How I gained a fulfilling working environment while delivering on my promises

Being efficient and productive for me does not only mean to deliver what I promised, but is an important factor how I gain a fulfilling environment, without pressure, overwhelming work and stressful conversations about poor delivery quality.

It helps me aspiring for a healthy balance between compassion and my own ambition level - which is sometimes a challenge in our “always on” and digital world.

I am occasionally asked whether my day has more than 24 hours and my answer is then, that I am actually spending a lot of time to self-organize a perfect environment, which is not being harmed or permanently compromised - and as a technology enthusiast I am constantly exploring tools as working aids and which make my life literally easier: leverage digital tools and work smarter not harder is my ultimate slogan.

In this article I am sharing a couple of methods, easy hacks and insights how to be productive and efficiently deliver on my own promises. In short: I am using technology as much as I can and I am actively taking choices about priorities, self-organization and communication (style AND tools).

Admittedly, I got somehow addicted to constantly tweak my own workplace. The ultimate reason has a higher purpose: I want to gain as much freedom as possible for the tasks and topics which really matter to me: health and being the friend, partner and acquaintance my family and friends are deserving.

Some tricks might be only working for me but I am happy to receive any kind of feedback and of course ideas for further improvements.

How does your perfect day look like?

When I am confronted with the statement “I don’t have (any) time” instead “I am not spending the time for (xyz)”, chances are that the person doesn’t know exactly how the perfect day looks like.

Why is this so important? My strong belief: your time employment throughout the day according to your energy level, biorhythms and lifestyle is a significant guarantor for productivity instead of following fixed schedules.

So basic questions are:

?which time slots can I manage totally flexible?

?when do I have my highest energy levels throughout the day? Am I an early bird or a late night performer?

?what is the ideal batch duration for me, i.e. for how long can I keep a constantly high attention level? 20 min., 45 min. ?

?how can I mix leisure and work time EVERY single day?

These questions are the primer to taking active choices on your self-organization with the aim to be as productive as possible, deliver on what you have promised and finally enjoy the reward and feel motivated for the next challenge, endeavor or project.

It puts you in the driver seat of your capability management and it helps you refuse totally unrealistic timelines. In my opinion there is still a strong misconception in corporate organizations that timelines being the unilateral opinion of a manger become realistic with the level of this manager in the organization’s hierarchy.

Instead, entering into a “negotiation” and offering a consistent rationale for a realistic timeline or scope-boxed deliverable based on past experiences evidencing that “your perfect day” is working properly also for your counterpart, might be a better solution for both sides.

Take-aways:

???Determine your “perfect” working day: find the right mix of break length and work batches and distribute them over the day according to your energy level

???Actively use time and scope boxing: in 99% (!!) of the cases there is room for negotiation for either the timeline or the scope. Find it out and make proposals according to your best version of the perfect day

???Avoid toxic productivity: dare to speak up and create actively transparency how dependencies may cause complications in unilaterally expressed targets

Tools, tools and tools ... and how to use them ... intentionally!?

We are surrounded by tools which are supposed to make the life easier - some of them with a major impact and a sustained life change.

Yet, it is all the more surprising to me that as humans we tend not to use some of those tools as they are actually intended to be used - some examples:

?Why is it, that we use a sketching app on a tablet which allows handwritten note taking as if it were a paper notebook?

?Why do we use an e-mail-system as a chat-tool, i.e. for realtime / all-the-time communication?

?Why do we think that a hierarchical file storage concept from the 1990s (like the Windows explorer which has been transited into Google drive, dropbox, etc. without significant overhaul) is still the adequate way to organize our content today?

?Beside being a romantic writer, why is it, that paper is being considered as the medium of choice to effectively take notes for content creation?

I can continue this list almost infinitely! In the past above questioned phenomena were also a result of over-complicated tools designed for the tech enthusiasts rather than for a broader and layman user group. But this has changed! Technology has also allowed startups to become popular problem solvers and provide easy-to use:

• chat systems allowing an automated documentation thread (e.g. slack)
• relational database systems hidden in a no-code platform for workplace organization (e.g. notion)
• digital team management based on an agile operating model for project and task management with integrated workflow automation (e.g. JIRA)

However, all these (and also other really helpful tools) have one thing in common: it’s not sufficient to just convey the same working method into a digital tool. Instead the method has to be transformed first and sometimes even newly defined before actually using a new tool.

What does it mean? Well, if you’re using MS Word (or any other text management system) like a typewriter with the incremental improvement of the backspace key ??, you’ll not only stay at 3% of the entire functional spectrum of MS Word but you won’t increase your productivity significantly either. Instead, your frustration level to learn another program with (in your eyes) limited functional improvement will increase importantly.

Furthermore, an increasing number of tool and specially SaaS providers rely on an open community of users, developers and affiliates who are eager to support and learn from each other by sharing tips, hacks and templates being orchestrated in an entire eco-system - by the way: an important decision criteria for me to indulge into a new tool is exactly the existence of such an open community.

Take-aways:

???Create your workplace system according to your “perfect day” and choose the tools accordingly

???Understand the basic technology concept behind each employed tool (search for eligible YouTube-Channels, discord Servers, slack-communities etc. that supports your learning capabilities)

???Become an active community member. Good technology employment is based on community feedback. While learning, a passive consumption role is totally acceptable. As a creator share your ideas with the community to accelerate incremental improvements

Special tip for entrepreneurial creators:

???Choose your tools considering the affiliate program the tool provider is offering —> earn money with your own productivity and workplace methods!

Digitalization changes communication ... for the better!

I want to pick up one topic specifically from the last paragraph: let’s talk about ... communication. Have you ever been trapped in an endless real-time or all-the-time communication in your e-mail inbox?

Let me just share the problems attached to using communication tools other than intended:

?? Trend toward near-constant communication means that the average knowledge worker must organize the workday around multiple meetings - with time in between to distractedly have one eye on e-mail, slack and ms teams (or other collaboration tools).

?? Highly synchronous way of working leads to constant interruptions and does not produce aspired results, instead it drains employees‘ mental resources making it more difficult to make meaningful progress on work.

??Meetings (no matter if virtual or in-person) tend then to become showplaces in organizations by prioritizing being connected over being productive and instead of environments for inspiring debates.

I personally remember quite well when I started to advocate for a dedicated asynchronous workplace - the reactions were quite refusing - but didn’t retain me from embracing some remarkable benefits of working asynchronously by using the right tools:

???Gain control over your workday and MASTER your productivity - which is always a very individual response to your lifestyle, biorhythms and duties.

???High-quality communication versus knee-jerk responses - topics are getting more complex and require to think through a particular problem instead of having a vocal and fast reaction for the matter of saying anything.

???Asynchronously created threads lead to an automatic documentation and transparency. The latter suggests to distributed workers, that they are still in the circle and their voice actually matters although being remote.

Of course removing all meetings are not the ultimate solution either, however, defining the right mix is equally important to set a good communication culture.

Take-aways:

?? When focusing on creation and productivity, communicate as much asynchronously as possible by employing the right tools

?? Use synchronous communication in form of meetings, when the threat of misconception and the need for human interaction is higher than the productivity advantage

And here some examples how to run meetings:

???Check-in, check-out stand-ups, 15 min., to start or finish the day, checking the mood of the people or your team on motivation and accomplishments of the day

???Aspire for finishing content meetings before the scheduled time and give ?lifetime“ away. Believe me, people start to rush to get things done IN meetings with you, if they know, that they‘ll get time back FROM YOU

???Do meetings with an opened (electronic - no paper!) doc to take notes and agree DURING the meeting on the follow-up todo‘s

??Please, avoid the politicking of aligning meeting notes up and down the organizational hierarchy - this behavior is so much 1990s (where we haven‘t had the right tools in place back then - and believe me, I am old enough to know what I am talking about).

??A very easy to memorize concept I came across when I started my own communication development journey: API - ASSUME POSITIVE INTENT —> communicate always within a context does reduce significantly the potential for misconception.

Why mastering tech is becoming increasingly important?

While I started quite self-motivated to discover new methods, tools and learning journeys for becoming more productive, it’s now more like a crusade against technology aversion, specially when tools can make our life much easier. As a real-life immigrant by birth and digital immigrant by choice I learned to adapt to new situations quite fast.

Technology is infusing many areas of our life and it won’t stop; it’s an important enabler to adapt to changing environments easily. We can’t allow to leave people behind, because they have a different learning capacity and speed. Meeting people where they are and help them understand how to use technology in a beneficial way for them (not only for tech giants) is an educational endeavor, which I have decided to indulge.

I might have a more natural access to technology, however, my personal belief is that it’s also my responsibility to share my own experiences to ease the access to technology...at least in my LinkedIn audience...for the start.

As co-founder and entrepreneur at /LD7 I am advising companies how to succeed in their tech-enabled transformation initiatives - my strong conviction: successful transformations are directed by tech-savvy leaders and I want to be a role model for my environment as individual and entrepreneur.

---------------------------------------

Sources of pictures:

1. Photo by Ryland Dean on Unsplash
2. Photo by Noah Buscher on Unsplash
3. Photo by Robert Bye on Unsplash
4. Photo by Jonny Clow on Unsplash