My productivity workflow. Part 1: Principles
What I’m going to talk about is my personal productivity system that helps me to get things done and keeps me sane in the process (for the most part). This system based on my experience as a Project Manager, Business Analyst, and E-Commerce Consultant, built by me and for me. Also, I’m not any kind of professional or expert in the field of productivity, however, I find the principles useful for me as well as I feel those can spark some of your ideas on how to improve your day-to-day work and life.
Inboxes
Things may come into your life from everywhere — Slack, messages, email, phone calls, push notifications from apps, etc. We call them inboxes. Don’t leave things there. By all means, don’t use your email inbox as a to-do list — I have seen this many times…
Tools you need to keep your life organized
- To-do list — to keep your reminders, to-do’s, projects and backlog. Basically the rule is that non-time sensitive stuff that can be acted upon goes here. Example: discovery for a client and related to-do’s. And yes, this is somewhat time-sensitive, but bare with me here.
- Calendar — this tool should be used for time-sensitive events only, e.g., meetings or appointments. Most of us use this tool like that, but some may put an occasional reminder in it, or to-do to complete — don’t do that. The calendar is not a place to keep your to-do’s and reminders. The to-do app is.
- Notebook / Wiki — you need a place to store all your notes like meeting minutes, ideas, etc.
- Database — you require a place to store and organize files. For many that is your computer, iCloud or Google Drive.
Source of truth
It may come as a surprise, but each productivity app or software falls into one of these categories. But the difficult part is to keep all the information related to a particular category in one tool and in one tool only. It’s tempting to add one to-do to your app of choice and the next one to your Slack reminders or keep as unread email — don’t do that. You will get lost and lose track of priorities. Keep one source of truth for each category (to-do, calendar, notes, database).
In part 2 I will talk about specific apps that I use in my workflow, but for now just remember — whatever app you use, use just one. There is nothing wrong with the default Reminders app on your iOS/macOS (I actually used that for some time as well — Siri integration made it worth trying for me), but stick to it and keep all your to-do’s in there.
ℹ️ Note: in some instances you are required, or it simply makes sense to use different tools for work and personal. For example, we use Confluence as a corporate wiki at Vaimo, but I use Notion for my personal needs. That is fine too, as long as you keep your to-do app and calendar up to date. For example, I have added my personal calendar to my work calendar and I have “work” and “personal” tags in my to-do list.
Some tips on the practices I follow
To-do:
- Project-based — base your to-do list on projects to complete, i.e. “discovery for client X” and not areas like “work” or “personal” — use tags for these.
- Have a backlog — sometimes it’s too early to start working on something. Use backlog to store things to be acted on later.
- Plan 1/3/7–1 critical thing, 3 important things, 7 nice-to-have to-dos. Avoid having more than 10 to-dos per day.
Calendar:
- Use time-boxes and plan to work on to-do’s during these time boxes.
- Use different colors for different types of activities (personal, work, appointments).
- Plan weekends as well (high-level) — not only week days, but your weekend too. I’m not buying into the premise that it’s time to relax and no need to plan that. I would plan activities that I like and are personal, but still make sure I have time for them booked in the calendar. That actually ensures that I have time for them and are not dragged into work during the weekend.
Some rituals I follow on a regular basis
- Weekly review — that worth a separate post on its own — let me know if you are interested in that.
- Setting up quarterly goals for myself and trying to review them weekly to plan weeks around them.
- Practice brain dump — this is a practice that lets you move things out of your brain to paper and distribute across tools you use (to-do, calendar, notes, database). You can google that and find brain dump practice that works for you.
Some books that helped me built my productivity system
- Why We Sleep by Matthew Walker
- Digital Minimalism by Cal Newport
- Essentialism by Greg McKeown
- Getting Things Done by David Allen
Let me know what you think about these practices, and if and how they might have helped you.
