Productivity: Finding a system that works

I have been in the management role for the past 3 years and most staff see me as a “busy” superior. What they see often is me running from one meeting to another, both physically and online. At some points, when people ask me if I am busy, my automatic answer is yes. Just by looking at my calendar, I do “feel” busy. However, if I would be truly honest to myself, I am busily unproductive. Times spent at meetings are not always productive, though meetings are important. It is a place for discussion and decision making. The real work is what follows after the meetings. That is more important actually but the amount of time spent on real work is not as obvious as meetings. That is something I wish to improve upon.

I am very interested in the topic of productivity because not being efficient at work or unable to complete the work, it weighs heavily on me that I am unable to give the best of me in my current role. Being in the management role also somehow means everyone is depending on me for direction and that adds additional weight on me. When I could not do my job well, work would be piling up and I would feel demotivate about work then things just would never get done, hence more piling of work then even more work would never get done. It is a vicious endless cycle unless I do something serious about it. That is what I am seriously interested to improve.

One of the ways I am looking at now is finding a system that works the best for my productivity. A system is very important. No matter which books I read about productivity tips, in general, it is about customising a personalised system that works for yourself. The authors are basically sharing their best practices and reasonings why we should adopt them.

How do we define one’s productivity? There is no fixed formula (of course, there is a formula available for those who like crunching numbers) and it differs from one person to another. Simply put, to me, productivity is getting as many things done in an allocated amount of time. Of course, it may not be as simple as that. One would also want to measure quality of work done or produced as being productive. Anyway, let’s just make it simple for now. For my productivity, I would like to be able to complete as many tasks as possible in my best time. 

Somehow, I feel a productivity system is very similar to how computer system works, especially in processing tasks (sorry, after all, I am a computer geek!). If you are from the computing background, you could probably relate how a computer processes tasks to how we process our tasks.

A computer could receive instructions to process a series of tasks, could be related tasks or it could be different unrelated tasks. Tasks generally would be in a queue, waiting to be processed, generally in first in first out basis. Depending on the instructions, tasks could be reordered in a particular order or even waiting for batch processing at a scheduled time. Each task could be allocated certain time too, when unfinished within the time, it could be rescheduled. All these depend on the instructions of the system. Different system has different instructions. The goal is simple. To complete as many tasks as possible, in the most efficient and effective sequence. To computer, it is simply called computing performance power. Of course, the idea is simple but the actual processing may be more complicated and human cannot act like a computer in term of performance especially in parallel processing or multitasking (in our human term).

In common understanding, to be productive, a human has to have a system that receives instructions to process a series of tasks too. We are bound by time and our abilities to process the tasks, similar to computer. Generally, a human would sequence their tasks e.g. a to-do list. These tasks could be related or unrelated but they are all sitting in the queue waiting to be processed. 

Unlike computer which simply follows the instructions given, human’s biggest problem is setting or figuring out the instructions for the system on how we should process the tasks. If we process first in first out tasks, we could be slow due to our human problem of “switching context” when trying to multitasking or working on different unrelated tasks. Again, this term is also applicable to computing process but can be generally handled by good programming or instructions and computer has better processing power. However, for human, switching context has proven to be a serious issue for productivity.

To give you an example, while I was working on writing a guidelines that should take me an hour to finish, I was interrupted with an urgent request to look at another document which took me 30 minutes to finish. When I got back to continue my writing of guidelines, I found it extremely hard to restart my mind for the task because I have to “rewire my mind” to get back into the context of writing guidelines. At the end, I still have not finished that piece of work. I am sure everyone has some experience like this before. It is particularly harder now with the nature of my role and work, where I get constant interruptions from others, messages and emails (yes, let’s not forget messages and emails are our “killer” of productivity too).   

Now, if we group related tasks together and do it batch processing style, it could be better for solving the switching context issue but a big chunk of time is required which requires higher focus and uninterrupted work, i.e. “deep work” (a term was coined by Cal Newport, a computer science professor). Computer can do this easily too because of its processing power, but human processing power is limited by our mind and time. Getting uninterrupted time or doing deep work is most probably a luxury in work and may not work for just anyone. But I agree it is important to at least try to make it happen. A serious system is required to be in place for this to work.

So what system will work? I do not have the answer now. I am still experiencing with setting up a new system that I hope will work for me. Right now, this post is the result of my new system where I set at least 30 minutes writing times every morning. It took me 2 mornings to complete this. I also set aside at least 30 minutes reading time every morning and I am still reading Cal Newport’s book about Deep Work. Let see what that entails…