slack pin. Unread email. Multiple deadlines. Distractions can distract even the most talented employees, making it difficult for them to focus on deep work to solve problems and generate new ideas.
Canada's productivity is at a headline-grabbing low. Labor productivity for Canadian companies fell by an average of 1.8% in 2023, the third consecutive year of decline. Although this figure refers to economic output on a macro scale, it is worth looking at the productivity of individual workers as part of the whole.
Before you roll your eyes: We are working more than ever. The introduction of Ontario's Right to Disconnect Act shows that employees and their managers don't know how to log off.
There are so many things to do and not enough time in the workday to get them all done. Tasks are often of low value, which means less time is spent on valuable work that contributes significantly to the organization, team, and bottom line.
A boss who spends too much energy tracking mouse clicks or forcing people to return to the office can make the problem of overwork worse, not solve it.
What's the solution? For many, it's productive technology.
Lexi Pathak, president and partner at Toronto public relations firm Faulhaber Communications, has expanded her company since the pandemic, but downsized in office space.
“Instead of spending that money on real estate, we're investing it in software,” Pathak said, noting that various technology-related subscriptions take up a significant portion of the company's budget, and spending on these tools is He pointed out that it had doubled in the past. A few years.
“PR requires you to see everything, know everything, hear everything, and know everything for your clients. And there's no way to do that without technology.”
Pathak's team uses tools like Tracker, a platform to check influencer engagement rates and brand deals, Semrush for search engine optimization, and Sprout Social for social media listening. The team is also looking at project management tools to centralize tasks, with Asana and his ClickUp in action.
“From an administrative perspective, you can now see your entire workflow in a comprehensive and simple place.”
Jane Bradshaw, who works in communications and marketing at Canadian bedding startup Silk and Snow, is a ClickUp convert. “Being able to track my contributions across the entire marketing mix, from operations to product to customer experience, is extremely helpful. I can receive automated emails and notifications to help me meet deadlines.”
Bradshaw feels that having visibility into everyone's work helps her stay on task and prioritize.
Another piece of the productivity puzzle is making sure your team embraces expensive technology wholeheartedly and leverages its full potential. Initial onboarding and learning curves are inevitable.
To speed up the work, Faulhaber created an implementation team.
“They do research, vet tools, put together our policies, and work with teams to ensure comfort levels and adoption,” Pathak said. “And then there's the conversation. How did you find this? What are you doing?”
Chelsey Burnside, partner and creative director at content and branding agency Academy Inc, recommends holding quarterly update sessions to ensure everyone on the team is informed and consistently implemented. I like it.
Burnside is a fan of Waldo, a new AI research assistant for strategists. “It's really good at summarizing large amounts of data and giving you information that's relevant to what you're working on,” she says.
Almost all modern software is starting to layer, or already has, layered artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities into its feature stack, and everything from close cropping an image in seconds to instantly creating an agenda and transcribing meeting notes You can do everything you want. ChatGPT is probably the most ubiquitous AI tool of all after a major technological leap in late 2022.
Pathak uses it to instantly update blog posts on his company website. “I throw it in there and ask them to update the facts and figures to be relevant for 2024. It takes seconds,” she says.
The ideal outcome of these implementations and optimizations is that employees have more time to “ship”—to get products and solutions out into the world, and to iterate and lift them.
But technology is only part of the story, according to productivity expert Corey Firth. Mr. Firth is an executive coach, TEDx speaker, consultant, and entrepreneur. His Coaching His services focus on guiding overworked executives into an optimal productivity zone known as the “flow state.”
Firth defines flow state as “going beyond normal waking consciousness and obsession with time to a state of optimal focus and heightened awareness.” He compares flow states to sleep states. “Sleep includes light sleep, REM sleep, and deep sleep.”
The flow has four stages. the struggle stage (“I have a to-do list in my head and I’m struggling to focus”), the release stage (“I let things go and I have a flood of good chemicals flowing into my brain”); Then there is the true flow state (“When you are at a heightened level of consciousness and being, self-consciousness and sense of time are non-existent. Nothing gets in your way and everything feels easy”). The final stage is recovery, like after a workout.
Even the most productive people can only maintain peak flow for about 90 minutes, he added. “When we think of flow states, we often think of creators and athletes who optimize it, but everyone should strive to enter flow states.”
Flow requires some discipline to eliminate distractions and resist the urge to multitask.
“Most of my clients think they need to do 20 or 30 things a day, when in reality they should only do four,” Firth says. He also advises his clients to choose a day each week to wake up at 5 a.m. and immediately start work. “For most people, the flow state occurs in the morning,” he explains.
While Firth is a fan of productivity platforms like Notion (“It's a universal system that we're all connected to, but also customizable”), his ultimate tip is to It's about relying on the natural technology within your body to do something. our best work.
Most employees are part of a large corporate system, and 5 a.m. “flow states” and reduced to-do lists can be difficult to implement. But trusting your employees more and giving them more autonomy to manage their time can go a long way toward improving.
“Many of the companies I work with have open calendars, so I can access anyone's calendar to see when they're free, book a meeting, etc., and it's confusing. ” says Firth. These small daily disruptions can impact hours of future productivity.
Firth's advice to employers is to “understand who you're working with and how they like to work.” From there, it's about building systems and tools that enable deep work, rather than distraction.
It's not exactly a “productivity hack,” but it's a good start.
