Working with your environment vs against your environment
/By Duncan Anderson and Hannah Liu. To see all blogs click here.
One Sentence Summary: Not all tasks are the same, and therefore the way we approach different tasks shouldn’t be the same either. When we find the right approach for a task, productivity increases. Have your environment work for you, not against you.
A good job = 1. Doing the right things * 2. Doing things right
I used to concentrate almost exclusively on ‘1. Doing the right things’. While this is not unimportant, I’ve found that ‘2. Doing things right’ is crucial.
For myself, in a lot of respects ‘being productive at work’ = ‘enjoying work’.
Low productivity = unhappy
High productivity = happy
“Work isn’t about time management, it’s about energy management.”
I’ve found that properly managing my tasks and how to switch between them is a great way to increase productivity and a great way to help move tasks from being draining to energising. In other words, finding the right approach for the right taskis a great way to improve work happiness.
Overall, I’m doing the ‘same things’ but I’ve found I can do them ‘much much better’. This is free productivity, free happiness and free energy that was being left on the table!
Jingle: “Work with your environment, not against it.”
It doesn’t matter if you are given the world’s best ingredients. You can still turn them into a horrible meal.
Finding the best approach is a great way to get the most out of ingredients!
A new tool for your toolbox
Outcome = 1. Number of people * 2. Macro approach * 3. Micro approach
There is no one right outcome for all problems. You need to pick the custom approach for the problem.
Hopefully we’ll be able to upgrade how we do things indefinitely.
This is hopefully a new tool for you to use, how and when to use, you need to figure this out!
Let’s take Textbook Quality Assurance as an example
1. Number of people
should we have 1 round of checking, 2 rounds, 3 rounds.
NETs only, Teachers only, NETs & teachers?
2. Macro approach
Should we only read closely or should we do things ‘double blind’.
Should we have a custom process to check an individual thing, eg we look for flow this way. Or look for everything at the same time?
3. Micro approach
Should you do the task all in one hit or should you break it up into small unit and / or have breaks.
This blog is about how to use breaks to get better outcomes for certain tasks
This blog is about how to think about using smaller units of a task to get better outcomes.
What comes next? I don’t know. But let’s figure it out people :).
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Details:
Operation modes
There are different ways of operating, or ways to approach tasks
Approach 1: do a task from end to end
Approach 2: break up a task into smaller component and switch between pieces
Approach 3: switching between multiple tasks
The appropriate approach to task depends on what the task itself is
You may have a task that requires diligence (eg. Quality Assurance in Textbook lessons)
You may have a task that has a mix of ‘energising’ and ‘draining’ components (eg. Theory Master lessons, energising review and comms, but draining trix data entry)
It can be easy to get caught up in the whirlwind, and feel like the best thing to do is to continue to put one foot in front of the other and push forward, but there are times where maybe side-stepping is a better option. There isn’t one way of operation, and by choosing the appropriate mode of operation, we can work with our environment productively, rather than feel we’re fighting against it.
Generations:
DA’s personal journey of operation mode:
G1: No system for staying on task
G2: No task switching allowed until the task is completed
G3: Only allow task switching that improves productivity / enjoyment
A long time ago I used to have no system for staying on task at work. For example I’d have email notifications on (turn them OFF!!!!!).
I’d be happily doing some task and then I’d all of a sudden find myself doing some other different task… how the hell did that happen?
For a while I refused to switch tasks until something was finished.
Multitasking doesn’t work.
Not only does multitasking lower productivity it lowers your ability to concentrate on one thing effectively significantly lowering your ability to be present and problem solve. As far as I was concerned multitasking was less productivity (see the studies) and multitasking made you dumber.
Multi-tasking was for Muppets!
However my productivity and enjoyment was consistently dropping the longer I worked on something. I’ve found always only working on a single task until it is done isn’t the optimal strategy!
Now I try to use different strategies to increase my productivity and my enjoyment.
Strategies Summary:
Stop passive task switching (only do task switching you approve)
No email notifications.
Only have @tags in Slack for urgent queries (ie requires a response in less than 1 hour).
Deep work mornings (ie no email, no Slack, no meetings) before midday.
Using breaks to lift your productivity (pomodoro technique)
Typically your productivity for a task drops the longer you work on it.
“The Pomodoro Technique is a time management system that encourages people to work with the time they have—rather than against it. Using this method, you break your workday into 25-minute chunks separated by a few minute breaks. These intervals are referred to as pomodoros.”
Work for 25 mins, have a 3 min break. Repeat.
I’ve found this can be much better for productivity than eg doing a 90 hour uninterrupted block of time
I try to have a 1-5 min break after productivity has dropped to 80%, often this can reset productivity back to 100%. Done well I’ve found this much better than just continuing to plow through a task until finish.
Task switching to improve your productivity
Sometimes taking a break doesn’t reset your productivity. If you have reached this point I find that if you switch to a new task you can often reset your productivity.
“Change is as good as a holiday.” => “Changing tasks is a good way to reset your productivity.”
When my reset point and / or time needed between breaks gets to short I will switch to another task. This I’ve found often resets my productivity starting level back to 100% and massively increases the time until my productivity has dropped to 80% (aka need another break).
At the start of each day I get the 2-3x most important tasks I need to get done.
Then, if my productivity reset after a break is ‘only back to 80%’ or ‘the time between needing a break’ is too short, I'll switch to a new task.
90% of the time I find switching tasks resets my productivity starting point back to 100%! Yes, 100%, 90% of the time :)! This is one of the best productivity hacks I know of.“Don’t push yourself to get productivity up, have productivity pulled from you.” Task switching done well is one of the best ways I’ve found to have a naturally high productivity level :).
Bouncing between a draining and an energising task
Some tasks are necessary but draining.
When doing an inherently draining task I try to pair it with an energising task.
I will do 1 unit of draining task followed by 1 unit of energising task.
Often a task can be broken down into specific individual units. This means that while the total task is 100 mins, it can actually be done in 10x 10 minute units.
What I try to do is 1x 10 minute unit of draining task and pair it with an energising task that has a similarly small unit size (eg 10 mins) and then bounce between each task.
10 mins of draining task
10 mins of energising task
10 mins of draining task
10 mins of energising task
Etc etc
What I try not to do: all 100 mins of the draining task in one hit.
What I try not to do: switch between tasks unless I’ve finished a discrete unit of work. This is unproductive task switching.
Example 1: you might have a set of 5x Theory Master lessons to review
Energising task: review Theory Master lessons and adding upside
Draining task: data entry for formatting and course trixes (essential but not the funnest)
Proposal:
1. Review 1x TM lesson
2. Do the admin for that 1x TM lesson
Repeat
As opposed to:
1. Review all TM lessons
2. Do the admin for all TM lessons
Seems simple but can make a world of difference!
Example 2: writing a textbook.
Energising task: writing new questions and answers for a lesson
Draining task: quality assurance to make sure an existing question and answer is 100% factually correct.
Proposal:
1. Write 1x question and answer
2. Do quality assurance for 1x existing question and answer
3. Write 1x question and answer
4. Do quality assurance for 1x existing question and answer
Etc etc.
Don’t:
1. Write all the questions and answers for 1x lesson in one go.
2. Do all the quality assurance for all existing questions and answers from 1x lesson in one go.
Done well this should give a higher quality outcome, be faster and be more energising.
Tasks that require extreme diligence
Productivity levels != diligence levels
I try to recognise the diligence needed for a task and match my flow to support this.
The higher the diligence needed = the smaller the unit of work I try to have
While I might feel like I’m super productive (eg still at 90%) if the task requires 100% diligence then if my diligence levels are dropped to 95% it’s time for a break and / or switching of task.
For example, for tasks requiring high diligence levels I’ll have a 1 min break every 10 mins. But at the same level of productivity for a ‘non-high diligence’ task I might have a break every 60 mins.
A task like ensuring a textbook lesson has no factual errors IMO requires extreme diligence. So taking a 1 min break every 10 mins while authoring content might not be ‘wasting time’, but ‘gaining time’ because you have higher quality as as such far less changes needing to be made from the quality assurance processes.
A very important concept to understand is ‘quality as speed’. Often the fastest way to improve speed is to improve quality stopping bugs as close to the source / preventing them. “Want to improve speed, first improve quality!”
What comes next for ‘doing things right’?
I don’t know. However I’ve always found there is a next. Got a way to help me work better, GIVE ME THE GIVE PLEASE!!!