Productivity

The Beauty of Minimalistic Productivity

One of the things I have become aware of lately is a tendency to complicate things. I know this is human nature, but for some reason I expect that my awareness and conscious move to simplify my life should make me immune. Sadly, I am not.

I’ve become aware of several areas that I hadn’t considered before: my online presence, particularly with regard to social media, which I’ve talked about in an article on the blog; my growing collection of Kindle books (out of sight, out of mind); and my productivity system.

I went digital in an effort to simplify my daily and weekly planning. Gone were the need for complicated templates and printing out scads of paper that really never got used. Even after I switched to digital, I got bit by the Pinterest-envy bug – you know the one where you see something on Pinterest and you just have to do it. I tried to do fancy graphics and cute layouts and special bars to help me plan my day. But I am not a fancy graphic/cute layout/special planning bar type of person. I thrive on simplicity.

Miminalistic productivity means that even though I have switched to digital, my planning can be done with a stylus. No drawing bookshelves. No fancy flags or borders or circular calendars. Just a list of what I need to do, along with a simple grid to help me map out my time.

The beauty comes in to having those simple lists that are eminently readable. Not having to fuss, but to spend the time getting things done.

So even though there isn’t much to take action on in this post, I want to pose the following questions to you with the end goal of prodding you to think about how you could fuss less with the tools and get more done.

  • How many apps and software packages do you use for calendar, task and notes?
  • How quickly can you enter an appointment or check for free time?
  • How quickly can you enter a task?
  • How much time does it take to plan your day? Your week?
  • Are there parts to your routines that you have done for years, but may deserve a second look?
  • What is essential? What is frosting on top?
  • Do you feel you have to look for other tools because you hope they will help you get things done?
  • How much time did you spend today working the system instead of the tasks?

These are some questions worth thinking about. I no longer cover simplifying productivity directly (see SimpleProductivityBlog.com), but I am beginning to see that it still has value in my day-to-day.

Image by suvodeb. Licensed under Creative Commons. Text added.