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Productivity Process

Last updated Jul 19, 2022 Edit Source

# Process

  1. Wind-up
    1. Consideration of task
    2. Prediction of challenges
    3. Outline of outcomes (milestones, tasks, etc)
    4. Sort by importance and dependency
    5. Allocate resources
    6. Outline recovery
  2. Execute
    1. Warm-up with dependent, easy tasks or previous day work
    2. Execute high-impact work after warmup
    3. Note down high-impact and warmup outcomes
    4. Finish with lower-importance, lower-demand tasks (emails, etc.)
  3. Wind-down
    1. Turn devices off
    2. Reflect on day
    3. Perform mini SWOT analysis
    4. Record achievements
  4. Recovery / Rest
    1. Have fun, sleep well, exercise

# Wind-up

# Consider the task

What do you want to accomplish? What does that look like? What kind of obstacles are you going to face? What impact does this have on the bigger picture? What resources are you going to need to accomplish this task? How big is this task? Is the trade-off of how much this is going to cost against how much this helps the big picture worth it? Can you delegate this task to someone else, and should you? What will completion look, feel, and be like?

These are the questions you want to start with, especially for larger tasks that are an umbrella for a lot of smaller ones. Proposing these questions to yourself means that you understand the task at hand, and that you’ve adequately prepared yourself. If the questions above seem pointless, it’s because you’re focusing on the to-do list and not the journey to the outcome.

# Prediction of Challenges

Who is going to be in your way? What in your environment is going to drain your capacity? What resources are going to be difficult to attain? How much task-inertia needs to be built up from scratch? How many question marks are you sitting on?

Asking these questions allows you to keep reality in the same picture as your outcome. Obviously you don’t want to be a pessimist with all you do, but realism is a critical element of accomplishment. You do need to be pessimistic as a counter-balance to the optimism of your intended outcome. It’ll also help you understand what is actually going to happen, and limit risks involved in execution. This is not going to be perfect, and you shouldn’t drain yourself on this, but having an awareness is going to significantly increase your likelihood of managing problems.

# Outline of Outcomes

Different kinds of productivity need different systems of execution. Is it a project? Is it a user-story? Is it a sales goal, or a meeting? What do you want to see? Use these questions to consider the picture in your head of what success can be measured by. This is where you want to not only specify what you want to achieve, but also your estimated likelihood of achieving said outcomes.

This is also where you can reflect on just how much impact this has on your overall goals. Note that all of your goals should be attached to meaningful values, such as having a sustainable foundation to support your family, expressing excellence in your work to find meaning in what you do, etc.


WIP, to be continued