Category: “Personal Productivity”

“I need to get organized: I’ll choose a task management application, I’ll sign up, I’ll enter my pending tasks and that’s all.” Many people believe that getting organized is that easy. I wish!

Now that you are on vacation or about to start (if you have already finished your holidays, I am late, but still read on and use the advice on your next ones), surely you will have plenty of spare time that you will try to spend, within your means and according to your circumstances, doing things you really enjoy. Actually, you should try to do things you like throughout the year, and you should work on something you like as well, so that every minute of your life counts… but this is not the subject of this post.

Email is one of the most used communication tools these days. And the one I most recommend, if you do not want to waste a good portion of your time. Everyone has an email and this kind of conversation is asynchronous, which means that, unlike phone calls, instant messaging and meetings (whether face-to-face or by video-conference), the interlocutors do not share the same spot of time and, therefore, answers do not have to be immediate.

A common mistake that people make when they start to feel the need to be more efficient and better organized, is trying to use the same tools they already use for other new things. They think that, using the same stuff for everything, they will do fewer things and, therefore, will be more productive. Big mistake. Mixing different things usually does not simplify anything; on the contrary, it creates confusion and complexity.

In addition to your usual and familiar routines and daily work tasks, you surely have in your to-do lists a handful of tasks that will require a certain level of creativity to get done (and sometimes, a lot of creativity will be necessary). These tasks can be hazardous to your productivity. On the one hand, if you don’t feel very creative, you may put these tasks off. On the other hand, though, these more unusual and creative-oriented tasks are often the ones you will want to do the most in those moments when you feel especially lucid, and this can become a detriment to your ability to accomplish other tasks that may be more important at the time but which don’t seem as interesting or fun.