It is always harder to start pushing a boulder than it is to keep pushing the boulder. Once you get momentum working things become a lot easier to move. The same is true with productivity, once you get going it is a lot easier to keep going (and thus harder to stop).

When it comes to work, we often refer to this type of momentum as ‘flow’ or workflow. Flow can be a very powerful thing if you use it correctly, because switching from one activity to another wastes a lot of time.

David Allen in his “Getting Things Done” methodology says that using contexts to group tasks, and then doing tasks by context is the more efficient way of working. I think that this is a very trues statement.

Working with the Flow

Intuitively we do all our email and grocery shopping at the same time, but this is not usually the case with other tasks. It would be silly for someone to respond to an email, then make a phone call, then go to the bank, then respond to another email. That work pattern seems illogical to most people, and highly inefficient.

In order then to improve productivity I would argue that we need to continue clustering our activities to achieve maximum flow in our productivity. This is a straight forward task for the most part.

Getting Started

1. Group your tasks using either contexts or any other method that works for you.

2. Do your tasks by group.

That is it, very simple.

Examples

If you have a bunch of emails or phone calls to make, do them all at the same time (within reason). If you have errands to run, do all the errands that are near each other at the same time (again within reason).

These are very obvious tricks that many of us already know. They key though is that not all of us take this far enough to achieve the full benefits of flow.

One caveat to all of this is that you need to make sure that you are not just making all your phone calls at once in lieu of doing more important tasks. Make sure you know what needs to be done, and do those first. Then begin knocking off tasks one context at a time.

Related posts:

• ∞ the Hidden Art of Achieving Creative Flow
• Be Productive While Driving
• ∞ the Pursuit of Flow
• Timeout Programs Are a Waste of Time
• Email — You Used to Be Useful