In their book “Help Work to Flow”, Samantha Laing and Karen Greaves have explored their Agile working and coaching experience to collect 40 tips, techniques and games that should allow you to work in the state of flow, this situation where you are more productive.
Each tip is clearly presented on one page, which makes the book easy to read both sequentially or randomly if you prefer to pick the tip that interest you the most. These tips can be applied to various situations. They are these precious little tricks or tools that can help us analyze or change our working habits so that we can have a better life. And you should not forget a quote from Peter Drucker that the authors have put in the introduction: “There is nothing so useless as doing efficiently that which should not be done at all.”
I will recommend this little book to…. everyone. These tips are not only useful in any professional activity, but I think that many of them can also be used in your personal life.
Reference: “Help Work to Flow”, Samantha Laing and Karen Greaves, 54 pages, Leanpub, https://leanpub.com/helpworktoflow
Quotes
Multitasking inhibits flow. One of the criteria for flow is feedback, and we only get feedback when we complete something. Instead of multitasking, try focussing on one thing at a time. Pick a task to work on and finish it before you start something else.
One tip that works well for this is to pick one person on the team to be the interruptible person for a week. Stick a sign on their chair, or at the entrance to the team area. If anyone comes into the team area, guide them to this person or have the interruptible person stand and ask how they can help. Every week alternate this role. Essentially one person will have a very disruptive week, but it will allow the rest of the team to focus and work.
This brain dump is more than just a to do list. It’s everything on your mind, from the shopping list to work tasks to calling a friend to arrange dinner at some point. The exercise of writing things down helps you worry less about them. You have now freed up some mind space to enable flow.
Keep a sheet of paper next to you, and each time you are interrupted by something write it down. At the end of the week, see if you can notice any patterns. If the same thing keeps interrupting you, find a way to deal with it that will prevent it from interrupting you in the future.