The Productivity Triangle with Derek Huether

Derek Huether has been working on new blog post that outlines 3 things you need to do to establish better productivity practices. The blog post will be live in a few days on the LeadingAgile Field Notes site (https://www.leadingagile.com/blog/). In the meantime, check out this podcast where Dave Prior and Derek discuss the triangle of productivity, how to understand what enables you to get more done and the importance of learning to hack yourself for greater productivity.

Show Notes:

00:09 Podcast Begins
00:23 Topic Introduction – Patterns on what makes people productive or kills their productivity
01:13 The patterns of success – system, ritual and habit
01:32 Where the data comes from
02:36 Getting clarity the process of productivity
03:10 An example: Scrum
04:14 Personal Kanban as an example
05:25 Holding yourself accountable vs. Making a commitment
06:37 Testing out different personal productivity systems
09:09 The myth of productivity guru’s and developing habits out of rituals
10:54 Learning to do X every day because of what happens when you don’t
11:23 Two systems Derek uses almost daily to increase his productivity
12:00 The importance of breaks and downtime to reset
13:07 If the information being shared requires too much time to convey the message, the message is lost
13:43 How many hours a day are you actually able to be productive
14:22 No one is productive for 8-9 hours a day without a break
15:05 Why you need to reset: “It takes more and more effort to get less and less out of me”
15:46 Planning for personal maintenance
17:15 You need a change of scenery to recharge
17:38 Going to Lowes “OH MY GOD THAT IS SO BORING!”
17:58 Focusing on a different problems to recharge
19:13 If I don’t see progress, my productivity is going to go down and down
19:25 Creating self maintenance tasks and putting them on the board so you don’t skip them
20:35 Is taking a break part of the process?
21:17 Habits can show you if you are being productive
21:36 Hacking yourself to become more productive
23:00  Am I really committed to doing what I am working on now? If not, why are you doing it?
24:04 Dealing with writer’s block
24:42 It’s not about getting the most done. It’s about becoming a student of your productivity
25:27 Having an approach to help you work through things like writer’s block
25:50 Managing procrastination – driven and optimistic vs. pessimistic and indifferent
26:45 What can you do to make yourself more driven and optimistic
26:57 A fifth quadrant – giving yourself permission to not be productive
27:54 Finding the checkpoint so you can take a break – It’s OK!

Links from the Podcast:

A link to the blog post will be posted here as soon as the blog is live

Here is a link to the pictures mentioned in the podcast:
The Triangle of Productivity https://www.instagram.com/p/BMhrTBcAPdM/
The 4 Quadrants of Productivity https://www.instagram.com/p/BNUVR07Avjw/

Reaching Derek:

On the LeadingAgile website: https://www.leadingagile.com/guides/derek-huether/
On his blog: http://www.derekhuether.com
On Twitter: https://twitter.com/derekhuether

Agile Baltimore
Agile Baltimore and the Baltimore Lean Coffee Meetup can be found here: http://www.meetup.com/Agile-Baltimore-Group/