How can you boost your productivity as a project manager?

January has been and gone – and perhaps so too have your well-intentioned New Year’s resolutions – but don’t lose hope of chipping away at those bad habits. It’s never too late to try out a productivity hack.

AI is already helping many of us save time in our daily project management tasks, so continue experimenting. Understanding what works best for you when it comes to time management, making the most of your natural daily energy peaks or organising yourself more fruitfully, can produce minor workplace miracles.

I used to write the Financial Times’ weekly Working Smarter column, and I realised that, while there are many tips that are espoused by experts, there are only a handful that truly make a difference. Here are my top two:

1. Decode your natural working style

Productivity expert Carson Tate wrote a book in 2015 called Work Simply: Embracing the power of your personal productivity style. She argued that you can simplify your work by discovering what your productivity style is and then working with it, not against it, to boost your productivity. Why? Because if you go with the flow, you’ll stop wasting energy trying to fight it, and furthermore, it’ll become more enjoyable.

There’s no point shoehorning yourself into techniques that go against how you naturally like to work. If you do, it will just leave you feeling demotivated, frustrated and working less productively, while feeling confused as to why, despite all the advice, you’re still failing.

“One size does not fit all when it comes to productivity”, writes Tate. “Instead of fighting against your natural thinking, learning and communicating preferences, work with them.”

Tate identified four productivity styles (and you can work out your own by using her Productivity Style Assessment). Your style may be a combination of two, or you may have one dominant style, which “can help you identify approaches you may never have considered that can dramatically boost your productivity”. Here are the four types:

Arrangers are people focused. They encourage teamwork to maximise work output and make decisions intuitively as events unfold. They excel at partnering with people to get work done and are effective communicators with project teams. Their preferred productivity tools are voice-based and video collaboration tools.
Prioritisers are goal-oriented. They prefer logical, analytical, fact-based, critical and realistic thinking. They will use time effectively, focusing on the highest-value task and on achieving project outcomes. They are fans of the latest productivity apps and any device that helps them streamline their workflow.
Visualisers like to comprehend the big picture and work very quickly. They adroitly manage multiple projects and can synthesise disparate ideas into a cohesive whole. They think strategically about projects, like to maintain visual lists and are suited to whiteboards and mind maps. They are a sucker for Post-it notes and won’t be suited to linear to-do lists.
Planners live for the details. A Planner prefers organised, sequential, planned and detailed thinking. They budget the time required to complete tasks, sequentially organise tasks, and prepare accurate, detailed project plans. They maintain detailed lists and frequently complete work in advance of deadlines. Any app that helps them create to-do lists, checklists and planning tools will appeal, as will physical organisational tools. They love a desk organiser.

2. Work to your natural energy peaks and troughs

Once you’ve understood how you prefer to work, it’s time to understand when you prefer to work. What this really means is matching tasks to your natural energy levels. It’s now commonly known that your willpower levels deplete over the course of a day, consumed by decision-making. That’s why President Barack Obama had someone choose his wardrobe for the week, and why Mark Zuckerberg wears the same thing every day (black T-shirt, blue jeans). The fewer unnecessary decisions you have to make, the more willpower and mental energy you will have for work. You will likely be able to focus better when your willpower and concentration levels are high.

It’s now commonly thought that we can be separated into morning and evening people. Morning people leap out of bed, energised and ready to tackle the day ahead. It makes sense for them to take on the heavy lifting, decision-making and meetings at the front end of the day and leave admin for the afternoon. Evening people should begin their days with some easy-wins, easing themselves in gently and saving harder mental work for later in the day.

Multitasking, once seen as a badge of honour, is now seen as a waste of time. If you have control over how you plan your day, then try to batch up work into different tasks and do one thing at a time. Some people like to put fake meetings in their diary when they need thinking or writing time so that they remain undisturbed. But whether you are a morning or an evening person, it’s always beneficial to schedule in breaks throughout your day. Get up, stretch yourself, go for a walk or find 10 minutes for a quiet cup of coffee. Some people love the Pomodoro Technique to help them stay focused – get an egg timer or set an alarm and work for 20 minutes straight before taking a five-minute break. Repeat.