This week I tested gamification using ToDoist’s Karma feature. I also quantified my past task performance using IQTell. Scroll to the bottom of last week’s post for
How Gamification Saved My Sanity This Week
Helped me see how many tasks I can really accomplish. Of course, number of tasks entered and completed is not an accurate measure of productivity. I could work on one big task like a dog for three days straight and would get a bad productivity score. While I got no hard science data, I was very surprised by how consistent the numbers were from week to week. Because I have to calculate the stats manually, I only looked at the last month which I believe is pretty typical for me. Two statistics were extremely helpful. First, I learned that on average, I enter one task a day that I don’t complete. That doesn’t sound bad at all, does it? But it means that I will be 365 tasks in the hole in a year’s time. I would like to avoid that, of course, so I looked at how many tasks I can reasonably accomplish a week and came up with 35. I have a very thorough routine that involves cleaning, homeschooling, organizing, social media, and more, so that doesn’t mean I’m only getting 35 things done. Of course, those 35 tasks also don’t include things that take so little time that I didn’t bother to enter them into IQTell. But using that number and considering that I do very little on Sundays, I realize that I need to try to limit my number of tasks per day to six. I’m absolutely giddy about this. Yes, I will have days when I go over, but it’s as Game of Work {affiliate link} says: We need to know the rules for winning to be motivated. Now I do.
Graphs that motivated. I was a little worried that the Karma feature wouldn’t matter much to me. I was pleasantly surprised by the daily emails showing my productivity and Karma charts. The productivity chart fired me up more because it’s based on how much you get done. When I slacked (as you can see I did), the email was like a kindly push that I appreciated. The Karma line kept going up because I was using the app a lot. I expect that line to be more realistic in the future.
Introduced me to an app I love. I haven’t changed productivity apps in a long time. It might even be a record! I have been using IQTell and was very happy. ToDoist is the first program I’ve used that has me seriously considering a switch. The UI is absolutely beautiful. It reminds me of Things that I used years ago, only it is all about color. I organize the areas of my life by color, so it’s a natural fit. The color graphs not only show me what life areas I have that need the most attention (not pictured), but tell me if I’m achieving the balance I want. This is something I loved about Life Balance, but ToDoist doesn’t have the time-intensive data entry and “suggestions” of what I should be doing with my time.
How Gamification Made Me Crazy This Week
No competition aspect. Gamification is about more than just tracking performance. Often, it’s about measuring your performance against others’. Competition is very motivating for me when I feel there’s a chance I can win. So is accountability. I didn’t feel I had that, but my Karma score is 2563 after a week for anyone who cares.
Not that fun. Another reason gamification increases productivity is because it makes work entertaining. Tracking my stats and using a new app were wonderful, but it wasn’t that fun. There are other apps and approaches that utilize a more game-like interface that might have been a better test. However, I have tried a few in the past and noticed that I get bored with them quickly.
Did Gamification Help Me Get Things Done?
Yes, although I would say the feedback aspect was what helped. I feel pretty dumb that I never thought to quantify how many tasks I accomplish on average. I always looked at my time usage instead. I did not get to test how well limiting myself to six tasks per day on average works, but that will be my goal from here on. I also plan to continue using ToDoist for the time being.
**UPDATE**
I’m less interested in how many tasks I can do these days than in accurately estimating how long tasks take. I have no interest in ToDoist karma, because I have remained at a top level no matter what I do. These kinds of features aren’t effective for me if there is no competitive aspect or if top achievements are unreachable. In other words, if I have to give up the rest of my life to be on a leader board, I’m not interested. What I find amusing is that blogging is perfectly gamified and motivating for me. I am constantly able to see my stats on the blog and on social media. I can compare my stats to others’, especially on Facebook. Improving is enough of a challenge to keep me trying, but not so much that I’m discouraged. In fact, the game nature of it is what makes it fairly addictive. I’m hoping that my curriculum business will have the same game-like quality that keeps me coming back for more.
The Productivity Approach I’ll Be Using for Week 32
This week I’ll finish testing The 12 Week Year. {affiliate link}I tested time blocking using The 12 Week Year before, but I’ve been using the whole approach for the past 11 weeks. The idea is you can super-power your productivity by setting one to three 12-week goals with week-by-week activities. I set one homeschooling and two writing project goals.
The concept. The 12 Week Year argues that we fail to achieve our New Year’s resolutions because the time frame for them is just too long. Instead, we need help to break the goals down into weekly objectives that can be easily quantified. I loved the idea because I succeeded in writing a book and getting fit in 12 weeks.
If you’d like to join me this week, here’s what you do. Read the book or simply choose one to three goals that you’d like to achieve in the next 12 weeks. Create a reason for each goal that you will regularly reflect upon. Then break each goal down into weekly sub-goals. Track your progress this week and continue on to your goal.
To see if the 12 Week Year worked for me, click here.
This week I tested whether Heatmapping from Productive Flourishing could improve my productivity. I adjusted my activities to fit my productivity levels. Scroll to the bottom of last week’s post for details.
How Heatmapping Saved My Sanity This Week
Got me doing things I usually avoid. There are aspects of homeschooling I absolutely love. Reading history, literature, and science books to the kids are my favorites. Teaching piano and reviewing each child’s work are things I like least–at least they have been. When I began homeschooling, I had little ones who napped in the afternoon. It only made sense to me that I would save activities that required a lot more of my attention (like building castles and science experiments) for these times. It did work then, but now I can’t seem to get anything involved done in the afternoons. I don’t know why I didn’t think to make a change before, but I put the activities I least like to do in the mornings when I am the most productive and those I really enjoy in the afternoon when I would rather not teach. The result? Amazing! Not only did it work, but I’ve grown to enjoy the activities I disliked before.
Relieved me of guilt. In the past, I spent much of my low time on social media and felt bad that I wasn’t doing anything “productive.” I am now using the evening hours (when I have no energy for anything else) for social media which has the added benefit of promoting this blog. Guilt be gone!
No more productivity fantasies. Without studying my productivity levels, I can foolishly plan to get lots of things accomplished on Friday afternoons when my school commitments are done. I know that won’t happen now, so I can plan realistically and not overload my list.
How Heatmapping Made Me Crazy This Week
Levels are inconsistent. Even when I saw general trends in my productivity, it was annoying when I had unexpected lows–mornings I had to drag myself out of bed, for example. You can’t plan for these.
Did Heatmapping Help Me Get Things Done?
If I were writing this in the morning, I would be jumping up and down saying YES! But since it’s a low time for me, I will just say, “It sure did.” One of the things I realized is how often I fight my natural tendencies because of what I think I “should” be doing. I thought of what I should accomplish in the afternoons instead of what I was more likely to accomplish. Heatmapping has led to a happier, more productive school day and life for me.
**UPDATE**
Learning when your most productive times are won’t help you decide how to use them. It’s taken me a while to work out the ideal approach of exercising and writing first thing in the morning, writing again right after dinner, and just vegging out after 8 p.m. But heatmapping has been a critical component of my productivity.
The Productivity Approach I’ll Be Using for Week 31
This week I’ll be testing gamification using ToDoist’s Karma feature.
The concept. I read the Game of Work {affiliate link} three years ago and loved it. It appealed to the psychologist in me. The concept is not based on the notion that everything needs to be entertaining in this culture, but rather on long-established research on behavior change.
The essence of the book is that too much of our work has become like a game with no clear rules for winning. Simple changes like tracking activities and clarifying what constitutes a “win” can make a big difference in productivity. I realized that I have been doing these productivity tests without a clear outcome measure other than if I “felt” more productive. I haven’t looked at number of tasks entered versus number of tasks completed, though thankfully I have most of that data and I will present it in future posts.
There are many ways of turning work into motivating games. See this Lifehacker article for ideas. I am most intrigued by ToDoist’s new Karma feature because it subtracts points for pushing back deadlines–something I do A LOT. It’s a free application that I can easily use to create tasks from Gmail using their Chrome Extension. The downside to trying a new app is that I will have to keep my IQTell dashboard up-to-date, assuming that I will want to continue using it (I think I will). IQTell has a badge system, but the rules for it aren’t as clear. Improvements are supposed to be in the works.
If you’d like to join me this week, here’s what you do. Determine a method for tracking tasks entered versus tasks completed. Many applications permit this and it can be done on paper. Saving and continuing to log this data can be helpful for future tests. Decide how you will gamify your work. The comments on the Lifehacker article have some good ideas, too. If you’d like, create a free ToDoist account and we can compare Karma.
This week I tested whether Zen to Done implemented with GTDAgenda could help me get more done.I continued many of its practices as I had already implemented them, being sure to plan for the week and choose 1-3 MITs for the day. Scroll to the bottom of last week’s post for details.
How Zen to Done Saved My Sanity This Week
It was good to return to a weekly review. I hadn’t done this for a while and found it helpful to think of getting things done using a weekly time frame and not just a daily one.
Validated what I have learned so far. As I incorporated so many of the productivity hacks and approaches that work for me as a part of Zen to Done, I felt good about the system I’m building for myself. Knowing that it works for Leo is nice, too.
Liked the clear connections between goals, projects, and tasks. Zen to Done encourages this kind of thinking, unlike GTD. GTDAgenda’s biggest strength is in this area. The logical, organized part of me loved being able to see the flow from higher-level thinking to day-to-day tasks.
How Zen to Done Made Me Crazy This Week
Resisted more than one MIT. Zen to Done suggests a daily focus of one to three MITs. I found that after determining the day’s frog, I really didn’t want to spend the time determining what the next most important tasks were. I continued using my routine time for addressing “Must Do” tasks on some days and on others, other commitments kept me from doing more than one MIT. However, I doubt that Leo would insist I choose two more MITs. That was probably my desire to “do it right.”
Distracted by new projects. Not only are we back to doing school, but I’ve had two major, exciting projects to work on this week (more on this later). Whenever that happens, I have a hard time focusing on anything else, which unfortunately includes productivity hacks.
Not ready to use a different application. I realized that I couldn’t give GTDAgenda a completely fair review because I’m happy with the programs I use to manage my time and tasks. I was given a free membership in exchange for this review. For those in need of a task management app, it offers one place for managing your goals, projects, MITs (I starred them as Next Actions for the week), and routines. I did not want to pay to test the iPhone app, but I know that would have made it more appealing. I did find the program to be a bit laggier than I am used to. I couldn’t find the schedule feature to use time blocking, but I use Google calendar anyway. Tasks with due dates can be synced to GCal. Emails can be used to create tasks on GTDAgenda, but it appears that each project has its own separate email. This can be a plus or minus depending on how you use it. If you don’t have dozens of new projects, you can create a contact for each project and just email the task to it without trying to remember a special syntax for assigning projects (I hate that).
Did Zen to Done Help Me Get Things Done?
I was tempted to say no because I didn’t notice a change. But honestly, yes. The fact is that I have created my own Zen to Done approach that really works. Choosing 1-3 MITs doesn’t work for me, however.
**UPDATE**
I love weekly planning, but I prefer choosing 1 MIT per area instead of daily MITs.
The Productivity Approach I’ll Be Using for Week 30
The concept. There are times of day when we get more done. There are other times of day when we can’t seem to peel ourselves off the couch. These time periods aren’t necessarily obvious to us, so we think we are going to get all those digital photos organized at a time when the only pictures we have the energy to look at are funny cat shots online.
If we know what level of productivity we’re capable of at a certain time, we can plan accordingly and also take steps that can help us move up a level–like from the couch to a desk chair.
If you’d like to join me this week, here’s what you do. Read the article on Productive Flourishing. Download a free blank heat map to identify your peak productive times. Rearrange your schedule and plan your work to take advantage of your hot spots.
This week I tested whether limiting my choices could help me get more done. I simplified my daily routine and rewarded myself with an A for every day I accomplished 90% of it. Scroll to the bottom of last week’s post for more details.
How Limiting Choices Saved My Sanity This Week
Finally gave me a sense that I was doing enough. Getting an “A” for the day made a huge difference in my satisfaction with how I spent my time. Previously, I don’t think there was ever a day I got every single aspect of my routine done. It was more than any human being could accomplish. This time I did it and without feeling that I had to be perfect.
Gave me guilt-free time. Because I included free time as part of my routine, I could kick back and do something completely frivolous without feeling I needed to be doing something else. It was like being on vacation at home.
Motivated me to work ahead. Because I finally had a routine I could actually finish, I found myself using those odd times to finish my tasks early. It was the strangest feeling because I hadn’t done this before. There was no point. Why work ahead when you’ll never finish it all anyway? I think I was able to achieve what I was looking for from Beat the Week.
How Limiting Choices Made Me Crazy This Week
Trouble defining the A. On a couple of days, I found it a pain to determine if I’d done 90% of the tasks. I do enough math with the kids! I also needed to define what “doing” each task meant. I wasn’t sure if I needed to require 100% completion of each to count. I didn’t like the ambiguity.
Accepting the B. I only earned a B one day this week and I had to really think about this. Did that mean the approach wasn’t working? Was I allowed to have an off day? I wasn’t sure.
Did Limiting Choices Help Me Get Things Done?
Oh my, YES! My household and cleaning tasks are completely caught up. For the first time in weeks, I even had my blog posts done ahead of time. But even more important for me than getting things done is that I finally feel good about me and how I’m managing my work. I realized that I am like the teacher who can’t be pleased when it comes to evaluating my own work. That is going to stop. I decided that making any effort to do a task in the routine counted and furthermore, having a day a week that I don’t get an A is more than O.K. This spontaneous, fun-loving lady will wither with too much rigidity.
**UPDATE**
I still limit my choices just so I don’t drive myself crazy trying to decide on lots of good things. But I don’t “rate” myself at all anymore. As long as I am meeting my deadlines (external and self-imposed) and I am making time for the most important things in my life, I don’t feel the need to grade myself. My perfectionism has died down and I am much more relaxed thankfully!
The Productivity Approach I’ll Be Using for Week 29
This week I’ll be testing Zen to Done using GTDAgenda. I read Leo Babauta’s book some time ago, but I am amazed by how many of the practices that improve my productivity it encompasses. Like GTD, it emphasizes collection of tasks into an inbox and a weekly review. Like Covey’s quadrants, it emphasizes focusing on important, goal-related tasks. It incorporates routines, time blocking, and even timers if you like. One to three MITs (most important tasks) are planned for each week and each day and are addressed first, similar to Eat That Frog.
The concept. Leo describes the system he uses to get things done. He emphasizes the need to spend more time doing than playing with systems. He also keeps it simple enough that people who dislike more complex systems will approve.
Although Leo recommends paper, I was given the opportunity to try Zen to Done using a GTDAgenda premium membership free of charge in exchange for my honest review.
If you’d like to join me this week, here’s what you do. Read the basics of Zen to Done here. Implement with paper or if you’re interested in trying GTDAgenda, sign up for a free account here, then read how to implement Zen to Done using it.
To see how my week with Zen to Done went, click here.
If you’ve tried limiting choices, please comment. Click here to follow me on Twitter.
Here are the links to the productivity hacks I’ve tried so far:
This week I tested the Accountability Chart from Sparring Mind.I broke my day up into 90-minute work periods followed by 15-minute breaks and then wrote down what I accomplished during each 90-minute block. Scroll to the bottom of last week’s post for more details.
How an Accountability Chart Saved My Sanity This Week
Gave me something new to try. I was excited to give this method a try. Maybe because it was based on research, but I think more because I thought the “accountability” factor would work for me just like it does for dieters.
Helped me get a lot done at first. The first day I cruised through lots of work and enjoyed writing what I accomplished next to each time block.
Enjoyed the longer work periods. This week I have been preparing materials for the new school year. I was so motivated to complete these tasks, that I honestly didn’t take 15 minute breaks after every 90 minutes of work. I took little breaks here and there and long breaks in the evenings.
How an Accountability Chart Made Me Crazy This Week
Hated writing things down. After the first day, I resorted to using my phone’s Notes app to record what I’d done. The longer I did this, the more time I let go by before recording. Soon I was just thinking about what I’d done and not writing. I was getting lots and lots done and it just felt silly to take the time to write it down. On the other hand, if I had been goofing off, I wouldn’t have wanted to write that down either. My response to this approach was very much like it was when I wrote down what I ate while dieting: yuck.
Resisted the time limits. While I used a timer for work and breaks at first, I quit in part because I overused the method by continuing it all day long. I think that’s because I was in binge work mode. I quickly realized that I liked the 50-10 approach I used with Pomodoros much better because it didn’t interfere with the rest of my routines. Often a 90-minute block would overlap with lunch or dinner, for example.
No help with knowing what to do. As I’ve said, I’ve been focused on school preparation. That means that other things I need to be doing started to slide through the cracks. The time blocks and chart were no help with this.
Did an Accountability Chart Help Me Get Things Done?
Overall, no. Even though I was very productive, I felt like this approach got in my way more than helped me.
**UPDATE**
While I don’t use an accountability chart, the warning feature of Skedpal keeps me accountable. I am not able to slack off or try to squeeze in too many tasks without consequence.
The Productivity Approach I’ll Be Using for Week 28
This week I’ll be testing whether limiting choices can help me get more done. The idea is that the fewer options we have, the more we get done. I have simplified my routine and will reward myself with an A for every day I accomplish 90% of it.
The concept. This week I was telling a friend how much my 15-year-old likes to know exactly what school work to do on a given day. That’s when it occurred to me that I like that, too. Unfortunately, I don’t have much of that in my life and when I do, I give myself more tasks for a day than anyone could accomplish. The result is that I never feel like I’m doing enough of the right things. I’m striving to be an A student in a course that has hundreds of fuzzy objectives. And it’s exhausting.
A friend sent me a link on Raptitude that motivated me to limit my choices of what to do. My first strategy was to use the routine I set up using Home Routines. This would enable me to limit the choices I make. The second strategy was to reduce the number of steps so it is humanly possible to finish them all on a typical day. I went over each aspect asking myself if my husband (one of the most balanced, productive people I know) would say it was stupid. I eliminated work that I wasn’t doing anyway and wasn’t important. I limited cleaning to a time limit per floor rather than several specific tasks. I limited the true task time of my routine to “must do’s.” I reviewed the blogging tasks for the traffic they produce and decided to eliminate the smallest returns on investment. I asked to be excused from a ministry that stretches my time. And I will no longer write first thing in the morning on non-gym days, allowing myself time for a leisurely chat with my husband and oldest son over breakfast.
The result is a routine I think I can really do. If not, I will pare it down further this week.
If you’d like to join me this week, here’s what you do. Read the Raptitude article on minimalism in task management. The Barry Schwartz video he links to is worth the watch, but note that there is a cartoon with sexual content. (Note that I am not necessarily endorsing the views expressed on any site I link to).
Do a review of what you’re doing and your expectations of what you should be doing and make your day manageable. If you prefer not to use a simplified routine, make decisions now that will limit your choices later.
Click here to see if limiting choices helped me get more done.
If you’ve tried an accountability chart to increase your productivity, please comment. Click here to follow me on Facebook.
Here are the links to the productivity hacks I’ve tried so far:
This week I tested Deven’s modification of one of Mark Forster’s Autofocus approaches that I called Focus & Relief. I worked from two lists–a Focus list with urgent and deadlined tasks and a Relief list for everything else. Up to three Relief tasks could also be moved to the Focus list. Scroll to the bottom of last week’s post for details.
How Focus & Relief Saved My Sanity This Week
Gave me a true focus list. When I tried the original Autofocus approach, I had to hunt through an enormous list to find urgent or deadlined tasks. I really liked having all these tasks on their own list plus three more tasks that I just wanted to get to–and no more. I tend to overdo it on the “want to get to” tasks being added to my focus list. Both lists were short which empowered me to get more done. This advantage likely wouldn’t be present the longer I worked the system.
Helped me accomplish non-deadlined tasks. Just the fact that these tasks were on a separate list motivated me to do them. It may be a language thing (calling these tasks “relief tasks”), but I also felt free to work on them whereas I haven’t before. I felt I should be doing urgent work or recreating and little in-between.
Gave me an alternate reward for work. When I used Autofocus originally, I included absolutely everything I wanted to do–even fun, frivolous things. I realized partway into the week that I could do this again, including them on the Relief list. I found that the system rewarded my work with tasks rather than time as the Pomodoro did. Jacq, a blog reader and friend, calls this a “task sandwich” and it was very effective. Finally, I really enjoyed the Autofocus approach of crossing off and rewriting tasks that I had worked on but hadn’t completed. This functioned as a reward as well.
How Focus & Relief Made Me Crazy This Week
Resisted starting with the Relief list. I understand the idea that we can get so stuck on urgent and deadlined tasks that we never get around to the not urgent, but important tasks. But feeling forced to start with that list didn’t work for me. Part of that is because I had urgent things to do that had to be addressed first thing and part of that is because I have already experienced the value of Eat That Frog. If the Relief list is used to record recreational tasks, there shouldn’t have to be a requirement to use it to be effective.
Resisted the other rules, too. After writing down the focus tasks and relief tasks, I usually knew what I wanted to do and did it. At other times, I just wanted to scan the list in any order to decide what I wanted to do. As before, I both liked the paper list and didn’t like it. It’s very satisfying to cross off tasks and see the list shrink, but I hated carrying it around. I did like the approach I chose for listing tasks, however. I used the front of a notebook for Focus tasks and the back for Relief tasks.
Difficult to identify the 3 Relief tasks on the Focus list. I didn’t use any kind of notation for the three non-urgent tasks I chose, so after I had completed a number of tasks, I honestly couldn’t remember what they were. I didn’t know if I could choose more or not, so I just didn’t worry about it. I found myself as happy to work on the substantive tasks in the Relief list as any other anyway.
Did Focus & Relief Help Me Get Things Done?
Yes, and I enjoyed it. I am starting to think that rewarding myself with a task could be even more effective than rewarding myself with time–maybe because the time feels too restrictive? I have serious concerns about using this method on paper long-term, however. I can see how it could become unwieldy over time. It would necessitate the use of stars and rules that I’m not wild about using.
**UPDATE**
I don’t use any type of long task list anymore. I now find it rewarding to work ahead and get tasks done before their scheduled time. I also enjoy the free time I have over lunch hour and after 8 p.m. That’s what I was missing before.
The Productivity Approach I’ll Be Using for Week 27
This week I’ll be testing the Accountability Chart from Sparring Mind. The day is broken up into 90-minute work periods followed by 15-minute breaks. You write down what you accomplish during each 90-minute block.
The concept. Research of masters of music suggests that those who practice for 90 minutes and then rest for 15-20 minutes achieve the most in terms of skill building. The idea is similar to Pomodoros, but allows for longer periods of work.
Research also suggests that dieters who record what they eat lose the most weight. Combining these two approaches should theoretically help us get more done. Either that or I will lose weight and be playing piano better by next week.
If you’d like to join me this week, here’s what you do. Read Sparring Mind’s article on productivity and watch the 3-minute video if you’d like. It’s one of those cool white board animations. Choose a method of timing your work and rest breaks and have something ready (notebook, white board, smart phone) to record what you accomplish during each period.
To see how I did with an accountability chart, click here.
If you’ve tried Deven’s Focus & Relief method to increase your productivity, please comment. I will no longer be including polls.
Here are the links to the productivity hacks I’ve tried so far:
I’m a Christian psychologist turned homeschooling mother of six. My life can be a little crazy, so I look for sanity-saving ideas to use and share. I hope you’ll read my About page to learn more.
