Know Thyself and Become More Productive
How productive have you been today?
There are many ways you can answer that question - but there are two different perspectives to think about when you do. One perspective depends on how much you actually have gotten done. Another perspective depends on how much you could actually do.
I favor the latter perspective. When I wrote How Heatmapping Your Productivity Can Make You More Productive, I used the phrase "productive capacity" to draw the distinction between actual productivity and potential productivity. The phrase worked well for some segment of my audience, but I think it's time to revisit that post and make some ties that I've neglected to mention in the past. (I'll be referencing some forms throughout this post. If you haven't picked them up (they're free), here are the links: [download#3] Planner Repository, kept up to date.)
Despite the fact that I'm horrible at staying on schedule and that makes what I do here seem a bit disjointed, there's actually a method to the madness. I try to design my planners so that it provides enough focus to keep you working but enough perspective to keep your mind from wandering while you work. What I haven't made really clear is that the designs are an application of A General Theory of Productivity - in the designs, I'm trying to increase Focus and Decrease distractions.
The Daily Productivity Heatmap tries to get you to harness your productive energy so that you work when you have the most Creative Energy - but what I haven't done a great job of talking about is that during those times, you should schedule your tasks that are the most Difficult. I state in "Heatmapping" that not all chunks of time are equal, but in other posts, I've also said that not all tasks are equal, too.
So the link I haven't quite made explicit is that using the Daily Productivity Heatmap helps you figure out when you're capable of doing high-value, high-energy tasks, and the Productivity Planners help you use that information to actually plan those tasks. The end result: you get more work done in less time because you're leveraging your internal productive states much more effectively.
A New Metaphor For Assessing Your Productivity
I'm still fond of the "Heatmap" post and not just because I've received the most traffic and commentary on it. What I think needs to be improved is the description of the different levels of productive capacity.
As I was driving, a new metaphor came to me that may help people not only understand what I meant, but also give a quick way to assess their productive capacity by using something more familiar. It takes its cue from driving. That said, let's begin to walk through the different productivity levels:
Overdrive (Red):
Drive (Orange)
Idle (Yellow)
Stall (Green)
Off (Gray)
Rather than trying to figure out what color state you're in, or exactly how productive you are, you can just assess whether you're cruising along on the highway (overdrive), driving through town (drive), sitting at a stop light (yellow), lurching, bucking, and backfiring (green), or sitting in your or your mechanic's garage (off).
I continue to stick with 5 levels because it's detailed enough to get the point across but not so detailed that you have to think about it while you're working. The last thing you want to be doing is sitting there quibbling about whether you're in one state or the other. (Hint: if you're not sure, it's probably the lower of the two.)
Lastly, I have yet to come up with a good paper solution for the colors. Using the letters (OD), (D), (I), (S), and (O) for the different levels gets around this problem for the daily grind, and then once you have evaluated yourself to the point of saturation, you can go ahead and color the time slices in.
What Should I Do When I'm at the Different Productivity Levels?
It depends on what you do.
If you're a writer, it will probably look like this:
Overdrive (Red):
Drafting, Brainstorming, Daydreaming, Macro-Structuring, Creative Collaboration
Drive (Orange)
Editing, Micro-Structuring, Reading
Idle (Yellow)
Administrative Work (Email, paying bills, etc.), Routine Calls
Stall (Green)
TV and other non-work leisure
Off (Gray)
If you're a designer, it may look like this:
Overdrive (Red):
Draft Designing, Brainstorming, Daydreaming, Creative Collaboration
Drive (Orange)
Designing through Software, Editing, Reading
Idle (Yellow)
Administrative Work (Email, paying bills, etc.), Routine Calls
Stall (Green)
TV and other non-work leisure
Off (Gray)
If you're a manager, it may look like this:
Overdrive (Red):
Creative Collaboration, Project Planning, Policy Writing, Evaluations
Drive (Orange)
Meetings, One-on-one with staff, project review, interviews
Idle (Yellow)
Administrative Work (Email, paying bills, etc.), Routine Calls
Stall (Green)
TV and other non-work leisure
Off (Gray)
The key trend in these different models is that the highest-value work goes during the productive peak. Do not try to plan these tasks at the end of the day or beginning of the day, unless those are when you work best. They are, after all, what make you the most money or are the most important part of your job - shouldn't they take priority in your planning?
This is Great for People Who Can Choose When They Do Their Work - But What About Those of Us Who Can't?
The biggest critique I received about the ideas presented above was that they're great for creatives, academics, and freelancers, but it was pretty useless for everyone else who worked "a real job." People who work real jobs don't have the luxury of choosing when they do their work, attend meetings, etc.
I understand real jobs far more than most people realize, and I started toying around with these ideas while in an unreal one myself - when I was deployed as a staff officer. I noticed trends in my own work and found that, through some creative negotiation and planning, I was able to figure out blocks of time to get my projects done faster and at a higher quality than I otherwise would have been able to.
Since I'm a morning worker, it became clear to me that I needed to figure out ways to get my bosses off of me during that time. I didn't need to sit in meetings all day asking me what I was working on, because I couldn't work on anything because I was sitting in meetings all day.
So I developed a tracker of the project I was working on, and I would email them the tracker when there were any changes. If they'd ask me when I'd have something done, I'd always give them a time during my "yellow" periods (generally from 1500-1700 at the time). It made sense to them because it was starting to be the end of shift and they can receive an outbrief for the day - but it made sense to me because it let me work and get things done without the constant checkups and harassment.
Over time, I didn't have to fight against management about matters related to time management - the times we had meetings worked for all of us for different reasons. But the point of this is to show how you might go about negotiating your work hours in a collaborative (or managed) environment. It starts with you figuring out your work patterns first - regardless of the setting.
Stay at home parents pose a different problem that I'll be addressing in the next few weeks (I promise).
Know Thyself
Usually you hear that commandment when it relates to matters of philosophy. It's good advice in general, though.
Someone once complained that tracking his productivity was a waste of time that he could otherwise be spending on actually working. That seemed counter-intuitive to me: it's like saying spending time planning is a waste of time because you could be doing something in the time you spent planning.
True, you could be doing something else in that time. But the question is not if you could be doing something else in that time, but rather, if you could be doing something more valuable during that same amount of time.
Using the Productivity Heatmap, or at least the ideas behind it, gives you a stab in the right direction when it comes to that question. The few minutes a day you might lose in efficiency will very quickly be multiplied when you leverage your natural rhythms rather than haphazardly planning your work for abstract times during the day.
Time is a human invention that allows for coordination and frame of reference stabilization. Conventional planners have lost track of that, and a few hundred years of industrialization and artificial manipulation of our relation to natural rhythms has made us forget it.
Your internal states (some of which are indirectly influenced by time) are what determine your ability to be productive, not the clock. Know thyself, and become more productive.
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