Principles and Tools that I Use in My Daily Work
By: Alexandra Pryakhina
Tags: Productivity, Hacks, Efficiency, Work, Goals

As we grow older, we all realize increasingly what the best ways for us to work are. We apprehend what is best for us in terms of work pace, environment, and schedule; we establish rules and routines for ourselves.

Today I feel like sharing the best practices adopted after long self-observation and experimenting, and listing some methods I use. I won’t palter with truth: productivity is sometimes a struggle for me, just the way it is to all of us humans. But I know for sure that when I stick to these practices, my productivity soars up.

Part 1. My Work Principles

Principle 1. Backward movement along the mind map

It is now common to use mind maps as a way to break down a large work chunk. Mind maps seem to not have been widely used, say, 10 years ago, and I bet they would have been considered a hipster whim. Today, however, they are ubiquitous.

The problem with traditional mind mapping is: when you break a project down using standard arrows, you get a tree where you move from general to specific. Unfortunately, this approach makes the whole thing look as if you have to focus on the numerous insignificant intern-level tasks, and that the large project is not something that a person of your level would complete. However, the “tip” tasks are only tools for completion of the more sophisticated mass of work, and you should regard them this way only. Focusing on smaller tasks deprives you of a strategic view of the project.

My favorite trick is to draw arrows that are flipped backward, to the base which is the Project itself. This helps me to motivate myself into larger-scale results instead of feeling happy with the achievement of completing small tasks. Once I have completed the “tips”, I follow the arrow that guides me back to the more basic level where larger tasks are. The arrows are showing me the correct movement up the project map: by the completion of smaller steps, I move to a larger and more significant goal. This gives extra thrill and zooms out on my whole work to give me the full picture. When I see what my small actions have done in their sum, I realize that they made tectonic shifts.

By the way, I’ve tried a lot of mind map software packages, including but not limited to MindMeister, Miro, XMind, and Coggle. Each of them is awesome in its own way. However, I opted to manage my tasks by jotting mind maps on actual paper. This way, everything remains in sight, so you always remember or subconsciously feel that there are certain tasks to complete. Plus, you don’t need to switch to another screen or looking at a separate monitor.

Principle 2. Eisenhower matrix — good but not universal

Eisenhower matrix is an amazing approach that helps you prioritize tasks. It helps a lot when we are confused about what to do first and what next. The thing is, we cannot always outline a to-do list because we confuse what’s urgent with what’s important, assuming it’s the same thing.

The Eisenhower matrix brings us back to the real state of things by making us plot a graph where one axis is “Urgency” and another is “Importance”. You only move to another quadrant after completing all tasks in the previous one.

It worked quite well with the “to-do’s” which I had as an international project coordinator a few years ago. I would usually have a large list of communication-related tasks that I needed to prioritize, so I would arrange them on an A4 paper charted as an Eisenhower matrix. However, those tasks were relatively small in terms of time, so I would ace through my agenda. With my current tasks though, this doesn’t seem to work as well as it used to, since each of them is more time-consuming. They are, rather, processes which, on one hand, are tedious and lengthy, on the other — cannot get broken down any further. Completing one task and moving to another takes quite a while, so if I have 2+ tasks in “Urgent Important”, some may stay in other quadrants for ages and I never get my hands on them. This makes Eisenhower not suitable for my current work mode, so I’ve been using simple lists instead, combining them with the mind mapping techniques.

Eisenhower is awesome if you have a number of small and diverse tasks to complete here and there.

Principle 3. Silence… or Lo-Fi

I’ve tried to convince myself a lot of times that certain sounds were boosting my productivity. I was trying to work to the sounds of nature, smooth/improvisational jazz, electronic/ambient/lounge/classical music; even white noise. However, the best concentration was being achieved with no artificial audio background at all. The only exception is drawing, which often has me in the flow state and allows me to draw automatically while being able to listen to things.

Despite my love for silence while doing intellectually demanding things, I’m still a big fan of the Relax Melodies app (you can set your own combination of sounds as well as the frequency), the Chilled Cow lo-fi radio, and white noise, especially this particular noise track!

Principle 4. No messengers during peak workload

I usually have two messengers open, Telegram and Slack. But in cases of a dire need to accomplish a lot in a limited time frame, I quit Telegram and only leave Slack. Or, if my work communication is going via Telegram, I keep it closed and only check it every 0.5–1 hour.

Principle 5. Please call at any time

I hate call scheduling. When you schedule a call with someone, you start perceiving it as a big event. You postpone things that you could do literally on the go!

My principle is, “Call me whenever, unless I’ve openly stated that I will be unavailable at a certain time range”. Cause if I can pick up, I will; and if for some reason I can’t, I will just drop the call and return it when I’m free. There’s no need to complicate.

Principle 6. No fragmented messages

Don’t. Be. That. Guy. Okay? At least, with me.

I insist that my colleagues don’t send fragmented messages in our internal communication. There’s nothing difficult in formulating your idea in one message. I remind people that such approach to communication is time-wasting. It usually takes 2–3 iterations for the request to sink in. But once it’s grasped, collaborative work speeds up noticeably.

Principle 7. Learning the language down the road

Being a language nerd, I cannot do without taking notes. And this is something that I make no exceptions to. Whenever I come across an unfamiliar word or phrase, I immediately make a screenshot of it right in the context and paste the screenshot into the dedicated Telegram chat which I use as a folder.

I will elaborate on this in my upcoming article about learning the language and I will link it here as soon as it is published.

Part 2. Some Tools I Use

Tool 1. Notifications enabled as alerts

What’s the point of even having notifications on your laptop if you forget about them as soon as they disappear? I decided to make my notifications work for me. Mine pop up without any sound at all, but I set them up in such a way that they don’t dissolve unless I click on them, and I make sure to complete the corresponding tasks in order to click “Close”. If I haven’t cleared up the task, the alert banner will float in the upper right corner of the screen taking room and making it hard to focus on non-related tasks. This is a fabulous, although very basic feature.

If you’re using Mac, persistent notifications can be set through System Settings > Notifications; select the app you need, toggle “Allow Notifications from <app name>”, and choose “Alerts” (third horizontal icon).

Sometimes, to access the area behind a notification, I switch to Do Not Disturb for literally a second, using a dedicated shortcut (in my case it’s Cmd+0 for on/off). To assign a shortcut to an action on MacOS, go to System Settings > Keyboard > Shortcuts > Mission Control > activate Turn Do Not Disturb On/Off, then enter your key combination.

Tool 2. Reduce motion

During the years that I’ve had my laptop, there have been several times that I experienced terrible vertigo which was most likely induced by interaction animations, especially by scrolling. My mind was particularly distressed by horizontal scrolling. In early 2019, I even had to take a week off work in order to have a digital detox and to recover.

This probably happens because, even if we do not intend to do so, we still follow objects with our eyes: it’s how our brain is wired, and we cannot really go against it.

When my visual collapse happened, I did my research and learned about the Reduce Motion functionality in Apple products. It makes objects change in a static way rather than by motion. This is great for everyone like me. I reduced motion on all of my devices (currently, MacBook, iPhone, and iPad), and it helps a lot.

If you have an Apple product, you can find Reduce Motion in System Settings > Accessibility > Display > Reduce Motion.

With Reduce Motion enabled, it’s way easier to use the F3 button (which I press a lot to have an overview of my opened apps and to switch between them).

Tool 3. Different users: work VS personal

I have two Chrome users, one for my official full-time work, the other — for personal use and freelancing. The bookmark bars are customized for each need; social/email accounts are separate and don’t get mixed up.

Work bookmarks are all about work-related resources, work email, work dashboards, etc. Since there are no leisure bookmarks among them, I don’t indulge in scrolling Twitter when I have things to do.

Also, since log-in data to accounts on the same platforms are different for each user, I’m safe from, say, posting something irrelevant on my boss’s LinkedIn which I have access to.

And finally, I know that, when I’m closing the window with my Work user, I can call it a day and switch to my personal projects.

Tool 4. Notion for everything

I had always struggled without the right tools for my needs and my work style. Take any app: when some feature is great, there is always some inconvenience that becomes a deal-breaker. For instance, an app may be good for ideation but unsuitable for storage (e.g. Miro). Or, great for storage but a little too slow (e.g. Google Drive and its native file formats).

My main criterion was whether an app gave me freedom to structure things my way. And it would receive additional points if it enabled me to quickly start writing something, adding media, changing layouts on-the-go, piling up files.

Since the first (okay, second to be precise) day I tried Notion, I fell in love. I purchased the premium version immediately. Notion allows me to keep all the information I need structured neatly. And I just love its beautiful and uncluttered design. I could rant about it for ages, but let’s just say, give it a go.

Tool 5. Paper notes

Not something I use all the time, but it often helps. When I use pen and paper, I’m only limited by the borders of the sheet.

I prefer plain paper; ruled one feels as if someone is telling me what layout to stick to — and I need freedom.

Tool 6. Telegram & Slack split view

Thanks to MacOS Split View, I can place all my communications on a separate screen with the apps in maximum width. On the days when I’m not intentionally keeping Telegram minimized, I prefer having Slack on the left and Telegram on the right. For some reason, keeping all chats in one space gives me some satisfaction and increases my productivity. The only warning here is to mind the apps when doing copy-pasting.

Tool 7. Bookmarks

I take the best out of bookmarks and I genuinely enjoy this invention. My browser’s Bookmarks tab gets updated daily as new tasks and projects emerge. I strongly recommend anyone who has to keep an eye on a certain page, to Cmd+D it.

Among my bookmarks, there are such resources as: