Improving your weekly productivity is entirely possible with some reflection and proactivity. I’ve found examining these three things to refine my weekly productivity and balance out the high and low weeks:
1. Important/Non-Urgent vs Important/Urgent
How many important/non-urgent events/tasks do you accomplish on average?
Compare that to the amount of urgent events/tasks and you get a crude but helpful ratio. This provides a helpful starting point for making changes. Something to take into account: important/non-urgent events take much longer than important-urgent. I find I need to remove 3-4 urgent events in a week to make adequate room for one important event.
2. Before/After Big Meeting
Every team I have been on has had a weekly staff meeting of some kind. I try to get my best work done the day or two before this meeting. Meetings seem to create chaos for at least one day afterwards. Consider scheduling or working on important/urgent activities the day after a big meeting, as these kinds of tasks match up well with the post-meeting momentum.
3. Look at last month for Patterns
This one significantly increased my productivity. I went to my google calendar and looked at the month view–then I looked at:
- Events I scheduled but did not complete
- Events I scheduled but had little or no energy
- Events that gave me energy and encouragement
After that I looked at the days/times of each of these to see if any patterns emerged. I seemed to struggle with tasks and activities on Friday in particular. So as a rule of thumb I try not to schedule any significant meeting on Fridays. Finding these kinds of patterns can be the key to dramatically improving your weekly productivity.
Do you have any productivity tips to share related to planning and scheduling events?
Hey Brian! I really needed to read this today.
One tool that I use to track productivity is the Mac Application iProcrastinate. It’s a free app that allows users to add “subjects” and add files, or even tasks to complete each “subject”. I have found this app to be very helpful in my pursuit of higher productivity.
I would do a better job at scheduling meetings if I had a Mac Application for that as well. Do you know of any?
thanks jace!
a friend just sent me this link re your question:
http://www.ekoob.com/best-applications-for-scheduling-a-meeting-online-must-read-6403/
looks solid.
thanks for the link…first I’m going to check out Doodle for scheduling meetings, and then try Tungle.me. thanks for all the help.
sure. i’ve seen a few people use tungle.me. let me know how it goes.