Where your attention goes, your time goes.
Idowu Koyenikan
Years ago I used a productivity planner which helped me stay focused and organised. The appeal for this planner was that it was simple to use and helped me stay on track. I used it for a few months and loved it. As it so often happens, life got in the way and I stopped using it (it didn’t help that the planner was relatively expesive and only offered planning for a couple of months).
Recently I’ve been struggling with staying focused and I remembered that planner and how much it helped me when I used it.
But there was an issue – our lives are more and more digital and most of the things we write and do are better recorded in a what we can use (almost) anywhere. A physical planner has great qualities to it, but it takes on space. Space we sometimes we don’t have and if we can’t carry it with us, we can’t use it.
Let me share how I work more mindfully and journal my productivity first.
It all starts with planning your week
At the beginnining of the week I first state my overarching intention for the week. It looks something like this:
This week I will focus on finding new customers for my coaching business by reaching out to people I know.
After writing down my intention for the week I will create a list of tasks I want to accomplish that week. The list is limited to 5 really important tasks (tasks I need to complete no matter what), 5 secondary tasks (tasks that would be nice to complete, but I can live without), and 5 additional tasks.
This sets me up for the week and will help me stay on track as the week progresses.
On a daily basis
Every day starts with my morning mindfulness practice. I don’t do yoga or meditation (maybe I should try it out), but I write down some thoughts:
- What I am grateful for today
- What would make today a great day
- A daily affirmation
Doing this helps me stay motivated throughout the day.
I then choose one of the most important tasks I defined for the week (or decide to do a different task that is more important today), two secondary tasks, and two additional tasks (the seconday and additional tasks are completely optional).
Knowing what I want to do today I now start working on that most important task I decided to work on today, ticking it off my list once I’m done with it.
And so I continue working on my task list as I go through the day.
At the end of the day I reflect on what I accomplished today and what I learned by answering the following questions:
- What was the highlight of my day?
- What did I learn today?
- What do I want to remember from today?
When the week ends
At the end of the week I spend some time reflecting on what I have accomplished and what I learned:
- My weekly wins
- Weekly learnings
- Next week’s actions
I think it’s important to acknowledge the wins of the week. Specially on weeks that didn’t go according to plan or where particularly tough. My weekly learnings help me to continue learning every week (and day). Learning has always been a great part of my life.
Declaring the actions I want to take can be compared to the list of actions people decide to try out when they do a retrospective during software development work, setting up your mind on how to make your work and weeks better next time (no one is perfect and we all need to keep on adapting and improving as we go).
How do I do this?
You could just take an empty notebook and start journaling your productivity there using the template I use. This would be a wonderful way of starting your mindful productivity journey.
I thought about it when I was trying to get back to focusing on my personal productivity. I realized though, that I would not be following through that much if I used pen and paper (I’m glued to my computer screen for a large part of the day); I needed something digital.
Last year, I created a prototype of an application that would help me be more productive and mindful in the process. I used it for months before deciding that it really was helping me out and that I had to take this idea and create a product (at least for myself) I could use without having to boot it up every morning before my day started.
I am now journaling my productivity on my application every day and it’s helping me to stay focused, be more mindful, and get more things done. There are still features that I want to implement and improve on the ones it already has; it’s an evolving product by now. My partner started using it two days ago too and her feedback has helped me improve it even more (when you build an application for yourself, you get used to how you decided it works, missing opportunities to improve it).
Happy journaling!