Personal Productivity Hacks

Personal productivity is an area that I’m passionate about. We all have a limited amount of time and energy, and left unchecked it can be the little things we do that either drains or maximizes our productivity. As a leader of large teams, I’ve tried to implement processes and standards that allow colleagues to place the maximum amount of their time and energy into what matters most to them, but there are a few little things that I’ve picked up along the way that I also pass along. These are the little things that may seem unimportant, but when you add up how much time and energy they drain you realize the need to get them under control. Many of the items below are focused on email, but that is an area ripe with opportunity for efficiency.

1. The?first hour of my day is reserved?for me to get my arms around outstanding items, to see if there are urgent issues that need my immediate attention. I only take mandatory meetings during this time.
2. Close to the end of the week, block the entire next week. This allows you to reserve blocks of free time to focus on important to-do items. It also allows you to give time to anyone that has an urgent emerging issue that must be dealt with without blowing up your calendar (and others’) by having to rearrange an entire day because of an unexpected event. If someone really needs you, they will request time. You now have control of whether you want to give up your free time opposed to having it taken from you. Non-urgent requests for time will flow to the next open block, which will be the following week after the blocked week. Thursday is my “block day”.
3. My goal in email is to synthesize information that has been sent to me and to respond. It isn’t to have an empty inbox and an organized folder structure. As such,?only keep one filing folder aside from your inbox that all messages go in to when you want to archive them.?I use one folder for the current half of the year e.g. 2H 2021. Everything goes there. If I need to find something I sort or search. No need to try to remember what folder an item is in. At the start of a new half I start a new folder. This also helps with addressing records retention limits. All messages over X years old are easy to find and delete. This is a scary concept for many, but it is probably the single biggest tip that I get feedback on about its ability to free up time as it eliminates wasted time constantly moving items to folders, creating folders, remembering where you filed something, and trying to achieve an empty inbox. I read and move on. When I’m ready to move items to the folder, I just grab a chunk in mass and move them. Done.
4. A good friend passed on this next tip. Create a?search folder pinned as a favorite in Outlook that pulls together all messages in your inbox that are addressed only to you. It’s the first thing I tackle when I sit down to review email. That ensures that I don’t miss an important topic that must be addressed. As time goes on, I continue to tweak it to filter out articles, reports, and other items that aren’t person-to-person communication.
5. I love the?Outlook “Quick Steps”?feature. I’ve created a few items that line up to the way I work. One click and I can move something to the archive folder, “Star” an important item (Outlook doesn’t have stars like Gmail, so I created a category label), mark it for “Action”, send a standard response, etc. Think about common tasks you do and create a few.
6. Use Rules in Outlook?to automate tasks. Use them to automatically categorize items, move items to the archive folder (the junk you don’t really need to read but want to keep it on hand), notify you when a message comes in from a particular contact, or automatically delete certain content.
7. Tucked into the prior tip is the notion to?use categories to replace the need to create folders. Say you’re in an industry group that uses the address of @CPG.com. Set up a rule that tags all messages containing that address with the category “CPG”. Also make a rule that tags email messages from individuals in that group that may not have that address. When you need to find a message from the group, conduct a search off of that category. You can also set up search folders off of a category so that you have even faster access to that topic if needed.
8. Avoid having conversations in email and use a chat app like Teams or Slack. Have you ever opened your inbox to see 20 messages on the same topic because of a conversation being discussed via email? The discussion is rarely linear and requires even more time to connect all of the strands that have spun off of the initial thread. After the first few messages, give a polite nudge and ask to move the discussion to chat. Once completed, close the loop on the discussion with one final email that outlines the final decision or outcome. Try to save email for “official” or final communications, items that require documentation, confirmation of commitments, and items that may need to be forwarded to others or externally.
9. Try Microsoft’s To Do app. Having a mobile app allows you to add to your to do list on the fly. You can keep multiple lists e.g. one for you and one for each of your teammates. It syncs with the Tasks section in Outlook. Each list you create will show up as its own item in Tasks. You can also set up a page that groups the tactical item by list, allowing you to print out one organized journal of all items if needed.

I can’t promise you that all of these times are foolproof, but they have really helped me run a much more efficient day and saved me time. Try them. And please feel free to share tips from your routine that have helped you.