Different people are different. We all know this. I have read and consumed a great deal of content on productivity over the past 10 years. One thing I haven’t seen a lot of is acknowledgement of this simple truth. Your character impacts your productivity. The closest you get is Tiago Forte’s consideration that different people will tend towards one of four archetypes of notetaker. You also get that weird stuff about Wolves and Bears and other such animals. Not a lot. This a truth that no-one talks about. Your character and temperament have a huge impact on your productivity.
Different people are different. We think differently and plan differently. All of us organise differently. We even execute differently. This is going to have a profound impact on what you need to do and on what system you need to employ in order to be at your most effective in work and life.
COPE = Collect. Organise. Plan. Execute.
There are a lot of different ways to approach this. I will look at each of the different elements of a good productivity system, in turn, and suggest ways that your character and temperament might have an impact on this.
Collect
Any good productivity system starts here. We need to capture our ideas and collect them. As those loveable guys at Twos would say – Write things down!
Some of us will naturally do this. We make notes of anything and everything. Others of us, tend to not do this so much. We believe that if something is important, it will come up again and we can deal with it then. Some of us, will write things down on whatever scrap of paper is to hand and hope that when the time comes, we will find it again. Others will want a designated place that everything goes.
I could say a lot about each of the types of people mentioned above. But, here is where the significant difference comes in. Some people are content that they know the important things that need their attention. They are better off not worrying about all of the rest. Others of us, feel a compulsion to have a comprehensive inventory of everything that might possibly need our action or input.
This difference in our characters, will have an impact on how productive we are. Some of us will miss more things that we need to do, but will have greater focus on significant matters. Others will get a lot more done and miss a lot less but they might achieve this at the expense of time spent on the important things.
Organise
Are you a habitual and compulsive organiser? Do you have folders and sub-folders? Did you develop an intricate tagging system? Maybe you throw everything into one place and trust that anything you need will be accessible via the search bar?
Your character will impact not just how you go about organising your stuff, but more importantly how you like to see things when they are fully organised. Your character impacts your productivity. You might think more in categories and areas and so prefer to organise everything accordingly. You might like to keep a hard edge between your notes and your tasks and your events. Maybe you prefer to keep work and personal stuff totally distinct.
Perhaps you are a visual person and so the networked ‘map’ of all of your notes and how they link is genius in your sight. But, equally likely, this kind of a view is totally nonsensical to you.
There are people in this world who can think of nothing better than spending day after day devising and developing a system for organising everything and then making sure everything is in its proper place. At the other extreme are people who get bored of organising after 5 minutes and then give up.
The point here is clear I hope. Whoever you are, trying to force yourself to use an organisation system and process that is totally at odds with who you are, how you think and how you want to see things is just going to cause distress and ultimately be futile. Don’t do it.
So, think about this. Consider it well before you jump on the latest system.
Plan
The obvious example for this one is the practice known as Time Block Planning. You give every minute of your day a job. Many swear by this method as the only way of planning your time that is actually effective. Personally, I find this approach incredibly stressful and difficult to live with.
The purpose of planning is, in my view, threefold:
- To be intentional on using your time for key things and ensuring that a number of factors (e.g. energy & other time commitments) are considered.
- To help maintain focus and momentum through the day
- To reduce the stress, anxiety and fatigue that comes from not knowing and therefore needing to continually decide what you are going to do.
With this in mind, a planning system only needs to be as thorough as what will achieve those aims for you.
If you cannot be intentional or focussed and will feel stressed unless every minute of your day is planned out – by all means time block plan. But equally, if that system would lead you to be stressed and unfocussed as a result, then don’t. You might prefer to do nothing more than highlight a few key objectives for each day and then leave the rest to your instincts and intuition.
Your character and your temperament will be the most important factors in understanding what kind of planning system is going to work for you. If you try to implement a system that is at odds with these, it could very well have a massive negative impact on your productivity.
Execute
What I want to say here is linked to planning in part you could argue. Here, I bring in the classic questions. When are you are your best? When are you at your worst? How much of an impact on your work does being hungry or tired have on you? Can you recover quickly from an intensive or difficult meeting or phone call? How easily do you get distracted? Where do you do your best work or what environment suits different types of work best for you?
The answers to all of these questions, and many others like them, are all subjective. But, they have a potentially huge impact on your ability to execute your plans and do your work.
Check out my posts on how our environment impacts our productivity below for more about these kinds of things:
- Work Environment Matters | Focus One — WHY does it matter?
- Work Environment Matters | Focus Two — Your Work Station
- Work Environment Matters | Focus Three — Environment & Distraction
- Work Environment Matters | Focus Four — When you can’t control it
But there is more to consider as well. The average amount of time a human being can focus for is about 2 hours (if memory serves). After this, our cognitive ability dips if we don’t take a mental break from the thing we are focussing on. Therefore, the quality of our work will take a dive. But that is just the average. And, the actual figure for you personally will fluctuate all the time. Please, I beg of you, consider this as you go about your work. There is little point in scheduling a 4 hour writing session with no break if you can only focus on it properly for 90 minutes. This is why I believe that taking breaks is so important for getting things done. – Take a break — or How Tea Breaks made Britain Great — E|F Shorts
Your character and temperament will greatly impact the way in which it will work for you to execute your plans and do your work.
The impact on Systems
Even from what I have already said, the impact on your systems is fairly obvious. This is because our character and our temperament can have such a big impact on the way in which organise ourselves and our work, the way in which we plan things and the way in which we do our work. Therefore, the systems that will actually work for us will be impacted by our character and our temperament.
Have you seen that video? It is of an adult watching a video about how to do one of those ‘which hole does the shape go in’ puzzles. Whichever shape is selected (be it square, cylinder, triangle or semi-circle) they all go in the square hole to the visible distress of the watcher. Often, productivity systems are presented as being like that square hole. No matter who you are, what you are like or what your work and struggles with work are, this is the system that will solve it. It is just not true!
The impact on Tools
Perhaps even more so will be the impact on our tools. I could (and probably will) write a whole post on this! For now, I will give you two classic examples. Evernote and Mem are two very different note taking apps. One favours a hierarchical organisation structure, the other is based around networked thinking. Evernote will make sense to some and feel like its from the stone age to others. How we think and organise things is impacted by our character and temperament. This in turn has a huge impact on the type of notes app that will work for us.
The other example is task management. Specifically, the amount of information you need to see about a task. Depending on how we work and how our minds work, more information about a task can be incredibly helpful. What project or area does it relate to? How much time or energy is required? How big of an impact will it have? etc etc. For others, none of that matters. We just need to know when to do it.
Your character impacts your productivity
For now, I do not intend to expand at length on what you should do if your character is like X or Y. For now, my only conclusion is this. Different people are different. We think differently. Take a different approach to planning. Organising ourselves and work means something different to each of us. We even execute differently. This is going to have a profound impact on what you need to do. This will dictate what system you need to employ in order to be at your most effective in work and life. It even affects the tools that you will get on with. Your character impacts your productivity.
So -consider the impact of character and temperament on productivity. This should no longer be a truth no-one talks about. If a tool isn’t working for you, that’s fine. When a system doesn’t work for you, that’s fine. What if your favourite guru tells you that to be productive you MUST do this and that just doesn’t work for you. Consider your character and temperament. Consider if the issue is just one of being a good fit. Don’t therefore right yourself off completely. Instead, search for another system, idea or tool that is going to fit better with who you are. After all – You are the Key to your System
