So what momentous event has inspired me this time? Over the last few months, I've struggled to keep on top of volume...volume of work, information, communications, ideas, projects...and have felt like it is all a bit out of control.
I've had a book called "How to be a productivity ninja" by Graham Allcott (this one) on my bookshelf at home for a couple of years, and not quite got round to reading it. A friend ordered it after seeing my copy and then raved about it, thus inspiring me to not only read it, but to carry out the practical exercises as I went through.
And oh my word - why did I not read it when I got it?!
I'm not going to outline all the principles and tools in the book - read it if you want the detail, you won't regret it - but just to give you a flavour, it approaches time management from a completely different perspective from the traditional urgent/important/well prioritised to do list angle. Rather, it accepts that for knowledge workers (the vast majority of people doing a desk based job), the likelihood is that there will always be too much to do, and too much to take in. The focus is therefore on creating a way of working that allows you to manage the information effectively, and maintain clarity of purpose to help you understand what to prioritise, and leave space for the creative thinking which is part of most roles...and particularly mine at the moment!
The ideas which I've found most helpful are...
...viewing email as just another input of information rather than a to do list, so just touching each email once, making a decision about it, and capturing actions
...creating quality thinking "boss" time to organise your actions and projects, knowing what your specific next action is on each, making it easier to then get into productive flow in doing/"worker" mode and get lots done as you don't have to waste time working out what needs to be done before you can do it
...having a master actions list where I am confident I've captured everything (quietening the nagging worries that undermine productivity), and choosing a realistic number of items from it to achieve each day, rather than constantly being faced by an ill-defined list of everything I haven't done yet
...and more!
I'm sure that there are other ways of organising work which will achieve the same sort of clarity, but I'm finding myself able to be so much more productive (and more than that, much more creative) because I know that I've captured everything, been clear on my next action, and rid myself of the nagging fear that something is lurking in my inbox ready to catch me out.
If you're finding yourself drowning in email and other information inputs, and struggling to get to a point where you're confident that you know everything that needs to be done (let alone doing it effectively!) I can thoroughly recommend reading this. I'm not being sponsored to recommend it, by the way - I just found it really, really useful.
The side benefit (or biggest benefit?!) of feeling much more organised is that I'm more able to switch off on my non-working day because I'm confident everything is under control. Which means that I have the time and energy to spend Wednesday doing things like making enormous cardboard castles for a pending 4 year old's birthday party,making a small Rapunzel very happy:
A win all round, I think you'll agree.
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