Do you ever feel like having to schedule a quick call for tomorrow is a huge effort?

You know that it’s just a quick call but you have to find time in the calendar, remember to actually make the call, and now it’s just one more thing on tomorrow’s massive to-do list.

The strange thing is, picking up the phone and making the call really isn`t that difficult. REMEMBERING to make the call and REMEMBERING everything that you need to say and how you want to say it are the hard parts.

Momentum as productivity can be a strange thing to wrap your head around. For a long time, productivity, to me, was powering through tasks as quickly as possible. It was a bit like jumping in a bulldozer, heading straight for the nearest bit of ground, then getting distracted and moving to something I saw in my peripheral vision. Sure, I moved around a lot and I felt like I was always rushing to the next task, but I definitely wasn`t taking the optimal approach to work.

What I’ve started to discover is the power of keeping momentum. If I’m finishing a meeting and there is a quick action to follow-up with, I try to do it right there and then, while the action is still fresh in my mind. The bonus: the context of the action is fresh in my mind, too. If I’m on a phone call and the next action is to call somebody else, I try to make the call immediately after or, if it makes sense, I`ll start a three-way discussion with a conference call. This saves me SO much time in a day, a week, a month.

Imagine this: your expense receipts have been piling up and you know you’re way overdue in claiming them. You log in to the expense claim tool and find it takes you a second to orientate yourself – it’s been a month since you last logged in. The first few expenses are a bit of a hassle, you try to find the right categories for each expense and upload a receipt. Then things start to speed up. You get in to a rhythm. You know where all the common categories are and start building up muscle memory. You get a system going for scanning receipts. Your momentum is much faster than when you first started.

Now imagine if you just did three expenses at a time. You’re effectively operating at your slowest speed for the whole task because you’re not building momentum. By batching common tasks you give yourself a chance to build momentum and reduce the total amount of time that you spend on that task.

Batching tasks is easy to implement and can save you a lot of time. Have a think about things you do every week or month that can be batched together. Have a think about how you can re-arrange tasks to keep building momentum and get more done, with less effort.

Happy Productivity!

No, this isn’t about those ‘exciting’ videos you’re forced to watch every year as part of your company’s mandatory education schedule. This is a way of tackling the inevitable frustration of patiently explaining the same thing, three times, because people keep ‘forgetting’ what you’ve told them.

Do you ever have those days when you feel like all you do is repeat yourself? Somehow EVERYBODY needs access to the reporting system and they’ve ALL forgotten how to run a query.

On my quest for the perfectly productive life, I discovered the magic of creating training videos. Instead of sitting down and explaining how to do a task, time and time again, I now record a video of my screen with a voice-over outlining the steps. The end result? A video where people can see exactly what to click and when, along with a commentary of everything they need to remember. And the best part is they can watch it over and over while YOU only explain yourself once!

Initially I was skeptical: Would people even watch a video if I sent it to them? I sound awful on video anyway! I’m not the next Justin Bieber (nor do I aspire to be).

Thankfully, I put my skepticism aside and was pleasantly surprised by the results. None of my videos will win an Oscar but they all meet their objectives. People can watch the video and complete tasks without having me there to train them in person.

Videos are especially handy if you work in a role where people move around a lot. Personally, I’ve found the most benefit in making training videos for our interns. Every year, they learn essentials skills and all I’ve had to do is provide a training video or two. I also use videos for FAQs and common tasks.

There are easy ways to make training videos:

• On a Mac, you can use QuickTime to create a video of your screen.
• Screencastify is a Chrome extension that can record your screen and upload it straight to YouTube or Google Drive.
• Another option is CloudApp, which you can use to easily create and upload screenshots, GIFs, and videos.

A great way to start is to ask yourself, “will I ever have to teach this again?” (credit: Dale Beaumont). If the answer is “yes”, then make a video instead. Do yourself a favour: Save your voice, save your time, save the world.

Happy Productivity!

Have you ever felt exhausted after a whole day of sitting down at work? Do you finish work with a sore back, tight shoulders, or sore hands?

I know I do. I get so involved in tasks that I forget to take a break. I skip my lunch because I’m really focused on getting back to that new client quickly and creating a good first impression. I jump from one completed task into the next because I feel like I’m on a role. It took me a long time to accept that by taking regular breaks in my day, I could actually get more done.

When you look at your to-do list, it may seem like the quickest way to get that quote out would be to do it right now. And the truth is, that IS the fastest way to get THAT quote out. But what about the next one? And the next one? And the next? What about the important meeting with your boss this afternoon?

The secret to a productive day is to look past the task you are doing right now. Play the long game. If you take regular breaks throughout your day, eat regularly, and move around a bit, you can significantly improve your productivity.

Research tells us that regularly taking a few minutes to be active throughout the day is just as effective as an hour of exercise in the evening. Wouldn’t you rather go for a short walk around the office every 30 minutes instead of spending an hour at the gym every night?

A couple of things that work for me:

• Walking when I’m on the phone,
• Going for a walk at lunch time,
• Walking to client meetings where possible,
• Taking the stairs instead of the elevator,
• If I’m at home, doing a set of 10 push-ups and 10 squats during my Pomodoro breaks.

If you want to be more productive (and healthier, too) have a think about how you can inject some activity into your day. It can be as simple as getting your coffee from the shop down the road instead of the one inside your office.

Happy Productivity!