Systems Over To Do Lists

Organisations are obsessed with productivity.

The never ending to do list has extended from work to our personal lives. But to do lists are having the opposite impact to their intended purpose. They’re killing productivity.

By adding more things to our never ending to do lists, we risk our teams becoming demotivated, overwhelmed and unproductive, turning to procrastination and worry over action and progress.

The latest drive to improve productivity in your organisation has ended in little to no change, what’s the alternative? Systems.

What are systems? 

Productivity systems are practices, guidelines or frameworks that help you and your teams get things done, better, faster. They should be structured but flexible to allow for learning and adapting to individual preferences, they should provide an environment where everyone knows what they need to do to deliver success.

Systems free us

Some people think systems are too rigid inhibiting our ability to be agile and responsive to our markets however it's not true. 

Systems free us up to be more responsive and agile by systemising our daily focus activities and those on our various horizons. This systemisation makes things simpler for us, it automates our thinking and captures open loops which then frees our mind to think critically about the important things rather than trying to remember the open loops and all our to do's. 

Build collective productivity

Putting a system in place for your team helps build collective productivity, you start to speak the same language, you're more focused and you share a standard. The system provides this standard so you can easily see if you are going off track allowing you to be more responsive. 

Momentum in business can’t be underestimated. When your team moves together, things gather pace and move forward quickly, by aligning your teams under the same system. What might seem like smaller individual productivity improvements, collectively builds into a stronger, more productive unit.

If you’re like most leaders in organisations, then productivity will be on your mind. A productivity system can give you the structure and framework you need to get your team focused, highly efficient and motivated to drive your projects and tasks forward.