All-Purpose

When starting a task - a simple one or a complex multi-faceted project - the most important factors are to fully understand the context of the task - and your purpose in starting it.

What are you trying to achieve?

Why is this task/project important in achieving your goals?

If you do fully understand the purpose, you are more likely to have a positive attitude towards the task.

This is particularly important if the task itself has unpleasant or inconvenient aspects to it.  For example if the task is to discipline a member of staff, you might find such a task difficult and keep putting it off. If, however, you can see the true underlying purpose (or purposes) of this task - perhaps to help this member off staff improve their contribution, or to show other members of staff that you treat everyone fairly , praising and penalising as appropriate - it becomes easier to undertake. 

For more complicated , perhaps more serious tasks, understanding the purpose should mean you are much less likely to make a mistake or to mis-communicate to others with regard to the task.

It should also help you set meaningful goals and intermediate targets.

So, take the time to think through the items on your ToDo list or in your strategic plan - and fully understand why each needs to be successfully completed.  If you don't understand the purpose, why do it?

Thinking Time

There is quite s variety of views on the effectiveness of multi-tasking. Some people think it is essential to cope with the demands of a modern workplace. Others think it simply distracts from the efficiency of single-focus work.

There is some truth in both views and whether multitasking is 'right' for a worker depends on his/her personality and on the nature of the work.

This blog post, however, is not intending to come down on one side of the debate or the other.

It is to remind you that in a modern, multi-faceted, ultra-busy working world, it is essential to make time….. to think.  

This may mean making small adjustments to your current working processes and workflows.  For example, project teams should make sure they meet together regularly to avoid the need to send emails around the team which arrive and are dealt with asynchronously and may result in mis-communication, misunderstanding and delays.

Perhaps a short catchup meeting (face-to-face or virtual) at the end of each day will ensure everyone is 'on the same page' and information can be shared, discussed and used as the basis for decisions.

Perhaps ten minutes at the end of each lunch break can be set aside for a communications blackout and a 'thinking window'.

Everyone - and each team - should think about what might work for them - to give them reflection and thinking time … and if the agreed team protocol does not work for you, you need to superimpose your additional, individual framework to met your own needs.

Think about it!

Dont't Worry About the Best

 ’m interested in both technology and productivity so naturally I have an interest in how technology can underpin improved productivity

 Like lots of people recently, I have been experimenting with AI software.

What becomes clear very quickly is that ‘there is a lot of it about’.  Most people are aware of the existence of ChatGPT but there are many other examples of AI software, often with particular abilities or focused on a particular function or sector.  Certainly there are too many for me to test and evaluate.  When I started looking at AI, I wanted to use the ‘best’ software.  But identifying the ‘best’ means the best for my circumstances, my situation, my purpose and my tasks. 

You can (and I did) read reviews to shorten the list of possibilities - but all those ’my’s in the list above mean that reviews do not necessarily help identify what is best for mw.

Additionally, AI is progressing at a fast rate and what you identify as ’best’ now may not be the ’best’ in a few months time.

So I did what I had to do - choose a relatively general purpose software package which would allows me to experiment across a range of applications and tasks..

The point of this tale is not to inform you of how to choose AI software but to remind you that the ’best’ is often an unhelpful objective to pursue.  Searching for perfection often means taking too long or costing too much. All productivity facilitators need a healthy dose of pragmatism - realising that ‘better’ is often good enough!

Its not only what YOU think

What makes a given process or situation more productive is often a set of factors, some of which are relatively simple and others complex and perhaps hidden.

Assume you work for a forestry company.  How do you make the forests owned or managed b y the company more productive?

You might think of trying different fertilisers, irrigation regimes,  pollarding/thinning techniques and so on.

However, without significant expertise and experience in forest management, you would be very unlikely to know - or even suspect, that more complex forests have higher productivity (or rates of photosynthesis).

Yet,, researchers are finding that the arrangement of trees affects photosynthesis .  In particular, a variety of tree heights - known as high vertical heterogeneity - affects how trees use water to create biomass - and be more productive 

In other areas, similar surprising factors emerge - so any technical productivity initiative needs a mixed team - pf productivity experts/facilitators working with subject experts - to identify and develop the hidden factors.

I have always said that the main 'tool' of the productivity facilitator, is the ability to ask questions.  Having a technical expert as part of the team means be useful in getting original answers.  Certainly it is always useful to get others thinking about problems - the more minds you have focused on a problem , the more likely a solution becomes.

Should You Become a Monk?

Strange question for a productivity blog, perhaps  but stay with me.

Increasing evidence suggests that multitasking is distracting. As is the interjection into the work-place and workstream of email, telephone vocals snd other distractions.  People have realised this for some time and s number of them have come to the same  conclusion - that they need to hunker down and concentrate for some time on a single task 

Inspired by the single-mindedness of monks throughout the ages, this has become known as entering 'monk mode'. -  intense periods of uninterrupted focus to optimise productivity. It involves hyperfocusing on a single task and removing all distractions. As well as making the person more productive on that one, singular task, monk mode has the added advantage of reducing burnout caused by the constant shuffling of resources to work on different projects snd tasks.

You must ensure that your colleagues are aware of this shift of process and you, yourself, must ensure that all potential distractions are removed or reduced.Some people use monk mode at quiet periods of the day - even before official start and after official end times.  Make sure your workspace is tidy - untidiness is a source of distraction.  If it starts tidy, it should end tidy.

Monk mode won't work for all jobs, all tasks, or all people.  But for many, it does seem to - and its worth a try to see if it works for you.