How to Fine-tune Your Productivity System When You Have A Little Extra Time.

This week, it’s all about what you can do to fine-tune your productivity systems so when we do come out of this pandemic you hit the track running.    Links: Email Me | Twitter | Facebook | Website   Carl Pullein Learning Centre Productivity Masterclass | Create Your Own Custom Workflow Carl’s YouTube Channel The FREE Beginners Guide To Building Your Own COD System Carl Pullein Coaching Programmes The Working With… Podcast Previous episodes page   Script Episode 128 Hello and welcome to episode 128 of the Working With Podcast. A podcast to answer all your questions about productivity, time management, self-development and goal planning. My name is Carl Pullein and I am your host for this show. This week I have a question about what you can do with that little bit of extra time each week because you no longer have to spend hours commuting or stuck in traffic jams.  Speaking of having a little extra time, whether you have taken the free COD course or not, now would be a very good time to do the course again (or do it for the first time)  It’s completely free and it will give you everything you need to begin building your own productivity system.  Remember, you are a unique person with your own way of thinking and doing things. This is why developing your own system around three core areas—collecting, organising and doing—is the best place to start.  Details on how to join the course are in the show notes and I hope you get as much value from it as the thousands of other people who have taken the course already have.  Okay on with the show and that means it’s time for me to hand you over to the mystery podcast voice for this week’s question.  This week’s question comes from Mike. Mike asks, hi Carl, like most people I am stuck at home and find I have a lot of extra time on my hands. I don't want to waste this chance. Are there any things I can do that will help to make me more productive? Thank you, Mike, for your question. It’s something I have been doing. Looking at the way I do my work, seeing if I can find more effective and efficient ways of doing it and of course clearing up old folders, wardrobes and drawers around my home.  So what can you do to make your system more efficient and effective?  One area you may want to start with is to clean up your notes app. This is an app that can quickly fill up with a lot of old notes and stuff we collected and no longer need and just get forgotten about.  Now if you are anything like me, you may have a few thousand notes, so the question is where do you begin? For me, I start with the oldest notes. These are the ones most likely to be deleted. Most notes apps will allow you to flip the way they are organised. You want to change your order from last in to first in—or oldest first. This just makes it a little easier as you will be organising from the top down—the natural way—rather than the bottom up—the unnatural way.  When I last did this, I had around 6,000 notes in my notes app. Clearing up 6,000 notes is quite daunting, so I decided to do 3 months at a time. I had three years of notes, that’s 36 months and so I divided that by 3 and that gave me the number of days I needed to clear up my notes app. - 12 days.  Doing it that way reduced any pressure and it turned into a fun experience. For the record, I got those 6,000 notes down to around 4,000 notes in just 12 days. Although I am sure it wasn't real, my notes app did feel a lot faster after that cleanup.  Another area you can cleanup is your to-do list. I find a lot of people have projects in there that are dormant. Projects that if you were being completely honest with yourself were not projects but wishes. If you know deep down that you will never get round to doing the project (or task) then clear it out.  For the more sensitive of you, you could create a master list of these projects and tasks in your notes app. At least then you won’t feel too upset having deleted a lot of old stuff that has been hanging around fo