So I’ve been trying out a new productivity plan lately and wondered if you guys can help me refine it.

I’ve always been a "morning person": my mind is super-active from the moment I wake up ("snooze" button never tempted me), and I do my best work in the mornings. Back in law school I used to go to bed early and get up at 5am to read before 9am classes. Even as a kid, I loved drawing a morning heat at a competitive swim-meet. I always kicked butt in the AM, while the other kids were yawning their way to the starting blocks.

So mornings are a precious time, productivity-wise, for me. But over the past few years I let myself get sucked into a bad habit of grabbing my BlackBerry within minutes of waking and attacking my emails. (Usually there are about 15-30 messages waiting from my night-owl colleagues, and they keep piling up as the day progresses.) The whole day can easily get away from me in that mode.

Since I pride myself on high throughput and near-24/7 availability to friends, family, clients, co-workers, press, analysts, etc., I had to figure out a way to balance that with my own daily to-do list. 

Here’s the new BigDog Productivity Plan: I try to scan the BBerry quickly in the AM for either emergencies or easy "quick hits" where I can fire off a message and not slow down an ongoing process or decision. Otherwise, I leave the non-critical stuff alone and turn my morning focus to my longer-view/timeline projects and things I have begun segregating that I want to spend more considered and thoughtful time on. I dedicate mornings to this stuff as much as possible lately.

Afternoons I get back into "firing mode". By then I have a deep list of emails and tasks backed up. Here's where my "touch-it-once" policy has usually been helping me make up all of every morning's lost ground and then some.

Of course not every day lends itself to this new mode, and I don't always have a long-view project I'm in the mood to focus on any given morning. Plus my frequent travel obviously impacts this…so I'm not rigid about it. But it’s working nicely while I’m near the Florida home-base.

Speaking of good habits, my TK Network buddy Sidarta will be happy to hear I'm on a health kick this summer, too. I’ve been making it a priority to eat a healthy breakfast each morning and to pack a healthy lunch (I’ve sat out 5 of our famous Boca office "Pizza Fridays" in a row now!). I’m also getting in several 20-30 minute swims each week now. It’s all about making me the best CEO I can possibly be!

What about you – have any productivity tricks of yours to share?

[image: To-do list book. by koalazymonkey on flickr]
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Well BD, given my almost west coast locale, I have no choice but to be a morning person with regard to trading. Afterall pre-market trading starts at 5am my time at the moment.

However, I have always been the early riser and do some of my best thinking over that first cup of coffee or two during the wee hours. I have started what I guess you could call a one-touch method also, but also make use of my Outlook calendar if things need follow-up. Generally emails get a quick glance and if they need followup action they go into the calendar as a reminder and if they might be an interesting read, they go into a folder for follow-up when I can set aside time for reading.

The major thing I have started over the last few months is limiting what goes into the follow-up pile. If it is just a 'that woud be nice' type thing, then I will generally just toss it, delete it or whatever and keep only the important stuff at the forefront. My first question is always, "Am I honestly going to need or do this?". More times than not it is no and it goes bye bye.

I also try to knock off at least a few of the major to-do's everyday if possible. I read somewhere long ago that the point of a to-do list is not to finish it all in one day, but doing at least one or two items on it every day will keep it manageable. Paraphrasing, but that is the general idea anyway.

The wife and I have also starting walking for at least an hour each night whenever possible and it isn't so bloody hot here in Tucson. No phone calls taken, although it does come along for emergency use. I find this has helped me relax after the day's activities. I'll then usually do some night time reading to prepare my mind for the next day so I can wake up with a goal in mind.

More or less simple things, but those are the things people usually forgot to do.

I am NOT a morning person!

Strange that the same problem / concern came up on a recent consulting job... The solution for that boss was to extend the hours (to start earlier) of a part-time secretary, and he (the secretary) now fields all the emails. All correspondents notified, so that they know the secretary would be doing the emails. These correspondents, all with the privilege of knowing the email address, have other methods to contact for real emergencies. Thus far, it is working well, saving the boss some two hours each day. Amazing how much time is consumed on emails.

I have ALWAYS been a morning person.  Before I retired from it, I was a Commercial/Industrial Electrician.  I started work pretty much my entire career around 6 am in the morning, which usually meant getting up around 4 am.
Now I am retired, but I still work a part time job at a local ice rink and I have to open the place up before 5:30 am.  I usually wake myself up with a bowl of cheerios.  I don't even bother tryin to make coffee when I get up, but I grab a cup at Dunkin Dougnuts on the way to work.

Once I am settled in there, I usually fire up  my computer there and head right to TK and my streamin quotes..  I get my Newswires read and try to plan how much in commissions I am going to pay TK that day.. ;)

I usually have to keep a company website on a different tab, so the boss doesn't notice i am working the market instead of creating the next months calendars and flyers.   ;)

Have a banana and some nuts and before I know it, it is noon and I can come home to really work the market.
My kinda day... :)

Don,

I'm glad to hear your progress towards the goal of living a healthier lifestyle.  Sitting out of Pizza Fridays five weeks in a row sounds difficult (I know that will be very difficult for me to do).. And swimming is a very good exercise.

My plan/goal that I set in 2008 (some of which I still need to continue to improve):

1. Eat healthy food more often

2. Consume less healthy food and drinks in moderation. ("conviviality with friends. it's good for the soul and body", as one wise man once told me :) )

3. Find fun exercises (for me) and do them regularly (Cardio exercises, Basketball, Tennis, etc. I completed my first 10K race earlier this year in 52 min which I'm happy with the result)

4. Enough sleep/rest (at least try to catch-up whenever I can. e.g. catching up sleep on some weekends etc)

5. Reduce stress (keeping things in perspective etc)

I guess my main theme is about keeping things/everything in moderation (and have a balance in life)

I'm so proud of you (and your effort and determination)..  Keep it up and keep us posted...

Sidarta

For productivity on the job I pretend the boss is watching, in your case I assume you think we are watching. As for morning, at least an hour for triple S and coffee, used to be five minutes, getting older.

Don,

I would recommend you a book titled "The Hamster Revolution" (How to Manage Your Email Before It Manages You. And stop info glut - Reclaim your life!) My boss gave me this book recently and I learned a lot from it. Only 100 pages, easy to read and very useful and practical insight.

It cover strategies such as:

1. How to reduce email volume (send less get less, better targeting, use less reply-all etc)
2. Improve email quality (Descriptive subject, use category to build context, use action summary, etc)
3. Coach others to send you more actionable email (which will in turn help us, and in turn help them also, so on so forth)
4. Information storage insight (find and file info quickly and effectively, folder structure and management strategy)

Also in my personal opinion, at your level, you might try to see if you can delegate more to others (including decision making whenever makes sense), especially if there are people in your team will do a good job on it (or maybe sometime even better than yourself at that particular task/decision). And in this case you can tell them to contact the assigned person directly. And if you want, you can ask to be included in the cc (as informed/FYI) and you can choose selectively which email/topic you want to read. You can be included in each email chain or only periodically (like a weekly project summary update for example), or maybe only at the end/conclusion of the project for most of the smaller size projects.

And if you haven't done this already, you can also set an expectation for your team that if they expect you to review the email ASAP then the subject should include something like URGENT or IMPORTANT (or both, and put RESPOND BY 06/30 COB, where applicable), so you can spend your time to respond to those request first. And to coach your team to improve the quality of their email (so fast for you to respond/close the loop) and correctly categorize email criticality (e.g. not to put URGENT on subject such as "The espresso machine is broken" :) ).

Thanks,

Sidarta

Guys, this is pure gold - thanks for all the detailed (and highly entertaining!) ideas. It's interesting how everyone gets to know the right productivity "best practices" for his- or herself through the course of a career. Even so, new job challenges call for new strategies, so as TradeKing expands I'm trying to switch up my own habits for the best.

Now if I could only get Incubus on my BlackBerry during his midnight unicycling phase, I could really hit a productivity supernova!