Sandbox

Weekly inspiration #38: How we (try to) get things done

June 21st, 2010 by Nico Luchsinger

Productivity issues – how to get things done quickly and efficiently – are every entrepreneur’s obsession. There’s a vast amount of literature out there on the subject. At Sandbox, we discuss personal productivity often, and we have already written about it once here. Two weeks ago, “Getting things done” was the subject of a short presentation I gave to our Zurich team. The rest of the team added their points in the discussion, and I have tried to summarize our thoughts in this post. This is not a system – it is not complete, perfect or meant to be for everyone. These are merely guidelines we try to follow.

1. Kill e-mail quickly

E-mail is a pain. Dealing with it takes away much needed time elsewhere. We don’t have a cure; but there are several tricks that at least help to alleviate the pain. The most important thing is to get e-mail out of your inbox quickly. This is why I love the “Archive” button in GMail; it lets you get the e-mail out of your sight without entirely deleting it. It also helps to have a unified inbox: Although I have 5 active e-mail addresses, everything is managed through GMail. Google’s e-mail service also lets you build powerful filters, which is something our CEO Antoine excels at: Newsletters and notifications from Facebook and Twitter for example go directly to dedicated folders. To avoid that important messages disappear from your sight when new e-mail arrives, Fabian uses a feature from GMail labs called “Multiple Inboxes”: It displays messages with a certain label on top of your Inbox, making sure that you see the 5 to 8 most important messages every time you look at your e-mail.

2. Keep your task lists short and simple

There’s a plethora of task management systems out there; and over the years, I have tried many of them. As I failed to regularly use them, I moved on to more and more sophisticated systems. But it didn’t help. Only recently did I realize that the fundamental problem was not that these systems were too limited, but that they were too powerful. To be honest – my life just isn’t that complicated that I would need a task management software that lets me create lists, tags, filters, assign color-coded priorities and so on. And I suspect most people’s lives aren’t. The most important thing is to keep your task lists short and simple. I make one with big goals at the beginning of every week; and I begin every day by writing down the tasks I want to complete until the evening, prioritizing just by order on the list. And then I get on with it, starting with the first item. It works surprisingly well. I end the day by quickly cleaning up, moving unfinished tasks to the next day. I also recommend having a “Someday” bucket to throw in tasks and ideas that aren’t concrete yet. However, you need to clean it up regularly, moving some tasks to your list and deleting the rest. Antoine and myself use the beautifully simple TeuxDeux for task management, but it works just as well with a simple text file.

3. Break big projects into small tasks

One of the most important lessons I learned is that “Developing new business strategy” is not a task. Even if you put it on top of your task list every single day, you’re not gonna get it done. Big and loosely defined projects need to be broken into smaller steps – otherwise, I am never tackling them. Start with a list of broad milestones and then continually refine the project as you go. Be sure to assign clear deadlines especially to tasks that are important but not time-critical. “ASAP is poison”, as the authors of “Rework” wisely write.

4. Urgent vs. important and reactive vs. active

Doing urgent things first is not a bad idea per se – after all, they’re urgent. The problem arises if there are too many urgent things to do, and the important stuff doesn’t get done. Moreover, e-mail has the nasty habit of sitting in your Inbox and appearing to be more urgent than it usually is. Force yourself to think about whether a task you’re working on is really important, or just urgent. Another good way to assess tasks is to ask yourself the question: Am I actually actively creating something, or am I merely reacting to something? Again, e-mail is usually just a reactive activity – but it’s the active things that really help you move things forward.

5. Structure your work day

Nothing feels worse than ending a day feeling that, while you have worked a lot, you haven’t really done anything. To avoid this, it helps to structure your day. Don’t answer e-mail when it arrives – set aside dedicated times (e.g. in the morning, after lunch, at the end of the day) to get back to people. Ignore your Inbox for the rest of the day. If you need to really focus on something, shut down your internet connection entirely (for hardcore addicts like me, there’s a great little program called Freedom that does a nice job keeping you offline). And if you feel stuck, re-energize yourself by changing places. Creative work rarely happens looking at a computer screen. Finally, it helps to not only structure your days, but your weeks and indeed entire work life by introducing (and trying to stick to) a range of habits.

What are your productivity guidelines you try to follow? Let us know in the comments!

Nico is working hard to further develop the business side of Sandbox. Today, however, he is taking off earlier to cheer for the Swiss football team playing against Chile at the World Cup in South Africa.

Image by Demi Brooke on Flickr