Can Microsoft's GigJam Take On Personal Productivity?

Microsoft is considering the multifaceted nature of our work and designing a productivity tool that allows you to collaborate across platforms, throughout your organization and keep track of your action steps.

For me, this news evokes a bigger, bolder question: how personalized can you make this new tool so that it truly supports the unique way that you work?

So, what’s the unique way YOU work?

Well, here’s another big, bold question: Are you right-handed or left-handed?

If I asked you to write your name for me on a piece of paper it would be much easier to write your name with your dominate or preferred hand.

Now, it is the same thing when it comes to our preferences regarding how we structure our day, complete our tasks and respond to email, or what I call your personal Productivity Style.

Here’s your crash course on personal Productivity Styles:

Your personal Productivity Style is your approach to planning and allocating effort across goals, activities, and time periods.  This approach is usually unconscious and unsystematic rather than deliberate and rational.  Nonetheless, patterns can be detected, which generally grow out of your individual cognitive style—your habitual pattern or preferred way of perceiving, processing, and managing information to guide behavior. Since everyone has a distinctive cognitive style, you also have a distinct Productivity Style.

There are four different Productivity Styles:

• Prioritizer
• Planner
• Arranger
• Visualizer

PRIORITIZER

A Prioritizer prefers logical, analytical, fact based critical and realistic thinking. To make decisions Prioritizers gather the facts and argue rationally. You cannot be too succinct with a Prioritizer.  They wrote the definition of a word budget.  Their emails are often just a few words or a sentence. Just the facts please! Prioritizers have never met a goal they did not like and can complete significant amounts of work and effectively prioritize tasks.  Prioritizers are exceptional problem solvers, decision makers and critical analysis. As soon as a Prioritizer gets on the elevator, they are pressing the door closed button, even if there are people waiting to get on the elevator because they have things to do!  They are NOT going to waste time.

PLANNER

A Planner prefers organized, sequential, planned and detailed thinking. To make decisions Planners look at historical precedence and prefer conservative, procedural and practical approaches. Words that are music to a Planners ears – let’s get organized, what is the plan? Let’s discuss the details. A Planners emails often include bullet points and step by step next action steps. Planners have never met a project planning tool or personal organizing system you did not like. At times Planners have been known to write something on their to do list that has actually already been completed just so they can mark it off. Planners maintain detailed lists and frequently complete work in advance of the deadline. They are exceptional at finding overlooked flaws, approaching problems practically and organizing and keeping track of data. If you opened a Planners sock drawer you would find their socks organized by color, length AND function.

ARRANGER

An Arranger prefers supportive, expressive and emotional thinking. To make decisions Arrangers involve others, use their intuition and understand the interpersonal and emotional aspects of the decision. Words that are music to an Arrangers ears – she is a team player. He is a good listener. She is open and friendly. Arrangers often have to avoid adding ONE more person to the CC line on their email messages. They don’t want to leave anyone out! Arrangers have never met a stranger. They encourage teamwork and excel at partnering with people to get work done. They maintain detailed visual lists, often using color and intuitively know what tasks must be completed. If you got on the elevator with an Arranger by the end of the ride you will have probably told them your children’s names, your pet’s name and where you are going on vacation.

VISUALIZER

A Visualizer prefers holistic, intuitive, integrating and synthesizing thinking. To make decisions Visualizers play with ideas, explore and embrace risk taking, look to the future. Words that are music to a Visualizers ears – big picture, strategic, a good time, let’s explore, what are the possibilities? Visualizers emails convey why the project or initiative is important and how it is connected to the strategic plan. It is all about what is next. Visualizers have been known to think best when they have a marker in their hand and white board in front of them. Creative, innovative project ideas are the norm. Visualizers manage and juggle a large variety of tasks and projects well. If they are not juggling a variety of projects and tasks they have been known to become bored and might create a new project to complete.

One size does not fit all when it comes to productivity. It is time to personalize your productivity, and here’s to the development of future platforms that honor the way we each work in hopes it allows us to focus more fully on our impact versus our output.

Your natural next step? Take the personal Productivity Style assessment right here. 

Carson Tate is the founder and principal of Working Simply, a management consultancy. Our mission is to bring productivity with passion back to the workplace. We do this by providing tailored solutions that help people to work smarter, not harder.

Her new book, Work Simply, was published via Penguin Portfolio in January.