There are countless tips online for maximizing productivity and tackling to do lists. And while I don’t claim to have all the answers, after years of struggling to stay on top of my workload, I feel like I finally have the trick that works for me. Maybe it will work for you too.
Technology is great, isn’t it? I work for a small commercial printing company, and advances in technology have certainly simplified the process of offset printing since the days of Gutenberg.
Technology has also improved operations for business in general, and it has taken great strides in providing a plethora of productivity tools to use. Maybe too many tools…
In the last couple of years, while I’ve been on my productivity grind, I have used a myriad of apps and built complicated systems and databases in an attempt to stay organized and optimize my productivity. The problem is that it takes up too much time to keep up with them! And that sort of defeats the purpose, doesn’t it?
We like paper where I work. We’re a printing company after all. There’s lots of paper all around us, all day everyday (though it always seems to be elusive when needing to take a message on a phone call lol).
Sometimes a good old-fashioned, hand-written to do list is what does the trick.
Amidst all the tech tools, that’s what has ultimately worked best for me.
A Little Background
I work in customer service and there are three main responsibilities in my role: typing and emailing estimates, writing up production orders for new work that comes in, and preparing shipments once an order is complete.
I am also responsible for our small business’s website and social media presence, so I have a newsletter, blog and Instagram account to keep up with as well.
Oh, and I also am the in-house designer and I handle any customer design needs as well as preparing our own marketing materials.
There are a lot of moving parts and when we’re busy, I’m busy. When we’re not busy, I’m still busy because there’s always something to do. So how do I keep on top of it all?
A lot of the advice you’ll hear about to do lists is to keep it to a small, manageable amount of tasks, and that may work in certain jobs or careers, but when you work in customer service at a manufacturing plant (or something of the sort), keeping up with the flow of work is important and limiting the number of tasks to tackle in a given day is a luxury we don’t have.
My Simple System
This approach has helped even when I’m so busy that I don’t know what to do first or next, and I worry that there’s no way I’ll ever get EVERYTHING done (and even when I’m so paralyzed with fear that I worry I won’t get ANYTHING done). And it’s simple really:
- I organize my physical space— namely my desk, sometimes my floor too if it’s a really hectic day. If things have been piled up haphazardly, I take a few minutes to go through everything and sort it based on what it is and/or what has to be done with it.
- I do the same with my email. I delete whatever I can, file away anything that is already taken care of but needs to be kept for reference, and print out items I have to attend to and need a physical record of (and then file the email). I flag any remaining emails for future follow up whether that be with the customer, a vendor or my manager or that I’ll need for immediate reference.
- Then I write out a to do list. On paper.
I split my paper in half, with the left side being more time sensitive “have to do today” tasks and the right side for my social media tasks, or any other extracurricular activities or have to do eventually items. Whenever possible, I try to write it out so that it’s grouped by action type, and in priority order. It doesn’t always work that way, but it all gets written down nonetheless.
Batching vs Time Blocking
Sometimes something urgent pops up, my boss or a coworker stops in my office, or there’s a phone call that interrupts whatever task I’m currently working on. But when I have the luxury of tackling my to do list in the order I want, I find it best to batch like tasks together.
My batched groups are:
- Writing up new jobs or any tasks related to that like following up on files or proofs or missing info, preparing files if the job needs design work, noting any POs that need to be written or other sub-tasks that are required, creating the job jacket to file, etc.
- Anything finance related, like sending estimates, processing new quote requests, writing POs to vendors, submitting check requests, and preparing completed jobs for accounting to invoice.
- All shipping based tasks such as preparing UPS/Fedex, freight shipments, or labels and packing slips for our driver.
Sometimes I don’t want to do certain tasks. Either it’s complicated or just not very enjoyable. In those instances, and when my schedule allows, I find time blocking to be very helpful. It’s like a game: beat the clock! I try not to rush through my tasks, because I don’t want to make a mistake, but the pressure of completing everything in a certain period of time keeps me moving, even through those tasks I’m dreading.
Ideally I go through these batch/time-blocking cycles twice daily. After each cycle, I take a break and then I do some of the social media tasks I need to get done. Then I have a block that’s a catch up period to do anything that got left behind, and check my email for new tasks to add to my to do list. I try to finish the list by end of day, and then prep my desk, email inbox and if I’m really on top of things, start my to do list for the next day.
This probably seems like a very obvious method, but sometimes when things get hectic and my anxiety gets the better of me, the best solution is the simplest one. No need to reinvent the wheel and complicate things, which as previously admitted, I have been known to do.
How do you tackle your work to do list?
