In This Episode…
Today I take some time to reflect on the journey I have taken so far in developing my personal productivity. I re-visit the purpose of publishing this podcast, I look at some of the highlights so far and I give my verdict on the question “How’s it going then?”
Episode Show Notes
00:17 – Revisiting the purpose of the podcast
01:10 – There is a looming mental health crisis on the horizon – I’m inoculating myself against that and preparing to help others deal with it.
02:03 – The journey I’ve taken in developing my personal productivity.
02:42 – A summary of the key highlights of this podcast journey for me including:
- Dealing with procrastination (my business receipts).
- The benefits of tracking my time on a daily basis.
- Implementing a version of SCRUM for my own project.
- Dealing with hitting a self discipline “wall”.
- The use of a Current Reality Tree to identify my constraint.
- Using IF-THEN Planning to instil a journalling habit.
04:58 – The verdict with my progress – overall I am pleased.
05:28 – Now it is onward and upward.
Edited Transcript
Hi, it’s Michael Tipper and welcome to today’s episode of the Profit Productivity Podcast.
Now I thought I would use this episode to reflect on how things are going – not with the podcast but with what I’m podcasting about.
if I think back to episode 001, the purpose of the podcast was to capture the tools, the tips, techniques I was using and experimenting with and share them with you so you could try them out for yourself as well.
Another purpose and probably the primary personal purpose for me was to hold me accountable for the efforts I’m putting in to revamp my productivity skills.
I had plateaued for a while and realised I needed to up my game a little bit. I’d got a little bit lazy and so this podcast is also about holding me accountable to developing those skills.
The third purpose was to help prepare myself for what I see as being a looming crisis that’s facing our society. And that’s one of increased problems with mental health.
We now have complete 24 hour a day connectedness through the Internet with our smartphones. The constant barrage of information coupled with the pressures of stress and overwhelm means some people are going to struggle to deal with that.
I believe some of the stuff I’m encountering in understanding how to be more effective can help people get back onto an even keel. So I’m helping prepare and maybe even inoculate myself against those challenges, but also to be able to help others overcome them as well.
So that’s the purpose of this podcast and the path I’ve taken is one primarily of accountability while I explore applying them myself. I’m also experimenting with different things to see whether they work or not.
I’ve been recording those with a sense of honesty – the stuff that works and the stuff that doesn’t work. I’ve captured what I’ve learned and where I failed to do things properly as well as when I’ve let myself down.
I think I’ve been pretty honest about that.
And so as I reflected on the previous 52 episodes, the journey’s been a very interesting one. Here are my favourite highlights.
I started by looking at procrastination – I was not doing my receipts for my business. Back then I spent a whole week of episodes dealing with that. Now having solved problem, it’s a breeze and it’s almost like the problem didn’t exist because of what I learned from that.
I’ve also started time tracking and I continue to do so even now seven weeks later. It has been a revelation certainly in the early days and I’ve seen a gradual increase in the amount of productive time I’m applying to tasks moving my business forward versus routine admin tasks.
I can track that and it’s been really interesting to see where I spend my time and especially comparing that with what my aspirations are.
I also revisited SCRUM and have been using that to build a seminar program for the autumn. The SCRUM approach has been revolutionary for me because the progress I’m making. I can also see how that can be applied to making teams even more effective.
I then hit a wall with a lack of discipline where things weren’t going quite right. I used a current reality tree to analyse what was going on and I worked out I didn’t have clarity on my goals.
I fixed that problem, got very clear and now I know exactly what I’m working towards.
A week or so later, I saw I was still not pushing the boundaries back as far as I could be and realised I wasn’t journaling to the same effect I had been at the start of my journey. So I used IF-THEN planning to get back with that.
So those are just some of the highlights of those seven weeks. I have moved forward in terms of my own amount of productive time. I’ve become much more aware of the challenges I’m dealing with and one by one I’m finding more effective ways of addressing them.
So overall I’m pleased.
I now have a deeper understanding of the practicalities of some of these techniques. I also have done more research behind why they work. I’ve also got some real world experiences of applying these.
This has really worked out well for me and I’m hoping in the journey I’m taking you’re able to take at least something from it to apply in your own life as well.
From here on it’s onward and upward.
I’ll continue doing what I’m doing. I will continue pushing back the boundaries. I will continue identifying where I’ve got problems and do something about them.
I will continue sharing those results with you and hopefully give you some ideas that can help you be even more productive.
Until tomorrow.
