healthy. There is no magical formula. Being healthy takes time and takes a lot of work.

It is not uncommon for people to have double bypass surgeries and tell their doctor, “I don’t have time to take 6 months off of work.” Well, that’s double the time it would have taken for them to just walk 15 minutes a day and eat healthier.

Slow it down this week and focus on quality. See how your work changes and see how those around you respond to the quality over quantity approach. It will save you time, resources, and maybe even a double bypass surgery!

Thank you to the individuals that called me out the past two weeks, you’ve helped me take a step back and focus on the quality of my work. This may mean a fewer number of posts from me, but I can assure you that the quality will go up!