Productivity…

Productivity, are we getting better at it or is it slipping through our fingers. Have we become masters of the task or masters of distraction. I was struck today of how productive we can be thanks to tools like VMWare or ClearContext and how distracted we can be thanks to the internet. It seems that with great strides in technology our responsibility goes up. I’m hearing stories all over the place of employees now having to journal their work-day in 15 minute intervals. Stop your task, put aside your thoughts and report by web-interface what you’ve done for the last 15 minutes. Hard for me to imagine being real productive with that kind of demand hanging around your neck. So we have more distractions and we certainly have a responsibility to be productive. If I can get hours worth of work done in 6 hours can I leave 2 hours early? Well that’s an interesting question too. That same capacity for distraction can also help us mine more salt per hour.

So we know that distraction is out there and it always has been. It has many new faces but it’s still the same fruit ripening on the same tree. We have a plethora of distractions available and we simply choose one or many and idle the time away. Let’s talk about productivity though. With email, meetings, project deadlines, phone calls and travel time we still have work to do. It seems like everything is after our time and yet the work won’t wait. I’m going to be doing a series of blogs on this constant struggle between distraction and productivity and how much alike the two can look. It’s essential that today’s worker understands how to manage time and leverage tools and I’m going to share my own insights on how this can be done for a variety of workers in a variety of situations.

In case you are not technical don’t be turned off. Portions of this blog will be mildly technical but I’ll keep it on the surface and you should have no trouble following along. If you see things like VMWare, ClearContext or defragmentation don’t be alarmed. These are terms and products I’ll disclose in human readable form and I promise you’ll learn something. I think that by taking a little time to come here and visit I’m going to save you a lot of time in the long run so check back often. In the area of time management I’m not sure I can exhaust all the possible ways there are to get better at what you do.

Topics I’ll be covering will include but are not limited to:

*Virtualization: Whoa! Big word. See the wiki for more information and yes it’s a powerful idea.

*Wikipedia: Yikes! What is this guy saying? Check it out! What do you want to learn today?

*Windows Mobile Based Cell Phones: A host of products from Sprint, Apple, AT & T, Verizon and more. Which one is best and why?

*Email Management: Is your inbox growing faster than the human population curve? Find out intuitive ways to manage the chaos.

*Computer Management: Think it’s just a simple affair of turning it on during the week and off on the weekends? Guess again. That could be a bad idea!

*Time Management: Is the clock killing your time or helping you innovate. I’ll be the judge of that.

*Organization: The myths, the lessons and the ironies. Why organization is a card that is way over-played in the workplace.

*Resource Management: Hey! Is that an employee or a resource or perhaps an interchangeable notion of one and the other?

*Budgets: Some things are obviously constrained by budgets. Find out how other parts of your workday and life could benefit from some      boundaries.

That’s a wrap for now. Of course that list has a lot more in it but some of the very best things you’ll just have to see when they are revealed or perhaps reviled. Well… you be the judge. But tomorrow I’ll be getting started with my discussion on virtualization and why no matter what field you are in Virtualization could save you a lot of time.

See you then!

Rex Winn