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Personal Productivity is about:
- Having the right mental models
- Putting in place systems that work for you
- Maintaining clarity over your priorities
Having the right mental models
Without the right mental models for how things work, you can burn much time and not make any progress. This is bad for you and those that rely on you, whether that is at home, work, or somewhere else. A simple mental model that is commonly understood is the water faucet. Most people understand that when you lift or turn the handle on a faucet water will begin to flow. Imagine for a moment that we didn’t have that mental model. We’d go thirsty while the solution to our thirst is hidden in plain sight. Imagine if we didn’t understand how to use a grocery store. Personal productivity likewise requires that we have mental models for how things work. Things like the calendar or breaking something complex into smaller components can help us be more productive. This is why the Daily Flight Plan includes a quarterly calendar and the Big Picture.
Putting in place systems that work for you
No matter how much or how little each of us do, we have systems that we’ve adopted to get on with living, working, or recreating. Perhaps you have a system to pay your bills online, before they are overdue. Or, perhaps you have a system that you’ve adopted to arrive at meetings on time or never run out of clean shirts or coffee. Using a Daily Flight Flight is a system to formalize the unspoken and unwritten agreement between you and your good intentions. It is a system that can be used daily or whatever period you wish in order to document and reflect on what you think is important to get done. The items you list on your Daily Flight Plan can be tiny tasks or giant undertakings. Adapt and morph this system over time to fit your own style and needs.
Maintaining clarity over your priorities
You’ll get interrupted, that is a fact. Reading this might be an interruption. If you write down your priorities you’ll at least have a fighting chance to revisit your priorities as you receive new information or things and people clamor for your attention. There is a funny thing that happens when you right down your priorities, namely, you free your mind. Your mind will continue to noodle on things that float around in your head until you formally commit to do them, whether that is in a Daily Flight Plan or another system. You can have things you don’t want to do, things you definitely have to do, and things you wish you had time to do. In your mind, you don’t have a very good way to bookkeep and differentiate between these priorities. On the Daily Flight Plan you can write things down, create an ordered list, cross things off, assign a future date to revisit, etc. It helps to simplify a mind running in overdrive mode.
Get Started
So, give it a try. Click the image to download the full size PDF. Save it to your computer and print it as you need it. This free little tool has worked for me in my personal and professional live and it can work for you, too. If you want to know more about the little icons, then read the earlier blog posts and my book, The Experience Design BLUEPRINT: Recipes for Creating Happier Customers and Healthier Organizations.
Links to previous blog posts about the Daily Flight Plan
A More Productive Happier Life with a Daily Flight Plan and Q4 Calendar
Is Your Flight Plan Ready for Your Small Business?
Free 2014 Daily Flight Plan with Q3 Calendar and Big Picture Reminder for SuperHeros
Free 2014 Q2 Calendar Tool to Make Daily Living a Little Less Argh
Free Q1 Calendar Tool to Make 2014 Sing
Greg Olson is the author of The Experience Design BLUEPRINT: Recipes for Creating Happier Customers and Healthier Organizations. See the Book and Author Summary PDF or find the book on Amazon. Read the reviews and see what others are saying.
Category : Blog
Do you have a place to capture ideas and free your mind?
Do you have a “system” to move things forward?
Do you have a way to get organized and break projects down into manageable pieces?
If you answered yes to these questions, great. But, most people employ tools and tactics, like faith, scratch paper, random sticky notes, whiteboards, and a various paper and electronic calendars.
Some people even reduce the amount of things they do, striking a balance between what they can remember and what they feel they can get done. That’s all well and good until you need or want to do more at work or at home. You don’t want to be that person that says the all too common excuse, “But I don’t have time.” We all suffer from time poverty but, some people get more done, while others let time and opportunity pass them by.
If you want to be highly productive, then you’ll need a new approach to getting organized and getting things done.
With more time you could plan a party, write a book, get a new job, make a career change, relocate or move, get involved in the community, solve a nagging problem, invent something, remodel your office or home, start a business, start a blog, learn a language, spend more time with family, write a program, plan a major vacation, run for office, write an initiative, host an event, relax, master a new sport, supercharge a non-profit, volunteer, make and then do your bucket list.
But nobody can give you more time. You’re still stuck with 24 hours each day, so to free up time for important things, you’ll need to better utilize the time you have every single day.
That’s why we created the Big Idea Toolkit, so you can get more important stuff done, whether that is for you, your family, at work or in your community. If you want different outcomes and you want to be a highly productive “doer” then you need a new approach.
Watch the introductory video for the Big Idea Toolkit. Questions? Please comment or contact us.
Category : Blog
No doubt you’ve experienced that naked just left the house without your pants feeling. “Wait, no I have my pants on. Oh yeah – I forgot my keys and where did I put my phone?”
When you don’t get important stuff done in your life and time passes you by, you similarly suffer. Even worse, you effect others around you. When you are a slouch, important things remain undone. You feel unproductive and fill your time with whatever, no matter its impact or quality. Stop that!
If you want to lead a more productive life and reduce the stress and expense of living randomly then use the 4-Square Personal Action plan.
Once you begin using the 4-Square Personal Action plan you’ll breathe a little easier, reduce stress, and positively contribute to those important things in your life, whatever they may be. You will find that you’ll have even more time to pick up the new sport, volunteer at that nonprofit, play music, visit friends, or write that book that’s been brewing in your mind.
The 4-Square Personal Action plan is a free download. It is part of the Big Idea Toolkit but we’ve made it available to you whether or not you use the entire toolkit.
Using it can save you time, money, gas, relationships, and get you closer to where you want to go, no matter where that is.
Having your weekly todos (deliverables) visible will help to ensure they are top of mind and actually get accomplished. Your brain wants to see things and your inner emotional elephant is motivated when you make visible progress. That is why we feel good when we check things off the todo list.
When we see our “to do” list transform into a “to done” list is motivating and serves as fuel to get even more done. So print out your 4-Square, whether or not you’re using the entire toolkit and begin the highly productive habit of creating the weekly 4-Square Personal Action plan and reviewing it daily. Take it with you, review it often, and get more important stuff done. Oh yeah, one more thing… please remember your keys.
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Category : Blog
There is a ton of material on YouTube and other places about affinity mapping so I won’t repeat it all here. But, it is often a good method to generate ideas as a starting point. You frame the problem or opportunity in the form of a question. It is important to stay focused on the question. Often times if you run out of steam I encourage people to think in multiple dimensions, like people, process, technology.
As an example, I was in a small workshop with a non-profit that was putting together a sponsorship program, something new to the group. Our “question” that framed the exercise was “What would be involved in having a successful sponsor program.” Individually, we listed items we could think of, in no particular order. When we ran out of steam after about 20 minutes we placed them on the wall. Then we arranged them into groups of similar items. We then labeled each group. We then processed the pieces using the Big Picture from the Big Idea Toolkit.
Category : Blog
