On a plane recently, I started writing some of the "blocks to productivity" I have seen and/or experienced. Here is a short list - I'd like to hear what ones you've seen or heard of...
Make and keep a “mental” to-do list, and get distracted by both little AND big things
Dive into e-mail first thing in the morning
Schedule meetings for the first 2 hours of the day
Skip breakfast
Get overwhelmed by how much there is to do
Avoid key conversations and opportunities to clarify objectives with others
Continuing to do use the same self-management techniques, even if they're not helping?
Posted by: Matthew Cornell | August 06, 2007 at 04:37 PM
Starting a 10 minute action, then after 5 minutes starting another 10 action.
In other words, getting distracted and starting something new before I have fished and closed loops.
Posted by: Christopher Scott | August 03, 2007 at 06:09 PM
A personal one of mine:-
Failure to re-engage following an interruption. Instead I have a tendancy to follow-up the interruption or even do something else entirely.
Posted by: Andy | August 03, 2007 at 12:19 PM
To add to Tore's comment, having a feed reader open, such as Feedburner, Technorati or Sage for Mozilla Firefox, is a huge distraction and time-waster. And yet I am virtually powerless to stop.
Posted by: Tyler | August 03, 2007 at 12:16 PM
Ah ha! I'll add that one to the list, thank you!
Posted by: Jason W. Womack, MEd, MA | August 03, 2007 at 10:58 AM
Hi!
You have a very good list there, but my biggest productivity blocker is missing:
Reading news on the web first thing in the morning.
Tore.
Posted by: Tore | August 03, 2007 at 10:52 AM