For any projects, even a project to reduce chocolate consumption! These are my productivity-boosting techniques.
Notes
Generating ideas is crucial. But, as is often the case, nothing comes to mind when you need it most, especially when there’s a lot to do. Brainstorming isn’t always the solution.
So, keep notes on your phone handy at all times and jot down your thoughts. Thoughts often pop up during non-meditative moments: in the shower, during workouts, or right after waking up.
Compile lists, and then turn those lists into tasks and archives.
Goal
The more exciting the project, the more exciting its goal. Selling 5 holey shoes or helping a million people communicate with the world – which one would you rather work on?
Even if you disregard everything else, the goal is a powerful motivation for the project owner and those involved. Potential clients also see our ambitions. Motivation is EVERYTHING.
Goals aren’t just about a +15% boost in crawling speed but also about policies, strategies, sub-goals, tasks, the atmosphere, and the culture within our creation.
Tasks
Either they’re already recorded, understood, have a completion date and an assignee, or they’re not tasks but just more whims and wishes.
So, battle the word “have to.” When it’s “I have to do X,” it’s as if there’s a magical spirit that will do it all at once. Whether it’s the leader, employee, or client, either “have to” turns into a task, or it’s just trash.
Break It Down
Motivation is everything, especially when tasks are so large that they can’t be controlled by management or started/completed quickly by the performer. Because it’s quite a big deal.
The more checkmarks for “done,” the better. Even if it’s just 1/2000th of the entire big task, it’s 1/2000th more than obsessing and sighing.
There’s no time to break tasks down for the team – teach them to do it independently, as the first step in solving any task, and check it at first. This way, both you and they will understand what’s done, what’s planned, and whether everything is clear.
Breaking tasks down is worth it until they’re the size of a 1 task (sub-task) = 30-60 minutes of time.
Record It
Progress and the path become clear when someone takes on a task, measures it, calculates, and records it. Otherwise, it’s like with people trying to lose weight: “I barely eat anything,” but when you record it, you find out you’ve had seven snacks on top of breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
Because our perception is entirely subjective and can’t serve as any real assessment. Just measure before, during, and after. You can manage what you can measure.
And don’t set too many tasks – our maximum is around 10 tasks and 110% of what was achieved last time.
Analyze
Why-why-why-why-why such a result.
Why it’s bad and why it’s good. In the first case, you can find the bottleneck and make it X10, while in the second case, find what works and make it X2.
No strategy, plan, or goal ever unfolds exactly as planned. But that’s not important as long as we’re analyzing and making adjustments. If instead of +25% for the year, we have +5%, it’s not very pleasant. But if we realize this in the first month, getting 0.5% instead of 2%, it’s not so critical. We can still turn the ship and save the Titanic, right?
Don’t Beat a Dead Horse
Yes, it’s painful to invest a lot of effort, time, and money into a project, business, or blog and not get any returns. But investing even more won’t help. It’ll just make things more painful.
Recognizing that the horse is dead isn’t always easy, but it’s almost always possible. If you manage the project progressively, starting with minimal expenses and aiming to get the first results as quickly as possible, you won’t have to wait for 3 months to evaluate ad effectiveness. You can see in the first few weeks what the traffic quality is, what people are looking at, and how they react.
And if you go further, you can ask the first clients for information about what’s right or wrong. Communication is key. Information is gold.
