Ten Things that Increase My Productivity

Posted August 19, 2008 By Caroling Lee |

As a project manager juggling projects, clients and a production team, I’ve created a system to help me stay productive without pulling out my hair. Below are a few tools that help me to reduce distractions, automate processes and keep things organized.

  1. Email Organization – I get a LOT of email and sometimes half my day is spent wading through them just to get things done. There are two things I do to help me get through this as quickly as possible:
    • File, Act, Delegate or Delete. I loosely follow the David Allen Getting Things Done principle of dealing with individual messages. Anything that needs more than ten minutes of my attention gets a flag in my inbox and stays there to remind me to follow-up.
    • Rules. I’m on a number of newsgroups and LISTSERVs, so to avoid reading each one as they come in, I set up rules that automatically file messages for me into a particular folder so that I can read them when I have time.
  2. Calendar – I segment my calendars into ‘Work’, ‘Personal’, etc. and I use alarms religiously. I also create calendar groups within Work and Personal to help me track deadlines, holidays, and events.
  3. Short breaks – Believe it or not, this actually promotes my productivity. Everyone has a different working style, but for me, I find that taking a short walk outside or just stepping away from the computer for a few minutes to clear my head really helps me to get refocused and rejuvenated.
  4. Browser Tabs – Working on the Web every day, I find this little tool to be one of my favorites. On most recent browser versions, such as Firefox 3 and IE 7, Ctrl + t (for a PC) or ‘Apple’ + t (for a Mac) will open a new tab and I can set my browser preferences to open new links in a new tab instead of a new window. This way, I can scroll through various windows and also be able to see everything that I’m working on without having multiple (sometimes confusing) windows open at once.
  5. Priorities - When I keep my top five overall priorities on a Post-It note in front of me, I’m reminded of how to prioritize the little stuff. This one takes a bit of practice, but it’s well worth it in the long run. I try to revisit these each year. On a smaller scale, at the end of each day, I try to make a short list of five things for tomorrow. This way, I address this list first thing the following morning to get them out of the way and I get more done.
  6. Keyboard Shortcuts – This is one of those things that probably seems really insignificant, but I have to say that it really helps to use Ctrl + v, or Ctrl + c instead of trying to cut and paste with a mouse. Some of my other most used shortcuts are:
    • Alt/‘Apple’ + Tab: scroll through open applications
    • Ctrl/‘Apple’ + w: close browser windows or tabs
    • ‘Apple’ + ~: scroll through open browser windows, not tabs (Note: on a PC, you have to scroll through all of the applications)
    • Shift + Print Screen or Shift + ‘Apple’ + 4: take a screenshot

    Taking the time to learn a few shortcuts or setting up some custom functions could really help to move things along faster.

  7. Password Manager – These days, there are far too many usernames and passwords to retain in my memory, so, on my Mac, I use 1Password. Most of the PC users in our studio use RoboForm. These take a little time to set up, but it’s worth it in the long run to have everything at your fingertips.
  8. Bookmarks – I keep the bookmarks that I use on a daily basis on my browser toolbar and try to keep things organized in folders. For me, bookmarks also represent my priorities and goals. When I was shopping for a house, I had a folder called ‘Buy a House’ and kept all my related links in there.
  9. Instant Messaging – I’m somewhat torn on this as a productivity tool, but there are some obvious pros to using a chat program. (I actually use multiple programs: MSN Instant Messenger, AOL Instant Messenger, GTalk, and Yahoo! Messenger, but I use Adium for Mac to consolidate all of these into one program. PC users can consolidate with Trillian or Pidgin). The biggest pro is to be able to work remotely and still be in close contact. The major cons are that things like tone and inflection don’t communicate well over instant messaging and it can very easily become a distraction. I try to turn off instant messaging when I know I need time to concentrate or put an ‘away’ message so that I can still receive messages and address them later.
  10. Dual Monitors – When I only had one monitor, I didn’t know what I was missing, but now, with two screens, there’s no need to toggle between applications. I keep my calendar and email applications open on one screen and my browser open on the other. This makes it so much easier for me to see everything going on at a glance.

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Caroling Lee is TradeMark Media's user experience director. She handles site architecture and oversees the design process.

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8 Responses to “Ten Things that Increase My Productivity”

  1. Posted August 19th, 2008 at 2:04 pm, by Chad Jewell

    Thanks for the 1Password suggestion. I have been getting very frustrated with all the passwords and trying to figure out where I wrote them all down. With the new security required by many sites, you can’t remember them when they require 9 characters with the first being a digit! I have downloaded the trial and think it will really be useful.

    Thanks!

  2. Posted August 19th, 2008 at 3:06 pm, by czdebel

    Caroling,

    All outstanding suggestions! In addition I have found a dry erase board to be an indispensable kind of “random access memory” for the real-time desktop. The other key productivity tool I use is *disabling* all of the visual and audio email notifications; if something is super urgent I expect a phone call or SMS.

    Cheers,
    Christian

  3. Posted August 20th, 2008 at 7:47 am, by Eric

    You finally motivated me to set up Roboform – what a relief! But can you believe they don’t have Uruguay as an option for your home address?! And I set up Pidgin too, which is wonderful. But it doesn’t seem to have Skype, I guess one can only ask for so much.

    Thanks again,
    Eric

  4. Posted August 20th, 2008 at 9:18 am, by Dave Hime

    What a great list (easy for me to say, since I already do 8 of the 10 things on it!) and a great resource for everyone already working too many hours. One of the things I started doing last year that has made a huge impact on my productivity is scheduling when incoming email is delivered to my desktop. Previously, I was allowing incoming email to interrupt me every 3 minutes; now I only receive notification of incoming email once an hour.

    Thanks!
    Dave

  5. Posted August 20th, 2008 at 9:36 am, by Caroling Lee

    Hey Chad:

    Let me know what you think of 1Password. If I could start over with it, I would have set up folders first and been more careful with duplicates.

    Good luck and glad it was helpful!
    Caroling

  6. Posted August 20th, 2008 at 9:44 am, by Caroling Lee

    Eric!
    All the way from Uruguay — and reading our newsletter…I’m flattered.

    RE: Pidgin and Skype – I bet you’re not the only one that’s interested in that feature. I did a quick search on the pidgin.im site and found this plugin:
    http://code.google.com/p/skype4pidgin/

    Not sure how this works or if this is what you’re looking for, but worth a look.

    If that’s not it – try sending them a note, the more feature requests they get, the more likely they are to add the functionality.

    Thanks for the comment.
    Caroling

  7. Posted August 20th, 2008 at 9:46 am, by Caroling Lee

    Christian –

    Good point on the whiteboard. We use one for our production schedule and after looking at all the other options like Google Calendar and sharing calendars, this lo-fi method actually seems to work the best.

    I’ve also tried disabling notifications or closing down email and chat altogether, but I confess, I’m still working on perfecting that…

    Caroling

  8. Posted August 20th, 2008 at 9:48 am, by Caroling Lee

    Dave:

    Good advice. I’m going to reset mine to check every 5 minutes instead of every minute….

    Baby steps.

    Thanks,
    Caroling

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