Productivity System

I read a lot of books, listen to podcasts, and watch a lot of YouTube videos mostly revolving around the same subjects. One of the main subjects I focus on is productivity. I love reading about how people can make a group of people more productive or how they can make themselves more productive. The biggest issue with trying to learn about productivity is that you hear a lot of the same things over and over again. A new book could come out tomorrow and when you are finished reading it, you realize that it said the same thing you read about ten years ago, it just put everything in modern terms. You could read a productivity book from 1990 and the only difference is that now we track everything from an app or do everything online. My point is that the areas you focus on and how treat people really hasn’t changed. All you are trying to do is consume as many ways as possible to do the same thing because you know that everyone learns differently. You can have five people on a team and the way they receive information is different. Some people are hands on, some people are visual, some people want to read the manual first. So, you must be able to present the same exact information in as many ways as possible if you want to be able to get everyone on the same page as quickly as possible. The same thing is true for personal productivity. It’s almost impossible to go out there and find someone who does something a certain way and that specific way works perfectly for you. Over the years one of the things that I have heard a lot when someone is talking about productivity is that they say they have created their own productivity system. I went to google to look up the words productivity system because again, I wanted us all on the same page as quickly as possible. This is what google told me:

Productivity systems are methodologies designed to help you be more productive or get more work done in less time. These systems do not perform the work for you but can help you organize and prioritize your work, making it easier to streamline your work and maximize your efficiency.

That is the first definition I read, and that seems to line up with what I want to talk about, so let’s go with that one.

So, what does it mean when someone says that they created their own system? The way I see it, creating your own system means that you have a specific way that you take in information and then organize that information to get everything done, in the most efficient way. In its most basic form, this could mean that you have a stack of sticky notes somewhere and you grab one when you have time. When you are finished with the task on that note, you reach for the next one. That might work for a while, but it’s hard to plan for things in the future with this method. One of my missions in life is to create my own productivity system. I want a system that in the end may only work for me, but it works. Most people agree that you need a place to store information, you need a task manager, and you need a calendar. Those things I have covered. I’ve been using Evernote since 2016. I use todoist for my task manager and I always use google calendar. So, if you have the tools you need, what is the hold up? One of the biggest challenges I come across is how to receive information. What I mean by that is that you can get a task given to you in many ways. You can get an email, you can get an instant message, you can be watching tv and remember something that you wanted to get done. You can be walking around at work, and someone stops you and gives you something. I’m sure I could think of a ten more if I had to. Most of these items don’t come to you at a convenient time. If you don’t have a good system, items get lost. Another challenge is when can I get these things done. I work nights, so it’s hard to schedule things for a few days out because sometimes you have no clue what your energy level will be. You also have a family that might need something. I really feel like if I could get better at tracking all the tasks coming in and scheduling time to work on all these activities, I would be unstoppable. This is the year that I want to be able to really step up and change some habits. If I want to do that, I need to figure out a way to create my own productivity system that works for home and work. I also must remember that one of the main goals of a system is that you want to be able to do things in the most efficient way. The goal must be to get more done in less time. That would either give you free time to rest, or room for more projects. What do you think is the best way to keep track of everything you have going on today and in the future?