This is my workflow
Everybody has one. If you’re actively doing something — whether sorting through emails at work or cooking at home — you have your way of getting things done. The way you take a “thing”, decide if you should do it, and then subsequently do it is your workflow.
Workflows are ubiquitous. You’ll have different ones for different parts of your life (my personal email inbox looks very different than my professional one), but no matter what or where it is, there is workflow.
Where most people differ is in how much attention they give their processes. Some never consciously think about it and organically home-brew a system for tracking work. Others obsess over minute details in optimising their click-count. It’s a spectrum, of course, and while I wouldn’t place myself too far in productivity-mania-land, I do get excited at the mention of terms like “zero inbox”, “flow” and “third-party integration”.
Below I outline my workflow in my professional life. Why? Well, why not? I’m new to writing; might as well start with something that I, and only I, know really well. My workflow’s influences are friends, colleagues, LinkedIn Learning, YouTube, and whatever else my brain has picked up from the internet. It is made up of recurring tasks, gathering places, a task manager, and habits to keep my productivity as high as I can.
It’s far from perfect or finished. I make changes and experiments all the time, but my aim is to at least capture the elements that work well for me in this article—and who knows, maybe I’ll teach you something new.
A workflow is a just set of rules for processing tasks
It can exist anywhere
A workflow is a set of rules that guide a person in how they complete work. In theory, a workflow can be recreated in any set of tools. The caveat is just that some tools will automate large parts of it, and in others, everything is done manually.
Tasks are the unit of work on which this collection of rules operate. Tasks say “do this”, “read that”, “call your mother”. Anything I am doing is either the task itself, part of my workflow that processes tasks or a break from the other two. Even meetings, impromptu calls and events count as tasks in my book. From the perspective of the workflow, they are one and the same.
Every task has a lifecycle. It is born. It lives. It gets put to the side for a few weeks. It lives again. It gets blocked. It lives again, again. And then finally, after all that, it dies.
Tasks can come from anywhere
In my job, tasks pop up everywhere. I can get a message from my boss asking me to do something. My colleague can mention a new technology I want to know more about. The Product team can assign me a bug to fix.
Some tasks show up on a schedule. I have a daily task to work through my email and yesterday’s notes. I have a weekly task to review my backlog and a monthly task to check my progress towards business objectives.
Tasks even surprise me over the weekend if I randomly think of someone I should ask for help or if I have a new idea about how to approach a problem.
Gathering places funnel tasks into one place
While tasks can show up anywhere, gathering places are simply where you collect them before deciding what you do with them. Defining one’s gathering places and limiting oneself to as few as possible is one of the best productivity rules I have yet to hear. They are what tame that wild growth into a manageable fruit garden.
At work, email is one of my two gathering places. It receives company-wide emails that need reading. It gets notifications from my our software build platform. It is forwarded comments and change-updates from the engineering team’s work management software. If I think of something outside of working hours, I just send a quick email to my work account.
My second gathering place is my notebook. I use a ring-bound, lined, A4 notebook, where I make notes over the course of the day: usually in meetings or if I am thinking through another piece of work. As a new task comes to mind, I jot it down in the notebook with a big ol’ tickbox right next to it. I can later fill that box with a satisfying X. Alternatively for larger and less urgent tasks, I’ll draw in an arrow signalling to my future self that I have moved this task into my task manager.
Every morning, I complete my “process inbox” and “process notebook” daily recurring tasks by working through each email and tickbox, respectively. When I process a gathering place, I don’t necessarily complete each item right then. I will if it’s a quick 5 minute one, but often I just copy it into my task manager and set a date to work on it.
These daily tasks to process other tasks are what help me stay on top of what my employer and colleagues expect from me. They also help me achieve a “zero inbox”, which is a fundamental requirement for if you ever want to gain any credibility with other productivity geeks.
Tasks live and die in the task manager
One way or another, all my tasks appear in my task manager. I categorise them by domain (Engineering, Admin, Learning) and importance (ranked 1 through 4, most to least). If there is a time element to the task, I’ll set a date to look at it again.
Once they are catalogued, I can easily browse what has effectively become a very long to-do backlog. There are all sorts of things in here. Some tasks are super urgent, others small improvements to the company’s software platform, and a few reminders to think about grand ideas that might not ever materialise. There are also my set of daily tasks that remind me to stay on top of email and my notes.
Inevitably, this list grows faster than I can actually work through it, especially when a large chunk of it is would-be-nices. That makes a weekly cull an equally important part of my routine: its where I remove tasks that have become irrelevant or in which I’ve lost interest. It is an opportunity to delete ones that no longer make sense or pick others to prioritise for that week. Some of these tasks are a bit grandiose and not worth the immediate effort, but it is good to keep them fresh in mind by reviewing them regularly.
(I’ve tried to be as agnostic as possible about what actual product to use, but you’ve twisted my hand. I like Todoist. Particularly because it has a good set of integrations to the other other services my team and I use.)
I make myself an efficient task processor by managing my mental and physical energy
Tasks are how I make sense of work items, but in addition to that, I also make a conscious effort in how I work through them by managing my energy — a term I mainly use as an analogy my productivity. It’s how long I can stay focused and work through my task items. I focus on energy here instead of the usual concept of “managing time” because I find it easier to conceptualise what is good for me and will maintain my productivity. There is a great article on Harvard Business Review that explores this idea fully: “Manage Your Energy, Not Your Time”, Harvard Business Review.
Regular breaks regulate my mental energy
The aim is to maximise my total output over the course of the day. Instead of one big push followed by a exhausted crash, I operate on the hypothesis that a medium yet consistent effort over the course of the day interspersed with short breaks will lead to a higher net output.
I have a couple of methods to keep my energy up over the 8-ish working hours. The foundational one is a variation on the pomodoro technique. This strategy has you set a 25-minute timer, work until it goes off, take a 5-minute break (stand up, do something completely different), and repeat. I find it works very well if I’m not particularly interested in what I’m doing or I’m tired.
On the other hand, its is not particularly conducive to supporting long bouts of concentration (i.e. flow state). I don’t want to interrupt myself if I’m “in the zone” and on the cusp of solving a challenging problem. My variation on the pomodoro technique is simply to delay my 5 minutes break until I find myself loosing focus, at which point I take the break and start the cycle again. The risk with this is that occasionally I become a bit too absorbed in a task and don’ think about taking stepping away even when it would likely be beneficial.
In these sessions, I also find that listening to loud music helps me focus better. Especially when I’m feeling restless, loud, blaring music (particularly my “Fuming” playlist) helps quiet that antsy part of my brain.
Uncomfortable naps reset my brain
On occasion, especially if I’m working on something not particularly thrilling and I’ve managed to give myself a sugar crash, I get really sleepy and start dozing off. Sometimes I can pre-empt it with a 10 minutes snooze after lunch. Or if I didn’t get a chance to do that, I simply accept that I’m not going to accomplish anything by fighting off the yawns, and I’ll face the sleepiness head on with an impromptu nap. To avoid drifting off for too long, I’ll set a 10-minute timer on my phone and usually just lean back in my chair. The point is to not let myself be too comfortable because if I go into too deep of a sleep, I will find it difficult to wake up again. I just want to let my brain take a quick break and reset.
A stable blood sugar level keeps me consistent
In that vein, a key part of staying consistently productive throughout the day is to set your body up for it with a balanced diet. The key is to avoid sugar on its own and prioritise high-protein foods or more typical carbohydrates. Otherwise, you’ll end up crashing and feel awful. I personally like some buttered toast or some wholegrain cereal with a hard boiled egg.
Staying active prevents me from feeling gross
Finally, staying active is the last key part. When I can, I find myself in a much better mood if I start the day with a little beginner-friendly yoga (10 to 30 minutes depending how much I sleep in). If you’re looking for a recommendation, the Yoga with Adrian YouTube channel is a great.
After lunch I’ll take a 20 minute walk. I find that is just long enough for my brain to refresh itself and come in with a new perspective for the afternoon.
What do you think?
And there we go! I’m still tweaking the above processes regularly and adding in random elements to see if they help. There are some areas I could be a lot more strict with myself, but I think it’s important to remember that a workflow is something that needs upkeep and maintenance to stay appropriate as your habits and work style evolve. Some gentle, consistent pressure to keep improving will go a lot further than abrupt changes in direction.
I put a lot of thought into my workflow, and I’m proud of it (whether or not that’s cool or lame is up to you). As I’m relatively at the beginning of my career, it’s one of the few things that I have expertise in so far! That said, I very much doubt it will be as useful to anyone else, but maybe there will be some elements you find insightful. I’m always curious to hear about other methods, so please do share!
