Paul. J. Meyer said
Productivity is never an accident. It is always the result of a commitment to excellence,intelligent planning, and focused efffort.
Mind
Everyone is trying hard to get productive including me. Mind is a strange thing to understand. It is difficult to focus on a single point. It running across multiple things within a flick of time. Help substance like caffeine, sugar boosts your concentration from distraction world. But the effects is only temporary and you brain cannot focus on anymore. Stress level got higher and we are looking for relaxations and more substances to calm our nerves…
Distraction
It’s in everywhere. In your workstation. your living room. your bedroom. your phone. your machines. your girlfriend. It is not possible to get away from distractions. But we can minimize and compress it to certain ratio.
but how….
“How to increase your productivity” myth
There are many tool, tips, hacks, tweaks and apps to increase our productivity. As an instance, I am app-junkie. I love to touch new released apps. For this type of people, the problem is that you know many apps, which some of them does the same thing. I never stick to one app and jumps to a new one with ‘wow!’, ‘nice!’ and ‘sweet!’. For most people, I assume it might make their days easier but productivity apps decrease my productivity.In other words, I was consumed by productivity tools.
Nowadays, most of the apps get mobility feature. That’s good but not helping that much in terms of productivity. Using multiple apps for various purpose will drain your time and energy. You need to get familiar with it (since it is developed by other people).
For e.g,this is the possible list of apps used to increase productivity
Calendars
Daily/Monthly/Weekly planners
Schedulers (what is the difference with planning??? :))
Reminders
Time trackers
Expense trackers
TO-DO Lists
Mind Mappers
Brainstorming apps
Bookmark organizers
Organizers
Combination of these apps (moo.do)
By the look at this list, you will agree with me that you don’t need all of the tools. So, the question is “which ones Ineed?” It depends on your work behavior and the way your mind works. The solution is that you need a system works for you. You need to know (guess) the easiest, comfortable system for you. Yes! We should implement our own productivity system.
Own Productivity System
This is the process of how I try to think of my own productivity system. I try various applications and tools to see how long I can stick to these apps. Google Keep is good for listings and emergency note taking. The UI of Keep is easy to find and I use it for shopping list, travel checklist and other lists. I also save photos in keep for quick access like images of visa, passport and IDs. I stopped using Evernote because it is frustrating with its features. Moo.do is good for drafting and scheduling, but I can’t make decisions of what should I use it for. Some people with horizontal mind might like Ginko. My main productivity tool is a small notebook( the one that can fit in your pant’s pocket)which you can carry around.
For me, writing things down than typing it on computer is easier and comfortable. I can draw weird diagram, weird process tree, weird plans as I prefer. Just needs a pen! For daily planning,I divided 3 sections for planning; planning(not scheduling), time-tracking and notes about thoughts on the tasks. I plants a habit of planning things during dinner time or early morning at work. During lunch time, I reflects on tasks I done and adjust tasks for the rest of the day.I jot down for daily plan in a timely manner and during working on each task,track time to see the performance. Note sectionis for things popup related with tasks.It’s flexible and convenient. I also keep track of spening by at a header with number and abbrevations of spending items such as L for Lunch, T for transprots, D for dinner, B for beer and so on. Just need to maintain my notebook from forgetting ar coffee shop.
For additional reading about creative scheduling,task planning and prductivity tools, this guy has several interesting templates you can print it out and use it.
Check it out!