During our recent Focus in a Distracted World skills booster, attendees shared a familiar experience: too many notifications, constant context-switching, overflowing inboxes, and days that feel busy without feeling productive.

The interesting part wasn’t just the problem. It was the practical ideas people shared in the chat and discussion about what’s actually helping them protect their focus.

The conversation during the webinar kept coming back to one challenge: how do you protect your attention when work is designed to interrupt it? Here are 3 tips shared by participants themselves:

1. Create small moments of “protected focus”

One attendee summed it up perfectly:

“I’m trying to make space to get more organised to be more productive.”

That idea of making space came up repeatedly throughout the session.

Not necessarily hours of uninterrupted deep work. Just small, intentional periods where attention is protected from constant interruption.

For some attendees, that meant:

• closing email for short periods
• turning off notifications temporarily
• blocking focus time in their diary
• resisting the urge to instantly respond to every ping

Simple? Yes.

Easy? Not always.

We explored why attention management matters far more now than traditional “time management” approaches.

2. Stop carrying everything around in your head

Another strong theme from the discussion was mental overload.

Many people described the stress of trying to remember everything at once: tasks, follow-ups, meeting notes, priorities, ideas.

One of the core ideas explored in the session was building a more trusted system for capturing work externally instead of relying on memory alone.

Participants shared different approaches, but the principle was consistent:

The less your brain has to store, the more it can focus.

We went much deeper into how to do this in practice… especially in fast-moving, distraction-heavy workplaces.

3. Be more intentional about where your attention goes

A recurring conversation in the chat centred around reactivity.

Many attendees recognised they were spending large parts of the day responding rather than progressing meaningful work.

That’s why one of the biggest themes in the webinar was this: Attention is your most valuable resource.

Not time.

Participants discussed practical ways to become more deliberate about:

• when they check email
• how meetings affect focus
• where their energy goes first
• what deserves immediate attention (and what doesn’t)

These were small mindset shifts, but they sparked a lot of discussion during the session.

Why this matters more than ever

This isn’t just about productivity.

Constant distraction affects stress levels, wellbeing, and the feeling of accomplishment at work. When attention is fragmented all day, it becomes harder to think clearly, make decisions, and finish the day with a sense of progress.

That’s one reason this topic resonated so strongly with attendees.

As Think Productive’s work often explores, better work doesn’t come from pushing harder. It comes from creating more clarity, calm, and focus in the way we work.

Want to dive deeper?

Watch the full Skills Booster on YouTube here:

And if your organisation wants practical support to help teams work with more focus, clarity, and calm, explore our How to be a Productivity Ninja workshop or get in touch with our friendly team here.

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The latest 2026 State of the Global Workplace report puts engagement at just 20%, with declining manager engagement identified as a major driver.

That statistic should concern every organisation.

Because engagement is rarely lost in one dramatic moment. More often, it fades gradually under the weight of overload, distraction and constant pressure.

Managers are stretched thin. Teams are overwhelmed. Attention is fragmented.

And when managers are operating in survival mode, culture starts to suffer.

The manager engagement crisis

Most managers are not disengaged because they don’t care. They care deeply. But many are trying to lead while buried under:

• Back-to-back meetings
• Endless notifications
• Constant context switching
• Rising expectations
• Pressure to always be available

There’s very little space left for good leadership.

No time to think properly, to coach, to notice when someone is struggling, to create clarity.

At Think Productive, we know productivity isn’t about time management, but more about attention management.

And attention is under attack.

Why engagement efforts often fail

Many organisations respond to disengagement with:

• More surveys
• More internal comms
• More initiatives
• More perks

But engagement is not created through noise.

People feel engaged when they experience:

• Psychological safety
• Trust
• Clarity
• Belonging
• Purpose
• Recognition
• Space to do meaningful work

You cannot logic someone into engagement. They need to feel it. That’s why sustainable engagement starts with human needs, not corporate messaging.

One practical thing managers can do today

Before your next meeting or 1:1, pause for 60 seconds and ask yourself:

“What does this person need from me right now?”

Not your divided attention while replying to Slack messages.
Not another rushed status update.
Not performative busyness.

Your presence.

In distracted workplaces, attention has become one of the most valuable things a leader can give.

Engagement and wellbeing are deeply connected

This matters beyond productivity.

When people spend every day reacting instead of thinking, rushing instead of focusing, and firefighting instead of progressing, wellbeing suffers too.

Distraction creates stress.
Lack of clarity creates anxiety.
Constant interruptions create exhaustion.

Protecting attention is not just a productivity strategy anymore. It’s part of creating healthier, more sustainable workplaces.

So what can organisations do?

The answer is not pushing people harder.

It’s helping managers and teams work differently.

At Think Productive, our Cracking the Engagement Puzzle workshop helps leaders understand the human drivers behind engagement and gives them practical ways to create more motivated, connected and energised teams.

Because when humans thrive, work works.

If you’d like to explore bringing Cracking the Engagement Puzzle to your organisation, get in touch with our team here.

The post Only 1 in 5 Employees Feel Engaged at Work. Here’s the Bigger Problem. appeared first on Think Productive UK.

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You’re busy all day, constantly responding, switching, and reacting, yet nothing meaningful seems to move forward. The list gets longer, not shorter, and the sense of control slips away.

This is exactly the tension explored in Liane Davey’s upcoming book Thoughtload. Her core idea is simple: when you’re overwhelmed, you don’t just need a better list. You need the right kind of support to process the workload.

And that support doesn’t look the same for everyone.

The Four Ways People Cope with Overwhelm

When pressure builds, people tend to default to one of four responses.

Some people need to talk things through. Conversation helps them clarify priorities, test ideas, and reduce the mental load.

Others need to take action. Starting something, even imperfectly, creates momentum and cuts through inertia.

Some need structure. They want to organise, categorise, and build a system that makes the work feel manageable again.

And some need to reconnect with meaning. They reframe tasks, adjust how they approach the work, or find ways to make it more engaging.

These are not personality traits. They are ways of restoring control.

The problem is that most workplaces unintentionally favour just one of them, usually structure. We default to lists, systems, and processes as the solution to overload, even when that isn’t what people need in that moment.

Why One-Size-Fits-All Productivity Advice Falls Short

Traditional productivity advice often assumes that better organisation will solve the problem. It tells people to plan more carefully, structure their workload, and stick to a system.

Structure is valuable, but it’s not always the starting point.

When someone is overwhelmed, forcing structure too early can increase friction. Equally, constant action without clarity leads to busywork, and too much discussion without decisions slows everything down.

Work today is too complex for a single mode of working. As we often say, you will never get everything finished, so productivity becomes less about completion and more about making better choices with your attention.

That requires flexibility, not just discipline.

What This Looks Like in Practice

This is exactly why our How to be a Productivity Ninja workshop works so well.

It doesn’t rely on one approach to productivity. Instead, it creates space for all four ways people regain control, often within the same session.

There’s connection built in from the start. It’s a group workshop with time to talk, reflect, and sense-check thinking. Many participants say they feel immediate relief simply from articulating what has been sitting in their head.

There’s action early on. The brain dump exercise gets everything out of your head and into a trusted place, creating instant clarity and momentum.

There’s structure through the “second brain” system. Participants build a simple, practical way to organise their work on the day, rather than leaving with ideas they may never implement.

And there’s space for creativity. Whether it is renaming projects, experimenting with formats, or shaping a system that feels intuitive, people find ways to make their work more engaging and personal.

This blend matters because productivity is not just about tools or discipline. It is about giving people the right kind of support at the right time so they can move forward with clarity.

In fact, 82% of participants go on to implement a new productivity system and report feeling more in control of their work after the workshop.

A Simple Way to Regain Control Today

If everything on your list feels urgent, start with a different question.

Ask yourself what you actually need right now.

• Do you need to talk something through to gain clarity?
• Do you need to take one small action to build momentum?
• Do you need to step back and organise the work properly?
• Or do you need to reconnect this task to something more meaningful?

Choosing the right response can help you move out of reaction mode and back into control.

Ready to Work This Way for Real?

If this resonates, join our upcoming How to be a Productivity Ninja public workshop to help you put it into practice straight away.

You’ll not just learn a system, you’ll build one that works for you, with the support, structure, and space to actually make it stick.

Book your place and start creating the clarity you need to focus on what really matters.

The post Why Prioritisation Alone Doesn’t Fix Overwhelm at Work appeared first on Think Productive UK.

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Not because managers don’t care, but because it feels uncomfortable, risky, or easy to get wrong.

So instead:

• Conversations get delayed
• Messages get softened
• Or nothing gets said at all

And over time, that creates confusion, frustration, and underperformance.

3 simple ways to make feedback easier

In our recent Skills Booster: Feedback Without Fear webinar, we shared some practical ways to take the pressure out of feedback.

Here are three you can start using straight away:

1. Don’t wait for the perfect moment

The longer you leave feedback, the bigger it becomes. Try keeping it light and timely:

“Can I share a quick thought while it’s fresh?”

2. Focus on the work, not the person

Feedback lands better when it’s about improving outcomes.

Instead of:
“That didn’t go well”

Try:
“I think the key message got lost. Can we sharpen that next time?”

3. Be clear and human

You don’t have to choose between being direct and being kind. The most effective feedback does both:

• Clear on what needs to change
• Respectful in how it’s said

Want more practical tips like these?

This is just a snapshot of what we covered in our Skills Booster Feedback Without Fear. Catch up with the full recording on our YouTube channel:

Ready to go further?

The Skills Booster gives you the ideas.

Our We Need to Talk workshop helps your managers actually apply them in real conversations, through practice and expert coaching.

Find out more here.

The post Why feedback feels so hard (and what to do about it) appeared first on Think Productive UK.

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For most knowledge workers, it’s the control tower of the day… requests, updates, approvals, decisions.

And yet, many people feel trapped in:

• An inbox that never seems to shrink
• Constant interruptions and notifications
• Important emails buried under noise
• The mental load of “I need to deal with that later”

The result?

Workdays spent reacting instead of focusing.

That’s exactly why we ran our ‘Inbox Zero, Headspace Restored’ Skills Booster webinar with Productivity Ninja Lee.

If you joined us live, thank you.

These sessions are designed to be practical, fast-paced and immediately useful, helping people regain control of their inbox and their attention.

(And judging by the chat and feedback, inbox overwhelm clearly struck a chord.)

What this skills booster covered

In this practical session, Lee explored how to:

• Build a simple system to reach Inbox Zero consistently
• Turn emails into clear actions instead of mental clutter
• Reduce interruptions and notification overload
• Create time to focus on meaningful work, not just messages
• Stay responsive without living inside your inbox

Email isn’t the problem. The problem is what email does to our attention.

Our brains were never designed to handle a constant stream of requests, decisions and information arriving every few minutes.

Without a system, the inbox becomes a source of stress. With the right system, it becomes a trusted tool.

The Ninja Email Processing Diagram

During the webinar, several people asked if they could print the email processing diagram we shared.

Good news: here it is.

This diagram comes from the Ninja Email chapter of How to be a Productivity Ninja and shows the decision process for handling every email that enters your inbox.

The idea is simple: every email should trigger a clear decision, not sit in your inbox creating mental clutter.

When an email arrives, ask yourself a few quick questions:

1. Is this important to me at all?
   If not, delete it.
2. Am I committed to an action here?
   If yes, decide whether to:
   • Do it now (if it takes a couple of minutes)
   • Add it to your task system
   • Schedule it for later
3. If no action is required, decide how to store it:
   • Reference folder
   • Waiting for someone else (@Waiting)
   • Reading later (@Read)

Once the decision is made, the email leaves the inbox.

Your inbox returns to what it should be: a place for decisions, not a place to store work.

If you’d like to keep this as a reference, feel free to download or print the diagram.

Want to go deeper?

If inbox overwhelm is a recurring challenge in your organisation, we offer workshops that go far beyond quick tips.

Getting Your Inbox to Zero

This practical workshop helps individuals build a sustainable system for managing email, tasks and information without overload.

Participants learn how to process email efficiently, reduce stress and create more space for focused work.

Explore the session here.

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For most organisations, it’s now the backbone of how work happens… meetings, updates, collaboration, decisions.

And yet, many teams still feel stuck in:

• Back-to-back calls
• Vague outcomes
• Too many attendees
• Meetings that create more work than they resolve

That’s exactly why we ran our ‘Love Your Microsoft Teams Meetings‘ Skills Booster webinar.

If you joined us live, thank you.
If you couldn’t make it or want a refresher, the recording is now available on our YouTube channel:

What this skills booster covers

In this practical session, Deane explores how to:

• Choose the right Teams format (meeting, webinar, or no meeting at all)
• Design meetings around decisions, not updates
• Use Copilot strategically before and after meetings
• Capture clear actions and next steps automatically
• Reduce meeting fatigue without reducing collaboration

Microsoft 365 is powerful, but tools don’t fix unclear thinking.

Meeting culture is leadership culture

“If you want to understand a company’s culture, sit in on their meetings.
The habits, the clarity, the energy, it’s all right there.”

Meetings reveal everything.

How decisions are made.
Who contributes.
Whether time is respected.
Whether accountability sticks.

The Skills Booster helps individuals run better Microsoft Teams meetings.

But if the problem is bigger than one meeting, it’s cultural.

Want to go deeper?

If you’re looking for more structured development for your teams, we offer:

Mastering Microsoft Teams Meetings

A practical workshop focused specifically on using Microsoft Teams effectively from meeting formats to Copilot integration to follow-through systems. Explore the session here.

This is ideal if your organisation is heavily invested in Microsoft 365 and wants to get real return from it.

Fixing Meetings

If the issue runs deeper too many meetings, poor structure, low energy, unclear outcomes, this workshop tackles the culture of meetings itself.

It helps teams make meetings rare, purposeful and productive again. Explore our Fixing Meetings session here.

Start with better meetings.
Then build better meeting culture.

Because when meetings work, work works.

The post Love Your Microsoft Teams Meetings (Yes, Really) appeared first on Think Productive UK.

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It shows up as back‑to‑back meetings. A constantly full inbox. That feeling of being busy all day but unsure what actually moved.

And for many people, it feels normal.

Until it doesn’t.

When pressure becomes the default

In our recent Stop the Stress Cycle skills booster, we shared one pattern that came up again and again.

People aren’t overwhelmed because they can’t cope.

They’re overwhelmed because work has slipped into a permanent state of urgency.

Decisions get rushed. Thinking time disappears. Everything feels important, so nothing gets proper attention.

Why stress keeps repeating itself at work

One of the biggest myths we explored is that stress is mainly about workload.

In reality, it’s more often driven by how work is structured day to day.

Constant interruption. Unclear priorities. No space to recover between demands.

When those conditions are in place, stress becomes self‑reinforcing. People react more. They plan less. The cycle tightens.

Watch the recording

If everything feels urgent, this recording will help you step back and see what’s really going on.

It’s especially useful if:

• Your days are full but your head is fuller
• You’re stuck in reactive mode
• You want calmer, more sustainable performance

Sometimes the most productive thing you can do is pause long enough to choose a better way forward.

If this resonated for you or your team, many organisations explore these ideas further through our wider productivity and wellbeing workshops.

They focus on helping people slow down, reduce reactivity, and create practical habits that protect energy and attention in everyday work.

The post The real reason stress keeps coming back at work appeared first on Think Productive UK.

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Email was designed to help us communicate.

For many people managers and people professionals, it now creates more pressure than clarity. Messages arrive faster than they can be processed, and inboxes become crowded with tasks, questions, updates and CCs. The result is a workday shaped around reacting, rather than making progress.

To help teams reset their habits, Productivity Ninja Lee and Head of Learning Success Deane ran a live Ninja Skills Booster on how to bring your inbox back under control in a simple, sustainable way.

You can now watch the recording on demand here.

Why email becomes overwhelming

Most inboxes grow because people are trying to keep up, not because they’re disorganised. Throughout the day, we scan, reopen, save for later and carry half-finished thoughts in our heads. As this builds, the inbox becomes a mix of tasks, reminders and unresolved decisions.

The impact is familiar:
• difficulty spotting what matters
• pressure to be constantly available
• hesitation about deleting anything
• a sense of being behind, even when you’re working hard

This isn’t a personal failing. It’s a workload and habit problem, and it can be fixed.

One change to try today

When a new message arrives, ask:

Does this need my action, someone else’s action, or no action at all?

This one question reduces re-reading, frees up mental space and stops the inbox from becoming a running to-do list.

If your team needs practical support to reduce email overload and work with more clarity, our Getting Your Inbox to Zero workshop gives them the habits, structure and confidence to stay on top of email long term.

The post Why email still gets in the way of good work appeared first on Think Productive UK.

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It’s normal. But when it happens too often, it can distract your audience and quietly chip away at your confidence.

In our recent skills booster, How to Stop Umming and Erring When Presenting, Presenting Expert and Productivity Ninja Dom Kracmar explored why it happens, what it reveals about how our minds work, and how to use silence as one of the most powerful tools in communication.

Why we do it

Those little “umms” and “errs” aren’t mistakes. They’re a sign that your brain is working hard to find the right words. The challenge isn’t getting rid of them, it’s learning to manage them.

When we feel under pressure, silence feels risky. But in reality, silence builds authority. The pause tells your audience, I’m thinking. I’m in control.

How to pause with purpose

Rather than trying to sound flawless, focus on creating space.

A clear pause between thoughts helps you slow down, breathe, and give your listeners time to process what you’ve said.

Try this in your next meeting or presentation:

• Start speaking after a short pause instead of rushing in.
• When you finish a key point, pause again before moving on.
• If you lose your train of thought, take a breath rather than filling the gap.

It feels uncomfortable at first, but soon those pauses become your superpower.

The balance that sounds natural

A few fillers are fine; they make you sound human.

The goal is balance: enough warmth to sound natural, but enough calm to sound confident.

Dom summed it up perfectly during the session: “Clarity doesn’t come from speaking faster. It comes from giving your words room to land.”

Want to take it further?

If this idea resonated with you, you’ll love our full-day workshop Love Your Inner Presenter.

It’s designed to help you find your authentic voice, manage nerves, and bring more calm and confidence to every presentation.

The post How to Stop Umming and Erring When Presenting appeared first on Think Productive UK.

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Difficult

Tasks feel overwhelming when they demand skills or confidence people don’t yet have.

• Manager’s move: Break the work into smaller steps. Pair the person with someone experienced. Provide coaching and encouragement.
• Example: Instead of asking someone to “deliver the new onboarding programme,” start with “draft the welcome email.” Small progress builds momentum.

Undefined

Vague work is easy to delay. Without clear scope, tasks linger and drain energy.

• Manager’s move: Define success. Be explicit about outcomes, deadlines, and ownership.
• Example: Replace “a report on engagement” with “a two-page summary of survey results plus three action points, due Friday.”

Scary

Some tasks trigger fear of failure, conflict, or stepping outside a comfort zone. These quickly sink to the bottom of to-do lists.

• Manager’s move: Name the fear. Offer reassurance and create psychological safety. Frame mistakes as part of learning.
• Example: If someone avoids giving feedback, role-play the conversation or share a simple script to lower the barrier.

Tedious

Repetitive or boring tasks are often postponed until they block progress.

• Manager’s move: Automate, delegate, or rotate. Ask if the task truly needs to be done.
• Example: If chasing timesheets consumes hours each week, set up automatic reminders or rotate responsibility among the team.

Why Managers Should Use DUST

Applying the DUST model helps managers:

• Identify the hidden reasons behind delays
• Offer targeted support instead of extra pressure
• Build team confidence and independence
• Keep projects moving smoothly

Practical Next Step

Pick one task that has been stuck on your team’s list. Ask: is it Difficult, Undefined, Scary, or Tedious? Once you name it, you can act on it. That simple step clears the air and unlocks progress.

The post How Managers Can Use the DUST Model to Clear Team Bottlenecks appeared first on Think Productive UK.

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We spend plenty of time talking about how managers should lead their teams. But there’s less talk about the other side of the relationship: how you manage your boss.

When the dynamic with your manager isn’t working, it can drain energy, slow progress, and keep good ideas buried. Managing upwards is the skill of turning that relationship into something productive, where you’re seen as a trusted partner, not just a follower.

More Than Flattery or Politics

Managing upwards isn’t about playing games. It’s about building influence, understanding how your manager sees you, recognising what they need, and bridging the gap between their perspective and yours.

Done well, it makes your work more visible, your voice more credible, and your career path clearer.

Watch: Russell Caird on Maximising Your Power

In our recent Skills Taster Session, Russell Caird explored how to strengthen your relationship with your manager and maximise both your personal and positional power.

Watch the replay here

You’ll learn practical strategies for:

• Understanding different manager styles.
• Securing time for meaningful conversations.
• Rebuilding trust after mistakes.
• Navigating senior stakeholders with confidence.

A Shift You Can Try Today

Before your next 1:1, ask yourself two questions:

1. How do I see my manager?
2. How do they likely see me?

That small shift in perspective can change the tone of the conversation and help you build influence where it matters.

The post How to Manage Upwards Without Losing Yourself appeared first on Think Productive UK.

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Why Teams Need the 4 Modes of Work

Modern organisations often default to one mode: meetings. Whether virtual or in-person, too much of our collective energy is consumed by unnecessary group discussions. The result? Burnout, meeting fatigue, and reduced productivity.

The 4 Modes of Work framework gives hybrid teams and managers a practical way to design smarter collaboration. By naming and planning for each mode, organisations can reclaim focus, reduce distractions, and boost employee engagement.

The 4 Modes of Work Explained

1. Solo Work
Deep, focused work done alone. Examples: strategy writing, creative thinking, or preparing a presentation. Solo mode requires uninterrupted time and space, essential for knowledge workers who need to think clearly.

2. Tandem Work
Two people working together in real time on the same task. Common in coaching, co-drafting, or pair problem-solving. For hybrid teams, Tandem mode reduces email chains and accelerates decision-making.

3. Tag Team Work
Asynchronous handovers between people. You finish your part, then pass it to someone else. Ideal for distributed teams working across time zones or when deep reflection is needed before progressing.

4. Collaborative Work
Multiple people together in real time, sharing ideas, making decisions, or aligning on actions. Collaborative mode should be used with intention, not as the default. Shorter, focused meetings deliver the best results.

The Cost of Ignoring Work Modes

When organisations don’t distinguish between these modes, inefficiency rises:

• Solo time disappears into a blur of notifications.
• Tag Team opportunities get replaced by unnecessary meetings.
• Tandem sessions are avoided in favour of endless email threads.

The outcome? Slower projects, increased stress, and disengaged teams.

How to Apply the 4 Modes of Work

Look at your calendar for the week ahead and ask:

• Do I have enough Solo time protected for deep work?
• Could this long meeting be replaced with a Tag Team handover?
• Would 30 minutes of Tandem collaboration speed things up more than days of back-and-forth?

By shifting just a few activities into their correct mode, teams immediately see improvements in productivity, engagement, and wellbeing.

Why HR Leaders and Managers Should Care

For HR professionals, people managers, and hybrid team leaders, the 4 Modes of Work model offers:

• A shared language for managing workload and expectations.
• A tool to prevent burnout and boost retention.
• A framework to design hybrid work cultures that balance focus and collaboration.

Bringing the 4 Modes to Life

At Think Productive, we integrate the 4 Modes of Work into our Leading Hybrid Teams workshop. Again and again, managers tell us it’s the missing piece: a simple, evidence-based model that makes hybrid working more effective.

Want to help your team thrive in hybrid work? Explore our Leading Hybrid Teams workshop.

The post The 4 Modes of Work: A Smarter Way to Design Your Day appeared first on Think Productive UK.

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And yet, right now, so many managers are struggling to keep energy, ownership and motivation alive. Quiet quitting, burnout, and disengagement aren’t just buzzwords; they’re showing up in your one-to-ones, your missed deadlines, and that low-key dread before every meeting.

So, what actually helps?

Watch: Cracking the Engagement Puzzle

In this 45-minute webinar, coach and facilitator David Papa explores what really drives engagement, and how to respond when your team’s spark is fading.

In the session, you’ll learn:

• Why traditional engagement strategies fall flat in today’s workplace
• The subtle signals of disengagement (and how to catch them early)
• A powerful mindset shift to help you re-engage your team with empathy and impact
• Practical tools you can use immediately to create more trust, connection and ownership

Who it’s for:
This session is especially useful for HR leaders, L&D professionals and people managers responsible for team wellbeing, motivation and performance.

Whether you’re facing high turnover, low morale or want to lead with more clarity and connection, this is for you.

Don’t just patch the symptoms. Get to the root.
Watch the recording now and start transforming how your team feels about work.

If you’re ready to go deeper into this challenge as a team, check out our “Cracking the Engagement Puzzle” inhouse workshop or connect with us below to explore the options for your people.

The post Cracking the Engagement Puzzle: How to Rebuild Team Energy and Trust appeared first on Think Productive UK.

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In this video, Deane and Lee share clear, practical tools to help you take back control. Whether you’re dealing with constant interruptions, overloaded inboxes, or the pressure to respond instantly, watching this video could shift your whole approach.

No jargon. No “just try harder” advice. Just simple ideas that work.

What you’ll learn:

• Why email overload happens (and what to do about it)
• The “One Touch Rule” for managing messages efficiently
• Practical ways to set boundaries and reduce decision fatigue

Try this right now
Once you’ve watched the video, put the One Touch Rule into action right away. It’s a simple decision tree that helps you clear email fast and avoid the mental mafia of mess in your inbox:

Here’s how it works:

Do it – quick enough to finish in two minutes? Just do it now
Delegate it – forward it to someone better placed to act
Defer it – if it needs more time, schedule it immediately and tag it in your system
Delete it – if it doesn’t serve you or your team

Want more than a quick win?
Our focused 3‑hour Getting Your Inbox to Zero workshop is ideal for people leaders like you: L&D, Talent, Ops professionals who need real time and headspace back.

The post How to Take Control of Your Inbox: Productivity Tips for L&D and People Leaders appeared first on Think Productive UK.

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At Think Productive, we believe productivity isn’t about doing more. It’s about connecting better. With your work. With your team. With what really matters.

That’s why we’re speaking at the CIPD Festival of Work 2025, inviting HR professionals and people leaders to rethink what engagement truly looks like in the modern workplace.

In our session, you’ll discover:

• Why traditional engagement tactics often fall flat
• How to create moments of real connection in meetings and beyond
• Simple shifts that re-energise your team’s relationship with their work

Here’s a taste of what we’ll be exploring at the event:

Led by David Papa, our session blends human insight with practical tools. David has worked with global leaders and teams to create cultures where people feel seen, switched on, and safe to bring their best.

Whether you’re navigating burnout, change fatigue or a dip in team morale, this is your space to press pause and reset

Not coming to the CIPD Festival of Work?

You can still join the conversation. Join our free taster session on the 10th of July to start building engagement that sticks.

The post Is Your Team Really Engaged or Just Going Through the Motions? appeared first on Think Productive UK.

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Many of us knowledge workers have been using Microsoft for so long that all of the new applications and features added to the 365 suite over the years have gone completely under the radar. There are now a whopping 20 apps at your disposal, which contain hundreds of features to make you and your team’s working life more streamlined and efficient!

The Reality

Unfortunately, many of our clients describe using Microsoft applications as the opposite. We get it—tech tools can be overwhelming to learn, and new systems take time to be fully adopted by the team. But as we’ve found while delivering our Microsoft for Productivity Ninjas workshop, giving your team dedicated time to learn and connect these features can result in wonders for their collective attention and mindset.

With that in mind, let’s go over a few of the Microsoft 365 applications and features we love to use to reduce overwhelm, provide clarity and foster team collaboration.

To Do

Before we begin ‘the doing’ at work, we need to know exactly what there is to do, right? Not to mention leaving our brains empty enough to do that work well. One of our core concepts and tools at Think Productive is having what we call a ‘second brain‘ – essentially an external tool where every single to-do is captured, so you don’t have to retain that information.

The To Do app in the Microsoft 365 suite is an excellent tool for this, allowing you to set up groups with as many lists as you’d like, capturing individual tasks in detail with:

1. Task title
2. Multiple action points (if needed)
3. Due date
4. Whether you’d like the task to repeat
5. Associated files
6. Notification reminders

What’s really powerful about To Do is its ability to capture tasks you’ve received in other Microsoft apps such as Outlook and Teams. Yep, you can actually send tasks received via these apps directly to To Do and organise them accordingly!

You can also share lists with your colleagues, making for collaborative task management for projects with multiple team members.

One Note

One Note is an excellent tool for recording all your thoughts, ideas and notes in one place. You can create as many sections as you like, resulting in a digital, never-ending version of those notebooks with the colourful dividing tabs.

It’s incredibly versatile and can capture your ideas however you wish to express them. You can insert:

1. Typed text
2. Handwriting
3. Drawing (in various colours/thicknesses)
4. Photos
5. Hyperlinks

As a cloud-based app, it allows you to take your notes wherever you need them, view them across your devices and gives you the ability to search for key details, so you always have the info on hand if someone asks a question. We particularly enjoy how your digital notes can easily be shared with your colleagues, making collaborative online work that much easier.

Teams

Teams is full to the brim with useful features to help streamline project work involving different teams and departments. It all starts with creating your project ‘Team’, deciding on your ‘channels’ (subsets of tasks or your team) and choosing exactly which tools you’d like to include.

You can choose from hundreds of Microsoft and external tools to make the perfect environment for streamlined working, but here are some of our core favourites:

1. Planner – create, assign and date tasks (this links to To Do)
2. Chat – communicate and discuss important info
3. Files – easier access to files stored on OneDrive
4. PDF – immediate access to a core team document
5. Onenote – quick access to your collaborative notes
6. Forms – capture and submit essential info

Teams is as powerful as it is overwhelming – it works best when you’re intentional about how you want your workflows to operate within your team and setting up the tools accordingly. We’re always happy to give suggestions on what that could look like for your team during your Microsoft for Productivity Ninjas workshop.

Outlook

Finally, one of the most used and most frustrating Microsoft tools from your day-to-day – Outlook. This essential tool is most likely at the centre of your organisation’s communication and scheduling efforts but is often misused as a catch-all – for planning, tracking projects, deciding the best times for meetings and sharing documents – which is precisely why we encourage participants in our workshop to learn about the first three apps on this list!

While we’re sure you can already appreciate how To Do, OneNote and Teams are much better suited for your productivity needs when it comes to planning and tracking, there are also automatic functions in Outlook that can streamline communication and scheduling that are often overlooked, such as:

1. Polls – tallying group results for multiple options (e.g. the best date for a meeting)
2. Voting buttons – for simple yes/no answers (e.g. getting sign-off on a decision)
3. Templates – create, save and use your own email scripts with a click
4. Quickparts – add frequently used sentences or hyperlinks to your emails with a click

Wrangling Outlook is an issue many of the teams we work with come up against, but it is possible. Making use of the automatic features Outlook has to offer will absolutely help you to start thinning out your inbox in a way that won’t lead to calendar clashing.

What next?

We don’t expect you to perfectly integrate all of these apps within your workflows. Rather, our goal is to show the psychological benefit of using tech tools to take the strain off of your team/s, illustrate different solutions to many of the organisational problems knowledge workers face, and encourage the use of Microsoft tools you’re already paying for. Even half an hour gained back by the use of an email poll is an excellent result in our book!

For dedicated organisational support on how to use Microsoft for better productivity, consider our Microsoft for Productivity Ninjas training for your team.

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Well, if it isn’t that time yet, we at Think Productive are calling it! Say goodbye to time-wasting meetings and hi to the 4 glorious Ps of productive meetings. It’s time.

What are the 4 Ps?

The 4 Ps is a repeatable framework used to nail down the specifics of your meeting so that you can send an invite full of detail to the right people with purpose. It allows you to tell your colleagues why they need to attend, how they can participate and what the goal of your meeting is. Essentially, it’s you making decisions ahead of time to better facilitate a productive meeting. Hurrah!

Let’s break it down…

Purpose

First, you need to decide the ‘why’ of the meeting to bring a bit of shape to things. Start by writing a purpose statement beginning with ‘By the end of this meeting, we will have…’ and think about what you’re looking to collectively achieve. Once completed, you can pop this in the meeting invited so all participants are on the same page.

Use one of the following verb words to help you:

1. Decided
2. Discussed
3. Resolved
4. Learned
5. Confirmed

Plan

Now that you have your meeting purpose, it’s time to move on to planning the ‘what’ and ‘when’.

Start by deciding what information, if any, is needed to update the group before going on to discuss and eventually answer any relevant questions – this provides the basis of your agenda. From here, you’ll be able to determine who is responsible for each agenda item and if any other preparations for the meeting are required (e.g. powerpoint/handouts, a physical meeting space, timezone constraints).

Protocol

Think of protocol as figuring out the ‘how’ of your meeting by really digging into the details. Cycle through the questions below to determine your meeting protocols, making sure to disregard and/or add any questions that might be relevant to your industry or way of working:

1. Where will your meeting take place?
2. Will it be in person, online, or hybrid?
3. What time will your meeting begin and end?
4. Do phones/laptops need to be away for participants?
5. Which interactive elements, if any, will be included in the meeting? (E.g. Q&A, voting)

For online and hybrid meetings:

1. What are the joining instructions?
2. Do cameras need to be on or off?

An important consideration for online or hybrid meetings is: How are your participants expected to contribute, if at all? Deciding and communicating this information is important for participants as it will allow them to choose their location carefully. If their contribution is to be via chat and typing, a noisy office with headphones on is fine. If contribution is expected via voice, they will need to be somewhere quiet. If any confidential discussion is involved, they will need to be away from other ears. In a hybrid world, making contribution information clear in advance is essential.

People

Okay, so most of the core decisions for your meeting have been made! Now it’s time for the final P, the ‘who’ – inviting people. It’s important to be mindful of how many people you invite and ensure you invite the right people.

With direct contributors having already been decided when creating the agenda, begin by inviting anyone essential to achieving the meeting’s core purpose. Think carefully about this – don’t just invite an entire team on the off-chance that they may be essential.

If you aren’t sure who would be considered essential, do your due diligence before sending an invite. Anyone non-essential that you feel may need to be included can be offered an invitation and informed that they are welcome to attend, but not obligated.

What next?

Do you have a meeting coming up that is already scheduled but could use some refining? Go through the above process and see if you can bring in some essential clarity before things kick off.

Now that you have a repeatable framework for productive meeting, use it! It will save both you and your colleagues time, while also creating a standard for excellent meetings in your organisation. We love an early adopter!

If you’d like to learn more about how to make meetings rare, fun and productive again, check out our Fixing Meetings workshop and bring meetings magic to your whole team or organisation.

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The bigger picture matters

Feedback is usually directed at an individual, but its’ purpose is collective. We talk a lot at Think Productive about eliminating “stinky fish” – this means tackling head-on those issues that start as a minor irritation but have the potential to derail the whole endeavour. I find that often the group-think temptation is to just ignore these things and hope they go away or get better on their own, but aligning feedback to the bigger picture, and being on a quest for clarity, is the less comfortable but more courageous approach. And a small but painful conversation now is almost always better than a bigger-and-even-more-painful one further down the line.

The detail matters too

It’s easy to give feedback based on generic statements, but being specific (and of course, tying your feedback to examples of behaviours or actions) really helps. Ultimately, you’re probably needing to change someone’s mind, so give them evidence that helps them question their current reality, and making it less of an attack on their entire soul obviously helps, too.

Consistency beats intensity

If you’ve read my How to Have The Energy book, you’ll know that we talk a lot about food habits and the idea that consistently eating well is actually much easier than following a harsh but rigid diet. It also affords you the ability to screw up or eat the odd cake with a sense of joyful abandon, because you know that you’re on the right track with all those other meals. Feedback is the same – little and often is much easier to take on board, and it means the feedback process becomes habitual and helpful (because there’s less of a barrier to positive reinforcement or small course corrections), rather than being reserved as a ‘big old slap in the face’ to be wheeled out only when something goes wrong.

Stay curious, grateful and humble

Receiving negative feedback is difficult for all of us. And I’ll preface this part by saying that of course, not all feedback is actually valuable – sometimes it comes from a misinformed or malicious place. But that aside, we all do well to remember to stay curious, grateful and humble. One of the questions I think about a lot is “what would it be like to be on the other end of me?”. Self-awareness needs some data points, and we should be grateful and humble in how we hold space for the people who show up to provide them for us.

I feel like feedback is one of those personal growth subjects that we can never fully learn – there’s always another layer underneath, the more we dig deeper into it.

So if you want to continue expanding your understanding of feedback, you can watch my latest free webinar on YouTube ‘Giving & Receiving Feedback‘. And if you want to start changing the culture of feedback within your organisation, check out our workshop ‘We Need to Talk‘, all about replacing fear with clarity when giving feedback.

First seen on Rev up for the Week

This post was first seen in Graham’s weekly newsletter Rev up for the Week. You can subscribe here for an upbeat idea for the week ahead directly to your inbox.

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When it comes to delegating more, do you find yourself using excuses like these?

• I don’t have time to explain it or track it. I might as well do it myself.
• I’m just a control freak. (It’s not you, it’s me!)
• I’ve been around the longest, so I’ll just know how to do it better than someone else on the team.
• I feel bad dumping my work on already overloaded colleagues.

All valid reasons, but have you considered what message each of these excuses is sending your team?

• I don’t trust you to understand the assignment or to keep me updated. Also, I don’t want to waste my time investing in your growth.
• I just don’t trust you to do as good a job as me.
• I don’t believe that new ideas can come from anywhere, I’m not open to doing things differently and I may even feel threatened by you.
• I don’t think you can handle it.

It’s time to reframe this messaging because delegating when done well, is WIN-WIN.

YOU WIN

You get to:

1. Show trust and build psychological safety.

2. Nurture a growth mindset culture where people are encouraged to learn, improve and innovate.

3. Give colleagues the space to safely make mistakes and to learn from them.

4. Reclaim some of your precious time back.

5. Demonstrate confidence in yourself (which creates security for the whole team).

Ultimately you end up creating and leading a high-performing team. An organization of thinkers. Looking good my friend.

THEY WIN

They get to:

6. Prove themselves and build trust.

7. Think, problem-solve and figure things out for themselves.

8. Fail, learn, grow, succeed, learn, grow.

9. Experience your excellent delegation role-modelling and take those skills forward for themselves.

10. Feel empowered to innovate, suggest ideas, and experiment.

11. Feel good about themselves, more motivated and engaged.

Trust, growth, innovation, engagement, happy people. And YOU, making the best use of YOUR time. What’s not to love?

To learn more, check out our Free Skills Taster over on YouTube: How to Delegate Successfully with Think Productive.

Happy Delegating (and, you’re very welcome)!

Need more delegation skills support?

Take a look at our brilliant inhouse “Delegate like a Productivity Ninja” Masterclass.

Want to round out your own Manager skills to inspire brilliance in your team?  You have just a few weeks left to apply to join Cohort One of The High-Performance Manager starting in April.

Our Subject-Matter Experts and Coaches will take you through the fundamentals of good management, from Delegation, Giving Feedback, Time/Attention Management & Prioritisation, your personal style as a Manager and how to role-model Sustainable Productivity. All in the indubitable human-centred, fresh, authentic, thought-provoking, practical Think Productive style. There are only 20 places on this special Cohort.

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That’s why we’ve put together a list of some of our tired & tested, favourite apps.

Is your favourite on the list? Let us know in the comments!

Task management apps

Todoist – Think Productive HQ’s favourite second brain tool!

We’re not supposed to have favourite second brains, but Todoist is very popular at TPHQ with the majority of our team choosing it for their second brain.

Todoist can help you plan your projects, create to-do lists and set up recurring reminders. You can also send emails from your inbox straight to Todoist, to save you time capturing an action!

On the free plan, you are limited to 5 projects and you lose features such as reminders & filters.

If you’d like to give Todoist a try but not sure where to start, check out our video series ‘Getting Started with Todoist’ here.

Trello is another very popular tool you can use as a second brain, and is especially useful when managing projects.

In Trello, you can set up boards (your projects) and create cards (your actions) to visualise your project from start to finish.

Our favourite thing about Trello is that you can easily move cards around, and you can put the stuff that you want to focus on at the front. I think that really helps keep the impactful things at the front and centre of your mind.

In the free version, you can have up to 10 boards and unlimited cards. Trello offers quite a bit in their free plan!

If you’d like to give Trello a try, check out our Introduction to Trello video series here.

Toodledo is a productivity app at its core, helping you stay on top of your tasks and tick off tasks as you go along. If you are someone who likes to work in spreadsheets, this could be the app for you.

What we like about Toodledo is you can add stars to tasks, this would be a great way of picking out which 3-6 tasks you’d like to focus on for the day.

We also like that you can add attachments and photos to your tasks in their free plan, as this is usually a premium feature!

If you want to give Toodledo a go, check out our video series on how to get set up here.

Nozbe is another tool which is excellent in helping you manage your projects.

You can share your projects with colleagues, delegate tasks, and communicate in the comments and it can be used on any device!

It’s our Founder, Graham Allcotts, chosen second brain! To find out how Graham has set up his Nozbe (and to steal his tips) check out this video on our YouTube.

Focus & Habit Apps

Forest is one of our favourite focus and habit apps, and we recommend it in all of our workshops! If your phone distracts you, this is the app for you.

You choose the length of time you want to concentrate for and during that time your tree grows. If you leave the app, your tree dies. So essentially it ‘locks’ your phone for a pre-defined period of time and gives you an incentive to keep it locked.

There are different types of trees for different lengths of time. You can see your forest of trees (or dead trees!) for each day/week/month, and also chart your progress across a period of time.

For every tree you grow, the founders of the app will also plant a real-life tree!

Streaks is a todo list which helps you form and track new habits and break habits you want to get rid of. 

Each habit is represented by a circle in the app. You can track up to 24 habits and telling Streaks you have completed one is as easy as long pressing on the circle. You can also customise the days you’d like to complete a habit (e.g. walking to work, you can set this to Mon-Fri so you don’t lose your streak over the weekend).

The only downside is that Streaks is only available on iOS.

Pomodoro Technique – although not technically an app, we wouldn’t be able to share this post without mentioning it.

The Pomodoro Technique was developed in the late 1980s by then-university student Francesco Cirillo. Cirillo was struggling to focus on his studies and complete assignments. Feeling overwhelmed, he asked himself to commit to just 10 minutes of focused study time. Encouraged by the challenge, he found a tomato (pomodoro in Italian) shaped kitchen timer, and the Pomodoro technique was born.

You set the timer for 25 minutes and focus on your task at hand, then once the timer dings, you take a 5 minute break away from your screen. Repeat as often as you need to!

Mindfulness Apps

Calm is a popular meditation app with a wide range of options to help you achieve some Zen-like Calm in your life!

You can choose one of 29 natural scenes with accompanying sounds (sunset beach, summer meadow, birdsong, waves and so on) as a background to your meditation. If you have the iPhone version, you can also meditate to music by composer Kip Mazuy. In addition, there are five guided meditations lasting from 3 to 300 minutes, plus the option to have a session of just sounds/music without the guide.

We’d recommend Calm for anyone who is interested in an introduction to meditation and mindfulness or looking for an aid to help their daily practice for any number of reasons – which might be to improve focus or happiness, or for trouble sleeping or getting through a stressful commute.

Brain.fm is an app using focus music to help you work better. Whether you’re trying to work more efficiently, take some time out to de-stress or are in need of a tool to help ease your sleep, Brain.fm has music that can aid you in all areas. The soundtracks are completely original, so don’t expect to hear songs you know, but they do work effectively.

What are your favourite productivity apps?

This list isn’t exhaustive, so we’d love to hear your favourite apps in the comments so we can give them a go!

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It’s usually something like “get up at 5am, drink a lemon water, meditate for half an hour, write my gratitude journal, hit the gym for an hour, come back for a protein-fuelled breakfast”… and on and on with the nauseating hustle porn until midnight.

But there’s a reason the first words of my book, How to be a Productivity Ninja, are “Dear Human Being”. I don’t believe in perfection or striving to be a superhero. For example, here are several things that regularly happen in the first hours of my day:

• Being woken up too early and too tired, and putting a podcast on so that I fall back asleep for an extra hour
• Labouring over a decadent breakfast of scrambled eggs
• Too many cups of tea
• Doing the school run in my trackies
• Quordle if I feel like it
• (In the summer months, some of the above are also done simultaneously whilst listening to a baseball podcast)

Some days I’ll go for a quick run, some days I won’t.
It depends how I feel. Some days I push myself to do this, other days I’m kind to myself. When I do run, it tends to be a quick 5k to get the blood pumping (which the science shows us is more than enough to wake up a much greater proportion of our brains than without exercise). I’ll do longer runs at the weekend (Friday to Sunday) when I have more time.

Knowing my own boundaries is important

No two days are the same, but I do have a couple of rules. I don’t work past about 6pm, ever. I sleep better when I have the whole evening to decompress. I work Monday to Thursday – and don’t work at all on Fridays, Saturdays or Sundays.

I don’t break my rules very often, but of course, it does happen. I break the evening rule deliberately six times a year when I run my live evening class, 6 Weeks to Ninja each autumn/winter. That doesn’t even feel much like work to me, although I do go to bed later afterwards.

And with weekends, it’s even more rare that I break that rule. If I do, it’s usually because I have a weekly email called Rev Up for the Week which goes our every Sunday. This is always written by close of play Thursday, but then a handful of times over the last couple of years doing it, I’ve ended up sat in my pants writing it over Saturday or Sunday breakfast.

Sometimes on a Friday I might ‘emergency scan’ my inbox if I’m expecting something. I might even reply to a WhatsApp message or two. But generally, I hold that boundary pretty firmly.

My other rule is about when I Create versus when I Collaborate

In fact, I separate my entire calendar into ‘Create Time’ and ‘Collaborate Time’. For me, Create Time means being heads-down and focussed on the stuff that I can’t delegate and that only I can do. That’s things like writing articles or working on a book, reading someone else’s book for a podcast, delivering client work, recording something, or doing some other creative task. I also use this ‘Create’ time for coming up with plans and doing my Weekly Review. When I’m in ‘Create mode’, I deliberately block things like social media apps or certain websites from my phone, so that I don’t have the temptation to be distracted. I stick some music on, and try to get into a flow state, where I can feel totally immersed in what I’m doing. Stephen King says “writing is self-hypnosis”, which is a great way to describe how I try to operate in those times. I generally do this every morning between about 9am and about 1pm. Some days if I don’t feel sharp when I wake up, I’ll start work a bit later. Other days I’ll get hungry and abandon the Create Time at 12.30 for an early lunch. Maximising the minutes isn’t that important to me, the main thing is that every morning (since that’s the time I have my best energy and attention) for some period of time, I show up and work with no distractions.

Collaborate time comes in the afternoon

During this time, I’m not trying to accomplish much from my to-do list. If I’m managing my Create Times well then I don’t need to. So in the afternoons I do Zoom meetings with people, reply to emails, get on calls, and so on. When I’m in Collaborate mode my job is really to help other people to get their stuff done. Every Wednesday, I’m in dad mode from 3pm, which through the summer involves a lot of riding trains with my son (he’s obsessed with trains). It’s a nice break in the week, and is a good reflection point for me until the final push on Thursdays.

I don’t work crazy hours

When I’ve had book deadlines in the past, I’ve been through phases of starting at 5am, working in Create Mode until 9, then taking an hour off for breakfast before doing another Create Mode session until lunchtime. It can be a wonderfully productive time (and is much easier to screen out the distractions). But for me personally, sleep is always a very high priority, and getting up at 5am every day just doesn’t fit with all the stuff I like to do in the evenings.

I’ve mostly worked a four day week since 2011 (although this went out of the window for a while during the covid pandemic, I’ll admit!) and I wouldn’t go back. I’ll sometimes clock off at 4pm if I’ve had enough. I always take lunch, although not always a full hour.

Everyone is different

It’s fair to say that some of this should not be taken as advice, and it’s important for me to say “you do you”. Your boss may not be happy with you starting late, or blocking out mornings as meeting-free. You may also just not like the sound of some of the things I do, or the way I do them. But I hope that you take away one small but important thing from this post, and it’s this:

There’s no need for 70-hour weeks and a hustle mindset to be productive.

When you have good habits, ‘Ninja’-thinking, some good tech and clear priorities, you learn to say ‘no’ to many of the things that otherwise suck up your time. Productivity isn’t about doing a hundred things, it’s about making space for what matters. And because it’s not so much of a grind, I enjoy (almost) everything I do at work, too. But productivity is a means to an end. Good productivity techniques help you achieve a lot in relatively small pockets of time, which in turn helps you to have the space in your life for everything else that matters outside of work, too.

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After 19 years as a teacher, trainer and facilitator, it’s wonderful to sit at the other side of the table (well, laptop) as a participant in Ninja Russell’s online Project Management Training.

Project Management 101 is a relatively new addition to the TP catalogue. The session overview promises to help me “Be the Project Manager that Wows the Rest!”. This sounds juicy and I can not wait to test it out. Can Russell really get me understanding and applying impactful tools and techniques in 6-hours?

6 hours later

He did it. I am now a happy cocktail of drained, motivated, empowered and very hungry.

What I liked about Russell’s approach is that the day was centred around a real-life project that each of us was working on.

Russell took us on a journey that began with our ‘Project Aim’. Sounds simple in theory, but it took us a few tries until we successfully applied SMART targets and got to the essence of what our projects were intended to achieve.  

The next stop was the ‘Success and Failure Criteria’, where we got to pen our non-negotiables. The Gantt Chart proved to be a crowd-pleaser as we all got to visually see our project’s tasks, contributors and dates in a tidy visual. This made me happy for two reasons:

1. It made my project go from overwhelming to achievable.
2. I really like colourful charts!

Russell then moved us on to milestones, risk management, stakeholder mapping and engagement. Through each stage, participants were moved into breakout rooms for discussions and had ample time to practise and apply the principles. Russell was generous with his knowledge – but also shared templates that we can use in the future. And of course, the famous TP Workbook means that all my learning is captured for me to refer to later.

I was one of 9 participants – all of us from different industries – and the model worked for all our projects. There was a real buzz of excitement and a genuine willingness to share ideas and problem-solve together. They were a great bunch.

If I have piqued your curiosity and you’d like to chat about helping your team with their Project Management skills, get in touch with me at deane@thinkproductive.co.uk and we can schedule a slot to get together over a cuppa.

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“If you understood everything I’ve said, you’d be me” – Miles Davis

Over the years, I’ve worked with and interviewed some pretty remarkable people. Business owners, high-performing leaders, young people with incredible energy and potential, older people with quiet wisdom and painful experience, Olympic gold medallists, multi-millionaire entrepreneurs, professional clowns, inspiring authors, community leaders changing the world, folk musicians telling stories… It’s a long list.

One of the questions I’m sometimes asked when I do keynote talks is whether I notice any patterns in how high-performing or ‘A-type’ people think. My honest is answer is “not really… except that humans are weird”.

I’ve coached people whose impressive level of drive, when we’ve boiled it down, came from a desire to do better than the kid at school who bullied them 20 years ago, or a desire to gain the approval of strangers to make up for the lack of parental approval. Equally, I’ve met people who calculated, at a young age, exactly what they wanted their life to resemble, and worked diligently backward with a laser-like focus.

The way we think about success, money, work and what constitutes a ‘good life’ is different for all of us. The only constant is that one way or another, we are all weird. Perhaps you are, dare I suggest, sometimes a bit irrational, or you can get stuck easily, and you may have missed the obvious path. Equally, maybe you can hook on to important details that others might miss, or see someone else’s pain before they do, or see numbers as colours painting a picture.

Alain De Botton, writing about romantic love, says one of the best questions to ask on a first date is “how are you weird?”. And what I know for sure is that understanding our biases, hang-ups, geeky-passions and emotional patterns is fundamental to a successful life (whatever you determine that to mean for you). And of course, by understanding the motivations of others, we can work out what weirdnesses we might share in common, and what weirdnesses are different. Sometimes it pays to turn your weirdness volume up to 11, and other times it’s better to reign it all in.

So here are a few weirdness questions to provoke some self-awareness and self-kindness this week:

• What weird thing means I procrastinate? (and what could I do either to change it, or to bring it to the attention of others?)
• What’s the weird thing that makes me adorable, or might make me more successful? How do I find my polar opposite, or find my tribe?
• What’s the weird thing(s!) that makes me a terrible boss/lover/housemate/colleague/employee?
• When am I holding onto a weirdness narrative because it’s the easy excuse?
• Knowing that everyone else is weird too, how can I learn to be more comfortable in my own skin?

For more weird insights and wisdom, sign up to Graham’s weekly newsletter ‘Rev up for the Week’ here.

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You google ‘Time Management Training’. Maybe that’s what you need?

Well, stop right there.

Time Management Training isn’t the answer.

Because you can’t manage time.

Whatever you do, the clock still ticks.

You’re only ever going to have 24 hours in a day. There’s no workshop that can change that.

So what can you do?

Well, you can manage your attention.

That’s where our ‘How to be a Productivity Ninja‘ workshop comes in.

You’ll learn how to avoid distractions, get your best work done and make space for what matters.

If you’ve ever felt overwhelmed by the sheer volume of things you need to do each day, then this workshop is for you. We’ll show you how to break down your daily schedule into manageable chunks so you can focus on what matters most.

During the workshop you’ll:

• Learn sustainable strategies to get more of your best work done in an age of information overload and rapid change.
• Get in control of your actual workload by building a trusted ‘second brain’ system right there on the day.
• Manage multiple projects, priorities and responsibilities with more clarity and less reactivity.

And much, much more.

Don’t just take our word for it!

It was well thought out, practical and the best use of my time I have had in a training session for years

Ronan Gillen, eBay (workshop participant)

What do I do next?

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REST AND RECOVERY

It’s easy to see how the 4 Day Week has been good for our wellbeing.  An extra day of rest and recovery to ourselves. Who can argue with that?

The 4DW has naturally taken our productivity to another level too. Rest and recovery are important for good productivity. With a shorter week, we benefit from what I call “Pre-holiday and Post-holiday feelings”. 

PRE-HOLIDAY PRODUCTIVITY BOOST

We all know that pre-holiday feeling, where we sense that every hour counts but that we can’t do it all. The 4 Day Week is like a deadline which forces us to prioritise, it pushes us to focus and to be ruthless with how we protect our time and attention.

POST-HOLIDAY PRODUCTIVITY BOOST

And after our three-day weekends, we naturally benefit from a “Post-Holiday Productivity Boost”. We return refreshed, re-energised and ready for action. More open to ideas and opportunities. Making decisions, solving problems and handling the next fire from a place of perspective and clarity (rather than from a place of tiredness, stress, overwhelm or low morale).

HEALTHIER, HAPPIER

As you can imagine, we’re also less likely to leave or to be ill, are more likely to be happier and more engaged at work, and to be proud of where we work. All of this is good for the bottom line (look up any employee engagement meta-analysis by Gallup). All of this is easy to predict and to understand. 

What many people are quick to quite rightly ask though, is:

“Yes, but how do you fit five days of work into four?”

They often go on to say, “I’d find it more stressful” and “That wouldn’t work for us – even five days isn’t enough.”

THIS HERE, this very question, is the key to unlocking the true glorious potential of the 4 Day Week.

Certainly, I’ve heard of companies who have made the 4 Day Week “work” by squeezing the same volume of work into fewer days, and by taking a more draconian approach to break times, social media use, office watercooler chat or personal appointments. 

Essentially, giving with one hand and taking with the other. This is a wasted opportunity to fully open the door to the many other ways in which the 4 Day Week can bring unprecedented productivity and wellbeing transformation.

IMPACT THINKING

In a world where the work never ends, rather than jumping blindly into another week of pointless meetings and endless emails, shouldn’t we be asking ourselves:

 “How do I really make space for what matters?”

Is checking your emails again for the third time this hour really the best use of your time?

When is your proactive attention at its peak? Are you protecting those couple of hours a day from distractions and using it to do your more complex, deep work – the stuff that really adds value? The high impact work, which is not only challenging and satisfying, but which helps move you and your organisation closer to achieving its goals.

Are you taking a step back each week, to review your projects and commitments and to go into “boss mode”, strategically deciding when and what needs to be progressed? Are you empowering your team to ask similar questions? If properly supported by management, the 4 Day Week can give you and your team permission to think in this way, in terms of impact.

When a colleague asks “Am I really needed at this meeting?” or “Can you help me prioritise my projects”, I know we’re doing something right.

FREEDOM AND RESPONSIBILITY

We have the freedom and responsibility to structure our workdays, to look at them strategically, to decide when we want to collaborate, when to take breaks (because listening to your body and giving your brain a break is the smart thing to do) or when to go offline or to work remotely. All of this within the boundaries and needs of the team and business of course. And we are trusted to do it. Trust is key here.

So what we’ve opened the doors to here is higher quality productivity, going hand-in-hand with deeper wellbeing.  We trust and empower each other to make space for satisfying, higher-impact, good work that creates value.  We all crave this fulfilment and respect. In our experience, the 4 Day Week is a wondrous, virtuous circle of deeper wellbeing, authentic engagement and higher quality productivity. And we’d never go back.

*At Think Productive, we inspire and equip people and organisations to make space for what matters. Download our brochure.

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