Mann no longer uses the full G. Imagine if, through some combination of new management thinking and technology, we could introduce processes that minimize the time required to talk about work or fight off random tasks flung our way by equally harried co-workers, and instead let us organize our days around a small number of discrete objectives. This vision is appealing, but it cannot be realized by individual actions alone.
It will require management intervention. Up until now, there has been little will to instigate this shift in responsibility for productivity from the person to the organization. As Davenport discovered, most knowledge-work companies have been more focussed on keeping up with technological breakthroughs that might open up new markets.
Laptops and smartphones helped these efforts by enabling office workers to find extra hours in the day to get things done, providing a productivity counterbalance to the inefficiencies of overload culture. In a remarkably short span, the spread of the coronavirus shut down offices around the world. This unexpected change amplified the inefficiencies latent in our haphazard approach to work. Many individuals responded by immersing themselves in a 43 Folders-style world of productivity hacks.
Although offices are now partially reopening, a significant amount of work will, for the foreseeable future, continue to be performed remotely. This strategy, however, obscures many of the worst aspects of overload culture. When I cannot see what my team is up to, I can allow accidental inequities to arise, in which the willing end up overloaded and the unwilling remain happily unbothered.
Consider instead a system that externalizes work. Following the lead of software developers, we might use virtual task boards, where every task is represented by a card that specifies who is doing the work, and is pinned under a column indicating its status.
With a quick glance, you can now ascertain everything going on within your team and ask meaningful questions about how much work any one person should tackle at a time. With this setup, optimization becomes possible. What if you began each morning with a status meeting in which your team confronts its task board? A plan could then be made about which handful of things each person would tackle that day. Instead of individuals feeling besieged and resentful—about the additional tasks that similarly overwhelmed colleagues are flinging their way—they could execute a collaborative plan designed to benefit everyone.
The ability to better visualize work would also enable smarter processes. Such optimizations are unlikely to occur when the scope of the problem is hidden among in-box detritus, and when productivity is still understood as a matter of personal will. Whether or not coronavirus-driven disruption provides the final push we need to move away from our flawed commitment to personal productivity, we can be certain that this transition will eventually happen.
Part social network and part virtual co-working space, Focusmate suggests that accountability is the most powerful motivator to get work done.
By Carrie Battan. Is there space for drawing and combining ideas? What GTD gives you—when understood and implemented properly—is a foolproof system for keeping track of what you need to do, should do, or should consider to do.
When your system and your trust in your system is in place, your subconsciousness will stop keeping track of all the things you need to do and stop constantly reminding you. This reduces stress and frees up precious brain time to more productive thinking—maybe it even saves real time so that you have more time for ballet lessons, painting classes, and roller-blading.
So how does it actually work? It works by using special yoga techniques and daily mental exercises. No, haha! Just kidding. It works by simply maintaining lists, which every kid with paper and a pencil can do. Even computers can maintain lists these days!
These lists will be reviewed regularly and form the backbone of the GTD system. Their workings are described below. In addition to the lists you will need a calendar which lets you write down date and time sensitive tasks and events.
The in list is where you capture ideas and tasks as they occur to you. This can be your boss telling you to bake her a carrot cake, or seeing a poster for a circus you want to see. The barrier for adding something to your in list should be as low as possible—jot it down in a notebook or press the right buttons on your smartphone.
While I have called it the in list, it is no problem to have more than one. Maybe an app for when you are in front of a computer and a notebook for when you loiter outside the mall? The important thing is that you are able to write down things as they occur to you. Every interpretation of spamming is prohibited. This means no unauthorized promotion of your own brand, product, or blog, unauthorized advertisements, links to any kind of online gambling, malicious sites, or otherwise inappropriate material.
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What we encourage: Smart, informed, and helpful comments that contribute to the topic. Funny commentary is also thoroughly encouraged. Constructive criticism, either of the article itself or the ideas contained in it. Found technical issues with the site? Send an email to service zenkit. Or No. I used to think that rescheduling tasks to get to inbox zero at the end of the day was cheating. Celebrate the things you have accomplished, and create a fresh plan every daily and weekly.
And if you have any awesome strategies for sticking with your GTD system, please post them too! Becky is editor and logophile-in-residence at Doist.
You can find her trying not to take life too seriously. So far so good. Seriously one of the best blogs around. And one of the only company newsletters I look forward to getting. Doist quite simply have the best blog in the space.
Adjusting to home office and taking care of our new born has meant re-evaluating how I schedule my time and stay productive. People are sleeping on the doist blog. Every article is so, so good and jam-packed with actionable information. Highly recommended for productivity balancing tips! Becky Kane.
Got it. Becky Kane Becky is editor and logophile-in-residence at Doist.
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