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As a workflow consultant, that's one of the clues to help someone find their groove. Good and Bad days can happen for various reasons. Finding patterns is key
by ynac 5y ago
As a workflow consultant, that's one of the clues to help someone find their groove. Good and Bad days can happen for various reasons. Finding patterns is key to managing your life well.
One exercise we use is to first track your days and rank them just on productivity, which is just the measure of what was planned and what got done - we worry about volume and type of work later on.
Rank the day on a scale of -3 to +3. Once we have enough of these we see either an internal or an external driver.
Crossing that ranking with a daily work journal (Ben Franklin style is fine), you'll start to see all kinds of things. By far the biggest influencer for better production I run into is day of week.
The day of the week we have the most control over is our most productive day. The exception to that is when people are "burning out" on their work and when they do have more control, they coast / float / rest / runaway / crash.
Once we find the better days, it's usually easier to repeat those conditions than it is to eliminate the poor days.
And just so this doesn't sound like a campaign to turn everyone into a 7-day-a-week work monster, I'm convinced over and over by watching people trim their days and weeks, increase their "people" time, and carry a notebook with them ALL the time, that less labor, more life results in more work and more love of that work.
When you have a great day or two of productivity, and then skid to a halt, ask yourself more questions about the work ahead. Get big picture and drop more questions, puzzles, problems on your subconscious. Chances are a few days from then you'll have all the answers and you'll have another blow out day! Tightening that cycle up is the goal, but take what you get and enjoy the ride.
Happy to give you a free workflow tune-up. Takes about a month, and it's usually fun.
- personjerry 5y agoWhat the heck is a workflow consultant? Could I sign up for a free workflow tune-up too? That sounds awesome.
- b3n4kh 5y agoWhat you do sounds awesome! I never heard of "workflow consultants". How can I hire you?
- ynac 5y agoIt's an off-shoot of startup consulting. Over the years I realized the first step in helping a founder, CEO, or anyone with a project (especially someone struggling) wasn't (usually) the plan, goals, team, etc. It was them and how they planned their day, week, tools, meetings, and so on. When someone is really grooving, and they find their personal workflow, look out. It's not unusual to check back in with a client just laughing at how much they get done in so little time. Sometimes, of course, ruts and grooves are separated by a serious wall - and it's harder. These days, I do a deep dive on the project, then bounce back to their workflow and deep dive on their habits, routine, tools, and so on. It makes all the other "business" work easier and the client is usually happier and more productive longer than just knocking out the scary thing that made them call me in the first place. One of my Covid projects was writing a manual and workbook for it. It's in first draft, but I'll post it here when it's presentable. You two and the Ali92hm are welcome to a freebie! Thanks for your interest.
- 323454 5y agoI'll second this: how can I hire you? Or more generally how would you suggest going about finding a workflow consultant?
- ynac 5y agoGiven some of the questions I'm getting off-HN from this thread, it's worth understanding Workflow is NOT a self-help program like coaching or other programs. Workflow is about meeting you where you are and adapting everything else TO YOU. Think, Feng Shui for furniture and Feng Shwet for work. Get nicer furniture if you like, but whatever you got, that's what we'll deal with. Same for workflow - as you are. Will you be helping yourself, yeah. Can it sort of be self-help, yeah. But that's the side show. I'll leave my email up on my profile a few days. Write if you are interested. To answer your other question, I don't know anyone else doing this across industries. My experience runs across factory production lines (don't touch it if you aren't moving it closer to the customer or adding value), kitchen work (mise en place everything), startups, writing, coding, newspaper work, ditch digging, librarian, painting, and so on. Then there are the more biological aspects - sleep patterns, physical and mental uniqueness. Again, change them if you like / can, but if you don't / can't how do we optimize your work to be the most effective it can be given what who you are? Within any industry there are best practices, but I really enjoy bringing other work places, systems, and tools to new settings. I'm sorry but my freebie time is gone for a while! I'll get cracking on the pamphlet and workbook. If I can find a good on-demand drip email system, I'll put a 12-week class together. An email-based workbook class.
- dataf3l 5y agoHi I'm interested in this offer, I'd like to understand better how to improve my workflow, are there any more seats available? or is the offer expired?
- NiagaraThistle 5y agoThis sounds great. I've been working on a project for 5 months now and am so demotivated and seem to lose entire days without seeming to make any progress. I know my daily routine is in shambles (I've never been good with scheduling or routine) even though I write a LOT of plans and schedules for myself. I would love to read your book / learn more about what you do to help people improve their workflow systems.