The Focused Manager: Personal Productivity System

What Is a Personal Productivity System?

I define a personal productivity system as the collection of habits, routines, and tools someone uses to manage their work, their time, and their attention.

Most people think about their work processes as a set of discrete components. For example, an email and calendar system, a daily task list, a ticketing system, and a morning routine.

However, thinking about these as an integrated productivity system allows one to evaluate how the tools work together, which habits and routines need modification, and what new strategies might increase their impact.

In the November 2024 issue of Alaska Business, I described three levels of personal systems.

• Level 1:There are established routines to manage current duties, but it isn’t scalable. If demands increase, effort must increase. Jack is stuck here.
• Level 2: The established routines can flex as demands change. The person can absorb added pressures and build new habits to accomplish goals. Jack needs to get here if he wants to succeed as a manager.
• Level 3: The system creates margin and increases impact. Reaching this level will allow Jack to take on even more responsibility.

Following is a framework that busy managers can use to create and level up their personal productivity system. I call it the CORE System, which stands for Capture, Organize, Refine, and Execute. It provides a framework for organizing and upgrading the habits, routines, and tools necessary to be effective at work.

• Capture: If something needs to get done, it must be known and visible. That is the first step in the system. In the Capture stage, all inputs to the workload must be identified and consolidated into a streamlined view.
  Everyone has an email inbox, but in today’s omnichannel environment, this will include tools like Slack or Teams, client work systems, notifications from other departmental systems, and face-to-face meetings with stakeholders.
  Managers must regularly review their system and verify they capture all inputs to their workload. Then they must decide where those items live and consolidate the number of places they track information.
• Organize: The Organize stage is about creating an organizational structure and process for managing everything captured. Only some things captured are tasks, and many items will be discarded, archived, or saved for reference. A good organizational system makes that process easy with structure and habits.
  The structure will depend on personal preferences and the environment, but managers should keep things as simple as possible. Then they can create a daily habit of using a checklist to review their captured items. For example, my daily review checklist contains my email, calendar, customer relationship management, LinkedIn, and task list.
  Once the items are organized, the manager has a list of tasks or work items. Although they will be tempted to dive in and start working, there’s another vital stage.
• Refine: Items must be refined so that the manager works on the right tasks at the right time. The Refine stage is where a manager makes decisions about how they will spend their time to create value for themselves, their teams, and the organization.
  Some items may be quick to complete and ready to work on immediately. However, many will benefit from refinement so that the manager is clear on what needs to be done and the priority.
  Tasks should be refined so they are actionable. Writing them using decisive verbs will help. For example, “Decide on the next steps for the XYZ project” is more powerful than “Review the XYZ project status.”
  Tasks should also have clearly defined success and completion criteria. For instance, “Define three actionable next steps for the XYZ project and email them to the team by end of day to start implementation.”
  Other resources to help develop useful refinement practices are the Focus Funnel, a productivity technique for channeling attention, and the Eisenhower Matrix, a simple grid to assign priorities based on what is important, urgent, both, or neither.
  Developing good refinement practices is essential to effective management. Without them, managers risk spending their energy working on low-priority, low-value tasks.
• Execute: Managers have constant interruptions and situations competing for their attention. It is hard for them to find time to get work done. They must have strategies to reduce distractions and improve focus, which is the Execute stage.

Here are some ideas for managers to build their execution systems.

• Conduct a time study and audit where time is spent. Reclaim time that isn’t spent on meaningful work.
• Use time blocking to allocate part of the day to deep work, part of the day to regular tasks, and part of the day to managerial work.
• Employ methods like Eat the Frog, identifying the most important task likely to be postponed, to overcome procrastination.
• Try the Pomodoro Technique, breaking work into focused segments separated by short breaks, to manage distractions.

The Foundation for Success

The CORE system is a framework to evaluate the current state, identify areas to improve, and create a cohesive strategy for personal productivity. Managers can level up their system by consistently making small, incremental improvements.

A good productivity system has four traits.

• Reliable: Does the system work when things get hectic, demand increases, or unexpected disruptions happen?
• Structured: In a structured system, there are more opportunities to automate repetitive and low-value tasks.
• Simple: The simpler the system, the easier it is to integrate with other systems.
• Accessible: If others can access the system, they can collaborate with it. With this approach and direction, a manager can build a Level 3 system that supports a healthy work/life balance and a successful career.

That’s what happened to Jack. He recognized his situation was deteriorating. Instead of continuing to work harder, he took a step back and evaluated his system. He started making incremental updates.

• He documented all of the inputs to his workload. He reconfigured notifications in two systems to flow through his email and is continuing to look for ways to consolidate.
• He created a daily review checklist that he uses every morning.
• He is very deliberate about the work he does. Before he starts work, he ensures the task is clear and fits his priorities.
• When he has tasks requiring complete focus, he uses the Pomodoro technique.

Instead of entering the management death spiral, Jack has created a system that is moving him forward. He is more content and confident at work; others routinely ask him about his techniques to stay balanced and still get so much done. Jack is building a successful career as a manager.