For most of my working life I tended to pack in more than average. When I entered into the world of gamification I could finally explain my approach. I work in short concentrated spurts with a mini-reward at the end. In the last number of weeks travel seems to be the order of the day with plenty of client work and meeting thrown in for good measure. The only way I can stay on top of what is necessary is with gamified productivity.
First thing I do is flagging emails to deal with, so I can focus on only dealing with flagged red items in first priority and then the other colours in order of urgency I assigned them. I rank importance of most actions that come out of it also. Having a few rules makes it easy to determine what should be first. Client work comes a clear first.
By adding a CRM system into my activities, I also keep track on business development related tasks, set reminders of items I promised to do. I do my best to group similar activities together to be in flow of the same energy and brain power required for it. Each of the actions also enter a to do list, which I tend to fit on a post-it to not keep adding too much. Crossing off is a sense of satisfaction and mini rewards work well there too.
We use tools like Trello and Slack to keep an oversight on the items for clients, each client has their own board. The fun of finishing items is tracked by get badges.io which I featured a while back.
When I travel a much as I am doing recently I have to admit juggling multiple balls is not the easiest and on occasion some things drop. Still it is better than average and I keep proud of that habit.
What do you do to stay productive?
