It’s the end of June. There’s a new quarter to prepare for. And I’ve been preparing. A few years ago, I would post a progress report at the end of the month. I rarely that anymore, but I thought some of you might want ways to improve your productivity. My systems may or may not work for you. But I hope they will give you ideas on how to create systems that work for your brain and your life challenges.
My Project Management Systems
If you’ve followed me for a while, you know I have systems to track what I need to get done, what has been done, and what hasn’t. I’ve adapted this system from other systems I’ve learned over the years.
Creative Intentions
I first came across the term creative intentions in 2019, as explained by Orna Ross in her eleven-part blog series, The Power of Creative Intention for Creativepreneurs. She’s updated her process and now has a “Go Creative Podcast.” I wrote about her process in a post titled,A New Year and New Intentions.
When I learned her system, she recommended putting your tasks in buckets that represented your primary focus. For mine, I created the “buckets” Making, Managing, Marketing, and Home. The first three have to do with my writing business and the last one is obvious.
At the time I learned about Orna’s system, it was very forgiving of the chaos daily life, a paying job, and a chronically ill spouse brought to my life. Calling my goals, intentions gave me permission to forgive myself for not making my goals when family, illness, or my boss brought a little extra to my workday. I used her system for years. And it worked for me.
I no longer use the term intentions, but I use those four buckets to this day.
KanBan Boards
I didn’t get the chance to take management classes in the nursing school I went to, so I hadn’t heard of the concept of a KanBan Board. Then I stumbled across Sarra Cannon and her Heart Breathings community.
A KanBan Board is a visual project management tool that helps teams manage and optimize workflows in a corporate or manufacturing world. The key thing is, Sarra adapted this system for her writing and teaches it to writers. It has revolutionized my world. Seriously. I cannot recommend it enough. Full disclosure, I have only viewed Sarra’s YouTube videos. I have taken none of her courses.
And honestly, Sarra’s methods with her multiple journals were too involved for me. But her lessons about breaking down larger tasks into much smaller ones, while simple on the surface, were eye opening for me. So I adapted her adaptation of using boards and sticky notes and melded it with a bit of the Intentions system I learned from Orna.
Behavior Change Systems
More recently, I stumbled across behavior change professional, Dr. Karin Nordin and her Body Brain Alliance business. Frankly, I cannot afford her courses. But she puts out a ton of free content. Her YouTube videos about how our brains work and how to use that in order to change to one’s behavior have been another game changer for me.
My Process
Breaking Down My Big Goals
I start with my biggest goals. I decide when I’d like to accomplish them, then break them down into smaller tasks and estimate if my want is anywhere near possible. Hint, usually I have way bigger dreams than I can deliver in that timeframe. So I go back to the goal and break it down further. That usually takes several passes.
I like to use sticky notes. Some of you may see that as wasteful of paper, but this helps my brain process things. Someday I may change to a more eco-friendly means of recording these tasks, but for now this works for me. I jot down ideas of tasks, appointments I have scheduled, and planned tasks and put them all on a whiteboard.
I divided this whiteboard into four parts: Making, Managing, Marketing, and Home. Tasks on the sticky notes go in the appropriate section and live there until it’s time to move to the next board.
My KanBan Boards
The first of my task boards is for the month. At the end of the month, I fill this board with all of my appointments and time-defined tasks for the following month. Then I fill in my writing tasks around those time-related tasks. Finally, I add Managing tasks, Marketing tasks, and tasks related to my house and personal wants and needs as I can fit them in. I add appointments and move tasks around needed throughout the month.
My second task board is for the week. It’s divided into 4 small sections and one large section. The first three small sections are My Year Goals, My Month’s goals, and my behavioral change goals. Beneath those, I have the larger section. It’s divided into seven. I use magnet to identify the dates and the days of the week. The bottom small section is where I move a sticky when I have completed that task.
I fill the large section from my board for the month. So on the last day of this week, I move those tasks for the next week from the monthly board to this board. This board is on the wall opposite my desk, so I can see it while I’m working.
Behavior Change
I have four behavioral changes I focus on each quarter. They are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound. Yup. They are SMART goals.
I choose a behavior I want to change, for example, going to bed at the same time every night. If I make my goal to go to bed at 9 pm every night forever, and I’ve had a habit of staying up much later than that. I’m going to never achieve that goal. It’s not small enough for me to achieve it. If I can make sure I can achieve that goal, it’ll feel like a win. Then, making that goal a little larger each time, I’ll build on that win with more wins until I’ve made the change I wanted to make. How does that work? I make it a slight change first. So my first goal would be to get to bed by midnight two nights a week for 9 weeks. When I can achieve that goal 80% of the time or better, I can try for to do it three or four nights a week. Once I’m successful doing that, I reassess. Do I still want to work toward going to bed at 9pm most nights? If so, I can make my next goal to go to bed by 11:30pm two nights a week for 9 weeks . And so on until I’ve achieved the bedtime habit I want.
Getting Things Done
One reason this works for me is that it is flexible. When I’m having a low energy day, I can rearrange sticky notes so that I can still accomplish most things I have planned to do for the week. If I get more done than I’d planned, I simply add another sticky from my month board. And if I don’t get everything done, I adjust the sticky notes for the next week or two until I’ve accomplished all the things.
Following these systems, I’ve gotten more things done for my home, my writing business, and my life in the past year than I would have thought possible.
What tool or tools have helped you be more productive? I’d love to hear about your systems.
SALE!
This just in! You can get 25% off each of my ebooks on Smashwords from July 1-31.
Don’t miss this opportunity. Read the first two books in the Fellowship Dystopia trilogy before book three comes out in December!
Image Credits
Featured image by Serena Wong from Pixabay
Other photos by Lynette M. Burrows