What is personal productivity mean to you?

If we use Wikipedia to define the term ‘Productivity’ for an individual and team :

• Efficiency of goods or services expressed by some measure

Some of the key findings from the article:

1. Create a better work environment promotes productivity of team or individuals.

2. Productivity is the efficiency improvement.

3. Measurements of productivity are often expressed as a ratio of an aggregate output to a single input or an aggregate input.

For me: personal productivity is:

A system build around best of your workflow, uniquely designed and tailor made for your needs to improve your efficiency.

it should be fluid and action oriented

Be it a daily to-do or BIG projects of your *Life*.

I am on the journey of designing system for myself, considering the following requirements:

1. A tool to quick capture your idea, thoughts or notes
2. Note-taking — Meeting notes, strategic idea and daily notes and all about resource and knowledge management
3. Task Manager
4. Project Management Tool
5. Calendar

We are living in the age where *knowledge and information* is the power and both works with us and against as well. Kind of double edged sword!

“Continuous Improvement ”is an essential requirement of our time and it comes with a cost and opportunity both. To keep up with this, each and everyone of us needs to develop and build a system.

System consists of data, notes, tasks, projects, important events, little or big achievement and failures, key learnings, passions, ideas and plans for today and tomorrow, ultimately as Tiago Forte says: your second brain.

I am highly impressed by two methodology and looking forward to integrate them in my system:

1. PARA method by Tiago Forte https://fortelabs.co/blog/para/

2. Action methods Behance https://99u.adobe.com/articles/6679/action-method-i-breaking-projects-into-primary-elements

As of now; my data is spread across multiple apps and platforms like Notion, Coda, Evernote, Mem.ai, Craft.do etc.

Following is my basic understanding of requirement and solution:

1

2

Based on my understanding of both the methods — PARA & Action Methods:

PARA Method Tiago Forte:

Projects — Definition; “a series of tasks linked to a goal, with a deadline.”

Example: Write a blog post

Area — Definition; “a sphere of activity with a standard to be maintained over time.”

Example: Health or Finances

Resources — Definition; “a topic or theme of ongoing interest.”

Example: Interior design, UI or UX, note-taking

Archives — Definition; “inactive items from the other three categories.”

Example — resources you are no longer interested in and project completed

Action Methods by Behance:

The Action Method begins with a simple premise: everything is a project.

Elements of the Action Method

• Action steps
• Example: specific, concrete task that moves you forward
• References
• Example: any project related data, notes, layout or design
• Backburner items
• Example: things which are not actionable now but possible someday

Make a folder for each and every big or small projects with clear action steps. Key here is the action steps which encourage us to move forward in the projects.

Both of this methods emphasis on the ACTIVE Projects with actionable steps and outcome — which is a necessity in today’s challenging time.

I am working on designing a WORKFLOW that suits my requirement and should be:

• simple, intuitive and fluid
• action and outcome oriented
• provide intelligence assistance
• mobile friendly

Let’s see how this works out.

welcome all your ideas and inputs, will keep posting on development about this framework.

Thank you for reading.

Keep reading, keep sharing

Astu.