Real Productivity: How to Reach Your Goals Every Time!

1. Introduction: Hi, this is Michelle West with Aprosae for your class, Real productivity: how to reach your goals every time. Have you ever just busted out of the gate to do something new, only to lose your motivation along the way? If you have, you're not alone. Having sustained productivity is something anyone can get into the habit of doing - anyone! It's just learning how to plan and follow through, then applying that to what goal you want to accomplish. I've been the head of marketing departments for over two decades. For everything from a non-profit organization to a for profit company, to a university where I've had to manage teams of marketing professionals to accomplish websites, social media, public relations, marketing, advertising, branding publications, email, media relations, and so many other things all at the same time. While having to make sure that numerous people get an overwhelming amount of projects done in a short amount of time can be challenging, but with the planning and follow through process we'll be covering in this class, it's become a habit, even an instinct for me. And my hope is it will be the same for you. We'll learn how to plan and follow through by filling out the chart in the class projects section titled my productivity plan. By the end of this class, you'll have a roadmap that will guide you on how to reach your goal in the time-frame you want to. And we won't just address the tasks necessary to get this goal done. We'll also talk about the internal factors, like procrastination, that need to be overcome to increase productivity. I'm excited to see what goal you have and how you are going to reach it. Even more exciting to me is that once you've done this with one goal and then another and another, is how it will change the productivity level in your life. In every area of your life. You're just retraining yourself with more productive habits and mindset. So let's get started on developing the habits So it'll become an instinct for you much sooner than later. 2. Class Project: Increasing the productivity in your life is very doable and we're going to start addressing the thoughts in your head and the tactical tasks you need to get there. We're going to dive into the different aspects of being productive and apply that knowledge to our class project along the way,. Please start by opening the file titled my productivity plan. The top four rows under the title are your guiding lights. They help anchor you to what and why you're being productive. We start with a goal you want to reach, how it will benefit you when you reach it, and why you want to do it. When times get tough, these things will keep you going. Then there are five columns that you'll fill out after each lesson. Those columns cover the following: What tasks you need to take to reach your productivity goal. What internal things like procrastination and external things like family and work responsibilities impact you reaching this goal. How you're going to accomplish each task and prioritizing the tasks So you know what order to tackle each. As we go over these, we'll walk through examples on how to fill them out. After you've completed goals using this process, it will eventually become a process that you intuitively do and your productivity will flourish. By the end of this class, you'll end up with the foundational knowledge of how to overcome the things that are holding your productivity back. So let's get started with the first lesson, defining the goal you want to reach. 3. Your Productivity Goal: When you saw this class and thought, I need that. Why do you need to be more productive? What do you not feel in control in? Think through, write down or type your thoughts. From those thoughts Do you see a common thread? Do you see something in there that you really want and need to do? Let's look at a fictitious couple, Sarah and Jim. They have kids, they both work and they feel a little overwhelmed with the responsibilities they have. They recently got a warning from their Homeowner's Association or HOA, that their lawn is out of compliance and has to be worked on. Then the oldest child's teacher emailed them and told them that their child's reading level is below average and they need to meet to discuss how they can help. And Sarah's job is requiring her to increase her travel time so she can assist other plants in their OSHA compliance. On top of this, Jim's dad who lives hours away, just got double knee surgery and his parents are asking Jim to help out at their house during his dad's recovery. These things are on top of the already long laundry list of driving kids to their activities, trying to get their workouts in, maintaining their homes and cars, cooking, cleaning, you know, the rest. While Sarah and Jim might need to do all these things, it's helpful to hone in on just one goal for their productivity plan. Then when that goal's met, they can go through the plan again for subsequent ones. By the time they get to their third or fourth goal, this productivity plan will start to become second nature. So which goal do they choose? They could choose the most pressing need, the one that just can't be avoided, or very bad consequences could occur. Or they could choose the goal that is easiest and we'll give them encouragement to move on to the next. Some people are motivated by getting the thing off their plate that keeps them up at night while others need some success to rally behind So they want to work on another goal After that. What about you? Look at the thoughts, you listed out and think about what motivates you right now. By focusing on one goal, you'll not only end this class with a roadmap to get that goal accomplished, but you'll learn the process to get other goals done. It's good to focus on one goal at a time, especially one that you know, you can successfully accomplish or that you have to get done, or you're going to have some very hurtful ramifications. When you do have success. That sets you up for future success with being productive in your life Because emotionally your psyched that you've got that done But you're also investing in the skill of being more productive. If you can't choose between multiple goals, you can complete two productivity plans side-by-side as we go through the lessons. This can be beneficial because if you choose an easy goal, you might not get why we're going through each step. But if you choose a hard one, you likely will. Doing two goals side-by-side can help you see the various nuances of How to be more productive. But some may be overwhelmed doing two at a time. So if you choose two goals and feel overwhelmed, please drop one and come back to it later. Sarah and Jim decided they had four new things that need to be goals So they wrote those down. Fix the HOA lawn violations, remediate their child's reading challenges, Delegate Sarah's ongoing responsibilities with home and family while she's traveling, and create a plan to help Jim's parents during his dad's recovery. Then they thought about what will happen, the impact, if They don't accomplish each goal. For the goal of fixing the HOA lawn violations, If they don't do that, the impact on them could be that they have fines including or up to a lein put on their house. For the goal of remediating their child's reading challenges, There were several impacts If they didn't do this. First, their child would get further and further behind making catch-up even harder. Secondly, their child's mental health concerns, She feels dumb and depressed right now, could continue and/or increase. And lastly, an underlying condition such as their suspicions about dyslexia, could avalanche into other challenges. For delegating Sarah's ongoing responsibilities with home and family while she's traveling Some negative impacts could be the pantry won't have enough food. The house and clothes will be dirty, and the kids won't get to some activities. And the last goal Sarah and Jim could choose from is to create a plan to help Jim's parents during their dad's recovering. If Sarah and Jim don't do this, some of the negative impacts could be the dad will have challenges with getting to the bathroom and other essentials, and the mom will get stressed trying to pick up the load from the dad's responsibilities. Sarah and Jim then have to prioritize who gets the help first. Their lawn number one, their child number two, the logistics of their home three, or Jim's parents four. This is a philosophical question that each person, couple, or family has to answer for themselves. All of these could be helped by hiring people, but they don't have enough disposable income right now. So they choose number three, how they can keep life going as normal while Sarah has to travel. Once they get that plan to keep the basics in life continuing, they are going to then create a plan for the other three goals So they have a timeline to get them all done and communicate that plan to those waiting on them. For your productivity plan, write down the potential goals you could tackle. Then think of which one is the one that you should tackle first. Is it so basic to living you can't ignore it? Is it so crucial for a loved one that you have to address it now? Or maybe you're just tired of not getting it done and emotionally ready to tackle it. Write down the goal you chose in the first row of your productivity plan and write the date You'd like to accomplish it by. Now that you've decided your goal Write down why you chose that goal. Another way to look at this is answering the question of what will you get out of accomplishing this goal? The answers go down in the impact row. For Sarah and Jim's goal, the impact will be that everyone will have life go on as usual and have the food, clothing, driving, and support to do that. Now that you know what goal you're going to use to increase your productivity and what you're going to get from accomplishing this goal Let's move on to what the internal and external factors are that will keep us motivated to be productive. 4. Productivity's Energy Source: You can have all the tips and tricks on how to become more productive. But if you're not engaged, interested, or even care about what you're doing. Why would you want to use those tips and tricks? Simon Sinek says a great point on this topic. He says, the work world is tough. Wake up, go to work doeal with the boss, or if you are the boss, deal with everyone. Make money, come home, manage personal life, go to bed, wake up, repeat. That's plenty to deal with every day. Why get fancy and waste time By trying to also understand why you do what you do. The answer to that question isn't fancy, It's simple. Discovering the why injects passion into our work. This is what I call productivity's, energy source and discovering why we want to be productive is valuable for work, school, and home life. What motivates us to be productive isn't the tips, tricks or tactics, Those are the tools we use to be productive. What motivates us is why we care about our productivity goal. That's the key to finding the motivation to be productive with our goal. Then we need the tips and tricks to reach that goal. So what motivates you to accomplish your goal? Usually there are internal motivators and external motivators. Internal motivators are usually your feelings and thoughts about your goal. They can be more negative in nature like fear of failure or not wanting to give up control. Or positive like you'll gain favor with someone, or it will give you a shot of endorphins. In Sarah and Jim's example, Sarah's motivation for providing the basics of life for her family, such as cooking and driving kids to activities, is that she has a strong nurturing drive. And when she's able to cook them a meal that they enjoy together while laughing and talking about their day Her heart fills up with joy seeing her family connect. She's also made a point every night at bedtime to ask each person how their day went and provide an opportunity to talk through any joys and disappointments they had. This also fills her desire to nurture and gives her tremendous joy because she feels needed and relied upon. So this is what she'd write down as her internal motivators. What are your internal motivators? What do you emotionally feel or mentally think that motivates you to reach your goal. Write this down as your internal motivator or motivators. External motivators are those things that are outside your mind. Usually external motivators can be things that are tangible, physical, or financial in nature. For Jim and Sarah's goal, Jim looks at things through more of a tangible lens. He wants his family to be fed clothed, and have shelter. Sarah does the shopping for food and prepares their school lunches. The kids are starting to wash and fold their own clothes, but Sarah still picks up the slack. Jim's motivation is to have the essentials. So their family has their physical needs met. How about you? Think about your goal. What things outside your mind, like tangible, physical, or financial benefits motivate you to reach it? Put that in the external motivators row. Once you have a clear idea of what motivates you, that's when you know what will energize you to productivity. If or when procrastination sets in or roadblocks come your way, you can look back at these motivators and cling to them to get you through to the next step of the process, then eventually to your goal. 5. Your Goal in Manageable Tasks: Have you ever set out to get something done only to stop along the way because you dreaded the next step or task of the process. Or maybe you didn't even know what to do next. Procrastination and roadblocks hit us all. But when we can see the tasks to get from where we're at to where we want to be and realize the whole process isn't blocked, is just getting past one task of many In a process We can push through the dreaded one to continue our productivity. For Sarah and Jim remember this was what they wrote down when they were just writing down their thoughts. Their goal was to delegate Sarah's ongoing responsibilities with home and family while she's traveling. So they could have the impacts of the pantry will have food to eat, the house, and clothes will be clean And the kids will get to their activities. But now they need to think through in more detail. Here's their goal. Delegates Sarah's ongoing responsibilities with home and family while she's traveling. Now they need to define what those ongoing responsibilities are and who will do them. Jim starts by writing the list. Jim shops for food. Jim drives the kids to and from school, Jim drives to after-school activities, and Jim helps their oldest child with homework. Sarah had these on her list as well, but had four more. Jim preps and cooks meals. Their oldest child cleans the toilets. Their oldest child vacuums and mop the floors. And Jim touches base with each child at night. If your goal is one that involves another person, like Sarah and Jim's, it's important to make sure each person weighs in on the tasks. When they compared their lists and discussed everything, they see that Jim has too much on his already full plate. And Jim feels that putting more chores on their oldest child while that child is trying to read more every night to improve her reading skills and has her mom's support from only afar isn't a wise choice. So they go through each task one-by-one and make modifications. For Jim's list of tasks They change it from Jim shopping for groceries to Sarah ordering groceries online and having them delivered to the house. Jim will still drive the kids to and from school, but Jim will only drive the youngest to after-school activities while Friends, will drive their oldest kid. And now grandpa and grandma will help their oldest child with homework over a phone or video call. From Sarah's list, there were additional changes. First, Jim is going to buy ready-made meals and or order out for dinner instead of making home-cooked meals. Sarah and Jim figure the toilets can wait, but eating lunch can't. So their oldest is going to pack lunches for the family. And the floors will also survive without being cleaned. So they cross off the other chore for their oldest child. And lastly, Sarah won't have a lot of responsibilities for work at night. So she's going to call to touch base with each child instead of Jim. Now they can put those as tasks in their productivity plan. Think about your goal. What are the tasks you need to do to get it done? Write them down on the chart in the second column titled tasks. In Word, you can change these tasks easily, but if you're doing this on paper, I suggest you use a pencil so you can change things as needed. Because sometimes when you get into doing these tasks, you might have an obstacle come up that you didn't expect, and it changes things. For now, Try to get the tasks in chronological order and just know that it's okay if that order changes later, since you have an order column where you can put numbers for the order the tasks go in. We'll do that in lesson nine after the chart is completely filled out. Next up is figuring out what internal factors are impacting your productivity positively and negatively. 6. Internal Factors for Productivity: There are some things you can control. These are internal factors that impact your productivity. External factors are things you can't control coming your way, but you might be able to influence their impact on your productivity. Internal and external factors can be positive or negative, meaning they can contribute to your success in reaching your goal and or detract from it. It's important to recognize each. Let's look at the positive and negative internal factors first, so you can figure out what you can contribute to your success and what obstacles are getting in the way of you reaching your productivity goal. Examples of positive internal factors that increase productivity are being self-aware of your strengths and weaknesses, believing in yourself and the importance of what you're doing. Having a strong work ethic, aiming to have excellence in whatever you put your hand to, knowing how to ask for help when you don't have a skill you need. And being flexible and pivoting when a new approach is needed to get the job done. Let's explore one of the positive internal factors. Being self-aware of your strengths - to understand why they're important. One of the books that I've found most helpful in understanding how I work is StrengthsFinder 2.0. This book comes with a quiz that will uncover what your top five strengths are. Then you can look up those five things in the book to understand what each entails. For example, three of my five top strengths are ideation, which is applying new ways to doing things. Strategy, which is creatively figuring out how to take disparate pieces of the puzzle and making them whole and futuristic, which is finding a way to impact not only the goal, but other areas that the goal touches. So during COVID lockdowns, when I had two preschoolers and one kindergartener with attention spans the size of gnats who I suddenly had to partially homeschool and partially make sure they were paying attention to their class times online. I learned very quickly that I was ill-equipped to teach these grade levels. My strengths are indicative of why. When I have a goal that's routine and lacks creativity, like sticking to the school schedule and following a particular lesson plan, I often can't apply the ideation or new ideas that auto populate my mind like an avalanche. And strategy. There was no need for strategy, just forced upon routine and scheduling. And futuristic. This ties into creating strategy and seeing how each piece impacts the other. The school schedule and lesson plan didn't offer what I'm hardwired to do: to take a puzzle of disconnected pieces that needed to strategically fit together in a new and creative way that would create the required impact on other areas and goals. For my role is homeschooling mom It was pure execution and trying to teach little ones how to pay attention long enough to maybe capture a fraction of what was being taught. It's not that my combination of top strengths or bad, or that the strengths needed for homeschooling little ones are bad. It's that my top strengths didn't match the strengths needed in any way at all. Yet, since I had the self-awareness thanks to StrengthsFinder 2.0, that this was going to be the case from the get-go, I could set realistic expectations. I could seek help where I needed. I could ask the teachers if I could teach a concept in a different way to satiate my need to inject creativity So I'd be more engaged in teaching. Being self-aware of my strengths and weaknesses is what made this forced upon situation much more palatable. That's why being self-aware of my strengths and weaknesses has been great for me. It helps me embrace the things I need to be satisfied in my work. And I can incorporate those things to increase my productivity because they're natural and exciting for me. Now, let's move on to negative internal factors that decrease productivity. Some examples are fear of failure, doubting your abilities, lacking motivation or interest. Analysis paralysis or indecision, lacking boundaries, and procrastination. Again, Let's explore one of the negative internal factors to understand why they're important. Let's take one we've all probably done in our lives before: procrastination. Think of a time you've procrastinated on something. And if you can think of one associated with your productivity goal, even better. Next, discovering the reason or emotion behind the act of procrastinating is what will help us overcome the urge to procrastinate and freely progress to productivity. Why do you think you've procrastinated in the example you have in your mind? Some common reasons are fear of failure, and lack of interest or motivation. Let's take one of Jim's added responsibilities while Sarah is traveling for work: feeding the kids. Let's say he hates having to do meal-plan, shop, prep, and cook food, but he obviously has to feed his kids. So fast-food drive-throughs have been the menu for a whole week and he is feeling guilty, but he's so drained after work that the thought of planning, shopping, prepping, and cooking is more than he's willing to tackle right now. So he pushes off or procrastinates the need to feed the kids something healthy. One night while he's ordering another burger and fries at a drive through, his oldest is telling him how her tummy hurts and she hasn't been able to go number two since they've been eating like this. The guilt that he's been pushing down surfaces so quickly that his procrastination in finding healthier dinners ends because he cancels his Order and goes to the grocery store instead to buy a rotisserie chicken and heats up some frozen veggies to go with it. After that, He determines to come up with a solution to finding better but easy to fix meals that are healthier by asking Sarah to give him some ideas before the weekend when he has time to regroup and plan for next week. Jim didn't change the reality that he was overworked and tired across the board, but accepted that he couldn't change his situation right now. And he let the warranted Guilt motivate him to reach his goal of caring properly for his kids nutritional needs. Like Jim, when each of us faces procrastination, we have to face the reasons and emotions that are keeping us from completing our goal and consciously push through them Focusing on the elated feeling that when we reach our goal. As you've processed these two lists of positive and negative internal factors, do any feel like what you're experiencing as you work toward your productivity goal? Look at your productivity plan and note any positive internal factors that you'll use to increase your productivity, or negative ones that you'll manage or eliminate to ensure your success. Now, you can probably guess what's next. Let's move on to external factors that impact your productivity. The things you can't control but can influence. 7. External Factors for Productivity: External factors related to reaching your productivity goals are things that are outside your control, but you might be able to influence their impact. Just like internal factors, external factors can be positive or negative. So they can either add to your productivity and or take away from it. By recognizing both, we have a greater chance at reaching our productivity goal. Now, let's explore the positive and negative external factors that you might be facing. Examples of positive external factors that increase productivity are having financial and or work-related help from others. Being given work that gives you purpose. Having a workspace that's conducive to you doing your best work. Being emotionally supported by others, and having accountability with others. Some negative external factors that decrease productivity are having an impractical workload, receiving a lack of communication, not being given enough time to complete a task or project. Having people who aren't respecting your boundaries and not being able to rely on others who are needed to complete the job. Taking advantage of positive external factors is easy. But discovering how to adapt to external causes you can't control can be challenging. And there are mental and emotional adaptations we need to manage the influence those external factors have on us. For example, at one of my employers, I had an impractical workload. Not in the sense of too much work for me to do, but I noticed there was a pattern of being given a goal that would take one to two months to complete. But then after two weeks on average, our department was put on a new project with new goals. Remember StrengthsFinder 2.0 from the last lesson? Well, number four of my five strengths is achiever. I do my best work when I'm productive and with my futuristic and strategic leanings That productivity needs to make sense by meeting a goal, strategic, and be impactful for the future. The achiever and me would work relentlessly to get the goal done, only to have our department taken off the project before we could reach the goal. I felt trapped like I was in Groundhog Day. So I reviewed our team meeting notes to make sure my impression was grounded in reality And unfortunately, it was. For three months This had been the pattern. If I was just looking for a paycheck, I'd have been okay with it. But I need purpose and I need to have my work make an impact. Yet, I couldn't control the external factor that our department's workload kept changing to where we couldn't complete projects. I could control though, how I influenced and or managed this. There are three main ways we can influence change on an external factor that affects the progress we have toward meeting our goal. Those three ways are action, advocate and acceptance. Let's look at each one. Take an entrepreneur who sells his hand carved sculptures at outdoor markets during the summer, he's noticed potential customers aren't standing around his booth like others. He thinks it might be because those other booths have canopy tents over them, giving the customers a break from the scorching heat. He borrows a canopy tent to test his theory and notices an uptick in people looking at his sculptures and buying. So he purchases his own canopy tent with signage printed on all four sides so people know what he's all about even from afar. If you have an external factor that you can just act upon to change, think about the real problem. The sculptor couldn't change the sun's heat. But he could create an environment that welcomed and comforted his customers. By testing his theory, he didn't have to invest any money until he found it was correct. And that the purchase of the canopy tent had the return on investment that he needed to make it worth purchasing. It's important to note that the external factors that just need our action to turn them from negative to non-existent, Neutral or even positive factors are usually ones that aren't other people's decisions who have some sort of decision-making authority on what we're doing. The second way to influence change on external factors is to advocate. Advocating is attempting to get support from others by expressing your views and desires with the hopes that you get what you're seeking, whether it be to uphold the rights that are due you, to remove obstacles or to help you achieve your goal. Advocating can be hard for some because there's usually an element of confrontation Which some shy away from or downright get anxiety from. If confrontation is something you don't like, you can reframe the feeling that advocating is confrontational and see it more as a conversation about ideas. Even if this is hard for you, developing the skill to advocate has immeasurable benefits that will be useful in every part of life and is worth overcoming the discomfort to develop the skill. Try to determine why advocating for your needs or wants is uncomfortable and address that reason so you can move forward. Some common reasons people give up on advocating for themselves is fear of losing something, They are people pleasers, or they grew up being reprimanded for speaking up. Advocating is how I chose to influence change on the example I gave earlier about our department's boss changing our goals every two weeks on average. I met with my boss, approached him in the way that I thought would best influence him, being direct with him, but not saying things that could put him on the defensive, and asked him for a chance to complete a project of his choosing. I could have given him the proof that he changed our goals as often as he did, but I felt that would have put him on the defensive and shut down any negotiations. The last way to influence change on an external factor is acceptance. Sometimes what we want isn't in the cards for us. For example, in the 1970s, pet rocks were sold. They were successfully sold it that. But if the inventor of these rocks dreamt of having pet rocks in every home as long as he lived He'd be sorely mistaken that his business idea had that longevity. Having a short-term burst of success was in the cards for him, grandiose, long-term success was not. At other times, there are factors we don't know about and if we did, we'd realize why those we report to or those were seeking financial help from, aren't on board with our vision for what needs to happen. If you've been a boss before or even a parent, you might be able to relate to the fact that there are moving pieces you can't share with everyone. But many have opinions on how things need to be done and you have to direct their work or life to another path, to their discouragement. Whatever the reason for your external factor getting in your way Sometimes we're just left with having to accept that we have to move in another direction than we want Because our boss says so, because our customers don't want what we have to offer, or something else. In my example, I advocated but it didn't influence change. Maybe it wasn't my boss's decision to change our department's goals every two weeks on average. Maybe he was frustrated too, but couldn't divulge that. Or maybe he was entrusted with the department's progress and changing goals often was the vision and strategy he thought was best. Whatever the case was, I never knew and chose to accept that reality until I could move to a different department, which I did. When all you're left with is acceptance It's important to make sure you're not accepting a deal breaker for yourself. For example, in one workplace you might be bullied or harassed. Those should be deal breakers and never okay to accept. But if you're treated with respect and there's just a lot of red tape to get anything done, then you could find some legitimate workarounds or reframe your situation by identifying the positive aspects of your work that make it worth staying the course. Remember back to literature class, there are six types of conflicts. Man or human versus self. Man versus man, man versus society. Man versus nature, man versus technology, and man versus fate or the supernatural. These types of conflicts can also exist with internal and external factors As we've seen in some of the examples in our lessons And maybe you've experienced in your own life. By capitalizing on the positive internal and external factors or impacting change upon the negative ones You can progress toward reaching your productivity goal and take that growth to other parts of your life Not to mention all future productivity goals. As you've processed these two lists of positive and negative external factors, do any feel like what you're experiencing as you work toward your productivity goal? Look at your productivity plan and note any positive external factors you'll use to increase your productivity, or negative ones that you'll manage or eliminate to ensure your success. Now, let's move on to specific ways or tactics that can increase your productivity. These are tools you can use to reach your goal. 8. Tactics to Increase Your Productivity: There are two main types of tactics or tools to increase your productivity. The first type of tactics fall under time management. The second type is attention management. Let's look at what each of these types of tactics are. We all know there's only so much time. So we have to manage the amount of time we have in a day, week or month. The practice or discipline of time management Is how we plan and organize the division of our time between our responsibilities. Time management focuses on what you're doing with your work, like scheduling and prioritizing the activities we do. It's less strategic and more tactical. It's taking control of what you put your time into. Then there's attention management. This is how you identify and control distractions. How you deliberately focused only on the task at hand, and how you find what puts you in the creative flow that produces your best work. Attention management is very intentional, not reactive. It's taking control of what you deem as a priority instead of going on cruise control and letting life's twists and turns direct you. With this understanding of the two types of tactics, time-management and attention management, let's look at examples of specific tactics or tools that we can use and match each tactic to their type to make sure the differences are understood. The first example is that dreaded email inbox. At one place I worked, I got so many e-mails that not only did I get tired of not knowing what was in my inbox, I was sick of the fear that I was missing deadlines or not getting back to people in a timely manner. Then a co-worker told me about her One Touch rule. She only touched an email once and then it was out of her inbox for good. I adopted this rule and have made it a habit for the last 12 years Though it took me about six months to find my version of the One Touch rule. At work, I'd close my door, and put a post-it note on it that I'd be available in 30 minutes, then go into my email inbox to read the emails, respond right then, and put any responsibilities or follow-up items in my calendar. Then I had different categories of folders in my inbox and put the email in the folder it belonged to, so I could reference it later if I needed to. I did this once in the morning, once in the afternoon, and once before the end of day. Let's look at what tactic is time management versus attention management. By putting the responsibilities from the email into my calendar, I'm creating a to-do list. That tactic is time management, but by closing my door and putting a note on it to reduce distractions So my attention could be solely on triaging and responding to emails. That tactic is attention management. A second example is say you have your kids asking you for things while they're unpacking from school, while you're cooking dinner, and while you take a call from your spouse reminding you to schedule a car maintenance appointment. Because this multitasking situation isn't uncommon for you. You've created the habit of writing notes to yourself on your phone's calendar to remind you to do things like schedule the car maintenance appointment. So you ask your kids to give you a second to take a break. You step away from cooking and right then while you're on the phone, you put a note in your calendar for tomorrow to schedule the car maintenance appointment. That's so you don't forget. Would this be time management for attention management? It has both types. It would be time management because it's a tactic of scheduling your responsibilities, stopping your kids from talking to you, and stopping the cooking while you're scheduling is attention management. The tactic is focusing on one task at a time. Let's briefly list out other tactics for each type by looking at Sarah and Jim's productivity goal, which was how they can keep life going as normal while Sarah has to travel for work. Using time management tactics, Jim and Sarah planned that goal. Next, they prioritize their goals and responsibilities. Then they broke that goal into tasks. And then they've delegated which person would take on each task. Now, both Sarah and Jim could take those tasks and apply time management tactics to each. For example, they could create a to-do list, then schedule when they need to start each responsibility on their calendars, and if applicable, set a deadline for when they want to complete each task. Additional tactics could be that Sarah and Jim want to touch base with each other daily on how things are going so they can address obstacles when they happen and collaborate on how to pivot or strategize anew. If that happens, then they could look at how they're organizing their workload and come up with solutions such as streamlining the activities of their day. Now, applying attention management to Jim and Sarah's goal could have any of the following tactics. When the kids and work get demanding, Jim could reduce the distractions in his life so he can not get overwhelmed by the exhaustive to-do list and just focus on one task at a time. Sarah can control technology like turning off her notifications on her phone while she's at work and turning them back on during breaks, lunch and at night. Jim can control his environment like forcing himself to take a break, to eat without demands from kids, by eating on the back porch after they've eaten. Sarah has become aware of an unproductive behavior she has, which is looking at her phone while she's in training during her business trip. She then finds herself daydreaming about all she has to do and her work trip is over. She can redirect that day dreaming by setting aside time to focus on solutions for how she's going to address those backlogs at work And home. Jim has some co-workers who are coming by his office every day around lunchtime to talk about their personal lives. It's stressing him out because he was going to use his lunchtime to take care of some of his added responsibilities. So he decides to set boundaries on the amount of time he listens and then manages his overall stress load by waking up a little early each day to practice yoga and mindfulness. As you can see from these lists of tactics, time management is what you're doing with your work. And attention management is how you engage with your work. The time management tactics will give you the tools to complete the tasks you need to reach a productivity goal. While the attention management tactics will set your mind up to use those tools with success and consistency by controlling your mind and environment to develop new habits. You might have examples of your own that are coming to mind that hold you back from being productive. If so, think through what time and attention management tactics could help you overcome the obstacles that kind of situation brings. Now, look at the list of tactics. Which ones do you want to try out so you reach the goal on your productivity plan? Write down at least one tactic for each task on your my productivity plan chart. Now you have all you need to move to the last lesson, which is how to bring your productivity plan to life. 9. Implementing Your Productivity Plan: Now you're ready to complete filling out your productivity planned by numbering the first column that's titled order. Since you have the full picture of everything else being filled out Think of which task needs to be accomplished first. And put the number one in the order column next to that task. Continue until you've ordered all the tasks you have from one to the last task. If you have some tasks that need to happen simultaneously, then you can put the same number in front of those tasks, like the number five tasks here in our example of Sarah and Jim's. Implementing any plan to become more productive doesn't just involve completing tasks by using the tactics you've described. It also involves having a productive space, being committed, and having fun while aiming high for that goal. Let's talk about having a space for productivity. Being productive involves finding how you do your work best and creating an environment that fits that. Just like if you were trying to go to sleep, you would not turn on flashing lights in your bedroom all playing heavy metal music. Figure out where you can focus best and when you'll have the least interruptions So you don't have to switch gears constantly. Now, how do you stay committed to the end? You have a plan for yourself, but this plan isn't etched in stone. Obstacles may surface. Sometimes they open new doors that are even better than the original plan. So stay flexible, but stay the course so you reach your productivity goal. And remember that there's negative and positive procrastination. Negative procrastination is what we usually think of. It's when we put things off indefinitely because we don't want to do it. But positive procrastination is when you notice that your original plan doesn't strategically mesh with what reality has presented. So you change the order of your tasks and or you even change a task to reach the goal better. This is positive procrastination and is still staying the course to reach your productivity goal. And the last thing that will help you implement your productivity plan to the end is to have fun while aiming high for that goal. One study from the University of Washington found that mice, when deprived of the naturally occurring motivation chemical dopamine, took significantly longer to perform a simple task. The more they persisted in that task without dopamine, the worst there times got. On the other hand, mice that had a little pick me up of dopamine at any point in the process, cut their performance time roughly in half. Now, we're not mice, yet some of us are treating ourselves like a rodent in a maze doomed to repeat the same lack of productivity over and over again with no joy in sight. To combat this, inject a little fun and a little celebration into each task you complete, remembering the reason you're reaching this goal. Now, we're ready to finish this class by looking at the conclusion lesson to discover what you can do now with what you've learned. 10. What's Next?: Congratulations! In this class you have set your productivity goal with a date you'd like to accomplish it by, determined the impact that goal will have on your life. Evaluated what motivates you internally and externally. Detailed what tasks are needed, as well as what internal and external factors impact you. Established how you're going to accomplish each task which will set a course for your success, and prioritize the tasks so that you have a plan of attack. Now that you have a greater understanding of how to increase your productivity and have a specific plan on how to do that with a specific goal What's next? Well, you have a couple of options. First, I hope everyone posts their chart titled my productivity plan. I'd love to give feedback So please let me know if you have any questions and I'll get back to you. After using this productivity plan chart two or three times, it will become more and more intuitive to where you'll start thinking in a productive way and using the skills instinctively. And your life won't be bogged down with things to do and worries about what you're not getting done. You'll go into cruise control and be more productive than ever. Second, we, Aprosae, are producing new videos on a variety of topics from marketing and business to the creative arts. So please follow us. That way you'll be the first to know when they're out. Whatever your productivity goal is, please remember, you can't do it all in a day nor should you. So congratulations on taking your first step to increasing your productivity. Remember, we're here to help get you there. So please post your productivity plan so we can give you feedback And so you'll be one step closer to where you want to be.