there are so many popular productivity frameworks out there that you can use to get things done
there's getting things done there's zen to done there is bullet journaling there is work cycling
there's interstitial journaling i could go on and these systems are really inspiring there
are countless videos on how to set up these systems and examples of these systems there
are books to read there are communities and while these systems can be really helpful often people
struggle to get them to work in this video i want to talk about some common things that people do
wrong when it comes to setting up their productivity systems things that lead to
you giving up on productivity systems or things that stop them from ever working at all reason
number one you have too many next actions most productivity systems are going to tell you to
capture everything because of the zeigarnik effect the zeigarnik effect is a psychological phenomenon
where your brain simply cannot stop thinking about incomplete tasks it's like your mind
it feels this constant need to resurface your to do's in case you forget them writing things down
eases the zeigarnik effect so you're not waking up thinking about that form that you need to complete
and you're not thinking about whether to buy oat milk after work during the middle of a meeting but
sometimes when it comes to capturing our to do's we go overboard most people who don't brain dump
regularly can bring down 100 to 300 tasks in one sitting because there is so much on their mind
but if every time you're going to choose your to do's for the day you're looking at a list of 100
items you're just going to get overwhelmed you're not going to be able to prioritize easily and if
you're using the getting things done system the ideal is to scan your tasks and pick them
intuitively but when you have over 100 to do's on your list this gets old really quickly instead
make sure that you have a heavily used sunday list within your productivity system anything that you
aren't planning on doing in the next 10 days can go on your sunday list try limiting your to-do
list to 20 items or less make it scannable 100 or more items on your to-do list is just exhausting
and confusing if you have a weekly review set up in your weekly review scan your someday list
put those items in your main list that way you don't miss out on anything reason number two is
that you're not dealing honestly with time so the planning fallacy is a term that describes
the human tendency to constantly underestimate how long it'll take us to do things it's a key reason
why productivity systems that ask you to plan and block out your time fail if you've ever
tried time blocking you're probably familiar with this fallacy even if you don't know it by name
in the book thinking fast and slow the author found that you estimate your time poorly when
you fail to consider how long similar tasks have taken in the past you have no historical data or
you assume that you're not going to run into any complications or blocks while completing a task
for any productivity system to work you need to be incredibly honest with yourself when it comes to
your time when it comes to how long you take to get things done if you don't you're really just
doing a disservice to yourself in the book work clean the life changing power of mise en pla the
author describes creating an honesty log to get more honest with your time so write a list of
all of the regular and reoccurring tasks that tend to fill up your days and then track how long you
take to get those tasks done over a period of time create historical data so that you don't estimate
so badly when you time block another thing that you can do is give yourself a range which
is really helpful for creative tasks that tend to take different amounts of times on different days
so for example for me a script on a really good day can take like two hours to write a script on
a so-so date might take like three to four hours to write so that's my range that i can work within
i don't plan to get all of my scripts done within two hours i give myself the longer period of time
i sort of plan for the worst if i script in less time amazing i have more time to do other things
i can get my tasks done quicker if i don't that's fine because i've planned for it the third reason
is that you've made things too complicated every step of your productivity routines should feel
purposeful if you're doing stuff for the sake of doing stuff to feel productive you're not
going to be able to keep up with things if you're planning for the sake of planning or organizing
for the sake of organizing but there's no actual tangible benefit it's a waste of time it shouldn't
exist if every single time you enter a new task into your task manager you also need to enter
the energy level associated with the context the priority the urgency the due date the start date
it's just going to be way too hard for you to ever maintain if your weekly reset takes you five
hours it's not sustainable approach any of your productivity systems with a minimalist mindset
ask what is essential what makes the biggest impact in my week if i could only do a weekly
reset in 25 minutes what would i keep what would i get rid of if you are hesitant to let a piece
of your productivity routine go just trial it for a little while and see what impact it makes not
having it there to see if it's really essential in your routine reason number four is because you're
not being consistent a productivity system is like a project in itself it needs regular maintenance
in order to be useful ideally it should get as little maintenance as possible as you can
afford to give it but it needs to be maintained otherwise it becomes this thing that you just
don't want to deal with a project manager could not do zero work on a project come back to the
project plan and expect things to be all good to go they would need to rejig similarly if you leave
your productivity systems for a few weeks and then expect to be able to just go back pick up where
you left off that's not usually how it works going back to systems that contain living breathing
in the moment tasks inconsistently isn't going to work inconsistency with your routines goes hand in
hand with all of the other things in this video it could be because you don't have a strong why
for why you're doing it and if it doesn't feel purposeful you're not going to go back to it it
could be because it's too complicated and too long so you don't want to go back to it it might just
be because you are forgetting it and you haven't engraved the habit and you need to create some
kind of accountability but regardless consistency is important it's key in having a system
that works reason number five is that you have no context or your contacts are not real i recently
put up this photo on instagram and the caption says if you are setting goals and not scheduling
time to work on them how are they actually going to get done the same thing goes for your tutus
if you're writing down to do's but you don't have a time in your mind as to when they will get done
they won't get done personally i like creating batch periods in my life where i know that i
will get certain tasks done so i have my life app in day which is a batch day where i get all of
my life admin tasks done i also have previously talked about content week which has turned into
writing week and creation week and in writing week i get all my writing tasks done in creation week i
get all of my photos my video is done i also have a life planning context so when i hit my monthly
reset i can visit my life planning day i also have a journaling context so when i'm journaling i can
visit that context and i can journal on whatever i've written about i talk about this concept a bit
more in depth in my video on a little upgrades to make to your productivity routines if it's
something that you're interested in deep diving on i'm gonna have a link to that video on the
screen as well as down below i appreciate you so very much and i will see you soon