Education & Work How do you plan your workday?

I'm curious how members on here who work full time organise their days and tasks. Personally, after working as a cubicle dweller for almost a decade I feel like I have a decent system but there are times when I'm questioning whether I'm overcomplicating it, and feel I can be getting more done each day.

It's worth noting that I rely heavily on Trello - an online project management tool that I use as my personal to do list.I've attached a mockup of how this looks - shows various columns for things I need to do, what tasks are with other people and other future reminders.

Open to everyone's input and advice- looking for inspiration and different perspectives. Doesn't have to be fellow office workers. Completely different environments come with their own suitable ways of working that could be inspirational and lead to some tweaks to be more efficient.

Prior to getting to the office
Reading the news, mobile games. Nothing work related. Its a long commute.

At the office
Note new emails and meeting requests - anything that needs my input is logged as a
Review to do list and picking out specifically:
a) The top three things that need to be started or completed that day (some tasks can stretch several days or weeks).
b) Following up on certain peopla and reminders that can be done pretty quickly (quick email or call).
I have a small vertical column on my paper notebook to show my available hours from 9am-6pm. I mark the tasks I plan to do against the time I plan to do them, so I don't end up trying to cram 20 hours of work into an 8 hr workday.

Get working...

New requests are noted but unless it takes <2min to handle (like answering a question) or is urgent, I don't add it to my day.

End of day (4:45 ish)
Note down what's been done and update my records in Trello. Oddly only about 30% of the tasks I plan to do get done.. likely from being overly optimistic about how long things take and not factoring in mental breaks, interruptions etc.

End of work week (Fridays)
Reflect on what's been completed, what hasn't been (and why). Loosely plan the tasks needed the next week.

 

I find email the biggest inhibitor to my productivity at work. A few things that I focus on to try and manage this:

- Turn off all popups/notifications/office communicator
- Batch process emails. Only download my emails at most 2-3 times a day.
- Decide what to do with emails, in order of preference: Delete - Delegate - Diminish - Do - Defer.
- if it can't be done in 5 mins (defer) schedule a future time for it.
-move all emails out inbox when done and only handle them once. (Regularly hit the elusive "inbox zero"!)
-no complicated filing system for emails, just a short term folder (delete after 6 months) and a long term folder (indefinite). If I need to refer to an old email a keyword search using control + f usually does the trick.
-Don't feel obliged to action all emails. Deleting is just fine. A lot of the time it is someone else trying to put something they need on your to do list. Amazing how often they find another way if you leave them to it!

 

Thanks @Blueskies . I agree email popups, especially paired with colleagues who come over and go "got my email?" are major disruptions to being able to focus.

 

Tried trello, ended up going back to outlook and sticky note.
I book anything important in advance in the calendar so I don't forget (and people don't book me to meetings), and create sticky note checklist placed on the monitor. Keeping it simple or I'll ended up spending time managing a task management tool instead of work. Any smaller task doesn't move out of my inbox until it's responded to or done so I tend to do them (hate messy inbox)

 

I block out pretty much my entire calendar, and leave 15-30 min gaps at random throughout the week. It stops the invitations to the pointless meetings, and my boss never checks my calendar anyway, I'm available anytime for boss-man.