Cross it Off!
Tips to get through your to-do list & increase productivity while working from home
Being productive and working from home are not mutually exclusive.
There are tons of things I’m no good at. I can’t play ANY sports. My handwriting is atrocious. The most complicated thing I can “cook” is mac & cheese. But I’m really good at getting shit done. Like, REALLY good at it. When our first son was born, my husband said he was surprised he didn’t emerge from the womb with a to-do list on a little clipboard with one final item “Be Born” ready to be checked off. He said the reason our baby came 5 weeks early was because he must have overheard me one of the 5000 times I preached “if you arrive somewhere just on time, you are already late”.
Anyone else get a high from crossing things off a list? I’m the first to admit that I’m guilty of starting every list with a few things I’ve already done just for the satisfaction of starting the day by crossing something off. In case you are wondering, yes, I am on medication. And while this obsessive list making and checking isn’t for everyone, it has certainly served me well in my career (I’m a pusher Cady, I push people).
Lately, however, it seems that even doers like myself and good ole Ms Norbury are being faced with new challenges in staying on task as we navigate the new work from home era. I mean, without a coworker to walk by your cubicle, why would you ever need to hurriedly minimize your online shopping? I think in the early days of Coronavirus, Americans as a workforce found it easier to get their butts in gear and show productivity. But the research is showing that people are no longer viewing the working from home as a privilege that might be taken away, but instead as the given new normal that it is, and productivity is waning. And while I was considering spending the next 8 hours binge watching Gossip Girl on my laptop while compulsively scrolling through Instagram on my phone, I think instead I’ll share with you some of my favorite tips for productivity.
1- Tell your inbox to cool it for a hot second. This is a good one. I find it extremely helpful to choose 2 or 3 things every morning that I know I can get done and to knock them off BEFORE opening and getting sucked into my emails. Bonus points if you can also delay checking social media or messages on your phone. When I start the day with emails and messages instead of my own agenda, I immediately lose control of the path I wanted to take and my day turns into someone else’s idea of what needs to happen. I like to pick 3 things- 2 work-related and 1 personal- to get fully finished before I check for new emails. This morning I drafted a new social media post, wrote out some vendor thank-you note I’ve been meaning to send, and called in a prescription refill (remember those meds I mentioned earlier?). So no matter what my inbox has in store, those 3 things are crossed off.
2- Let Productivity trump Perfection: I’ve worked many many years reciting the phrase “Done is Better Than Perfect.” That doesn’t mean I do sloppy work- it just means when there are bigger fish to fry you need to wrap up the task at hand and move on to the next. Maybe I thought presenting 8 venue ideas to my client would make for a nice presentation and I’ve got 5 perfect options on the list but racking my brain for 3 more. From my experience sending the client 5 great ones TODAY is appreciated far more than sending 8 TOMORROW- especially since the winner is probably already on my list. At least once a day when I get stuck on a task and am tempted to move it to the next day’s to-do list, I whisper to myself “Done is Better than Perfect” and with that in mind can usually find a successful way to wrap it up.
3- Set Timers. There are a few ways to do this, but by mapping out exactly how much time you are allowing yourself for each item on your list you will find you get so much more done and can also have a realistic sense of how much you can expect to accomplish. Have you ever noticed that on the days you have 20 things to do, you are capable of accomplishing like 19, but on the days with just one or two things on your list you somehow manage to not complete them? Most of us thrive under a little bit of pressure. Working from home means we need to find a way to apply the pressure ourselves. I like to use my Outlook calendar as my to-do list (actual screenshot below) so that the appointment blocks become my timers. I decide what I’m going to do each day and block the time it should take in the calendar. This means if I don’t finish my 1PM appointment of creating a production schedule in the 1 hour I allotted, I’ll be late for my 2pm appointment. The 15-minute reminders of what is coming next is also helpful in wrapping up the item I am working on.
I use my Outlook Calendar as my to-do list and use the time blocks as timers.
4- Take a break (run away with me for the summer….). Because I can’t write a blog without a Hamilton reference. But really, taking breaks really does help battle the work-from-home blues. Are you wondering if you are the only person who has gone 2 days without needing to put a bra on? Are you still wearing yesterday’s yoga pants? Girl, get yourself outside. We absolutely need the fresh air and the walks to feel human and to show up as our best selves. Make a walk to get coffee one of your scheduled things to do between 2 other tasks. It becomes motivation to finish something on the list if you allow yourself rewards and will make you more productive with the next item upon your return.
Alright, back to work. I’m off to crush a few episodes of Schitt’s Creek.
