Sadly this doesn’t work for IT roles in my experience. You go anywhere near any notifications you’ll get drawn into so called urgent problems that need to be looked at and that’s before junior staff hound you for simple problems they seem to not retain information from the last time they fixed it (gen z 🙄) I sympathise with the problem though.
Sadly for me by the time I can get to my own tasks most days it’s well into the PM and my most productive period is about 4pm onwards once colleagues and clients have finally left me the hell alone
Maybe a notification checking task won't work for you, but are there any specific tasks that you start your day with that help you build momentum?
"once colleagues and clients have finally left me the hell alone" <- this gave me a giggle. I think you've tapped into the reality of many people's workdays there. 😂
In reality, loving myself in a room without a phone, and turning on focus mode. But not always practical when you are a point of management escalation.
I have the same issue. At the beginning of the year I started doing a shut-down task at the end of the day too.
Before I log off, I clear all my emails, Slack messages etc and create tasks for the bigger things.
Then, first thing in the morning I just have to triage the messages/notifications that came in overnight. It's much quicker, so I force myself to finish my triage before I jump into any "emergencies".
On the subject of emergencies, I've found that delaying my response by a few minutes actually gives the junior staff time to think and sometimes solve the problem on their own. I know this will depend on your SLA, but sometimes just waiting 10 minutes before I reply means the difference between me showing them something (again) and then figuring it out themselves.
"delaying my response by a few minutes actually gives the junior staff time to think and sometimes solve the problem on their own" Great observation Sasha!
Real problem here is making sure to not “over-plan” on to do’s. The day or week before you think “Oh I can manage this amount of tasks that day” and eventually ending up with to many tasks on your list and wanting to complete them no matter what.
No, I haven’t really found something that works. I just try to stay realistic but that’s no guarantee for success. I tried keeping track of the time some tasks take to plan better, but that’s a lot of work and also no guarantee. Maybe a good idea to add a “time tracking” function to ToDoIst. Like you press a button when you start the task and when it’s completed the time stops. You’d also need a list of tasks you time-tracked for future reference.
Id love to hear more about managing inboxes. I try not to do much with my personal inbox during the week and simply focus on work. That leaves me with an overflowing inbox to manage things about mu kids, dog, and home over the weekend. Suggestions on strategies to manage are welcome! I love Todoist!
Thanks for another useful post. I find that working through emails and other notifications first thing + time-boxing is a great way to be more productive. Re having too many tasks and feeling compelled to get through all of them, I only time box 5-6 hours of my workday (including my 1 hour planning ritual at the start of my day). This allows both actual time to deal with unexpected things that come up and also mental space to not feel overwhelmed when you haven't finished everything or you end up working a couple of extra hours to tick off the things you planned to do that day. Once a fortnight, I run through all the tasks for the coming month and re-evaluate my plan. I've been doing this for a month now and feel much calmer and in control.
I would like to hear your thoughts on "dive a bit deeper into how to triage your inboxes and prioritize efficiently"....especially the prioritization part.
Honestly, this one depends on my mood and energy levels. It may also depend on how your brain works. Most days I do Start Work -> Frog. I almost always have my days planned out with my main priorities the day before though, so I'm never planning my day as I start it.
Then there are some days where the priority task is knawing at me, so I tackle it first. Then complete my Start Work task to catch up on notifications.
I would like to read more about triaging my inboxes and prioritizing more efficiently. I'm juggling between internal priorities and keeping up with my industry and current events that affect my personal and professional goals.
I was using your tips, but in a less straightforward manner. Thank you for this - I LOVE "continual improvement", and will incorporate your 'small ritual' format.
Love this. Mine is labelled Check Inbox and Tasks and it's the first thing I do when I sit at my desk. It should include Whatsapp too as I get some work via there so I gather it all together and then make a plan as to priorities.
Great article I'm going to put this into practice now and start tomorrow/Monday. I would also love to see an article on email triage. I feel like I'm drowning and can never keep caught up.
This is exactly what I’m facing right now as my responsibilities expand and shift. I can fall down the rabbit hole and look up at 5pm realizing I’ve spent the entire day reacting. Nothing meaningful moved forward. I’ve had too many 10 hour days lately and it’s starting to wear on both me and my family.
This weekend I stepped back and redesigned my weekly flow based on how I actually work and my deadlines. I want to try eating a 🐸 first thing so I feel momentum and a sense of accomplishment early. I’m going to test dedicated 🐸 focus blocks most mornings and afternoons, some with specific themes like finance, HR and payroll, or supervision prep. In between, during my open office hours when I’m already being interrupted, I’m planning to process email instead of letting it scatter across the whole day.
We’ll see how it goes. I feel like I’m always searching for the combination that makes a heavy workload feel manageable.
I would especially love any tips on email. That’s the daily battle. I tend to cherry pick urgent or easy replies and then realize later that other things should have been addressed sooner. I’ve experimented with the Stack Method and am still trying to adapt it to the realities of how my role actually functions.
Here’s to finding a rhythm that works in real life, not just on paper.
Sounds like you might have a better system in place now though. Let me know how it goes.
And sometimes the power is in acknowledging that there's just too much work for one week and you can't do it all. 🤷♀️ In that case, focusing on the most impactful is always a good lens to use. Not the easiest or the biggest, but what's actually going to matter.
Sadly this doesn’t work for IT roles in my experience. You go anywhere near any notifications you’ll get drawn into so called urgent problems that need to be looked at and that’s before junior staff hound you for simple problems they seem to not retain information from the last time they fixed it (gen z 🙄) I sympathise with the problem though.
Sadly for me by the time I can get to my own tasks most days it’s well into the PM and my most productive period is about 4pm onwards once colleagues and clients have finally left me the hell alone
Maybe a notification checking task won't work for you, but are there any specific tasks that you start your day with that help you build momentum?
"once colleagues and clients have finally left me the hell alone" <- this gave me a giggle. I think you've tapped into the reality of many people's workdays there. 😂
In reality, loving myself in a room without a phone, and turning on focus mode. But not always practical when you are a point of management escalation.
Yup - this doesn't just apply to IT roles!
I have the same issue. At the beginning of the year I started doing a shut-down task at the end of the day too.
Before I log off, I clear all my emails, Slack messages etc and create tasks for the bigger things.
Then, first thing in the morning I just have to triage the messages/notifications that came in overnight. It's much quicker, so I force myself to finish my triage before I jump into any "emergencies".
On the subject of emergencies, I've found that delaying my response by a few minutes actually gives the junior staff time to think and sometimes solve the problem on their own. I know this will depend on your SLA, but sometimes just waiting 10 minutes before I reply means the difference between me showing them something (again) and then figuring it out themselves.
"delaying my response by a few minutes actually gives the junior staff time to think and sometimes solve the problem on their own" Great observation Sasha!
Yes please to triage and prioritize topic. This was an excellent newsletter because of your explanations.
Real problem here is making sure to not “over-plan” on to do’s. The day or week before you think “Oh I can manage this amount of tasks that day” and eventually ending up with to many tasks on your list and wanting to complete them no matter what.
Yep, overplanning tasks is a real issue. Do you have any specific ways you try to avoid that? It's maybe something I can cover in a future newsletter.
No, I haven’t really found something that works. I just try to stay realistic but that’s no guarantee for success. I tried keeping track of the time some tasks take to plan better, but that’s a lot of work and also no guarantee. Maybe a good idea to add a “time tracking” function to ToDoIst. Like you press a button when you start the task and when it’s completed the time stops. You’d also need a list of tasks you time-tracked for future reference.
Looking forward to that future newsletter!
Id love to hear more about managing inboxes. I try not to do much with my personal inbox during the week and simply focus on work. That leaves me with an overflowing inbox to manage things about mu kids, dog, and home over the weekend. Suggestions on strategies to manage are welcome! I love Todoist!
Thanks for another useful post. I find that working through emails and other notifications first thing + time-boxing is a great way to be more productive. Re having too many tasks and feeling compelled to get through all of them, I only time box 5-6 hours of my workday (including my 1 hour planning ritual at the start of my day). This allows both actual time to deal with unexpected things that come up and also mental space to not feel overwhelmed when you haven't finished everything or you end up working a couple of extra hours to tick off the things you planned to do that day. Once a fortnight, I run through all the tasks for the coming month and re-evaluate my plan. I've been doing this for a month now and feel much calmer and in control.
Love that you only time block 5-6 hours. I do something similar, because inevitably, those 5 minute quick tasks that land in a day all add up!
I would like to hear your thoughts on "dive a bit deeper into how to triage your inboxes and prioritize efficiently"....especially the prioritization part.
Naomi, thanks for explicitly noting the timing WRT to Eating the Frog.
How does this work in conjunction with a Plan Your Day task? Would it go in between them?
Honestly, this one depends on my mood and energy levels. It may also depend on how your brain works. Most days I do Start Work -> Frog. I almost always have my days planned out with my main priorities the day before though, so I'm never planning my day as I start it.
Then there are some days where the priority task is knawing at me, so I tackle it first. Then complete my Start Work task to catch up on notifications.
I would like to read more about triaging my inboxes and prioritizing more efficiently. I'm juggling between internal priorities and keeping up with my industry and current events that affect my personal and professional goals.
The juggle is real Melissa! And spoiler alert... We can't fit it all in. 🙊 I'll do my best to cover how I approach this in the next newsletter.
I was using your tips, but in a less straightforward manner. Thank you for this - I LOVE "continual improvement", and will incorporate your 'small ritual' format.
My pleasure Connie! Thanks for reading!
Love this. Mine is labelled Check Inbox and Tasks and it's the first thing I do when I sit at my desk. It should include Whatsapp too as I get some work via there so I gather it all together and then make a plan as to priorities.
There's something oddly powerful in giving this always-on work a dedicated task and name, eh?
The best advice ! I've been doing this for over a year now, to start my day and my workday and I couldn't function any other way now.
Glad you added that last sentence about how you've still gotta eat the frog first! Was wondering how those two philosophies were supposed to coexist 😉
Yes please, I'd love to know more about how to efficiently work through the inbox!
Great article I'm going to put this into practice now and start tomorrow/Monday. I would also love to see an article on email triage. I feel like I'm drowning and can never keep caught up.
You are not alone Collette! I'll do my best to help in the next one.
Would love a newsletter on how to triage & prioritize inboxes
This is exactly what I’m facing right now as my responsibilities expand and shift. I can fall down the rabbit hole and look up at 5pm realizing I’ve spent the entire day reacting. Nothing meaningful moved forward. I’ve had too many 10 hour days lately and it’s starting to wear on both me and my family.
This weekend I stepped back and redesigned my weekly flow based on how I actually work and my deadlines. I want to try eating a 🐸 first thing so I feel momentum and a sense of accomplishment early. I’m going to test dedicated 🐸 focus blocks most mornings and afternoons, some with specific themes like finance, HR and payroll, or supervision prep. In between, during my open office hours when I’m already being interrupted, I’m planning to process email instead of letting it scatter across the whole day.
We’ll see how it goes. I feel like I’m always searching for the combination that makes a heavy workload feel manageable.
I would especially love any tips on email. That’s the daily battle. I tend to cherry pick urgent or easy replies and then realize later that other things should have been addressed sooner. I’ve experimented with the Stack Method and am still trying to adapt it to the realities of how my role actually functions.
Here’s to finding a rhythm that works in real life, not just on paper.
10 hour days! Don't do it to yourself Tracey!
Sounds like you might have a better system in place now though. Let me know how it goes.
And sometimes the power is in acknowledging that there's just too much work for one week and you can't do it all. 🤷♀️ In that case, focusing on the most impactful is always a good lens to use. Not the easiest or the biggest, but what's actually going to matter.