Numerous factors come together to kill your productivity.
In the 2024 Executive Productivity Report, 52% of survey respondents identified stress as their biggest productivity barrier, while 43% cited meetings, and another 43% mentioned administrative tasks. Regardless of the cause, productivity blockers affect you daily. How are you overcoming them?
One way to get there is by adopting a productivity system.
Productivity systems are methods designed to help you accomplish more in less time. They don't do the work for you, but productivity systems can help you organize and prioritize your tasks, making it easier to progress. Here are some popular productivity systems and how they work.
Mark Forster developed the Autofocus productivity system as a response to the most common time management advice—prioritizing tasks based on one's subjective opinion of their importance. Forster found personal prioritization unhelpful at best and harmful at worst.
Humans tend to focus on what they perceive to be most threatening, and the Autofocus system balances what is most threatening with what is most important.
This is an old-school notebook productivity system that consists of three simple steps:
We are all familiar with the bullet list as a method for breaking down complex ideas into a series of concise statements.
The Bullet Journal Productivity System organizes work using a set of logs. It helps you be more mindful of your daily tasks, prioritize the right things, and reflect on your emotions.
Unlike other planners, this notebook productivity system is designed to be fully customized based on your unique goals. However, there are some key components every bullet journal must have:
At the end of each month, review your daily logs and mark the completed items.
Review the unfinished tasks and ask yourself, "Is this still worth my time?" If so, move it to the next monthly log.
For tasks due in the coming months, put them in the monthly log. You create a page number in your journal and add the item and the page number to the index.
The "Don't Break the Chain" productivity system originated from comedian Jerry Seinfeld. At the beginning of each year, Seinfeld would take an extensive calendar and put a big red X over every day that he spent time writing. It is that simple. This system works well for work that has the same output or goal every day.
Here is how the system works:
As you progress, you will see a chain of Xs across the calendar, and you will grow motivated to avoid breaking the chain.
The next productivity system is kind of the opposite of the Autofocus system.
And it has the most creative name: Eat That Frog.
The title references a quote by Mark Twain: "Eat a live frog first thing in the morning, and nothing worse will happen to you the rest of the day." It suggests beginning your day by addressing the most challenging or intimidating task. Completing it first makes the remainder of the day smoother and leaves you feeling more accomplished.
What do you do if you have two "frogs" on your list? Eat them both.
The Eisenhower Matrix productivity method is based on a well-known quote by former U.S. President Dwight Eisenhower: "I have two kinds of problems, the urgent and the important. The urgent are not important, and the important are never urgent."
Here is how it works. You use a four-quadrant grid to rank tasks/decisions based on two key characteristics:
|
Urgent and important Do it first |
Important but not urgent Do it later |
|
Not important or urgent Do not do it |
Urgent but not important Delegate it |
Place your tasks in the quadrants and tackle them as follows:
The beauty of the matrix is that it applies to any role in any business. For busy executives, it can be an invaluable tool for remaining focused on what matters most.
A similar system: The Franklin Covey productivity system also uses the Eisenhower Matrix.
Do you spend hours scouring your email inbox, trash, and sent items for unsaved messages containing information you now need? Motivational speaker Ramit Sethi, author of I Will Teach You to Be Rich, developed the Iceberg productivity system specifically for this situation. It’s simple and practical. You create email folders to categorize and store valuable information that you don't intend to use right away. Examples Sethi mentions include:
Take a few seconds today to save something now, which might otherwise take hours to find later. If you didn't receive the item via email, paste the link into a blank email, send it to yourself, and save it. Your inbox represents just the tip of the iceberg of your information, showing only about a third of your stored data. The rest remains hidden but accessible when needed.
One of the most reliable productivity systems is over a century old. In 1918, Charles W. Schwab, unrelated to the renowned Charles Schwab of finance, was eager to improve Bethlehem Steel's efficiency. He brought in business consultant Ivy Lee, who requested 15 minutes with each of the company's top leaders. During these brief sessions, Lee instructed the executives to follow a specific daily routine:
Similar systems: To-do lists.
Getting Things Done (GTD) by David Allen is one of the most popular productivity systems. Unlike structured systems like the Ivy Lee system, GTD features a flexible, five-step framework:
GTD begins with the premise that our productivity is related to our ability to relax. When our minds are clear and our thoughts organized, we achieve effective productivity and unleash our creative potential.
Kanban, which means "card" in Japanese, was invented at Toyota to streamline the manufacturing process. The system also applies to personal productivity. Kanban is a column-based project management system that conveniently keeps tasks and projects on track. You create three columns on a spreadsheet (or whiteboard):
Next, you create physical or virtual cards or sticky notes for your tasks and position them in the relevant columns. Kanban is effective for projects with multiple subtasks or when team members collaborate and need clear visibility of task statuses. Digital tools such as Asana, Monday, and Trello are online implementations of the Kanban system.
Similar systems: Agile, Kaizen.
The Pomodoro productivity system schedules blocks of 25 minutes. Each of these blocks is called a Pomodoro. Here is how it works:
Similar system: Timeboxing.
Multitasking is a proven productivity killer. Numerous studies show that it has adverse effects, including:
Yet 92% of knowledge workers multitask during meetings, but this wastes time and attention because switching tasks and applications takes about 20 minutes to refocus. Single-tasking involves concentrating on just one task at a time. Here's how to implement it:
Similar system: Timeboxing.
Zen to Done (ZTD) focuses on habit change for better productivity and effectiveness. Developed by Leo Babauta of Zen Habits, it guides you in building habits gradually, one at a time, and establishing a workflow management system. ZTD promotes a straightforward method to enhance productivity by encouraging the formation of a single habit before moving on to the next.
Here are the steps in the ZTD productivity system:
Related: Health Habits to Increase Productivity in the Workplace
The million-dollar question is, how do you choose a productivity system that will work for you? A lot depends on your work style. For example:
The bottom line is that you will not know if a productivity system works for you until you try it. Getting started is often the most challenging part of adopting a productivity system.