My Personal Productivity Workflows: Methods, Tools & Gear

1. My Productivity Workflow, Tools, Gears & Methods: Hello there and welcome to this Skillshare class. My name is Francesco and a personal productive to YouTube. And in this class I'm going to share with you my personal productivity workflow and how I use it to get organized across my work day. I'm going to show you a few of the frameworks and rules, some of the tools to select the best ones, and also how to approach care and things like changing your environment to improve your productivity. And also things like meetings, email, and much more. This is a great opportunity to cherry pick some of the best methodologies and approaches from the productivity space. And I'm really excited to share how I go through that and help you to pick up valuable skills that you can approach your productivity with over the next couple of weeks. So if you, if you don't know money's, Francesca run a YouTube channel called key productive, in which I pick out the best software for people to get things done. But over the years, I've been able to read and sort of dive in chat with some great people about productivity methodologies and apply it to my own system. Now, I'm not saying on the most productive person I indefinitely not of course, but I definitely feel less chaotic with approaching some of these methods then I definitely was before. And I wanted to bring together the best of the breed and help you pick those options. So I'm really excited to teach this class. So feel free to dive in. 2. Exercise: Rules, Tools & Methods: So with this class, we have provided an exercise for you to focus on. And it's really honing in on the three parts of this class, the rules, tools, and care. And what we're gonna do is give you a blank worksheets so that you can go away and starts cherry picking some of the bath methodologies to approach to your own productivity. Now I think what you'll be able to get from this class is some good content that hopefully we'll be able to apply it in your own daily routine. But what's great is there's so much more content out there as well, especially here on Skillshare. You can start cherry picking the best stuff and applying it to this same worksheet. So by the end of this class, you should have a fully completed worksheets with an outline of some of the new rule approaches and frameworks. You'll be taking, some of the new tools and selection processes it you'll be making and also some of the changes that you'll be making to your environment. Maybe your approaches in micro opportunities in work that I think will be really beneficial to assist important activity. So feel free to check out through the worksheets. I'm super excited to jump into this class for you. 3. How I Chose My Framework : So as you can imagine, frameworks are a pretty fundamental part of productivity. And one of the things that I'd have to say is it's probably one of the most neglected elements of productivity when we see an application on the markets, whether it's on product tons, Twitter, or maybe even a friend has recommended it. What a lot of people do is jump on an application and say, this is going to fix my productivity. But what rule we tend to go with is rules over tools. It's so good at rhymes and it's probably right because it rhymes. But basically it's that approach of looking at frameworks before you actually apply and use tools in your routine. Because once the frameworks sat, once you have a sort of consistent foundation, you can build on from that. So one of the frameworks that I was able to find when I got started in nm, interest in productivity was getting things done, which is concept by David Allen. Now there are five stages to getting things done. There's capture, clarify, organize, review, and do, which are all naturally have their own process. And actually in the book, it goes into much more high level of detail of how this can be useful for everything that enters into your productivity system. But what GTD gave me is a sort of foundation or base that I can build from an appliance who's 21 over do is I would recommend checking out some of the frameworks out there before you jump into the tools. Now, obviously there are tons of productivity books, but it's important to find a framework or book. How's a process lead way of being able to organize yourself. Gtd is a great example of that because you can go through the five stages from simply capturing an email or the way to what needs to be done after that. And it also has a bunch of recommendations when it comes to applying concepts. There's also great books like Deep Work by Cal Newport, which teaches you about how to basically take longest dense appearance time to work and focus and be able to use concepts like time blocking to really intensify that further. So my biggest recommendation is to start with a framework before you choose a tool, obviously will go into the tool selection process, but it's really fundamental that you find one that works for me. It was GTP, definitely helped myself daily routine. But what's great is as well is you can adapt it to your daily routine. Something that I always read language, GTD, is that it does have enough flexibility to help me to change it. For example, not necessary to go, I don't know, go to granular on step 5 with do where I do contacts and things like that. But I take the great capturing and clarifying abilities that are in the process. So in recommend just taking your time before choosing a tool, choose a framework. It will definitely help. 4. The Priority Complex: Picking the Right Tasks: So one of the things that are I, when I started getting into productivity was I was never really good at prioritizing. And I think this is probably one of the biggest problems in the market right now, is actually not necessarily the process of doing stuff is actually choosing what to do because there was so much, sometimes people have long lists of things like hundreds of items and I've been that sort of person that has had long lists. Sometimes it's about working out which ones make the biggest effect. I remember reading in the book very early on by Tim Ferriss that he recommended try and pick the tasks that knock the most dominoes over and get them done as early as you can. A concept that is really pushed in, eat that frog by Brian Tracy, a fantastic book about approaching the most hardest or most important tasks you need to do at the start of your day. So it's out of the way. But the one thing that I'm saying is that it's a gradual process is not going to change overnight. It's being able to work out what the most important thing is. But one things there were, there were methods that can help. I tried, for example, the Eisenhower matrix that can help you to determine how important certain things are. And you can put them into four quadrants. Arguably the one that is in the top left, I think it is, is it helps to determine exactly what you should do now versus what it should do later or delegate. One of the tips that I'd have for priority is making sure you pay attention to what your long-term goals are a lot of the time, and I find myself doing this as well. We set ourselves up some yearly goals, and then we set ourselves some weekly or monthly goals. And normally they start really nicely because they applied to the yearly goals. But a lot of the time we lose sight of the yearly goals or the goals in the long-term. What we do naturally at start doing stuff that's in the microwave, for example, you know, an e-mail pops in telling me to do this anymore, pops in telling me to do that. Or somebody asks me at work. And sometimes the thing is, you naturally gravitate towards those tasks. And before, you know, a month later, you further away from starting those yearly goals and you are from completing them. And the natural thing is to do, is to review that constantly try and tweak and change it. And the difficult thing is to keep on top of that. But my recommendation is always to have those goals front-and-center. Something I do that helps is naturally have it pinned near you, whether that's on a post-it note on your desk. But I quite like it in sign of my notebook in evidence in the shortcuts, I can access them quickly and whenever I'm doing something like a week review where I look at my weekend and go, okay, well, my goals, the things that we're hitting in that week match to my sort of long-term goals and helps me to release down tune and go. Actually this and that wasn't really related to it in the end. So having some sort of weekly review process can be a great method, but we can talk about that later on. But it's that idea of being able to just zoom out as much as you can. David island has a metastatic rule, 50000 feet roll where you look from the bird's eye view and try and approach the long-term and then zoom in and see what you can do in the short-term to hit those long-term goals. So there's a fantastic example. And it's in from football. As a football player that many Bono called Lionel Messi. And what he does drug again is normally he's cooled quite lazy FERPA law. But what he does normally in the first five to ten minutes is walk the pitch. He doesn't really jump into playing the game straight away. And he's actually known to be one of the players on the pitch that walks the most and covers the least ground during a game. But he's also someone that performs really well scoring goals and performing assessed. But he's able to do quite a lot during the game. And that's because what he does is he tends to just keep an eye on the strategic movement of the other team, the strategic movement of the other players, and what he's doing there, allowing himself time to think about it. That's always really an effective process. If you give yourself time to think, setting aside some time during the week to zoom out and not necessarily jump on your goals or jump on your activities that you need to do. But just to home now and see how it affects how you prioritize things. That's something that you might want to steal from Messi, is taking that time out before just a really orientate yourself before actually getting involved in the game. Not necessarily jumping in on every opportunity. 5. Tasks, Calendars & Notes: So what we talked about is rules and frameworks, and I can't tell you how fundamental they are. But of course there are tools that can help and what a lot of the time people tend to recommend. And one thing that David Allen tends to recommend is having three core applications and they are tasks, calendar, and notes. All three of these can be really helpful for organizing a day ahead. And let me explain why tasks are really helpful for determine exactly what you need to do. Calendar determines what your events and activities and notes determined and help you to remember stuff that are fundamental for the day ahead. So these three main productivity applications can be really beneficial. Obviously, there were tools that can assist the process, may be something that might be helpful, is a really strong email application or an application that helps you keep focused. But really these are the main productivity software that you might need to get things done. And we're going to overview, I'm going to recommend a few of them. And what I'm gonna do is I'm actually going to jump over in the next section and sort of really dive into how I approach this and how I've taken the time to selects these applications and gives you best recommendations for matching them up. One thing I'd say before we move on is that software is really a long-term decision. A lot of the time we get distracted by all of these lovely softwares that come in, don't get me wrong. I review them. I know that there were some beautiful applications on the market, but it's really important that you just spend as long as you can with a certain application. Because the more you invest in one to, the better it will be for you in the long term. And that's why it's so important to get the framework, the foundations right before you jump into an application. 6. Tools - Task Management Masterclass: So as you can imagine, task management is pretty fundamental parts of productivity. It helps us to determine what we're going to do during the day. And sometimes it can be really overwhelming. So I wanted to pick up some philosophies that I've cherry-picked along the way from people that might be helpful when it comes to task management and also picking the right task manager. So the first methodology that I'd say is helpful when it comes to tasks is mind dumping. Now this is actually something derived from the David Allen book, Getting Things Done. And what it actually allows you to do is during your day, grab five minutes to basically start dumping everything you have in your mind, whether it's developed to take out the washing or be able to reserve as the car that you have floating around in there a bill to write it down. I actually do this in my to-do list and bolts as I go across a day and then clear it at the end of the day, determining what they actually mean later on. But they're really helpful thing and it's really, really helpful once you get going on that is just getting that out of your mind. And there's a great quote from David Allen that he says, I'm going to butcher making, using your mind to basically think, instead of store things. It probably goes slightly different mobile show on screen, but basically using your mind to actually do things and think in the right way, instead of just holding things, I'm basically using your task manager or inbox to be able to just capture things to make sure your mind isn't just cluttered with all of this. So in mind, dumping is a really effective technique attended to as across my day and just using like I use Control L to quickly get that up. And to be honest, I find it really helpful for them to get small things out. And even sometimes if I'm away from my laptop or I'm just like my wife start saying like, Oh, you know, I've got all this that you can buy in the local supermarket. I tend to just get it to text it to me so that I make sure I don't forget it because I try not to remember things as much so that I can just focus on thinking. So instead of storing. So another thing that you may have come across in a, in a task experience is overwhelming lists. This is something that when we talked about prioritization is always just something that happens. We tend to just swarm our lists with many tasks as possible. Some of them are important, some of them unimportant. But the one thing I'd recommend is finding a way to do this, an application that doesn't necessarily force you to put a date on everything. One thing that I have is a board in sign of to-do list that just allows me to dump tasks in that that don't necessarily have due dates or deadlines, just so that I can start storing them there. And I can come at the end of the week and process them and work out what they actually mean. They're not deadly important, but they're also helpful for me to capture stuff across the day. And what's good about that is that I'm not necessarily changing my to-do list for the day attended trust light to prepare the to-do list The day before based on how that day went and try and stick with the things that I've gone to do for the day and try and get them done as much as I possibly can. Okay, So the third sort of approach to task management has been particularly helpful for myself, has been the day theme in concept or theming of tasks. So there's a really fantastic course here on Skillshare from Mike Vardy. He particularly dives into the concept that task batching can be an effective way to reduce the amount of energy you waste during the week. So for example, recording, if I were to say, let's record this Skillshare class on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday for one hour a day. Let's say it takes me 15 minutes to get this all set up and it takes me two hours to record the full thing. Obviously, that's not necessarily beneficial because I'm having to spend 45 minutes across those three days to set up everything. And then I'm stopping and I'm starting, which tends to just lose energy. And naturally, that's even just small things that you wouldn't expect. But of course, I'm obviously recording and 45 minutes sessions, so it's 45 minutes in three separate days. But if I were to say right, Monday is now my recording day, I've got two hour block and I'm going to everything and getting this out once, instead of getting out three separate times and packet away three separate times, then that allows me to adjust our bare, be more efficient with the activation of the task. And is a really great concepts from, I think Thomas Frank, who is another products into YouTuber, who shares that he tries to make things as simple as possible to set up so that he only does it needs sort of sat up and 50 minutes or less so that he's able to get it done. And there isn't like a setup fatigue, which naturally can come from Task batching. So obviously, it's really helpful to be able to manage tasks as a batch. And if you are somebody that saved does writing, editing or a certain thing, and you have multitude at stages of the process. So for example, if you're a writer and you like to prepare a script for your article you're writing before you could do scripting on one day, which allows you to prepare five scripts for five articles, and then the next day do those five articles, that might be a bit overwhelming, but doing those five articles in that one day, which should technically help you to be able to get more done in that day because you're batching the activity. So my chosen tool is to do a test. But when it comes to selecting a to-do list application, it can be a little bit tricky. So I have a few recommendations. We actually have that whole separate class here on Skillshare that really dives into picking the perfect steepest application. But I normally crunch it down into threes part process. It's research, being able to spend an enormous amount of time before you invest in an application to research what your needs are and whether the tool matches up and your needs. So before you start researching, choose your means, and then start research and based on your needs, and it should be able to help you make better and more informed decisions. The second part of the process is trialing it. Instead of jumping in with the application and going, I'm going to invest in this. I'm like, I'm going to spend all my time and I spend 90 days were there, give yourself a three month holiday, not holiday time with application and just spend it using it as much as you can during that time if you find a fault, we don't like the experience. Continue with that 90 days because it's really important to force yourself to use something for a longer period of time. So you work out the mistakes that you've made, right up, the mistakes you've made and choose an application based on that experience. Or if you're happy with it, then you can move to step 3, which is to optimize, is to really learn the ins and outs of the application. So you can make a really nice base there. So that's all of my recommendations for task management. Hopefully it was helpful. And we'll dive into calendar side now. 7. Tools - Calendar Masterclass: So a calendar application can be a great way to organize what you have when it comes to events and activities. But it can also be a great tactic to improve the way that you're spending your time. I wanted to share to sort of methods that I use with my calendar to help improve the way that I'm spending my time. So the one thing that I've more recently been doing is connecting my Google Calendar, my chosen tool, my to-do list, and what that does, it allows me to block out a period of time. And that period of time blocked out now appears inside of my to-do list. Moving all the tools aside, this is a concept called time blocking, and it's a great way to actually set aside a period of time that you're going to be working on something. And it really promotes that concept from Cal Newport's Deep Work of where you are focusing undistracted on a period of time where you can actually do something quite sort of product based. So for example, at the end of it you'll have an end product and the sort of end result. And it's an opportunity for you to really just pull all of your time, attention and energy into that one thing. So for example, for this recording, I've blocked out a three hour period of time to record the Hung thing, which allows me to have that focused energy on this class. I also do this with things like writing, things like editing, things like Administration as well. And it allows me to keep a focus. And I have maybe four or five of these dotted in a calendar across the week. And it helps me also to not book meetings during this period of time. Now of course, you might be at the mercy of a manager or somebody in your team who books to meetings, which is unfortunate, but of course, if you have that meeting blocked in your calendar, it could also be helpful, especially when they're trying to get something done that specific arm and creative lead. Now one of the things you can do as well is communicate this with your team as much as possible. You could explain about the reason for doing something like this. And if it's the first time you're doing something like this inside of a team and you're not sure about how to approach the best way is to do a sample session. So for example, is to block a two hour period of time outside of any meetings that you already have and just say, I'm going to be doing some deep intentional work during that period of time. I will not be available through things like Slack, microsoft Teams, and any other platform in order to get something out of it. And during that first session, it's an opportunity for you to get an end product to show ever and after that deep intentional work, obviously during that period of time, you can use things like pomodoro, which is an effective methodology to be able to work for 25 minutes and five minute break. But that concept of being able to just work undistracted still applies. So the second sort of recommendation after your calendar is obviously meetings are and the determination of the people around you. But having is minimal mountain meetings as possible, always really helpful and has obviously a range of ways that you can do this. But if you also speak with people in your team, trying to make meetings as minimal as possible can be affected slightly by yourself. And for example, I remember when I worked at a company, before I was really meeting, obsessed of jumping into meetings, jumping out to meetings, and setting one's even five minutes before they're due. And of course that the sort of thing that you do. But I quickly learned that actually a lot of the meetings one-on-one remote on, not actually that useful. And I could be using the time more beneficially. So for example, if you have a meeting that is quite ad hoc and you could potentially convert that to a weekly meeting, which allows you to pair more suitably and condense maybe two or three meetings into a week, into one meeting, and potentially even to eradicate that if necessary. And for example, you could do yourself a nice e-mail Roundup with a few bullet points of how some things progressing instead of a 30-minute mandatory meeting. So having the roles of meetings be able to be tested. There's a fantastic book by Jason Fried. I'll link it up here and put on screen. I think it's summing work doesn't have to be crazy the title. But that really was helpful when it approached sort of how you should look at meetings and the remote environment as well. So as I always recommend, my chosen tool is a Google Calendar application. I use it with Apple calendar on my phone. I keep things pretty simple with the calendar, but I used to use an application or woven their lows account is on the market, but it's really ones that sort of suit your devices that you need, an S and fantastic ones that you can go and explore. We have plenty of videos as well that can help. 8. Tools - Note-Taking Masterclass: So notes, I'm really helpful way to start capturing stuff. And I actually have over 4000 notes in my Evernote account right now. And it's just from the years of being able to capture stuff along the way. And what I would say is it's really helpful to capture the small stuff and the large stuff as you go on. One of the things that I like to capture these days is things like the closed sciences for certain brands. For example, if I then go and book Black, be able to sort of go on a website and I'm like, Okay, what size am I forgot my measurements. Helpful to have the small elements like that all the way to the large elements like a tax documents. And you might need to be able to quickly send to someone. So being able to use a notebook application for that can be super helpful, not just for yourself but others as well. I'm always finding it beneficial to be able to send over some information that I snapped on my phone over to somebody else would using a note-taking application that's stored safely as well. So on It's put points you towards a few methods that have definitely helped when I've been picking an antique application and a note-taker that connects with your email is really beneficial one, a lot of things come through email. So being able to just forward on or be able to send it or clip it or integrate it with your email is really helpful. Actually have some extent with Avenue where I just send and forward any email with attachments over to have an app and it goes into my inbox there, which is really helpful, really has solid time-saving when it comes to be able to make sure things are capture. So capturing is a really fundamental part inside of note-taking and being able to capture that fast is even more important. So the second thing that I learned when it comes to note-taking applications is you need to know yourself. Sometimes it's important to be able to go. What do I actually use note-taking for and what are my full capacities? Because sometimes people tend to see applications on the market and go, wow, I need a lead. How to do that? I need to do to basically moment to that application. And of course that's natural light. We do that all the time. Like we see like some really nice shoes and we say they're like something I would want I would wear them. I'm going to buy them. I'm going to wear them. And it's naturally something that happens with note-taking applications. Like for example, I saw an application code of city in which I really like the look of, I think it's fantastic and I like when I see people using it, but in practicality, That's not really me. Really just takes basic notes. I take notes that just are really simple with PDF or just small basic text. I don't connect notes up. I don't need a graph, I don't need tanks. I just need a note saved to be able to capture for later. So knowing yourself is really helpful when it comes to note taking and try not to avoid. We're not to avoid, but try not to jump on trends that come along just for the sake of doing it. But if you see value, like if you're a researcher, obsidian might be really suitable for you. 9. Handling Emails & Reaching Inbox Zero: So e-mail is something that we all have to do. It's painstaking sometimes to be able to clear it and sort it. But one of the things I sort of embrace very early on with something called Inbox Zero. And it's a concept that basically it was developed by Merlin Mann. And essentially, it says what it does on the tenant, does what it says on the tin, and allowing you to get to a 0 inbox status where you have no emails in your inbox. And what a lot of time people do is they tend to collect their emails and use them as tasks, or even used them as sort of a storage space. And of course that's useful. But we have search in email, which is helpful for began to find the right email at the right time. But one I like personally is a clean inbox and what they tend to do to get on top of that. And it might be a mountain to try and climb. If you're somebody that has never done this, probably have 10 thousand emails to get rid of. But the best thing I recommend to do to keep on top of it is to daily check-ins. Now, I'll talk about the tool that I use that helps to do this. But there were obviously you could do this with a basic e-mail application if you find that fit in. But to check-ins, one at nine AM and one at two PM normally helps me to see an overview of whether I've missed anything or whether anything is important to the work I'm doing. So that's really helpful to have these two check-ins are normally only clear the inbox once every two days. And that allows me to again do that task batching concept of, okay, I'm gonna set this up at an hour to do this and clear all my email at once. Instead of having maybe three or four different 20 minute blocks. And I just smashed through my email on one session and get 1 e to follow up on a lot faster. And it's concepts like in GTD where you, for example, if something takes less than two minutes, you can do it. If something is more than two minutes, you delegate it. That is really helpful. So going back to it, that the framework fundamentals, fundamentals are really helpful for improving the way that you use tools. So one of the ways that you can sort of benefit from this is send an archive. I tend to do this a lot of the time when I'm sending emails or have send an archives anapsid, when I send something, archives automatically allows me to search for later, but doesn't actually appear again in sign in my inbox. And that's a faster way to be able to process your inbox when you get to Inbox Zero, which might be difficult, highly recommend it. So the email tool that I use is tempo to there are so many different tools on the market, but you need to find one that best suits your needs. So for example, if you're focusing on like starring emails and being able to access them and collaborate with them. Other people, then Spark Mao might be suitable and application by Riedl. But there are so many different options on the market. So it's important to analyze your needs before, for me, being able to sort of have these two batch sessions was really useful surplus between hay and tempo to untampered two is my application of choice. 10. Tips for Focusing & "Deep Work" states: So we've talked about a few different tools that can be helpful along the way. Tasks, calendar notes and email. And then normally the fundamentals, email being that additional one that you tend to use. But they were sort of new wave of productivity applications that might be helpful. And I call them assisting applications, but they're focused applications and they can be helpful for be able to reduce him under distractions you have and help you intensify your concentration whilst you work, which is to be honest, very beneficial because the quality of your work might dramatically improved because of that. So as you can imagine, there are a few sort of deep work applications coming out. And one that I've found particularly helpful in the past is apps like freedom. And you can call them distraction blockers. And they're probably best title of that. But what they essentially do is they block certain websites or access to the Internet during a period of time when you're working. Main reason behind that is so that you don't get distracted or have the optionality to take a microsecond on Twitter or check your emails. And sometimes they can even blocks and applications if you're using a desktop versions. So having a distraction blocker, it can be a great way to intensify that deep work and make sure you're not being tempted by smalls of hits of dopamine during your day and can be really helpful intensifying the session. So one of the things that I've found particularly helpful is using music in the background whilst I'm working, I've only just recently invested in some sort of sound blocking headphones, where noise canceling headphones, they actually help to block the sort of noise around you. And this has been really helpful because I worked best in coffee shops, which tend to be noisy. Although I like being able to see people and this emotion around a coffee shop natural survive event. When I'm working, I like to be really tuned in Uppsala. I'm not distracted. So having something like that can be helpful, but I use music that I tend to like is non lyrical music. Life example. I more recently like Luna Vicki analogies re-imagined series, which is really lovely, a beautiful extended tracks. There are about eight minutes and I'm really good for focus. And I also like the app and 0 for BMI to just have an, a more analytical approach for productivity of which has some great soundscapes in it. So being able to use music and sound can be effective as well. And although it might look a bit strange in the office, I do think it does have its benefits. And if you're trying to sell it to somebody, I'd definitely a lib serve experiment with it before. It's much easier in a remote environment because you didn't get that focus time as well. So a lot of the time we talk about doing more in our days, getting things done lots and focus on lots of lists and getting as much as you can done in a day. But sometimes it's important to actually do less. And there were some really great tools out there that can help you do less the more important things. There's even a system called analog, which helps you to write the more sort of focus tasks across your day does even masses like pomodoro, which helps you to hone in on one task. But it's really important to be able to understand. Less can sometimes be more. In, in those time blocking sessions. They can be helpful for them to just give yourself a bit of sort of and one thing to do and to do it very well, it at least to push the quality to it to 80 percent. But I've found that over the last couple of years with a day that's been like 10 tasks to do versus four or five tasks to do. I've performed incredibly better on these five, even sometimes with less than that. So I'd recommend keeping that in mind. 11. Care - Environment Changes To Be More Productive: So your environment is something that does affect your productivity. And there's a few things I sort of want to point towards. And LinkedIn being organised, your desk and also your best work environments. So lighting is something that's as been proven to help the way that you aren't productive. And there's been studies that point towards people working with more natural light and at Windows tend to be happier and work better. And of course, that's very, very true. And sometimes even the lighting in the office, it can sometimes be too bright, too intense, and sort of make you feel like you're under the spotlight all day, which is probably there, the golden work. But I feel that natural lighting is a lot banner. If I'm ever working at home, I tend to work in the kitchen. If I'm ever in a coffee shop, I tend to like work in near a window to really small thing. And even when I'm at have to have lights on, I do like Tibet, a warm light versus a more white light. I just feel like lighting can sometimes be the thing that makes you tired out across your day. If you ever get tired out cross your day, definitely look at your lighting. I think it's something that I've when I was in the office, I did find myself with the fluorescent tube lights getting quite tired by the time it came to that sort of 56 o'clock. And not just tired like but really like sort of occurring tired. And as you can imagine, that can be impactful on the next day and the next day. So the next tip that I have is naturally to keep at your workspace as clear as possible what we're going for a house move at the moment, so it's very busy. But when I do have my desk clean, I make sure to do a sort of find Bennett clear out before I actually start work. Because sometimes that can be the distracting factor, actually, one, having the distraction around you. And number 2, wanting to do that the clearing whilst you're doing the work, which is a distraction in itself. So keeping your desk clear in clean is probably one of the best things I've done over the years. And it's something that really does help your mind clear. And there are some and a few that do like a mess environment to get things done, which equally, if it works for you and has over the years, might not need to change it. But for those who are finding that they need little bit of accountability, or some folks in a day really helpful, okay, so the third thing, obviously, some people have the luxury of being able to sort of work from home. Others have the luxury of them to work from anywhere. So it's important to be able to work out where you work best. And for me, I've always worked better in coffee shops. If your work is something that isn't necessarily confidential or you can use a VPN, then a coffee shop isn't good option for you. Now one thing that obviously you need to know is coffee shop might not necessarily work for everyone. And some coffee shops might not like you working in them. But at the same time, if you find an environment that works for you, whether it's in a specific area in your house and you've associated to work or whether it's in a coffee shop down the road, being able to find that sweet spot is really important. And I always find that at certain times in a coffee shop, like two to 330 PM are Wow, I worked best and the times that I worked best as well. So being able to do certain activities as well when you're in certain areas can be helpful. This is also leading on to the sort of task batching, but also task theming. Be able to do a certain thing in a certain environment can be really helpful. So those are the things that I found beneficial when it comes to the environment around me. 12. Care - Meditation, Fitness & Journal: So obviously, care is really important when it comes to productivity. And obviously I don't wanna talk too much about like sort of self-care as per se. But 337 things that helped across my day that I think might be helpful cross your work day. And I think employers and people outside of or maybe who are sorting out your work are becoming a lot more open to the fact that this is beneficial. The first is meditation, a bit of a cliche one, but even not just necessarily meditation, the fact that going and doing like a 20 minute meditation where you're setting that with music and keeping a calm. I think meditation B, be anything where your mind is at rest and it's not necessarily thinking through things. So for me, my meditation is sometimes going on a walk with a little boy in the morning, 510 minutes or maybe even 20 minutes, but I get time to refresh. And that's my sort of better morning meditation. And also during the day like if I'm going out to do a little bit banks his eyes than walking to do the exercise over to start the exercise actually as a bit of a meditation because I can take everything in around me. So meditation doesn't necessarily have to be this intense thing. If it's something you've, you do well with that, then that's of course very useful. But if it's something that you find yourself tricky to get the time to do or you can't sit still than something that like that can be helpful. Journaling is another thing that can be helpful during your day. And the one thing that I found is not actually a journaling, but actually doing something called, I don't know whether it's school like a self-reflection or something like that. But basically, what I'll do is I'll go into my Evernote and just start typing the day of the week and then I'll talk through my process. Like for example, this morning I did this in this Ness, I'm feeling a little bit like confused, but I think that I should approach in this situation then being able to say, Okay, I've got this as an S to do in the afternoon. And I'm excited for this this and this and the evening, but actually just having that period of time when you're sort of journaling, but just being able to sort of reflect on the sort of present and the future is actually quite helpful because you're just sort of pausing and going, okay, or what is important and what am I actually doing instead of making work be this sort of like forgetful process as you go across your day. So the next thing that I want to talk about, Miss Fitness, obviously finish can be helpful during a day if you have the opportunity to do any sort of fitness, It's really great because it just gets that sort of brain and the blood flowing in the afternoon. I particularly like going out for a walk or playing football. But if you're really strapped for time, you can do smaller things like simple sort of press ups in that house. Or maybe even skipping. Skipping rope can be great way to not necessarily leave the house, but allow me to break his flat in the garden or in your balcony or something like that, um, and can be a great way to just quickly activate that sort of exercise without burning too much time. But I definitely see the benefits of doing exercise and how it impacts the second part of my day. If you're able to do it in the middle of the day or you're somebody that already does it in the morning. 13. Care - Offline Workshop Sessions: Okay, So one of the things that I sort of discovered in the last year is actually taking some time to organize many workshops myself. And if you're somebody that works for somebody else or you have your own business, and it actually can be beneficial just for being able to improve the way that you are focusing across a week. So basically what I'll do is probably twice a week for about 15 minutes each session. What I'll do is a blackout period of time where I call myself a mini workshop where I just basically use a bit of paper, go back to the drawing board and be able to just sort of write a few things that are concerning me on my mind. Or if you have a workshop around a certain theme, like for example, like maybe I had last week or a theme around courses that I was doing coming up. So I was able to just focus in on that. But having a workshop around that particular topic can be really helpful for just being able to zoom out and sort of using paper. Because sometimes when it comes to using software and using your laptops or day, it can be really sometimes a bit too intense and the old eyes. But doing these 50-minute want Trump's has really helped the way that I'm if constantly just refreshing the way that I think about work. Even sometimes having an agenda per pound for a mini workshop can be helpful of the things you'd like to cover or just be able to get the warnings out. But being able to have those two sessions a week and a sign of things that your journal can be a really helpful way to just pause and zoom out of what you're actually doing or solve a particular problem that doesn't require you to use software all the time. 14. Care - Week Reviews: So one of the things that I found really helpful when it comes to getting things done. The book by David Allen is the weak reviews elements of that. I'd be doing week reviews for maybe five or six years now. And it's probably one of the best things that I've done. Because what it does, it allows me just to like, take a bit of time once a week, normally Thursdays at 11 AM to just basically snapshots how the weeks gone, what I can improve on for the future. And there's a variety of ways you can do week review. You could have it with your team members or you can have it with colleagues or even with yourself, like I did. But having a weak review allows you to zoom out of what you've done during the week, what's been successful, and what hasn't been successful. But also what you can do during the week ahead. And what I like about a week review is it also allows you to tune into your long-term goals and see how the things you did this, we impact that and also how you can make changes for the following week. But it also allows you to do things like clearing out your email and maybe your task manager inbox t, as a little bit of a step, I actually have a template for this now. And then we used to have a template, but I had a mental template, whereas like I know what to do. We review last couple of months have been using a template to actually implement a week review just for the sake of my mind not being completely reliance on my own memory to do stuff, but actually doing something like that can actually be really helpful. And something that Chris, Dan and see who has been on keep productive a couple of times really sort of pushes towards is your values and what really means a huge deal in your life and be able to correlate your week review around that. Are you hitting those things that you truly believe in a gas across your week? And it allows you to sort of stay on track with the long-term goals. So we preview at highly recommend that you can do in pretty much every application. And I definitely recommend at doing some more reading around week four V's of a 100, really optimize it. But very simply, it's a 20 minute activity that allows you to review what went well, what didn't go well, also, what you want to do for next week in mind with your long-term goals and objectives. And also to clear up any sort of mass, maybe have some documents want to sort out, and also some e-mails you want to get through. Sometimes you can bolt now onto the back of it. But a week review is a customer experience, so it's whatever you want. 15. Thank You & Course Summary: So folks, thank you so much for taking this class. I think I covered as much as I could about sort of how I approach productivity. Maybe I'll answer this course, maybe I will just keep it like this, but I'm really happy that you took it as a student here on Skillshare. You can check out some of my other classes. We do some potassium ones, zooming into certain tools and different processes. And even as a student, things like that, you can sort of learn how to approach and learn some really valuable skills in the process, but have huge thank you. Please do leave a review if you enjoyed this class and check on the worksheet as well, which might be helpful to be able to analyze all of what we covered and what things you'd like to pick and take away. Thank you very much, folks. I hope you enjoy our all of our other classes here on Skillshare, chairs.