Two Actually Useful Tips on Productivity
"Bird by Bird" and Time blocking
One of my favorite things to do at work is what I call the “five-minute assignment.” It goes like this: I get an email or message from someone asking you to take an action. I figure out that I can do it right away. I do it. I let them know. Everyone’s happy.
The problem is that most assignments take longer than five minutes and require a significant amount of planning. Let’s say that I am asked to write a report and am given two months to do it. No problem, right? That’s plenty of time. I vaguely decide to “start working on it.”
But there’s always something more urgent to do, and plenty of pleasurable five-minute assignments I can knock out. So I put it off. Finally, I rush to get it done at the last minute. Complications, however, arise. One of my collaborators doesn’t get back to me. Someone goes on vacation. I get critical feedback and have to start over. Panic ensues. It’s miserable.
I’m a lifelong procrastinator, so the experience described above is one I’m quite familiar with. Lately, though, I’ve employed two productivity techniques that have helped me overcome these issues. The first is inspired by Anne Lamott’s wonderful Bird by Bird, one of the best books on writing I’ve ever read. And the other is the principle of “time blocking,” which I learned from the writer and thinker Cal Newport.
Bird by Bird
When Anne Lamott was a kid, her 10-year-old brother was assigned a project for science class in which he had to write about dozens of birds. He was given three months to do it, but procrastinated so badly that he had barely started the night before it was due. Despairing, he asked his dad how he could possibly embark on such a major undertaking. “Bird by bird,” was the reply. One at a time.
Remember: A big assignment is actually comprised of many small tasks. To write about 50 birds, you have to write about one bird, then another. But before doing anything at all, the first step is always to write down a list of everything that needs to be done in order to complete the project. Everything. Doing this can take a while, but I think of it as an investment: it saves time further down the road. This list, of course, isn’t set in stone and will necessarily be adjusted as conditions change. But there should always be a list.
Then, working backwards from the deadline, I try and estimate how long it will take for me to do each of the items on the list. This is an inexact science — sometimes, a task I assume will take 30 minutes requires three hours, and vice versa — but I always try to guess. Then I just focus on whatever is next on the list. I don’t forget about the assignment as a whole — it’s important not to lose sight of the forest for the trees — but it no longer feels daunting.
Whenever I’m asked to write something, whether it’s a report, a magazine article, a blog post, or something else, I feel an overwhelming urge to just get on with it and start typing. This inevitably goes awry. Before I can write something coherent, I need to understand what I’m writing about. That requires reading, thinking, and talking to people. It takes time, but it must be done — in the right order.
A very wise editor once told me that in order to report and write a 3,000 word magazine article, I needed to conduct no fewer than 20 on-the-record interviews with sources. This work could be painstaking. I had to identify the sources, convince them to talk with me on the record, conduct the interviews, transcribe them, and then index them in the voluminous notes I compiled for my story. I did all of this before I wrote a single word. On the occasions I tried to cheat this process, the end result suffered.
Bird by bird, always.
Time Blocking
In the past, whenever I had a big assignment, I’d say to myself that “I need to work on it today.” This, however, was a vacuous statement. OK, I need to work on it. But when? And what am I going to do, exactly?
“Time blocking” is a technique I use to address these questions. I learned it from Newport, an author and New Yorker correspondent whose podcast The Deep Life is one of my favorites.
I usually work from 9:30 to 5:30. That’s eight hours. In a given day, I might have a total of two or three hours of meetings. I take 30 minutes for lunch, during which I try not to do or think about work at all. That still leaves at least four hours every day of unstructured time for me to work on the various assignments I have.
What time blocking does is help me structure those hours — and commit to them. I will usually spend the first 30 minutes of the day catching up on email and text correspondence and organizing my day. Then, looking at my detailed list of tasks (bird by bird!), I have a range of actions to choose from. Let’s say the next step in a project will take me an hour. Looking at my calendar, I’ll assign that a time (say, 2 to 3) — and then block it off. I do this until every hour of my day is accounted for. It works.
Time blocking does require a certain amount of discipline. Throughout the day, a number of five-minute assignments will land in my inbox. I can easily interrupt what I’m doing to take care of them right away — something I find quite satisfying — but then I’ll have eaten into an hour I’d earmarked for something else. Most things do not need to be tackled immediately, even if a colleague is waiting. There is time to do it all — it just needs to be blocked.
Flexibility is also important. Even though I meticulously plan my days, things arise that force me to make adjustments. This is fine. Because I procrastinate less, I can move items from today’s list to tomorrow. Being too rigid or stubborn will lead to mistakes.
Discipline Is Freedom
I used to think that being too structured with my time would inhibit my creativity. Instead, the opposite is true. On days when I don’t employ time blocking, I find myself obsessively checking email, reading the news at random times, chatting aimlessly, or doing basically anything except what I’m supposed to be doing. It isn’t liberating — it’s miserable.
I find the trappings of modern knowledge work — endless Zoom meetings, an avalanche of emails, constant Slack and Teams chatter, all while sitting alone in our homes — to be inherently stressful. The only way I can maintain my sanity is by employing techniques like the ones I’ve described above.