Get More Sh*t Done

gleaners

“Work is the refuge of people who have nothing better to do”
~ Oscar Wilde

I’ve been doing the self employed thing for almost 2 years now. The question I hear the most is “How do you get anything done? I’d just sit around all day and eat popsicles.” Ok – so maybe they don’t mention popsicles. As time goes, I find myself getting more and more productive, and constantly finding ways to be more efficient. Part of it is practice, part of it is a little bit of research. Here’s how a normal day breaks down, this could apply to you whether you’re a designer or not.

Step 1: Wake up. Drink Coffee.

I don’t mess with this step. Ever. Period.

Step 2: Triage

I scan all email and decide if there’s anything on fire. If the internet has blown up, I like to go ahead and deal with that right away. Or if a client has forgotten an ad submission deadline and it needs to be dealt with immediately – it’s good to be on top of those things right away.

Assuming there are no catastrophes to deal with, I sort my email and assign things to iGTD. iGTD is a great, free little software app to keep track of all the things that you need to do. You can take it to obscene levels of detail – or if you’re like me, you can use it as a quick and easy way to create todo lists. It’s got great key shortcuts – so if I’m reading an email that needs me to do something I hit F6, and that email is copied to iGTD and added to my todo list. Same goes for web browsing, if I find something that is interesting and requires more attention F5 copies it to my iGTD.

Step 3: Hierarchy

After skimming my email and assigining todos to iGTD – I take a look at all the things sitting in my iGTD todo list. It’s got things from the days or weeks before that I haven’t yet accomplished. I spend 10-15 minutes assigning priorities for things.The goal of this step is to identify the 4 things that I absolutely want to finish today. Everything else after those four things is gravy. This cuts down on wasted time waiting for assets, or trying to decide what I’m in the mood to do. It’s surprising how little of that I used to do. I would just start working and hop from one thing to another. I’d finish working when I was exhausted or pulled away. Now I have a really strong idea of what things need to get done, and what things can be scheduled for later dates. This has really helped on the work life balance.

I should emphasize, having things scheduled and recorded will do leaps and bounds for your peace of mind. It allows me to relax into the work, and not worry so much about the business side of things, while I’m trying to do creative or productive work.

Step 4: Stay On Top Of It

Throughout the day emails come in, and phone calls get made. I try not to tarry too long on any one email unless it requires immediate attention. Generally things just get tossed into the iGTD bucket and I forget about them until after lunch. With a few hours left of the day, it’s a great time to spend 5 minutes reevaluating the list and identify what needs to happen for the rest of the day, and tomorrow.

Step 5: Track Your Time

I used to be notorious for not tracking my time. No longer. Detailed time tracking allows me to make accurate estimates and put together work plans that actually make sense. Organizing your self isn’t going to do squat if all of your estimates suck. I’m still not a stickler, but I do try and keep up on it.

Using software makes it a lot easier to track your time. The key is to make it fit into your workflow without constricting your workflow. I like Bkeeneys Time Tracker (link), and have also used Time Edition (link). Both are great simple solutions that allow you to track Project, Client, and Activity.

I should mention, I’ve also used and appreciated Harvest (link). It’s an entire invoicing and time tracking solution. They are really great guys and the software rocks. If you’ve got more complicated book keeping needs, it’s not the right solution. If you’ve got a handful of clients and projects running at any one time – it’s a fantastic solution.

Step 6: Relax

That’s basically it. There’s a final step that involves getting those hours and transferring them to your invoicing system or project management system, but that’s more about business process than it is about productivity.

Bite the bullet. Spend a month using this process and it will eventually become a habit. You’ll find you do more during the day, and have more free time to show for it.

Anybody have any suggestions? Tips? Tricks?

Need more inspiration? Check out 45 Royale. They’re a great design and dev company with a whole series on project management that’s really helped me. Check out their post on time tracking.