fbpx

Productivity

Leverage the Progress Principle with iDoneThis

by
Teresa Amabile the Progress Principle
Teresa Amabile the Progress Principle

We’ve written before about the secret to happiness and motivation at work. Harvard Business School professor Teresa Amabile and psychologist Steven Kramer wrote a whole book about it called The Progress Principle. They found that the number one driver of a positive inner work life, the key to motivated, engaged, and productive employees, is making progress on meaningful work, even if that progress is a small win.

In a recent 99U conference talk, Professor Amabile shared the best way to achieve those small wins and leverage the progress principle in our daily lives: keeping a work diary. We’re so pleased that she suggested using iDoneThis as an online work diary tool, and we thought we could break down how iDoneThis contributes to the four benefits of keeping a work diary that she identifies:

Read more

Your Brain on Dopamine: The Science of Motivation

by
your brain on dopamine
  1. The Origins Of Motivation (Hint: It’s Neuroscience)
  2. What Causes Your Dopamine To Spike
  3. How To Hack Your Dopamine To Boost Your Productivity
  4. More Physical Tricks To Kick Your Dopamine Into High Gear
  5. Take The First Step
  6. TL;DR
  7. Popular Questions
  8. Glossary
Dopamine representation

I spent an hour on this opening paragraph.

The hour wasn’t time well spent, mind you. Sure, I was working — writing, deleting, tinkering with words here and there — but my one-paragraph-per-hour pace wasn’t out of indecisiveness as much as a lack of motivation.

I spent

  • five minutes on the email
  • ten minutes on Instagram
  • and fifteen minutes doing who-knows-what on Tumblr

(Just kidding, I know exactly what I was doing: watching cat videos.)

Sound familiar?

Motivation is a tricky thing to corral. Tricky, but not impossible.

Read more

Avoid Workplace Disagreements By Getting Things In Writing

by
pablo

I was talking to a friend, who is an attorney, some years ago. We were discussing a small disagreement I was having with a coworker. The friend gave me some advice that I’ve practiced ever since.

“Have him send you an email. Make him write out exactly what his request is.”

Lawyers love this technique, he told me. And the benefits are two-fold.

For one, writing forces clear thinking. It will become obvious if someone doesn’t have a clear idea what they’re asking once they try to put it down on paper. And secondly, should some disagreement on the topic come up in the future, you will have a clear record of what was said and when. There will be no squabbling over who said what.

You should know how you can deal with awful coworkers by getting things in written.

It’s an amazing tool that can make a big difference in your personal and professional life. The phrase “get it in writing” often conjures thoughts of a lengthy contact, formal documents with signatures and lawyers involved. It doesn’t have to be that way. “Get it in writing” can be something as simple as an e-mail.

Read more

How To Work With A Motormouth

by

You walk into your office on a Monday morning and are instantly overwhelmed with the amount of work you have that week.

Just as you’ve figured out how to cram all your meetings and projects into your schedule, you look up from your desk and are instantly full of dread. Your chatty coworker is headed right toward you and has chosen you as his next victim. Well, there goes the better part of the morning.

chatty coworker

Of course, having a great social relationship can boost company culture. Once in a while, some water cooler talk can be a nice break from your hard work, but some people take this way too far.

Some will come by your desk every few hours, and even remote workers might incessantly ping you on Slack. According to a survey conducted by talent mobility company Lee Hecht Harrison, talkative coworkers are the #1 disruption at work.

Even though having a chatty worker in your office is different than difficult coworkers, you must know how to deal with them.

Here are the different kinds of chatty coworkers, and how to keep them from disrupting your day.

Read more

Managing a Remote Team – A Leader’s 7-Step To-Do List

by

Managing a remote team is about employee empowerment, not oversight.

Remote employees that excel are self-motivated, reliable and results-driven. As a manager, your job is to create a supportive environment that encourages employees to manage their own projects so you can focus on building a culture of trust and communication.

managing-a-remote-team

Here are seven things a remote leader must have to set their team up for success:

Read more

How Decision Fatigue Makes You Work Worse When You Work More

by
cover copy

Planning on getting arrested anytime soon? Better hope the judge has had a sandwich.

Researchers in 2011 studied more than 1,100 decisions from eight Israeli judges serving on a parole board. Their findings were surprising: the biggest factor determining how lenient a judge would rule was how long it had been since the judge had a snack or lunch break.

“Basically, right after a short break, judges came in with more positive attitudes and made more lenient decisions. As they burned up their reserves of energy, they began to make more and more decisions that maintained the status quo,” wrote Jeff Sutherland, CEO of Scrum, Inc. and author of “Scrum: The Art of Doing Twice the Work in Half the Time.“

The problem: decision fatigue. The mental work of making all those high-stakes decisions, one after another, wore down the judges.

Read more

Stop Telling Yourself These 3 Productivity Lies

by
Pinocchio statue

One of the trickiest things about trying to be more productive is how much we deceive ourselves along the way. It’s like trying to eat healthier and then convincing yourself after one walk up the stairs that you totally deserve a donut.

Productivity lies can be sly, wolves in sheeps’ clothing, making you feel better in the moment, even as you’re actually falling behind and letting priorities slip.

It’s better to work smarter than work harder — and part of working smarter is to be more truthful about why you’re choosing to do, or not do, something and whether you’re actually spending your time wisely.

Outsmart your lazier, sneakier self. Here’s how to face the truth when you catch yourself claiming these three common productivity lies.

Read more

The Hidden Form of Procrastination That Is Killing Your Productivity

by

You’re being interrupted every three minutes to handle something urgent. You have a report that’s due at the end of the day. But your coworker just called you into a meeting that will “just be a minute.” When you get back, you just have to send a quick email. After you start on that email, another coworker asks you to jump on a client call.

You don’t think you’re procrastinating because you’re busy every moment. But just because you’re super busy doesn’t mean you’re being productive. You’re actually guilty of a subtle form of procrastination known as priority dilution. This means you are distracted from focusing on your most important work. But it’s not your fault that you’re getting consumed with all these small disruptions. Your brain is actually hardwired to handle them. Here’s the science behind managing the small disruptions so you can be more productive.

Use I Done This to become more productive when you know how to manage distractions, which are the hidden form of procrastination that kills productivity.
Take a closer look at where procrastination originates in your brain, and you’re on your way to vanquishing the hidden form of procrastination that’s killing your productivity.

Read more

20 Vetted Tools and Tips for Managing Time Zone Differences

by

[Image Source: Unsplash]

If you work on a remote team, there’s a good chance you’ve struggled with managing time zones.

With co-workers and subscribers spread all over the world, it can be hard to keep track of what time it is where your colleagues are. Even if you’re not working remote, it’s easier than ever to end up doing business with someone in a different time zone. As our world becomes more connected, discovering a good time zone meeting planner becomes more important than ever.

Here at I Done This, we face this challenge daily. We’re a small team dispersed across three continents. The work day is finishing up for some of us just as it’s getting started for others, which is why asynchronous communication is so important. There’s only a short window of time for us to communicate in real time, and that window is critical to our productivity.

Here’s a look at some of our favorite time zone apps and strategies for managing our workflow.

Read more