I just finished one of the the most productive weeks I’ve had in a long, long time. Rarely did I transfer over an unfinished task from the previous day. Monday and Thursday dragged a bit, more so Thursday, but the week as a whole rocked! Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to enjoy those types of weeks very often at my current employer, which in the past has prompted me to review what it was that happened that sucked my productivity during those typical workweeks. This time, I’m going to look at what I’ve done differently this week, and see if I can apply that to the future.

So what did I do differently this week? Here’s a list:

1. Mind mapping

I first came across the term ‘mind mapping’ when I bought SmartDraw a few years ago. I looked at the templates provided, and didn’t understand how they added any value. They looked too involved and thought they would take too long to create. It wasn’t until I read about them recently in “Getting Things Done” that I finally got it: it’s nothing more than an outline of thoughts. Instead of drawing them by hand (as shown in GTD) or in SmartDraw, I created an outline using Microsoft Word (an aside to OpenOffice and Google Docs: outline views are really nice, and missing from your products). I created an outline of things that needed my attention in the short term, and then continued breaking those things down until they reached a task so small that it could not be broken down any further. As I did this to other tasks, I’d realized I’d forgotten a step in a previous task, and then added it. When I was done, I had a full list of things that were easy to do in one sitting, and had a clear map of what needed to be done for the rest of the week.

2. Conspicuous lack of meetings

My current employer is crazy with meetings. I’ve worked at much larger (in one notable case, thousands of times larger) companies that did not require as many meetings as I do now. What’s troubling is that it’s not unusual for the same meeting to occur multiple times because people left without forming a consensus on what the meeting’s resolution was. Discussing something over a cubicle wall doesn’t suffice; there needs to be a meeting. Having someone in charge make a decision doesn’t suffice; there must be a “debate”. This last week was almost meeting free, with the exception of the aforementioned Thursday. The lack of productivity on Thursday, in my mind, is directly related to the meetings, and when they took place. I’ll have more about this in a later post on the evils of meetings.

3. Lack of players

Due to vacations and two recent staff reductions, the number of people involved in the project was much smaller last week than normal; the fewer people, the less chance for things to go wrong, interruptions to occur, and meetings to go longer than needed. There were very few interruptions, and, as far as I could tell, there were no “emergencies” or unnecessary “drama” to suck productivity.

4. I still IM’d and Tweeted

I did not go full-blown isolationist in order to get things done. I kept my IM client open almost all week, and I continued to use Twitter and check my email on a normal basis (check it during natural breaks in work). The thought that IM/Twitter are productivity sinks is not necessarily true.

5. I worked normal hours

I never worked more than 9 hours in any given day (a couple of the 9 hour days were to make up for a doctor appointment early in the week); a little more than 40 hours for the week. I arrived fresh, and left before feeling overwhelmed. I can’t really distinguish this as one of the reasons for the jump in productivity, but I’ve always felt that forcing yourself to work long hours is not a productivity win, and is actually harmful in the long run. This is not a new trend; I’ve been working “normal” hours for the last few months due to health and family concerns, so while I feel it’s good for productivity in the long run, it didn’t play that big a role in the gains of the last week.

Takeaways

I’m going to continue the mind maps and the task deconstruction, and stay with the text-based outline format. Trying to create graphics or use specialized tools for that is going overboard, which is out of character, since I’m normally a very graphic-oriented person. I’ve always tried to keep a detailed task list, but breaking everything down with a mind map prior to starting seems to have helped. It also helped that the company’s goals didn’t change during the week, which allowed me to follow the map I’d created on Monday. It is not unusual to start Monday with one company vision, and have an entirely different vision by end-of-day Friday.

Meetings destroy productivity. The problem is that I’ve known that for quite some time, but have not had any success in trying to persuade management of that. My concern is that meetings and emergencies/dramas from others are well out of my control. Things will return to normal this coming week, so I’ll keep my eye on this troublemaker.