I recently read a book on improving one's productivity called "Work Simply" by Carson Tate. I thought the most unique part of her book was that she believes that individuals will be more productive if they use work planning methods that are aligned to what she calls their "Personal Productivity Style". In her past research, she developed a very short assessment tool for identifying your "Personal Productivity Style". Everyone in my family took the test and the results matched how we perceived ourselves and perceived each other. She writes that you can find the tool on her website, carsontate.com, but I haven't been able to find it there yet.
In different chapters of "Work Simply", Carson describes what works best for "Prioritizers", "Planners", "Arrangers", and "Visualizers" in different areas: managing emails, making To Do lists, managing their calendars, setting up their workspaces, running meetings, and working with teams. One common theme seems to be how finely people with these different productivity styles will carve up time or projects. On one end of the spectrum, "Prioritizers" book their calendars in detail, with 20 minutes of answering emails followed by 15 minutes up making phone calls followed by 30 minutes each on 4 projects. They also quickly divide projects into small tasks, set priorities, and plunge through from one to the next without hesitation. On other end of the spectrum, "Visualizers" have "theme days": Mondays are for Marketing, Tuesdays are for networking, Wednesdays for strategizing, and so on. Of course they will be flexible enough to react to urgent needs, but they feel best when the whole day has a unifying theme and priority. And, when it comes to projects, they spend more time with the big picture and dread working the details.
I like Carson's attitude that no one set of planning tools will work for everyone. She does recognize that there are some things that will help anyone be productive such as a calendar and a task list. But she encourages people identify their own productivity style by using her assessment tool and then to ask themselves whether they'd be happier and more productive if they took their personal productivity style into account and rearrange their desks, block out their calendars differently, and or change the time horizon and detail in their To-Do Lists. A little experimenting doesn't hurt either. Based on the Assessment Tool, I'm a Planner first and Prioritizer second but sometimes I find that the occasional "Theme Day" gives me a break from overwhelming detail.
