For decades, remote work has been a concept reserved for freelancers, creatives, and tech professionals. Although companies allowing home offices for their employees was not a novel phenomenon, it wasn’t mainstream. A paradigm shift came with the pandemic, making working from home a necessity rather than just a benefit of the workplace. 

This rapid shift showed the benefits and challenges of remote working, affecting team communication and project collaboration. Nevertheless, it is safe to say that the home office is here to stay and many companies are adopting hybrid models. Upwork predicts that 73% of teams will have remote workers by 2028.

Digital collaboration tools (like the Zenkit Suite!) that promise better teamwork despite the distance compete for the limelight. With much software to choose from, it’s important for teams and companies to adopt tools that will complement team productivity, supporting their workflow within these new standard work models.

What’s the deal with New Work & Industry 4.0?

We live in the age of New Work and Industry 4.0. New Work defines today’s working society in the global and digital age. The integration of intelligent technologies under the term Industry 4.0 promotes a whole new concept of productivity and efficient systems. But what does all this have to do with remote work?

Well, depending on how you look at it, a little or a lot. The publication of the New York Times bestseller “The 4-Hour Workweek” by Tim Ferriss is a good place to start making the connection. By demonstrating in his book how individuals can be just as productive in less time through process optimization, a stark contrast was created to the entrenched norm of the 40-hour workweek, initially created for production lines.

The appeal of flexible work hours and the nomadic freedom to prioritize work-life balance has only grown. Remote work and home office are the results of technological development enabling and demonstrating that work can be executed successfully without co-location. Flexjobs estimates that 4.7 million people were already working remotely before the Covid-19 pandemic. 

Collaboration tools support this type of lifestyle, where professionals work outside of a traditional office environment, yet going fully digital isn’t as simple as it seems. Besides the fact that having a stable internet connection is an imperative requirement, remote work complicates the integration of corporate culture, as well as team communication, and engagement within tasks and projects.

Whether working in an office or remotely, the art of effective team management and the importance of good workplace communication are key elements and indicators for successful team collaboration. 

Types of work models

With an increasing number of modern variations of working models, we’ve described a few of the most common types:

1. 40-Hour-Workweek, or, the classic 9-to-5

Initially instigated in the 19th century, from workers protesting against gruelling long hours and requesting a reduction, the 40-hour-workweek was created to regulate the working hours of the working class. Ford Motor Company advanced the idea in 1914, which led to increased productivity in the production line. Many companies soon followed suit and the popularized phrase of “8 hours for work, 8 hours for rest, and 8 hours for what we will” was born.  

Today, most companies and organizations run on the 40-hour-workweek. Albeit, more out of tradition and habit rather than a deliberate decision based on employee productivity. With this knowledge and recent technological developments, individuals and organizations are reexamining the classic 9-to-5 working model. 

2. Hybrid Model, where Home Office is part of the deal

Hybrid models are usually known to be the best of both worlds. Organizations that have adopted hybrid working models allow employees the freedom to work remote or from home, and at times even to manage flexible working hours. This working model has become more popular in recent years as company infrastructure has developed. Owl Labs estimate that 52% of global employees work remotely once a week, and 68% do so at least once per month. Though hybrid models seem to be the answer for the future of work, only a selected range of job sectors can take advantage of these benefits, particularly due to job requirements and tasks.

3. Remote Work, work without co-location

Working with a view of the Swiss Alps in February, at a seaside hotel in Los Angeles in July, and from a coffee shop in downtown Sydney in October, is a dream come true for some. As much as this idealized version of remote work appeals to many, this type of work model is not exempt from challenges, particularly for the self-employed.

Working remotely gives employees the freedom to answer emails and write up project proposals from any given location, yet being able to support this lifestyle can often be quite challenging when working as a freelancer rather than being directly employed by a private company. Creative freelancers often work on a project-basis, which means that their professional and financial security is deadline-reliant. 

Employees working for fully-remote companies like Zapier and Buffer however, receive the benefits of working remotely while being fully integrated in a company. Although working with peace of mind of receiving monthly paychecks, working for fully-remote companies include challenges too. 

That being said, there’s always a list of advantages and disadvantages. What’s important is finding a style and process that fits and suits your needs best. 

4. 4-Day-Workweek, popular work-life-balance model

In short, the 4-day-workweek model is about reducing working hours from a standard 40 hours to just 32 hours for the same pay and benefits. This work model, adopted by various companies worldwide, focuses on achieving the same output as a 40h week, but in a shorter amount of time. Proven by employees and employers to be successful in optimizing use of time in correlation to productivity, the 4-day-workweek offers flexibility and enables individuals to concentrate on what’s important in their lives.

5. Coworking Spaces, the office alternative for professionals

Considering the progression of work models, there’s a good chance that there’s at least one coworking space in every major city. As hubs of productivity, community, and technology, coworking spaces offer an out-of-home office atmosphere and networking opportunities with others who work in a multitude of industries. 

Fun fact: The first official coworking space appeared in 2005 in San Francisco, USA.

6. Work & Travel, the best of both worlds

Desk jobs aren’t your thing and travelling the world has always been but a mere daydream for you? The work and travel model operates on short-term contract work often based on seasonal work such as during harvest time. Adventurers who enjoy taking each day at a time move location to where the work is. In this case, location is the objective and the type of work is the dynamic subjective.

7. Workation, let’s combine work and leisure

The terms ‘workation’ and ‘bleisure’ gained significant traction as a new market trend in light of the pandemic. A concept for travelling workers or working travellers, where work and vacation were combined in a single location. According to Dr Hayley Stainton, “A workation can be defined as a holiday, during which a substantial amount of time is dedicated to work.”

In Japan, the model was originally a way to realize a variety of work styles and promote creativity and networking opportunities in locations outside of the home and office. Today, various travel and tourism organizations offer workation packages for individuals as well as families. 

Currently, travel restrictions and guidelines are subject to constant change. This in-depth guide on how to practice responsible tourism during COVID-19, prepares any traveller for the journey, whether for travelling to holiday destinations or for business trips.

How have things changed?

Before the pandemic, the office was where millions of us spent about a third of our time. With the range of working models already being implemented by organizations worldwide, why would the pandemic be considered a compelling driver to advance the standardization of home office or remote work? 

Simply put, the conditions of Covid-19 affirmed the urgency of digital transformation in business, and brought an unprecedented shift, designating hybrid working conditions a necessity rather than a benefit. 

The mentality of remote working previously highlighted the benefits for individual employees. Today, home office and remote work is considered an asset for individuals as well as an advantage for company productivity and collaboration. 

From one day to the next, the world was required to adjust. Arguably, the potential of remote work has been realized. At the same time, the challenges and conditions in terms of the privilege interlaced with the arrangement were revealed.

Benefits and challenges at a glance 

+ Remote work is reshaping a future new world of work, popularizing modern working habits while disproving old ideas that working from home leads to low productivity with limited opportunity for collaboration. 

+ The office-to-home transition caused a breakdown of emotional and professional barriers, allowing colleagues and clients a more intimate view into each others’ personal lives.

+ Importance of soft skills have increased as working remotely solicits more intentional interpersonal interactions.

– The potential for remote work is determined by tasks and activities, not occupations. 

– Working from home draws a fine line in an individual’s work-life balance. A heightened level of responsibility and trust is required from managers and employees.

– Affecting more than just personal factors, remote work affects engagement, performance management, means less office space, and more.

Benefits of remote working

Workplace values have been redefined: the future of work is remote. Instead of planning activities in life around working hours, remote working enables individuals to incorporate the necessities of their life and work. 

The popular concept of leading a work-life balance lifestyle advocates for similar objectives, but with different intentions. Work-life balance is a concept referring to the level of prioritization between personal and professional activities in an individual’s life. What many early adopters have come to realize is that the work-life balance lifestyle is a cycle rather than a destination or an achievement. 

1. Flexibility: Remote work grants individuals the opportunity to develop a work-life balance due to the flexibility offered through the working model. 

Remote working or working from home grants employees flexibility where it matters, whether that is picking up the children from school on time or allowing the laundry to dry in the sunlight rather than using the dryer. At best, working from home should reinforce an individual’s work-life balance. 

2. A Healthy Balance: Employees are able to manage their health, tasks, and responsibilities better. Eliminating the commute and rigid routines can alleviate stress to allow individuals to do deep work and grow their creativity. 

The flexible lifestyle isn’t the only thing proving beneficial to remote workers’ mental health and likelihood of company loyalty. Working from home simultaneously requires and fosters individual time and task management, and responsibility. 

Cutting travel time and other forms of mundanity from life, employees are able to focus on work. With less time spent commuting for example, employees are able to manage their health, tasks, and responsibilities better. As a result, a silent expectation for employees to rise to the occasion by living up to their potential is present. 

Despite the expectation, swapping out the busyness of crowded train stations for a 30-minute walk in the neighbourhood park with the dog can cause significant changes to an individual’s health. Now, instead of attending company-run in-person team-building activities, some companies set aside time in the week to encourage employees to engage in activities that inspire and empower them for work and life. 

3. Time Management: Remote work possibly requires more management, however simultaneously allows an increase in creative flow and productive output.

What remote work advocates promote, such as Laurel Farrer in her working remote article, is that “work is something you do, not somewhere you go… For knowledge workers whose roles rely on mobile tools, location should be a daily choice, not a lifestyle commitment.” With the right tools and circumstances, work doesn’t need to be chained to an office desk. 

Granted, working remotely makes employee and task supervision more complex. But with less time lost moving from one office room to another for meetings, and no more lines for afternoon coffee, more time can be invested in getting work done.

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4. Cost-saving (for businesses): Reducing the need for office space enables companies to invest in other things, preferably to the benefit of employees.

With fewer employees in the office, businesses need less office space, decreasing rent cost exponentially. Instead, companies can opt to invest in supplying employees with the necessary work equipment or offering other benefits as an alternative to the cost of the canteen upkeep.

Challenges of remote working

While eliminating location from the equation brings flexibility, certain concerns are also key variables when considering if and how to implement remote work at a company. Working remotely requires high self-management, time management, and team management. 

Engagement is usually what suffers first due to the distance. Managers and colleagues working from home can’t simply walk over to ask a question about the financial proposal or spend time catching up with their morning brew in the office kitchen on Mondays. Instead, an increase of chat notifications, forwarded emails and dedicated meetings to discuss workflow best describe the workday. 

1. Team Culture: The objective to encourage teamwork and cultivate a team and company spirit remains, although the method to achieve this may have changed.

Team meetings over Zoom or Skype are certainly different from those held in the office meeting room. When working with distributed teams, distance should merely be considered a factor rather than an obstacle for team integration. 

The method for scheduling and conducting meetings may have changed, but the objective to encourage teamwork and team spirit remains. Managers as well as coworkers require and should actively seek interpersonal relationships within the workplace. Just like work isn’t tied to a location, company culture isn’t contained in a building. Rather, corporate culture is cultivated by the individuals that make up the company.

The responsibility and journey for cultivating a strong and effective team and company culture is an individual process. That being said, there are ways and certain remote team management mistakes to avoid to make the process easier.

2. Management: Using productivity tools to manage and regulate team, task, and time management is the answer.

Every company uses software for everyday business operations. With oodles to choose from, it’s the team and company’s responsibility to evaluate which tools best support both internal and external business operations. Some companies use Suites, while others mix & match; some even create their own apps for internal processes.

Either way, when it comes down to the wire, productivity tools and team management software is a growing billion dollar business with a mixture of advantages and disadvantages. On the one hand, team management software can build stronger teams. At the same time, it’s vital to analyze whether a productivity tool is actually enabling team productivity or not at all.   

3. Party for the privileged? Remote work is only available for those working in sectors or jobs that are primarily made up of online tasks and activities.

Praised for all of the benefits, working remotely isn’t available as a viable option for everyone. Hospitals, supermarkets, hairdressers, and other services will necessarily continue to be in-person. Although technology has certainly enabled medical consultations and other services to be handled online, not everything can be solved digitally. Even with advancements in machine learning and robotics, it’s hard to envision massage parlours or operating rooms to switch to robot-only employees. 

Research into the future of remote work from McKinsey Global Institute indicates that the potential for work is determined by tasks and activities, not occupations. Professionals able to avail of remote work fall into categories of highly skilled, highly educated workers in various industries, occupations, and geographies. For those already working with digital and mobile tools, like those working in the IT, communications, and marketing sector, the option of home office is often already included in the contract.

Collaboration tools for the workplace: the tools that keep employees productive despite distance

One of the most impactful changes the pandemic brought was to the way humans work. Businesses switched to digital collaboration tools for team communication, project management, and more. The best collaboration tools facilitate effective teamwork for tasks and projects, primarily in a streamlined manner.

In this case, there is no ‘one software fits all’, since the tools companies require should strengthen and support individual business operations and the organizational structures.  A countless list of applications and their alternatives are available for any type of work and team size. We’ve listed a few categories essential for remote teams: 

Chat Apps

The most widely used mobile apps are chat apps, because communication is necessary to get any work done. Originally created to replace email conversations, enterprise chat apps are essential internal communication platforms for teams today. Every company uses enterprise messaging applications to facilitate and boost teamwork, communication, and collaboration. 

The most popular enterprise chat apps allow teams to not only communicate with one another but also on specific topics, projects, and tasks. Depending on the interface, chat apps for business include features allowing teams to create channels, categorize topics, use quick edits, manage tasks, share files, conduct export functions, and more.

Top 4 Chat Apps for Business:

1. 1. Zenchat
   2. Slack
   3. Chanty
   4. Yammer

Video Conferencing Tools

Remote teams don’t have the option of organizing a team meeting in the boardroom on a Wednesday morning. Instead, video conferencing tools are used for coaching sessions, the quarterly report, team-building activities like Friday mocktail hour, and the company Christmas party.

The pandemic certainly accelerated the future of video communication. Microsoft Teams received an increase of 55 million users within a 5-month period and the latest report of the conference call company, Zoom, shows an 88% year-over-year jump in revenue.  

But it’s not just the conferencing tool companies who have realized the advantages and profits video communication brings to teams. Switching to video conferencing tools allows individuals to participate in meetings from the convenience of their own home, supports the flexible schedules of working parents and ultimately influences company culture. Significant features of such tools include screen sharing, presentation mode, meeting annotation, and creating subgroups within a meeting.

Top 4 Video Conferencing Tools for Business:

1. 1. Zoom
   2. Skype
   3. Microsoft Teams
   4. GoTo Meeting 

Project Management Software

Managing projects is no simple job. Tracking deadlines, updating task iterations, and communicating the project status to stakeholders are tasks project managers need to handle on a daily basis. 

Project management software enables teams to manage individual tasks and resources within projects.  Built for agile teams, project management tools include features such as tracking project progress, task management, project view switching, and plenty of other collaboration features.      

Top 5 Project Management Tools for Business:

1. 1. Projects
   2. Asana
   3. Wrike
   4. Basecamp
   5. Zoho Projects

Knowledge Management Software

Knowledge management software are excellent tools for teams to manage everything from internal company processes such as onboarding information to managing a customer database. Primarily focused on the collection, storage, and organization of data and information, these tools help teams with all sorts of administrative tasks.

Top 4 Knowledge Management Tools for Business:

1. 1. Hypernotes
   2. Base
   3. Salesforce
   4. Pipedrive

Learn about the different types of knowledge management processes and find more alternatives in Knowledge Management Tools 2021.

Tools for Centralized Storage 

Shoot for the stars, but keep your files secure in the Cloud. Cloud file storage is a necessity for remote teams, permitting file access to team members, whether they live a 30-minute drive from the office or working remotely in another country. The best tools for centralized storage support all file types, sync across multiple devices, track document changes, and integrate well with other applications. 

Top 4 Business Tools for Centralized Storage:

1. 1. Microsoft Sharepoint
   2. Google Drive
   3. Dropbox
   4. Box

We’ve only listed a few tools useful for teams working remotely. Find more alternatives in 50 Must-Have Remote Working Tools And Apps.

Practical tips for a balanced home office routine

The right tools certainly help get the job done, but even with advanced tech running on artificial intelligence, humans still have to put in the work. These are our tips for a balanced home office routine: 

Get dressed

Overcoming the notion to stay in your pajamas all day is a good tangible step that helps you mentally prepare for the workday. Select a few outfits that are both presentable and comfortable, so you are prepared for the odd-chance when your boss unexpectedly calls for a meeting.

Establish boundaries

Distractions are bound to happen. To best navigate such situations, establish boundaries, whether that may be to set specific times to go on breaks, schedule packages to arrive only at certain times, or communicate your availability to your children and spouse. 

Tip: Turn off desktop notifications when doing deep work and set all applications settings on silent, especially when in meetings.

Stick to routines

The urgency of staying online and always being available increases when working from home. Just do as you would in the office: take time to get your coffee, spend a few minutes catching up with a colleague via chat, and respond to emails when you normally do. 

Home office allows more flexibility, however routines help in more than just sticking to a daily schedule. Some things to remember: Make sure to stick to your standard work hours, don’t skip the lunch break, and try not to work overtime.

Tip: Even with boundaries and routines, remember to stay flexible when things don’t go as planned. Humans aren’t robots and that’s a good thing. 

Get out and about (unless self-isolating)

Without the commute, we might spend most of our days enclosed in our houses. Make time for walks around the block, trips to nature parks, or even a quick drive to a local bakery for the morning coffee and breakfast fix. 

Additionally, fresh air and sunshine are great for both the mind and soul. Taking care of one’s health with enough physical activity and time for relaxation is perhaps even more necessary now when most of our daily interactions happen online.

Take regular breaks

Downtime is necessary for technology devices; the same goes for humans. Research states that brief diversions from a task can improve an individual’s ability to focus. When we take a short break from hours of deep work, we essentially reward our brain with a downtime. 

There are various techniques and systems on how to train yourself to focus. And though daily to-do lists are great, the essence of time blocking is to produce high-quality output within a specific amount of time. 

Check in with colleagues regularly

Because it’s not just always about work. Cultivating relationships help any employee to feel at ease and accepted within a company. Most of the time, we may not know what challenges our neighbor may be going through, even more so when we don’t work in back-to-back cubicles or a shared office space.

Even more reason to make it a habit to type your colleagues some greetings every now and then, or send them encouraging messages to make their day. That said, I hope you have a great day!

All remote work statistics are sourced from Review24’s Remote Work Statistics for 2021.

Image credits from Andrew Neel, Daria Shevtsova, Sarah Chai from Pexels;  AltumCode, Sigmund, and ThisisEngineering RAEng from Unsplash; and Giphy.

That’s a wrap! It’s exciting to see how much has changed in a short amount of time. What are your thoughts on the variety of modern working models? Our team has run on a hybrid model within the last year and have experienced the impact that digital collaboration tools have on team productivity and collaboration. We hope, as probably most other companies do too, to navigate back to more in-person meetings and workshops soon. How has your team navigated teamwork this past year? 

Cheers,

Jessica and the Zenkit Team

The post Home Office and Remote Work: How to Improve Team Collaboration appeared first on Zenkit.

Are there just too many tasks to do in a short amount of time? Don’t even know where to begin, how to organize it all, or what to prioritize first? Find yourself working at a clean desk, but with a cluttered mind? You’re definitely not alone. 

We live in an information overload society that is riddled with people, information, and tasks competing for our attention, making it extremely difficult to eliminate distractions and noise from our daily routine. 

Prioritization is the key. The answer to doing more better lies in how we design our time. 

Time management solutions are efficient tools to measure and foster productivity. And because we can’t make more time, we need to learn how to make better use of it. Instead of focusing on the number of tasks completed in a day, start prioritizing those that matter.

There are countless time and project management methods and techniques to boost your productivity and help you do your job more efficiently. A simple, yet powerful tool that does just that is the Eisenhower Matrix. The Eisenhower Matrix is an excellent task prioritization matrix for practising better time management. Even if you’ve never heard of the term, you have probably been using the method. 

It goes without saying that most successful people are adept time and project managers. As key skills in any industry, time and task management require focus, prioritization, and planning to increase productivity and achieve your goals. 

However, if we’re honest, staying organized and on top of deadlines isn’t always that simple. Keep reading to learn about how the Eisenhower Matrix can help you get things done…

What Is the Eisenhower Matrix?

The Eisenhower Matrix (also known as the Urgent-Important Matrix, Eisenhower Box, Eisenhower Method, and Time Management Matrix) is a decision-making method that helps you sort out tasks based on the criteria of urgency and importance. 

Although simple in its makeup, this prioritization matrix is powerful. Use it to eliminate the noise and time-wasting activities in your life, help you combat the “mere-urgency” effect (more on this later), and increase your mental legroom to make progress on your long-term goals.

This method is particularly useful for people who:

• Find themselves merely running around handling daily crises 
• Are busy but feel inefficient and ineffective
• Have long-term goals but no time or energy to make progress on them
• Have trouble delegating tasks or saying ‘no’

With oodles of time management strategies and tools to choose from, what makes the Eisenhower Matrix so noteworthy? It is remarkable because, despite its simplicity, it has outlived the trends (having often been repackaged and sold as new!) and continues to produce results.

Where Does the Term Come from? 

For those of us more familiar with US History, the name Eisenhower probably rings a bell. The term does indeed derive from the 34th president of the United States, Dwight D. Eisenhower. Having served as a five-star general in the United States Army, better known as the Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces during World War II, Eisenhower had to continuously make tough decisions due to the nature of his job and responsibilities. 

“I have two kinds of problems, the urgent and the important. The urgent are not important, and the important are never urgent.” – Dwight D. Eisenhower

Fun fact: the method first became popular through its appearance in the genre-defining self-help book Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. The author, Stephen Covey, repackaged Eisenhower’s decision-making principles into a template to prioritize tasks, now known as the Eisenhower Matrix. 

How Does It Work? The Eisenhower Matrix Explained

The Eisenhower Matrix is an extremely effective way to prioritize and manage both your time and your tasks. Arranged into four categories, the decision-making method is based on two simple criteria: urgency and importance. 

The matrix is systematized with four quadrants, structured according to urgency on the x-axis and by importance on the y-axis. According to priority and urgency levels, the user organizes their tasks and activities into the following categories:

• Quadrant 1: Do first – get it done now
• Quadrant 2: Decide when – make a schedule, set a deadline 
• Quadrant 3: Delegate to – divide the workload 
• Quadrant 4: Delete it – eliminate unnecessary elements 

Why Everything We Know About Productivity Is Wrong: How to Decipher the Urgent from the Important

Being able to categorize your daily and weekly tasks into these four quadrants is a challenge and arguably the fundamental and most complex skill for utilizing this prioritization matrix. 

According to the Pareto-Principle, 80% of the planned results can be achieved with 20% of the total effort. Problem: most people often invest more of their time in miscellaneous activities rather than focusing on tasks that will produce the best results with the least amount of effort.

This is a consequence of “present shock” – a condition in which we lose our sense of the long-term narrative and direction, because of living in a continuous, always-on, ‘now’ moment. Research shows that we live in a pattern, dubbed the “Mere-Urgency Effect”, where we tend to prioritize tasks with deadlines over tasks without one regardless of the impact they can make in the long run.

It is, therefore, pertinent to be able to distinguish the urgent tasks and activities from those that are important. Urgent tasks are things that require an immediate attentive response such as a tax deadline, health scare, or scheduled parent-teacher meeting. According to Brett McKay, founder and editor-in-chief of the Art of Manliness, “Important tasks are things that contribute to our long-term mission, values, and goals.” Deciding which tasks you should or should not do becomes much easier when you are certain about what is important to you.

Rory Vaden, author and Self-Discipline Strategist explains that most people are trading their to-do lists for emergencies. In Procrastinate on Purpose, he describes most successful people as “time multipliers” who begin their day by posing the question: “What are the most important things that I can do today that would free up more time tomorrow?”

So instead of continuing your tiresome and likely unhealthy cycle of decision-making, begin making truly smarter, more conscious choices today.  Stop hustling without purpose.

Popular Youtuber John Green comments on productivity: “I would argue life is not about becoming the most efficient, problem-solving, value-creation machine you can become. To me, productivity is mostly a matter of recognizing that time is what we have and that it is imperative to be a steward of our most precious resource: time.” 

Start Doing What Matters Using the Eisenhower Matrix

1. Do first – Get it done now: Tasks that are urgent and important

Quadrant 1 tasks are inevitable, and characterized as urgent and important; they require direct and immediate attention. These tasks have a tendency to be more tedious and challenging consequently requiring more time and attention to complete.

Tasks that land in the first quadrant are often the direct result of procrastination. They should, however, be tackled first and completed as soon as possible.

Use Mark Twain’s Eat the Frog principle to master possible task paralysis. The term ‘eat that frog’ refers to getting your worst task out of the way first. Eating the frog implies you finish a task you don’t want to do, but know you have to do. These tasks ultimately give you a strong feeling of accomplishment once completed.

For those of us who work best under pressure or with clear deadlines, you can use the Pomodoro technique to help you focus on the task.

Types of Quadrant 1 Tasks include:

• Review a document for your manager
• Finalize the employee payslips
• Pick up the dry cleaning on Friday afternoon for the weekend event

2. Decide when – Make a schedule, and set a deadline: Tasks that are important, but not urgent

Not every important task has to be finished in one day. Tasks that are important, but not urgent are generally long-term projects or assignments that require sufficient planning and a certain amount of time to be executed properly.

Termed the sweet spot of personal time management, the second quadrant is the spot focused on personal improvement in terms of opportunities and growth. Quadrant 2 is the perfect location to write down a list of your meaningful goals. Remember to set realistic deadlines even for tasks that aren’t urgent.

Types of Quadrant 2 Tasks:

• Set up a marketing budget for the following year
• A restart of your fitness regimen
• Update your will

3. Delegate to – Divide the workload: Tasks that are urgent, but not important

Quadrant 3 is where the mere-urgency effect affects lives. Even if you and I were the best multi-taskers and extremely efficient in our jobs, we have to face the fact that we aren’t Superman.

The common phrase, “teamwork makes the dream work” isn’t famous just because it is catchy, but because it is true.

Good leaders and managers know when to do a task themselves and when to delegate the work to someone else. Sometimes it’s best to delegate a task you could do yourself to a co-worker knowing they might be the better person to complete the job.

Types of Quadrant 3 Tasks:

• Schedule a job interview
• Go food shopping
• Book flights for vacation

4. Delete it – Eliminate unnecessary elements: Tasks that are neither urgent nor important

Quadrant 4 is the quadrant of excess and immediate gratification. Tasks that are neither urgent nor important are to be placed in the trash, out of sight and out of mind. Depending on the situation, such tasks could reappear on your to-do list in a week’s time but do not need to be done yet and may even be considered a waste of time.

Types of Quadrant 4 Tasks:

• Buy a new coffee machine
• Renew magazine subscription
• Sort through junk mail

Best Practice Tips for Using the Eisenhower Matrix

• Add a splash of colour! Colour-coding helps give an overview of the categories and quadrants at a glance.
• Do not mix business with leisure! Create separate lists for your professional and personal tasks. This makes it easier to stay organized because you aren’t having to decide between scheduling a doctor’s appointment and booking an important business trip.
• Make it visual! Not a fan of the square layout? Why not organize the matrix Kanban-style! There are plenty of great tools you can use to do this. Here’s a template for implementing the prioritization matrix in Zenkit:

• Put a label on it! Labels are great ways to stay organized. This technique works especially well for tasks or activities that might fall in more than one category for a period of time. Alternatively, you can organize your tasks into the four categories using labels in the Kanban layout.
• Be environmentally friendly! Save paper. Go online! There are many online task and time management tools available nowadays that can help you to track your progress, whether for personal or professional use as a team. (psst! Zenkit!)

Convinced That the Eisenhower Matrix Is for You? Here Are Some Things to Consider

Advantages of the time management matrix:

• It’s free! It’s easily one of, if not the cheapest technique to use. The Eisenhower Matrix is a free resource and you need no special software or tools to get started. 
• UX approved! The method requires no previous knowledge or experience to use either. Since there are no predefined rules telling you what is urgent and what is important, you are free to decide which tasks go into which quadrant according to your preference. So, what are you waiting for? Give the method a try. 
• Designed for decisions! You will become better at making split-second decisions naturally because the method makes you consider the importance of your tasks and reevaluate what is urgent and what isn’t. 
• Review it! Tracking and analyzing your progress and habits after using the matrix helps you practice self-analysis and teaches better self-awareness.

Disadvantages of the Eisenhower Matrix:

• You only have two choices. The matrix is systematized based on two criteria: urgency and importance. It doesn’t take external factors like resources, complexity, or level of effort into account. 
• Not so easy does it. Like all good things, using the matrix takes work. On a daily basis, it can be difficult and time-consuming to categorize your tasks. The matrix serves as an aid to help you start each day with an action plan. Make sure that organizing your tasks doesn’t become the focus.
• No flex room. The grid can easily become overwhelming and quickly generate task paralysis when too many tasks are present. Limiting the number of tasks in each quadrant will keep the chaos contained.

Key Takeaways on the Eisenhower Matrix, Time Management, and the Universe

Staying organized in this time-pressured world can prove challenging due to overlapping commitments and spontaneous ‘urgent’ meetings. A recurring false pretence of urgency can also cloud one’s understanding or definition of an ‘urgent matter’. 

A common cause of stress and job burnout is improper time management. Utilizing this method helps you learn key principles of planning, prioritizing, delegating, and scheduling. The Eisenhower Matrix is a simple aid to help you increase productivity and complete tasks that matter. 

This prioritization matrix may not work for all, but it’s a great starting point. You can use it as a stepping stone to finding a more personalized, better-suited technique. So, what are you waiting for? 

1. Set yourself up for success.
2. Stop hustling without purpose.
3. Switch to prioritizing long-term goals over shallow task wins.
4. Start working on what matters.

Final Thoughts

We know that habits don’t happen overnight. Just like in sports, practice makes perfect. Sometimes it takes a little (or a lot!) of experimenting to find what system works best for you and your team. But the reward for finding the system that fits you best, whether for personal or business use, is incomparable. I think it’s safe to say that it’s more effective to invest enough time for the important but not urgent things now, rather than waiting until the frog has doubled in size. What type of productivity tools and time-saving methods are you using? 

Cheers, 

Jessica and the Zenkit Team

Image Credits: Carl Heyerdahl via Unsplash, fotografierende via Pexels, JESHOOTS.com via Pexels

The post The Eisenhower Matrix: A Task Prioritization Method appeared first on Zenkit.

As you may have already heard, Wunderlist is due to shut down on the 6th of May, 2020.

What’s significant about this shutdown—compared to other app shutdowns—is that Wunderlist’s discontinuation isn’t because of a decline in sales or poor user count. It had 13 million users and more than 1 billion to-dos at the time of the acquisition.

The popular list and task management app was acquired by Microsoft in 2015 and while many were hoping that the tech giant would somehow incorporate Wunderlist into their Office repertoire, it seems that after years of a “will they? Won’t they” scenario, they’ve decided to shut it down.

I get it, if I were a tech heavyweight with lots of cash and wanted to eliminate the competition, I’d have done just the same. And if I were a startup who created a product so successful that someone was willing to give me literal millions for it, I’d also have done what the Wunderlist founders did. After all, for some, the point of creating a startup is to eventually have the product or service sold for squillions, is it not?

While the acquisition was a happy day for the Wunderlist team, it was a sad day for many to-do list enthusiasts, as those who were familiar with Microsoft’s habit of buying small successful products and then discontinuing them feared that Wunderlist would suffer the same fate. And they were right.

So, to honour one of the most successful apps to come out of Germany, let’s take a look at how it all began and how it came to be.

The History of Wunderlist

“We launched it and literally had overnight success with it,” said 6Wunderkinder CEO Christian Reber on Wunderlist’s initial release. “We grew faster than we ever dreamed of and from then on, it became a serious product.” (source: Tech.eu)

Wunderlist was created in 2011 by Berlin-based startup 6Wunderkinder, fronted by founder and CEO, Christian Reber. The idea for the task management app came from the desire to “reinvent project management”.

You see, Wunderlist wasn’t what the six “wonder kids” (rough translation of the company name) first sought to create. What they wanted to develop was an all-in-one productivity app which merged workplaces, notes, profiles, and other collaborative tools to help with efficient teamwork. That app was Wunderkit.

During Wunderkit’s development, Reber realized that it was going to be a while until a fully-fledged app would be available. So, in the meantime, they released Wunderlist, the to-do list part of the all-in-one app, to keep customers interested.

And interested they were. Wunderlist turned into an overnight success. It took the app only nine months and two days to reach one million users! (For comparison, that’s a faster initial growth rate than huge companies like Twitter and Foursquare.)

The success can be attributed to the app’s simplicity and cloud-based flexibility. It is essentially a to-do list app that allows you to keep a record of your tasks, but its cross-platform and sharing features make it an excellent tool for collaboration.

Once Wunderkit was released in 2012, the young startup found it difficult to balance the two products. Later that year, Reber made the difficult decision to cease the development of Wunderkit so they could focus solely on Wunderlist.

“We were lost in perpetual discussions about how features should work and what they should look like. Unfortunately, we were never fully satisfied with the result. That was when we understood we had to make a decision, it’s either the one or the other. Either we focus on Wunderkit or Wunderlist — both would be too much of a challenge. In the end, the decision was pretty obvious, but it was still hard to make.” – Christian Reber

The decision wasn’t made in vain, as Wunderlist went on to enjoy many accolades including App of the Year in 2013 for their Mac app and Google Play’s Best Apps of 2014. Then, in 2015, it was acquired by Microsoft for a rumoured $100 million to $200 million.

The Journey to Microsoft To Do

If you’re a Wunderlist user, you’d know that the journey to Microsoft To Do hasn’t exactly been smooth sailing. Microsoft planned to take the best features of Wunderlist and implement them into their very own list app called Microsoft To Do. But due to technical complications experienced during the transition, Wunderlist remained available online while Microsoft was getting itself together.

A lot of the issues were due to technical porting challenges. As Reber explained, “Wunderlist’s API runs on Amazon Web Services, and should then be ported to Azure. But that was extremely time-consuming, so everything had to be rewritten.”

There was a lot of uncertainty surrounding the future of Wunderlist. While it was known that Microsoft would eventually retire it, an official date or announcement hadn’t been made, and the bumpy transition into Microsoft To Do left users very disheartened. It even reached a point where Reber offered to buy the app back to keep it running.

Considering Microsoft’s reputation for buying successful apps and then discontinuing them, fans and commentators said that Reber should have foreseen the fate of Wunderlist once he accepted their offer.

Since the official Wunderlist shutdown date was announced in December, new users are unable to register for an account. Existing users, however, will be able to work on the web, desktop, and mobile platforms until the 6th of May, 2020. What access users have after then is still unclear, but the apps will no longer sync across platforms. This signals Microsoft’s seriousness in discontinuing the beloved task management app.

Wunderlist’s Impact

At the time of its launch, Wunderlist was a hit with many users. In comparison to what was on offer on the market, it had an intuitive interface and a collection of impressive features. The list-sharing feature, especially, was a favourite. It turned the app into more than just a to-do list, but a tool for collaboration. Since then, many apps have followed suit and the collaborative productivity software market is still on the rise.

The success of Wunderlist didn’t just affect the productivity software market, but it also placed Berlin on the map as a credible place for starting a successful international business. 6Wunderkinder was the first Berlin startup to raise funding from Sequoia in California. Now, if you go to Berlin, you’ll find that there’s no room to swing a cat without knocking over someone who works for a startup.

Final Thoughts

Wunderlist’s story is inspiring, especially for German startups trying to make their mark (hi ). Perhaps the best thing about it is that Reber and the wonder kids didn’t try to recreate the wheel, but instead, gave customers what they wanted. They took an everyday tool and made it better. And in thinking about what customers wanted, they took their dream of “reinventing project management” and turned it into a multi-million dollar product that will be missed by many.

Cheers,

Dinnie and the Zenkit team

The post What Happened to Wunderlist? appeared first on Zenkit.

Welcome to 2020!

Not only is it a new year, but it’s an entirely new decade. With new beginnings, there’s always a desire for a fresh start. That’s why New Year’s resolutions are so popular among the masses.

However, New Year’s resolutions are a fickle topic. While making them isn’t an issue, it’s the whole “sticking to them” part that gets a bit tricky. We’re only midway through January and it would come as no surprise if more than half of your resolutions have already become unstuck. If this is the case, don’t be disheartened as 80% of new year’s resolutions fail anyways.

While I understand that a new year seems like the ideal time to get yourself into gear, there’s always an added pressure that comes with New Year’s resolutions, which is probably why so many of them fail.

This article isn’t going to be about tips on how you can stick to your resolutions (we did that last year). It will merely serve as a reminder to not worry if you do belong to the 80%, because self-improvement and being more productive shouldn’t be exclusively reserved for the beginning of the year.

Instead, we hope that providing you with a list of tried-and-tested productivity methods will give you more value.

Productivity Methods for Any Time of the Year

1. Getting Things Done®

Getting Things Done®, or GTD® for short, is a popular time management technique created by David Allen. The framework focuses on organizing and tracking tasks by forcing you to add context and structure to them.

GTD® banks on a collection of lists that you use to organize anything and everything that comes to your mind. The idea is that you capture and process these things following a workflow of 5 steps:

1. Capture: write down the things that have your attention. You can use anything from a note-taking app, an actual notebook, or even your email inbox.
2. Clarify: process what it means – is it actionable, do you have to do something about it?
3. Organize: arrange where it belongs, whether it’s adding it to your calendar or filing it away.
4. Reflect: review your lists regularly and make changes to accommodate your current situation.
5. Engage: now’s the time to do. The last step simply encourages you to take action of the task.

So, whether you need to improve task management in your personal or professional life, GTD® is a method that can help get you on track.

Want to get started with GTD® in Zenkit? We’ve got you covered.

2. Eat That Frog

If procrastination is your undoing then perhaps metaphorically eating a frog can help you. Brian Tracy coined the term “eat that frog” in his book, Eat That Frog! 21 Great Ways to Stop Procrastinating and Get More Done in Less Time.

The term can be traced back to Mark Twain’s famous quote, “if it’s your job to eat a frog, it’s best to do it first thing in the morning. And if it’s your job to eat two frogs, it’s best to eat the biggest one first.”

The idea is to tackle your biggest task first, as anything else that comes afterwards won’t seem as bad. The feeling of accomplishment you’ll receive once you complete your “frog” will spur you on to tackle all the other tasks in your list.

3. Don’t Break the Chain!

‘Don’t break the chain’ is a technique said to be recommended by comedian and actor, Jerry Seinfeld, to programmer and aspiring comedian, Brad Isaac who published it in Lifehacker in 2007.

How it works is pretty simple! Grab yourself a calendar and place it somewhere visible. For every day you complete the task you set for yourself—in Isaac’s case it was writing jokes—mark it on the calendar.

“After a few days you’ll have a chain. Just keep at it and the chain will grow longer every day. You’ll like seeing that chain, especially when you get a few weeks under your belt. Your only job next is to not break the chain.”

The reason this approach works well is due to the effect of habit. When you repeat something over and over again, it becomes a habit. As they say, consistency is key. Also, the visibility of your progress (the marks on your calendar) serves as motivation to help keep you going.

Final Thoughts

That’s all for our first post of 2020. We wanted to keep it short and sweet. In the coming weeks, you can expect an assortment of articles including more project management methodologies, how to best use Zenkit, and an introduction to all the incredible new features and tools we have coming out this year!

As always, if you have any topic suggestions or questions, don’t hesitate to leave us a comment.

Cheers,

Dinnie and the Zenkit Team

The post The Productivity Methods You Can Use All-Year-Round appeared first on Zenkit.

A user manual, or user guide, is a technical communication document that is designed to educate users on a particular product. Produced in print or digitally, they can be written about almost any product, but are most common with computer software and hardware, electronic devices, and video games.

Usually written by technical writers or product designers, its purpose is to inform users and help them solve any problems pertaining to the product. As a vital component of product distribution, the quality of your manual can heavily impact the overall customer experience, which is why you want to get it right!

In this article, I’ll share tips on how to write a user manual that conveys information to your customers clearly, and show you how you can organize the writing process in Zenkit.

Tips for How to Write a User Manual

There’s a lot that goes into writing a user manual. From feature descriptions, to repair instructions, to all the legal details and safety warnings. Here are some tips to keep in mind when it comes to writing it:

1. Know your objective

Every user manual should have a purpose. Commonly, it’s to help users resolve issues concerning your product, but with that, you should also decide how you want to help them. Once you’ve decided on the angle you want to take, break down the information into sections and step-by-step instructions that are straightforward enough to follow.

2. Determine the user

It’s imperative to know the kind of audience that will read your user manual as it will influence how you write it. Knowing your average user can give you an idea of the language you should use when writing the user manual, the format, and overall style. For instance, writing for tech-savvy IT specialists will be very different to writing for parents with young families.

3. Use accessible language

Regardless of who your audience is, the language of the user manual text should be accessible to even the most non-technical person. You have to assume the reader has zero knowledge about your product, so it should be comprehensible, clear, and concise. It should address the reader and the use of jargon should be limited.

4. Make it visual

Humans are known to process visual data 60,000 times faster than text, which is why you want your user manual to include images. User manuals almost always include relevant images with the text. Some products even share screenshot images of step-by-step instructions or are just purely images (IKEA manuals are famously text-free). Images can really help to convey the message you want to communicate to your reader.

5. Enhance findability 

Face it, nobody’s going to read the entire user manual, so for readers to find value in it, you have to make it simple enough for people to skim through and find what they’re looking for. Give it a clean format by having a consistent layout from page to page and make sure there is a lot of space between chunks of text. Use familiar keywords related to the product and make sure the font is simple and readable.

How to Plan Your User Manual

Zenkit is a great tool for planning a user manual. The project management tool is packed with features that enable you to collect data and then structure it to create an optimized workflow. Here are the steps to organize your user manual writing process.

Step 1:

Sign up for a free Zenkit account and log in.

Step 2:

Once you’ve customized your profile, click on “new collection”, give your collection a name, and hit enter or “create”. You will be directed to the default Kanban view.

You can give your collection a little character by customizing an icon for it. To do this, click on the collection title, select “customization”, and pick the colours and icon logo that you want.

I’m personally a fan of using a Kanban board to visually map out a project plan. The visual scheduling system is great for identifying bottlenecks and issues that may arise during the planning process. It can also give you a crystal clear overview of how your project progresses.

The Kanban view presents you with three default columns labelled as “To-Do, In Progress, and Done”. You can rename the columns by simply clicking on one of the label names and going to the name section in the menu box that appears. To add more stages to your workflow, all you have to do is click on “+ Add Stage”, give the column a label, and either click on “create” or hit enter.

Of course you can select as many stages as you want for your workflow and label them whatever you see fit. The stages I went for are the following:

• Info & Resources
• Feedback & Instructions
• Sections
• Drafts

Step 3: 

Once the structure of your workflow has been determined, you can start adding other elements as items under each column.

As I mentioned at the beginning of this article, a project like writing a user manual involves a lot of content; content that needs to be broken down into various chapters and sections, and sections of sections.

Zenkit’s subitems are the perfect feature for breaking down bigger tasks into smaller ones. One of our project management tool’s 12 custom fields presents all your items in a structured way so you’re able to work with a manageable timeline.

To add a subitem to one of your items, simply click on the item to open it. Then click on the “+” sign which is located above the comment section, then select “custom field”. Under the “Type” section, scroll down and select the “subitems” field. Don’t forget to give the field a name!

Step 4:

To add further structure to your workflow, you can use Zenkit’s hierarchy view. To activate this view in your collection, click on “Kanban” (or the name of whichever view you happen to be in) which you will find in the top-right hand corner and select “New View”. A menu extension should pop up and simply select “Hierarchy”.

Step 5:

When you first use the hierarchy view, you will find that your items are unconnected. You can connect them by dragging and dropping each item onto the main hierarchy panel. If you drag a parent item, you will find that the subitems will come along with it.

The hierarchy allocated to an item depends on where you place it. For instance, items dragged to the top will have a level one hierarchy and items that are dragged underneath another will turn into a subitem of that item.

The hierarchy view shows you every single item you’ve added to the hierarchy of your items by using indentations to indicate when an item becomes a subitem. You can get an overview of top tasks only or see everything in your project at once by collapsing or opening the items.

Planning Other Kinds of Text Documents and Materials

Just like planning a user manual, Zenkit can be used to plan other text-heavy documents or materials. The hierarchy view and subitem feature are perfect for planning any project that requires organizing a large amount of content that needs to be broken down into different sections, such as a novel or a college thesis.

Novel writing plan

Writing a novel can take years to complete, which is why it’s a good idea to have somewhere to note it all down. Using a similar template to the user manual guide, you can structure your novel chapter by chapter and keep track of all the characters, plot, and theme details in one platform.

Thesis/dissertation plan

From topic ideas to research to collecting data, writing a thesis or dissertation requires a lot of planning. Using Zenkit to manage it all can help you to get your thesis done on time and ensure you won’t overlook something important!

Click here to use our Thesis/Dissertation Planning template.

Final Thoughts

A great user manual communicates information clearly to the reader so that they are able to overcome any issues that may arise with the product. Using Zenkit to plan the writing process, and taking advantage of the hierarchy view and subitem feature, can help you to produce a quality user manual that can give your customers the best possible experience.

Which was the last user manual you found to be helpful?

Cheers,

Dinnie and the Zenkit Team

The post How to Write a User Manual appeared first on Zenkit.

We’re excited to announce that the team at PomoDoneApp have built a direct integration with Zenkit using our newly released API! PomoDone is an app that helps you apply the Pomodoro Technique® to your work, helping you gain control over your time and boost productivity. They claim to help to eliminate distraction, sharpen focus, and prevent burnout, and from experience, I can say that’s just the case!

What is the Pomodoro Technique®?

As a big fan of this method, I’ve written about the Pomodoro Technique® in the past, but if you need a refresher, here’s a breakdown of the basics:

• Write a list of everything you need to do, in bite-sized, actionable tasks. (Check out my guide to writing effective tasks for ideas on how to do this really, really well!)
• Set a timer for 25 minutes.
• Work on the task until the timer rings, then put a checkmark next to your task.
• Take a 5-minute break. Walk around, grab a coffee, and do some stretches. Being active helps!
• Repeat! Keep adding checkmarks to your list until you’ve got 4 down, then take a longer break. 30 minutes is good.

The benefits of using a time tracking system like Pomodoro® are manyfold: According to Pomodoro® founder Francesco Cirillo, the technique can help you to handle interruptions, improve motivation by improving the content of work, reduce the complexity of your goals, meet deadlines without time pressure, and much, much more.

The beautiful thing about using a tool like PomoDone is that you don’t have to set the timer manually or re-write your to-do lists. You can download the desktop app or install the browser extension, then quickly connect it up to Zenkit collections to see your tasks in the app. When you’re ready to start focusing on a task, hit the timer and get started!

How to Integrate Zenkit with PomoDoneApp

First, you’ll need an account for both Zenkit and PomoDoneApp. Once you’re all signed up, here’s how you can connect them:

Click on ‘My Account’ in the top right-hand corner of PomoDone’s homepage, then find Zenkit in the list of integrations shown on the next page.

You’ll be redirected to a Zenkit page where you can give PomoDone access to your Zenkit items:

Click on ‘Authorize’, after which you’ll be redirected back to PomoDone where you can search through your Zenkit collections from the ‘Projects’. Choose your collection, click ‘Add to PomoDoneApp’, and you’re done! You can choose as many collections as you like. Once you’ve added them all, open the desktop app or browser extension to see all of your items and start timing them!

Clicking on 5, 15, or 25 sets the timer for that amount of time, with a 5-minute break automatically built-in. The timer will automatically continue for 4 cycles, but of course, you can also change the timer intervals to suit your own preferences. You can learn more about using PomoDone here, and as always, you can learn more about this integration in our Knowledge Base.

We hope you guys enjoy using this integration as much as we do! Have you tried using the Pomodoro Technique® before? Let us know in the comments!

Cheers,

Siobhan and the Zenkit Team

Note: PomoDoneApp is available with a free trial, after which it costs $2 or more per month. Pomodoro Technique® and Pomodoro® are registered trademarks of Francesco Cirillo.

The post Boost Your Productivity with PomoDoneApp and Zenkit appeared first on Zenkit.

On any given day, most of us are swamped with tasks. Whether we’re working professionals, students, or stay-at-home parents, our piles seem to be never-ending.

That’s why we need task management.

In this article, I’ll discuss how task management is beneficial for both teams and individuals, and several different approaches that can be implemented for improved organization.

What Is Task Management?

Task management covers the life cycle of a task, from the development of an idea, all the way through to completion. It includes planning, tracking, testing, and reporting. Whether you’re working in a team or completing tasks on your own—in the office or at home—task management can help you accomplish your tasks in the most efficient and effective way possible.

The Perks of Task Management

Having a bunch of tasks assigned to you without a plan of attack can leave you feeling overwhelmed, disorderly, and unproductive. How do you know which task to tackle first or which task is the most urgent or important? An effective task management system can help you answer these questions. It can help you to prioritize, coordinate, and delegate tasks. It can also help you manage your time so that you meet deadlines and keep your workload balanced.

Outside of work, many of us also have a lot to do when it comes to our personal lives. From managing household chores to running errands to keeping up with social events, task management is something that is inherently done outside of the professional sphere as well.

The beauty of task management is that while our professional and personal tasks may differ, the same principles can be applied to both. For instance, the types of task management systems and approaches that are used in the office can also be applied to our personal tasks. This includes using suitable tools to get things done.

Discover the ultimate task management tool.
Sign up for free today!

Tools for Task Management

There are many tools you can use to manage your tasks. The simplest form is using a pen and notebook. While this is a fuss-free, cost-friendly option that is accessible to most of the population, it can be rather restricting compared to using task management apps because you’re limited to only what a pen and notebook can offer.

In comparison, task management software comes in various shapes and sizes, from single-focused to-do list apps to all-in-one solutions that allow you to not only visualize your tasks but also track the time you spend on them. The price tags of task management software also vary, from hefty monthly fees to free and freemium packages. So, however, if you wish to manage your tasks, you won’t be short to find an app that will cater to your situation.

The benefits of using a task management app over pen and paper include:

• You can centralize your activity, which means that everything you are working on can be available in one place, making it easier to find information and collaborate with other people.
• You can keep track of progress, which can give you an idea of how long a task will take and will allow you to keep clients and stakeholders updated on how things are coming along.
• You can access your tasks anywhere by using an app that features mobile ability (let’s face it, you’re more likely going to have your phone on you than your notebook and pen).

Task Management Approaches

There are various approaches to task management. Here are some of the more popular methods that can help you keep on top of your workload:

Agile Management

Managing your task with an agile methodology provides you with an alternative to the otherwise rigid process of linear, sequential project management methods.

In 2001, 13 experts within the software development industry got together and came up with a solution that was created as a response to the inadequacies of the then popularly used Waterfall method. What they came up with was a process where demands and solutions evolve through a collaborative effort of self-organizing and cross-functional teams, and iterative and incremental development stages, which proved to be a more fitting solution for software development.

Since then, agile methods have been adopted for all kinds of project and task management outside of software development. It offers a flexible approach which makes it ideal for anyone looking for a forgiving way to organize and coordinate their tasks. The flexibility accommodates last-minute changes and encourages collaboration with teams and stakeholders.

Kanban Management

Kanban is a highly visual scheduling system created by the management of Toyota factories in Japan in the 1940s. The method visualizes a workflow process with a Kanban board, Kanban cards, and sometimes even Kanban swimlanes. The main objective of using Kanban is to identify bottlenecks early on in the process, so as to stop them from seriously affecting the final result.

Originally intended for manufacturing, and then adapted for software development teams, it is now popularly used by any team or individual looking for a visual method of managing their tasks. While there are no solid rules of Kanban per se, its core purpose is to minimize waste, continuously improve your process, and increase overall productivity.

The most basic setup is dividing your Kanban board into three columns labelled “To-do”, “Doing”, and “Done”. Rather than self-explanatory columns, using Kanban requires you to limit the number of tasks in the middle column and focus on moving tasks into the last column.

Applying the Kanban method offers a lot of flexibility which is why it’s ideal for task management. Delegating, coordinating, and tracking tasks is made simple. Information becomes transparent, and it can also limit multitasking and reduce errors.

Eat the Frog

Sometimes, the hardest part of task management is actually getting started on your tasks. Eat the frog is a method designed to help you tackle your biggest, most difficult task first thing (and no consumption of amphibians required).

Eat the frog is a method that aims to overcome procrastination, a habit that most of us are guilty of and wish to conquer. How this works is that you prioritize your “frog” at the top of the list. The idea behind this technique is that once you have your most dreaded task out of the way, it will get the ball running and set the flow for the rest of your day.

To spot your “frog”, you can reference the Eisenhower method. By producing a matrix of need vs want, you can categorize your tasks into four groups:

1. Things you have to do and don’t want to do
2. Things you have to do and want to do
3. Things you don’t have to do and want to do
4. Things you don’t have to do and don’t want to do

Your “frog” falls within the first category. It is basically the task you need to do, but don’t have any desire to do, which is why you fall prey to procrastination.

We’ve all been in situations where we have a big task that we avoid because it’s either too daunting or boring to get started on. But this task management technique aims to help you overcome it. Imagine the sense of relief and accomplishment you will feel once the biggest task is completed first. It will make the rest of your tasks seem effortless.

Getting Things Done

Getting Things Done, or GTD for short is a framework for organizing and tracking tasks created by David Allen. The method propels you to add context and structure to tasks so that you have a higher chance of actually completing them.

The idea behind GTD is that because “your mind is for having ideas and not holding them” the method provides a way to turn your ideas into actions, and gives you a clear list of what you have to do. GTD involves following a workflow of 5 steps:

1. Capture: write down all your ideas on a list (the ‘inbox’).
2. Clarify: process your ideas.
3. Organize: determine which ideas you can take action on.
4. Reflect: assess your list on a weekly basis so that it doesn’t pile up!
5. Engage: once your ideas have been captured and processed, you can start knocking things off your list.

Note: if your tasks take more than one step to complete, then they should be considered a project. If your list has more than one related task, group them together and create a project.

We’ve all created to-do lists at some point in our lives. Finishing those lists, however, is a completely different story.  GTD provides a system for you to actually tick off the tasks on your to-do list. The concept is designed so that once you develop a system you can rely on, you won’t be so worried about keeping track of everything, which will then free up brain power for doing more productive things. In other words, things will get done.

Final Thoughts

While completing tasks is still doable without some sort of system in place, task management does make life easier. Whether you’ve decided on a Kanban board to visualize your tasks and follow their development, or refined lists to get things done, implementing a task management approach can ensure your tasks get done efficiently and effectively.

What’s your favourite task management approach? Don’t forget to let us know in our comment section.

Cheers,

Dinnie and the Zenkit Team

The post Task Management Explained: 4 Approaches for a Balanced Workload appeared first on Zenkit.

While I understand that New Year’s resolutions aren’t for everyone, if you’re like me, you’re part of 44% that has made a promise to themselves that you will dedicate this coming year to achieving an aspiration that (you hope) will result in being the best version of you.

For me, it’s completing the 50-book challenge. At the end of last year, I realized that I had only read three books in 2018 that weren’t work-related which is why I’ve made it my 2019 resolution to make a concerted effort to read more books and the challenge enables me to do so.

But as we all know, channelling our inner Beyoncé doesn’t come easy. It takes commitment, sacrifice, blood, sweat, and tears to stick to your resolutions. It’s always fun and games at the beginning with motivation levels on a high, but then by mid-January, this feeling starts to decline.

In this article, I’ll take a look at why resolutions are tricky to achieve and propose suggestions on how you can make your resolutions stick.

Image by Tomasz Woźniak via Unsplash

A tradition that dates back to Babylonian times, New Year’s resolutions are goals we set for ourselves at the beginning of a new year in hopes that achieving them will result in some sort of enhanced quality of life.

While there’s no golden rule that states we can’t make improvements at any time of the year, there’s something about the convention of New Year’s resolutions and how it symbolizes a clean slate that makes people more dedicated to the cause.

However, as most of us are aware, resolutions have a reputation for being left unfinished. However much we’re galvanized to get them underway at the beginning, we know this feeling doesn’t last very long. In fact, it’s been said that by February, 80% of resolutions will have failed.

The Struggle Is Real

A likely reason why resolutions tend to be tougher to achieve compared to other goals we set is that they are usually aspirations we keep failing at. Think about it, how many times last year did you swear to yourself that you’d stop spending money on unnecessary things? And then think about how many times you still kept buying unnecessary things.

If this situation rings a familiar bell—be it with money, exercise, or something else—then it makes sense why you would choose the new year to pledge your new commitments. It represents a fresh start after all.

The fact is that for most of us, the “making” part comes fairly easily, it’s the maintaining bit that gets us. Keeping a resolution going requires you to pick up a new habit or make adjustments to an accustomed routine.

For instance, if I want to read 50 books in a year, I will have to reorganize my free time so that I spend it reading and not watching YouTube videos or aimlessly scrolling through social media. While in theory, this may seem fairly simple and straightforward, the reality can be very different.

How to Make Your New Year’s Resolutions Stick

Sticking to a habit or adjusting to a new routine doesn’t come easy. But if you’re eager to achieve your goal, then one of the following suggestions may help.

1. Implement Your Intentions

Implementation intentions are triggers or cues that prompt a certain behaviour. A concept introduced by psychologist Peter Gollwitzer in 1999 suggests that by applying them, the likelihood of achieving your goals becomes more probable.

Everyone who makes a goal has every intention to achieve it, however, sometimes there are hurdles that can stop us from reaching the finish line. The idea behind implementation intentions is that if we create a plan—implement our intentions—then this plan can help us overcome the obstacles.

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This concept works by having strong goal commitment and intention, as well as by following the procedural approach of an “if/then” structure, which looks a little like this:

If situation X happens, then I will behave Y.

This format attempts to connect a situation that can help towards achieving the goal with a certain behaviour so that it eventually becomes automatic.

The following are some examples of how this structure could be applied:

• If I place my running shoes right by my bed, I will put them on as soon as I wake up and go for a run before work.
• If I carry around a water bottle, I will remember to drink more water throughout the day.
• If I remove my chair from my room, I won’t have a spot to place my clothes and will therefore hang them back in my closet every time I try something on.

2. Pick the Right Resolutions

Whether it’s getting rid of a bad habit or taking up a positive one, many of the goals we set focus on self-improvement and facilitate internal or external development.

According to a YouGov poll, the resolution favourites in the US are to eat healthier, exercise more, and save money. Whether yours fall under these categories or not, you have to be realistic about your decision so that you don’t set yourself up for failure before you even start.

Think about what goals are feasible and what you can commit to. It’s pointless to make big resolutions when you already have a hard time sticking to something small. Even if your resolution isn’t something bold and grandiose, it doesn’t mean you’re not trying hard enough. Everyone goes at their own pace.

3. Make Them Measurable

When creating your goals, make them specific and measurable. Instead of writing something vague like “eat healthier”, write the action you have to undertake in order to eat healthier. For example, you could write “skip dessert on weekdays” or “eat 5 servings of vegetables every day”.

Doing this will make your goal easier to quantify and track. Tracking your progress while working towards a goal increases the chance of success as it helps steer you in the right direction and highlights where you’re going wrong. Whether it’s in a notebook, calendar, or productivity app, monitoring your progress allows you to see how you’re developing over time.

4. Substitute

Another trick that can prove to be practical in maintaining your New Year’s resolutions is to adopt the substitution method. What this involves is instead of eliminating a certain behaviour completely, replace it with something that helps towards attaining your goal.

For instance, when you’re craving something sweet, opt for a piece of fruit instead of a doughnut. For the smokers out there looking to quit their unhealthy habit, find something to occupy yourself with when it comes to breaking time so you don’t find yourself reaching for a cigarette should boredom arise.

5. Keep Going

Accomplishing a goal like a New Year’s resolution requires a lot of willpower which is not something that comes naturally to a lot of people. Be prepared to commit, discipline yourself, and be consistent in the habit you are picking up or getting rid of. Only until you repeat a certain behaviour a few times over will it become second nature.

It’s important to note that perfection is unattainable so if you find yourself experiencing a slip-up, don’t beat yourself up about it. Just brush off the oversight, pick up where you left off, and keep going. In the words of the late, great, R&B icon Aaliyah…

Final Thoughts

Although New Year’s resolutions can be a struggle, they’re not impossible to achieve. Surpassing the 80% who fail by February will take commitment and sacrifice, but that’s a given with any goal. Just remember to set realistic objectives, implement your intentions, and keep at it no matter what. The results may surprise you.

Two weeks into the new year and I’m up to book number three. By setting myself an attainable goal and creating a plan (a book a week), I’m well on my way to maintaining my resolution.

What are your resolutions for this year?

Cheers,

Dinnie and the Zenkit Team

The post 5 Ways to Maintain Your New Year’s Resolutions appeared first on Zenkit.

For many of us, December can be an awfully busy month. With so many things to celebrate, it can get a little chaotic trying to keep on top of everything. In this article, I’ll show you how you can organize a few festivities using Zenkit.

DIY Advent Calendar

Advent calendars are a great holiday novelty that helps you count down the days in anticipation of Christmas. With modern-day calendars offering a treat for each passing day, it’s no wonder they’ve become a staple in Christmas-celebrating households.

Being in Germany this time of year has given me a newfound appreciation for Advent calendars (fun fact: the first calendar was used by German Lutherans in the 19th and 20th centuries). Each and every store is stocked with an assortment of calendars, from chocolate to beauty products, to craft beer to muesli—there is an Advent calendar for everyone!

Although I have a smorgasbord to select from, this year I’ve decided to tap into my crafty skills and create a DIY Advent calendar for my household to share. But before I gather together all the colored envelopes, ribbons, and glitter, I’ll need a place to record all the gift ideas.

This is where Zenkit’s calendar view comes in handy. The great thing about using this feature is that it gives me a complete overview of the month which helps me to plan out when each gift should be given.

Remember, a DIY Advent calendar involves coming up with 24 gifts, so they needn’t be too extravagant. A good tip is to think of a couple of main gifts that you can divide into smaller gifts to give throughout the month. Glühwein (mulled wine) and Lebkuchen (German gingerbread) are great examples as they involve several ingredients that you can include in your calendar. Plus they’re ideal for making with a group of people and keeping within the holiday theme.

As avid readers and loyal users know, Zenkit has different views that can be accessed in every collection in one simple click. Look for the icon of your collection type on the top right-hand corner, in this instance it’s a calendar, click on it, and voila, you’ll see the other options.

The option of being able to switch collection views so easily is useful for my DIY endeavour. Because I have a list of items to buy, switching to the list view lets me keep track of it all.

The beauty of Zenkit’s list feature is that once you’re done with buying or making a particular gift, you can tick it as done and the list will rearrange the items so that the ones that still require action are prioritized to the top.

Creating a Gift Plan

It’s always nice treating loved ones, but it can get expensive. Planning ahead can ensure you keep within budget while also making sure that you don’t miss out on giving a gift to a friend or family member.

Zenkit’s Kanban board is the best view for gift planning. It enables you to visualize who you’re buying for, what you plan on getting them, where to get the items, and how much they will cost. The gifts can be divided up into categories of what type they are or where you can get them.

Rearranging the Kanban cards are simple with the drag-and-drop feature. This allows you to easily switch up things up and adjust if need be. It can also help with separating the gifts that have been bought or made from the ones that haven’t. By creating a ‘Done’ column, you can shift all the items that have been taken care of into it, and it can help you focus on the items that still require your attention.

Office Christmas Party Planning

For anyone who’s ever had to plan an office Christmas party, you know what a daunting task it can be. There are resources to organize, a budget to adhere to, fierce competition to beat for venues, and a plethora of personalities to satisfy. But if it’s your job to make it all happen, then using a project management tool can be your best bet for a successful event.

Using a Kanban board is a great way to party plan as it provides you with a visualization of your process and workflow, making it a great tool for documenting tasks, ideas, and activities.

When using Zenkit’s Kanban view, to add more context and function to each item, you can include a custom field option (there are 11 to choose from!). For instance, you can add the contact details and website link for each venue idea, or you can add people’s dietary requirements on their item card.

Just like the DIY Advent calendar and gift plans, you can utilize the switch views feature or add a ‘Done’ column to your office Christmas party Kanban board to help you with checking things off and distinguishing the completed tasks and items from the uncompleted ones.

Final Thoughts

If you’re stuck on gift ideas, why not give the gift of organization and productivity and treat your loved ones to a Zenkit Plus account this Christmas? A subscription to the Plus account will give you access to more features and more storage space as well as other extra delights.

Cheers,

Dinnie and the Zenkit Team

The post How to Stay Organized this Festive Season with Zenkit appeared first on Zenkit.

About halfway through writing this article, I was assigned another task which was to produce copy for an upcoming newsletter. On top of blog writing, I get assigned other writing tasks for Zenkit, so this added task wasn’t an anomaly.

The newsletter copy wasn’t urgent, and the amount of time I had until the deadline was more than reasonable, however, it appeared that I couldn’t quite shake the task out of my mind. So much so that I found myself struggling to finish this article because I couldn’t stop thinking about it.

What’s funny about this, and the reason why I decided to highlight it, is that the very concept I was writing about was the Zeigarnik effect.

What Is the Zeigarnik Effect?

The Zeigarnik effect is a psychological phenomenon established by its namesake, Soviet psychologist and psychiatrist, Bluma Zeigarnik, that suggests the tendency of remembering uncompleted tasks over completed tasks. In the 1920s, while observing waiters at a busy restaurant, Zeigarnik noticed that waiters were able to keep track of unpaid orders, even if they were complex, however, once orders were paid for, they could no longer recollect any details about them.

Fascinated by the observation, Zeigarnik thought to further this notion by conducting experiments in her lab. In one of them, she asked participants to complete a series of simple tasks, such as solving puzzles or putting together a flat-pack box. During the experiment, while in the middle of completing tasks, they were interrupted by the experiment supervisor. They were then instructed to continue with the remaining tasks which they completed undisturbed.

What she found was that participants were able to recall details of the tasks that were interrupted better than the ones that weren’t. Her findings supported her observation of the waiters with their orders, in which only when a goal had been met could it be freed from our minds.

Examples of When the Zeigarnik Effect Is Applied

The concept of interruption and its effects on memory processing isn’t only evident in the hospitality industry. There are other areas in modern culture where it is applied, such as:

• The cliffhanger endings in soap operas and serial television shows. Producers use this as a tactic because they’re aware of our desire to know what happens next (anyone who binge-watches shows on Netflix will know).
• Using an ellipse to replace a full stop in fields such as online marketing, advertising, and journalism. This is supposed to entice the reader or viewer into wanting to know more about the product or to read the article.

But Wait, Does the Task Have to be 100% Completed?

In 2006, mindful of Zeigarnik’s theory of our minds’ fixation with unfulfilled goals, Roy F. Baumeister and E.J. Masicampo did some research that added a new layer to the psychological phenomenon. After conducting several experiments, the results asserted that goals needn’t be completely fulfilled in order for them to disappear from our minds; that simply the act of plan-making can be enough to satisfy.

Baumeister and Masicampo found that, in one of their experiments, participants did worse on a brainstorming task when they weren’t allowed to finish a warm-up task. This was due to the fact that the uncompleted warm-up task was still on their minds. Later in the experiment, they then allowed participants to make plans on how they would complete the warm-up task—still not allowing them to finish it—and found that they then performed better with the brainstorming task.

How Can This Help in Everyday Life?

The intrusive thoughts illustrated by the Zeigarnik effect are something many of us experience—take my ordeal with the newsletter copy and this article for example. If we consider the research that has been done surrounding this, then perhaps we can get a better understanding of how it can help with productivity blockages such as procrastination.

When we procrastinate, we put things off, and the reason for this can be attributed to the fact that we tend to think about the more difficult aspects of the task or project at hand. Think about the times you avoid doing something and consider the reason behind it. It’s safe to say that it’s probably due to the seemingly insurmountable effort that needs to be done in order to get it off the ground.

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But if you take into account what Zeigarnik was saying, then it shouldn’t be too difficult to overcome. All you need to do is to just actually start with the task and that should get the ball rolling. This psychological concept is said to come into full effect when aligned with motivation. So if your task appears undesirable, find something enjoyable about it that could spur you into completing it. If that fails, then think of the consequences that will come about if it isn’t completed and uses that as motivation.

If you’re experiencing a lack of concentration due to disruptive thoughts. Then perhaps you can take a cue from Baumeister and Masicampo and create a plan for those pesky tasks that are consuming your mental energy. Once that’s done, it should free up space in your mind so that you can do other cognitive tasks.

Which is exactly what I did.

Once I realised that I couldn’t stop thinking about the things involved in the newsletter copy task, such as the campaign it will be included in and the artwork that will go with it, I put this article on pause and started drafting a plan for the newsletter. Once that was done, I resumed with this article and found myself typing away without any intrusive thoughts about newsletter copy. Yay!

How do you overcome procrastination and other productivity blockages? Let us know your thoughts (intrusive or not) in the comment section below.

Cheers,

Dinnie and the Zenkit Team

The post How the Zeigarnik Effect Can Tackle Procrastination appeared first on Zenkit.