Productivity

"The most important contribution management needs to make in the 21st Century is to increase the productivity of knowledge work and the knowledge worker."
- Peter Drucker (1999)

Drucker points out that many knowledge workers have many activities beyond their core task which take up their time and remove their concentration, thereby impacting productivity. He strongly advocates concentration of effort, with other tasks minimised or delegated.

Knowledge work

"At the moment one of the greatest challenges in knowledge working is not to be overwhelmed by the torrent of information but to transform it into something that will make us more productive"
- Richard Straub, IBM Learning Solutions

As each job gets increasingly more complex and unique, the amount of "common knowledge" and "best practices" that can be shared decreases (but there is still a lot of potential).

The knowledge worker is usually the one who knows best how to achieve his designated task, not his boss. He must therefore be able to manage himself to a certain degree.

Any activities that remove the concentration from the knowledge work should be minimized or delegated.

How to increase your productivity ?

Short version:
1. Write everything down
2. Do it !

Longer version:
1. Use iKnow to write everything down
2. Do it:

- Focus; do one task at a time - no distractions (avoid or remove them !)

- Prioritize; find the 3 most important tasks for the day, and try to do them first

- Small chunks; give yourself 10 minutes to work on a task to get started (break it down in smaller chunks)

- Just start; even if the task is daunting, tell yourself you just have to start (start with a fun task, a small task, a complex task - whatever you prefer - or start with breaking it down into small chunks)

- Rewards; promise yourself a reward if you work X minutes on the task

- Motivate yourself; find a good reason why you should do it, or find something exciting about the task to motivate yourself

- Take a break; just take 10 minutes off, doing something completely different, and then try again (the breaks should not be in front of your computer screen ! Take a short walk, grab some coffe, talk to a co-worker etc)

- Time boxing;
    - divide the day into 1x 50 minutes or 2 x 25 minutes time boxes per hour, and decide what you want to fill the time boxes with
    - each box should be focus on a single type of work; internet (web,mail,IM), phone calls, meeting, "working"

- work hard instead of long !

Avoid
- interruptions !!!
- surfing the web
- instant messaging and e-mails (and facebook, and twitter, and...)
- multi-tasking
- being busy instead of being productive

But do
- get things out of your head and on to paper (or iKnow !)
- make decision (what to do, how to do it, when to do it)
- finish what you start
- KISS (Keep It Simple, Silly)

Important:
- effectiveness is doing the right things
- efficiency is doing the thing right
- productivity = effectiveness x efficiency

Using iKnow to increase productivity

iKnow is a personal knowledge manager designed to help each individual with their personal knowledge needs, and help them manage information overload by easily collecting, connecting and creating knowledge.

iKnow is designed to be easy to use. You collect information in notes by giving each note a unique name. No organization is necessary. Searching is very flexible - you may search for a note, search in all notes or search within a single note. To connect related notes, you only have to write the name of a different note, and they are automatically connected.

By storing all your knowledge and information in iKnow and then connecting related notes to each other, you'll have instant access to whatever knowledge you need at any moment. If you need to call a contact, the note with her contact info may also have connections to related notes about her company, the product she sells, former meetings you've had etc. This information is instantly available simply by moving the mouse over the links.

The more information you put in, the more knowledge you get out

iKnow is not designed to share common knowledge - the right tool for sharing depends on the type of business, the type of knowledge and the culture in your company.

iKnow is not designed to replace your e-mail or calendar tool. It is meant to keep all the information and knowledge that doesn't fit in your calendar, but that you need to be productive.