Practical Productivity: A Guide to Surviving Life's Juggling Act

INTRODUCTION

Some time ago, I was a vice president managing weather.com at The Weather Channel, which was a top fifteen consumer website at the time. I had two very active young children. My husband was a partner at Ernst & Young, traveling weekly to one client or another. While we were living in Atlanta, my extended family still lived where I grew up in Northern Virginia, so I didn’t have much local support.

While I had a full and very fulfilling life, I didn’t sleep much, didn’t work out, and didn’t eat very well, but I was happy. After all, I was doing all the things I had dreamed of in terms of achieving the goal of having it all. I was checking off all the necessary boxes – family, education, friends, career, marriage, cars, children, house, vacations, beach condo, and so on.

One day, over lunch a colleague of mine looked directly at me and thoughtfully asked, How do you do it all? Well, that was a very interesting question. I honestly hadn’t given it much thought. My immediate reaction was, I don’t know. I just do it.

A few days later, I thought about this question again. I realized that there were some things that were innate. For example, I am never late, I don’t procrastinate, I make my bed every day, and I can’t remember a time when I didn’t have a to-do list. On the other hand, I had to learn other techniques through trial and error. And, as my life became more demanding and complicated, I certainly had to train myself and practice how to juggle and prioritize tasks, how to stay focused, when and how to say, no, and how to accept that it is OK to let a ball drop every now and then.

As I spent more time thinking through how I approached my days, I started to realize that over the years, I had cobbled together various systems and processes that enabled me to manage my life. I grew more conscious of how I was prioritizing my tasks and focusing my time and energy. I also became more aware of the things that were wasting my time and tried to find smarter ways to tackle them. For me, it was a game – identify a problem or opportunity, and then find a better way to do it.

In my quest to figure out how to optimize my life, I picked up all of the productivity books I could get my hands on (see the Reference section for a list). I voraciously read them and tested the various recommendations, tactics, processes, and techniques to determine what worked best.

I would try several different systems to find the ones that were the most effective and useful. Not everything I tried worked. I also found that not all of them stuck. Some were effective for a while and then I would just stop utilizing them for one reason or another. I also realized that some took a little while to become habit-forming. Others worked like magic. More than a few, I am still working on.

Over the years, I thought about capturing these practices in some form or another to help others who were also trying to do it all. For several years, I published an online blog, hoping that some of these insights might inspire others to try some of my practical productivity hacks. I even created my own task management app called priorigami. I also imagined writing a book and sharing all of my learned best practices so others could also benefit from my knowledge, experimentation, and real-life experiences.

And, here it is – finally! It could have happened sooner if I had taken my own advice. And, to be perfectly honest, I was able to find the time and the focus to write this book, while working two different COO jobs and relaunching my productivity app, by following the recommendations outlined in this book.

This book is full of short, practical productivity tips and tricks to help you actually do everything you want to do simply by changing your approach. While there are countless tools and technologies that can help you, this book is primarily about examining your mindset. It’s about helping you find the right framework to solve the productivity puzzle and make life easier for you and those around you.

This book is presented as a helpful how-to guide, rather than a fictional novel. While you can read it from start to finish, it doesn’t necessarily have to be read cover to cover. It is written so that you can read a chapter or two on a relevant topic of interest and pick up a handful of ideas or tips you can try. My hope is that reading this book for even 15 to 20 minutes could save hours of your time. Or, as we say when pitching a new project at work, reading Practical Productivity was designed to have a very high ROI!

Since many of the recommendations are related to or build upon one another, I’ve included a READ MORE section at the end of every chapter which cross references other relevant chapters in the book. These suggestions allow you to further explore the topic and bounce around the book which might work better than simply reading it sequentially. The goal is to find what works best for you.

Keep in mind that not all of these tactics will work for you. Some won’t make any sense. Some may need to be tweaked or adjusted, and others you may adopt instantly and wonder why you hadn’t made the change sooner. Just consider trying those that resonate the most and see what happens – it could be magical.

I hope you’ll keep this book on hand and these tactics in mind for the next time you find yourself struggling or feeling overwhelmed. You might find a tip or two to help you survive life’s juggling act and thrive as you make the most of every moment.

YOUR TIME

Time is more valuable than money.

You can get more money,

but you cannot get more time.

Jim Rohn

YOUR TIME

Time is at the heart of everything we do.

There’s not enough time. I am running out of time. Now’s the time. Time to go. Time’s up. All in good time. We had the time of our lives. Time and time again. Only time will tell. In due time. It’s a race against time. We’re just killing time. Time is money. Good times. Bad times. We’re having a whale of a time. Story time. Party time. Closing time. Quitting time. If only we could turn back time. Time stood still. Time after time. In the nick of time. Time is on my side. Times like these. Too much time on my hands. One more time. One last time. Once in a lifetime. (By the way, how many songs came rushing back to you while reading this list? Check out my All About Time playlist by monishaklongacre on Spotify!)

Whether we acknowledge it or not, time is our most valuable asset and most prized possession. We measure it carefully from nanoseconds to eras and eons and everything in between. We celebrate timely milestones, from birth to death, from start to finish, and from first date to every anniversary thereafter.

We wear smartwatches, look at the clock, and ask each other what time it is multiple times a day – all in an ongoing, never-ending effort to manage our time.

But, how do we make sure we’re making the best use of the time we have? How are we maximizing every moment? How can we optimize the time we’re given? The clock is ticking away… every second, every minute, every hour of every day.

In the next few chapters, we’ll think about why managing time is virtually impossible and how it’s so challenging given the finite number of hours in each day. I’ll share some thoughts about how to look at managing your time slightly differently, as well as outline some ideas about time blocking, procrastinating, multitasking, and even sleeping.

Never forget that time is fleeting. And so, this is the perfect place to begin our discussion on improving our productivity. Let’s get right to it.

After all, we don’t have any time to waste.

THE MYTH OF TIME MANAGEMENT

So many of us talk about time management. Countless articles have been written and tools have been created to help us manage our time. There are time management gurus, tutorials, and classes. Half of our working day is spent juggling our calendars in a never-ending attempt to manage our time.

But, what if we cannot control time? Would managing our time be a completely useless exercise? If you think about it, no matter what we do, time continues to tick forward. We cannot rewind it and we cannot fast forward it. It just is and it continues according to its plan – each second, every minute, the next hour and then into the next day.

When you really think about it, it becomes clear that, in fact, we simply cannot control time. Instead we should rethink what we’re trying to manage and reorient our focus to the things that we can and do control: our priorities, our energy, and our attention.

PRIORITIES

Each day we all have more to do than we can handle. We know what needs to get done and we constantly make choices about what’s most important and what needs to be prioritized. Setting clear and deliberate priorities is the single-most critical factor driving our productivity and future success. We control how we spend our time even if we cannot control time itself.

ENERGY

We also decide how to spend our energy. Energy is finite and to optimize output, it’s imperative that we focus our efforts and our energy on the most important priorities. These days, this is harder to do than it seems due to the countless distractions that get in our way. So often, we expend more of our energy on the things that are seemingly urgent but not all that important.

ATTENTION

Focus seems to be a lost art, especially for me. With countless dings, pings, alerts, and notifications, it’s virtually impossible to focus on any one thing for an extended period. Personally, I struggle with this constantly. Research has shown that multitasking is not possible and simply does not work. (We’ll get deeper into this as well.)

To be most productive it behooves us to focus our full attention on one task at a time. After trying various methods, I found that the Pomodoro technique works best for me. Named after a pomodoro, or tomato kitchen timer, this time management method suggests breaking down your work into set intervals followed by scheduled breaks. To reduce interruptions and improve focus, set a timer for 25 minutes to work on a set task and then take a 5 to 10 minute break between intervals.

Instead of using a pomodoro kitchen timer, I set a timer on my phone for 20 minutes of focused time and then reward myself with a 10-minute break at the end to check notifications, emails, and socials. At first, it was really hard for me to do this. I would set the timer and every few minutes would check how much time had passed. It didn’t pass very quickly. During my focused time, I would still reach for my phone or check my email. But in time, I got used to it and now I find that 20 minutes flies by quite quickly.

Experiment with this technique to find the right length of time that allows you to focus and do your best work uninterrupted.

TRY THIS

Do you spend a lot of time trying to manage your time? Does it actually work for you?