Fake productivity.

People don’t have time anymore. If you try to make an appointment, they open their agenda and all you see is coloured blocks taking up all possible time slots up to three weeks in the future. If you try to agree upon a deadline, they sigh and say they don’t know when they can do it. If you’re unlucky, they will try to re-arrange their agenda and three hours later come back that it should be possible now. And still, you can be pretty sure that they will contact you a little later to do the same with your newly stated agreement. These people stress out but only get moving when the deadline has passed. But they’re so nice and kind to assure you that they added your questions or task to their never-ending to do lists.

It’s frustrating, not only for you, it’s also for them. Setting priorities, committing to deadlines, reserving time to handle unexpected things, … It almost seems that these people don’t want to have time. In my opinion, people grew a societal conscious that busy-ness is acceptable and appropriate behaviour… It became a strategy for people that want to feel important but in fact have little self-control and respect.

This kind of fake productivity kills more than you think apart from the fact that it annoys most of us. So let’s help them a bit.

There is a simple life hack that helps people to get their things done. It requires a little planning, some focus and most importantly no excuses. It’s called ‘Eat That Frog’, introduced by Brian Tracy. It focusses on doing stuff and the energy one gets out of it.

• Firstly map what do you want/need to do? Use the important/unimportant metric to set priorities. And most importantly set the hardest task on top (eat that frog first and you will get energy. If you don’t, it will drain you).
• Secondly, make it actionable. What needs to happen to achieve that goal? Do you prefer to take small steps (split up) or a big leap (block enough time) to finish a task at once?
• Thirdly; Set deadlines for everything but don’t overload your planning with this type of work alone. Plan time for varia, relaxation, social connections, …
• And lastly; just do it.

Run it through at the end of every day. In your sleep your mind does halve of the work so it takes less long when actually executing tasks with focus.

It helps if you look at it with three goggles; With the first goggles you focus on the next day solely. With the second one you focus on the next week upto ten days. With the third one, you look at your long term goals and planning.

Feedback is welcome. Feel free to share this with all procrastinators and fake productivity people you know. And if you’re not one, just like it 😉

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ToDo minus 1.

I make lists. A lot of massive to do lists. And it’s rare i get to the bottom of them. I just add the remaining points to another list, at the bottom. Some of these to do’s are not real. They lack importance so they are not necessary. My idea today is to create a to do list where the last item gets removed automatically on a daily basis. They get archived so they are not really gone but i’m pretty sure they are not so important after all, otherwise I would prioritise them more.

Workplace Change Agents.

Workplace Change Agents is a dedicated team of workplace interior designers and change managers who create the perfect working environment for enterprises and startups that reflect the (desired) corporate culture of the company. They do this by entering the firm for a three-six months analysis period and recommend both improvements in the structure, processes and people needed to be more effective and productive using all the current (and state-of-the-art) technologies and best practices. They don’t just deliver, they participate and make things better in close collaboration with the people and always in respect with the current context.

The O-chair; an all-in-one office chair.

With office space expensive in a lot of area’s and people working mostly as digital nomads space can be used more optimal.

A comfortable office chair with small tablet as desk, a hydraulic arm with a second (large) screen that can be deployed from the back, plugs for any device and electricity plugs under the seating that get powered by batteries in the wheels that are powered by floor contact or through an additional plug for supercharging reduces desk space with a factor between 3 and 5. Furthermore when equipped with a GPS, it can anticipate constant movement. By including your calendar appointments, you will move automatically to the meeting rooms in time, without being distracted from what you do and thus save productivity time. Over time, more intelligence could be build in so it analyzes everything you and your colleagues work on in real time so clusters of work will group people more logically on the floor. Adding the layer of wellness (massage buttons, media center,…) makes sure you never want to leave it again. Except when you feel the urge to spend a penny… 🙂