Home Office Productivity

When productivity tools become counter productive...

All too often we buy productivity tools, software and gadgets designed to help us get more done...but in the end they simply make us more busy and overly stressed.

When I wait at airports and see so many people thumbing their Blackberrys and speaking into their Blue Tooth phones, I ask myself, “Do these guys never just relax? Is it essential that they collect those messages and take those calls right now?”

For myself, I enjoy a little time when I’m out of contact with my email and phone. It gives my mind space to wander, to relax. While others are filling their time and minds with messages and phone calls, I’m taking it easy, and allowing my brain to wander off in different directions.

I might go into an airport bookstore and browse the bestseller business titles. Or check out the self-help section. I’ll glance at some magazine covers.

I can make a phone call at any time. But I rarely have the opportunity to browse through a bookstore. And sometimes I find gold in those titles and magazine covers. They give me ideas for articles and web pages. Even blog entries.

But I wouldn’t get those new ideas if I were being “productive” and catching up with phone calls.

Sometimes our efforts to be super-productive backfire on us. All we do is fill our time, and exhaust ourselves.

Far better, I think, to allow yourself some free time, and give your brain the opportunity to wander, and take you in new directions.

If you have a To-Do List, you had better use it...

I imagine everyone who works from home has a To-Do list of some kind. Maybe in a paper scheduler, or online, or even on a scrap of paper.

But if you have a list...you need to make sure you add absolutely everything to it. Or get as close as you can.

Here’s a problem I encounter from time to time. I have my list for the day and the days ahead. I have added all my work tasks to the list. Plus other work-related items, whether it be to go to the bank or call my accountant.

But once I have the list, I then seem to depend on it absolutely. In other words, my brain will no longer “take responsibility” for remembering what to do...because that responsibility has been passed on to “the list”.

That’s not a problem, unless I forget to add things to the list.

Just a few minutes ago I realized I received an email yesterday to which I should have replied.

However, the email had slipped beneath the “fold” in Outlook, and I hadn’t added that task to my list of things to do. So I forgot about it.

Now, I KNOW that I won’t always remember to add every single task to my list, so I make a point each day of asking myself, “What else do I need to do? What isn’t on the list, but needs to be done?”

Get ahead of your deadlines.

When you have a task to complete and the deadline is in four days’ time, it’s tempting to put off starting work.

After all, it will maybe take you only six hours to get the job done. And with a four–day deadline, you have plenty of time to spare.

Some of the time you’ll get away with this approach.

But when you work for yourself, you have to be prepared for the unexpected.

Maybe a regular client will call with a rush job. Maybe you’ll have a last minute invitation to speak at a local business meeting.

Maybe one of the kids will get measles. Or your car will break down. Or you’ll get the flu.

The point being, when you’re a solopreneur, you have no support services - no colleague who can step in and do what you do. Whatever happens, you have to deal with it.

So when you leave things until the last minute...it can happen that you won’t actually have that last minute available.

It is for this reason that I get jobs done as soon as I can. I may not send them to my client until the day of the deadline. But I will try to get them completed as soon as possible.

There is another productivity benefit to completing jobs in advance of the deadline.

It makes you feel good. It gives you a boost. It lifts you up. It gives you some extra momentum to move forward and start the next task.