Tools for Team Collaboration

When was the last time you conquered that mountain-high list of tasks within an 8-hour workday? Can’t recall? That’s okay. It’s common to feel like you live in a place where time disappears into the abyss, leaving you downright frustrated. But burning the midnight oil and working long hours to accommodate for incomplete work doesn’t necessarily mean you’re a productive person. You’d be surprised to know that lots of folks get their work done in less than 8 hours. For example in Europe, German knowledge workers have been praised for only clocking in 35 hours of work each week, Finns work under an average 6.5 hours per day, and a typical Dane ends their workday at 4 pm. …

by Laura Stack, MBA, CSP, CPAE In a rapidly changing environment, it’s no surprise that new “buzzwords” occasionally pop up on your bingo card. One of recent example is upskilling. At first glance, the definition seems obvious, but it means more than you might think—especially after our shared ordeal with the COVID-19 pandemic. These days, we all need to take the time to upskill and refresh our work habits, which the World Economic Forum predicts will raise the global GDP by up to $6.5 trillion by 2030. Upskilling involves taking your work to the next level, to better fit your job’s current and future needs. It’s not good enough to just tread water. You must consistentl…

by Laura Stack, MBA, CSP, CPAE Few things have changed the modern workplace more than the COVID-19 pandemic. Large-scale remote work, which many corporations tried and discarded as unmanageable not so long ago, suddenly became required in most businesses. Nascent and underutilized technologies experienced rapid development and widespread implementation. While the pandemic paralyzed some industries for a while, the white-collar world not only adapted quickly, but it also thrived. According to most studies, individual productivity increased slightly after employees went home to work. Familiar surroundings, flexible schedules, and a lack of commutes led to happier, more eng…

by Laura Stack, MBA, CSP, CPAE “The two most powerful warriors are patience and time.”—Leo Tolstoy, Russian novelist, in War and Peace. Late in June 2022, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics released the results of the previous year’s American Time Use Study (ATUS), as it has annually since 2003. I’ve reported on it each year for more than a decade. The ATUS data for 2020, released in 2021, reflected significant effects from the COVID-19 pandemic that has gripped the nation since March 2020. Fortunately, during 2021, the crisis loosened its stranglehold on the economy, allowing it to bounce back to pre-plague levels. However, the economy has since fallen behind again d…

by Laura Stack, MBA, CSP, CPAE “The best way to predict the future is to create it.”—Peter Drucker. Making predictions about the future of productivity can be dangerous business. Remember all those people who predicted that the Internet would be a flash in the pan? Yeah, me neither. What I do remember is how wrong they were. That said, I’m going to make a few predictions about what might happen in 2023 in the productivity field, based on what we’re all hearing lately. Inflation will continue to eat at your productivity. Inflation has many causes, so we’re not looking to blame it on anyone here. But as prices for everyday costs like food, housing, and energy rise, so…

by Laura Stack, MBA, CSP, CPAE “Some people call this artificial intelligence, but the reality is this technology will enhance us. So instead of artificial intelligence, I think we’ll augment our intelligence.” — Ginny Rometty, American business executive Artificial intelligence (AI) gets a bad rap in pop culture. For every fictional Jarvis or David, there are a half-dozen Skynets or Ultrons. In the real world, most workers believe artificial intelligence is something we’re still waiting on. But it’s already off and running in corporations around the world, though not necessarily in forms people tend to think of when they hear the term “artificial intelligence.” Some vi…

by Laura Stack, MBA, CSP, CPAE “…A new generation is on the rise, and the first step to communicating with them is understanding they aren’t just another Millennial.” ― Pamela La Gioia, American business author. The post-Millennial generation of workers, born from about 1995 -2010, has now entered the American workplace in earnest. Some 74 million strong, this diverse cohort comprises about one-quarter of our population, and almost 40% of the workforce. They’re more plugged into the digital world than any generation before them and have never known any other lifestyle. Although Generation Z’s oldest members have worked steadily for a decade, some business pundits still…

by Laura Stack, MBA, CSP, CPAE “Don’t count the days; make the days count.” ― Muhammed Ali, American boxer. We’d all like to work less, wouldn’t we? It would be nice to take our retirement in installments, like John D. McDonald’s sleuth Travis Magee, but that’s not an option for most of us. One thing many of us try to do is arrange to work fewer days. This usually involves cramming the same 40 hours into fewer days, such as working four ten-hour days while taking Fridays off. But with “flex-time,” as it’s generally called, you still end up working 40-hour weeks, minimum. But how about shorter workweeks, period? Study after study has shown that workweeks of 32-36 hours…

Did you know that when you first wake up in the morning, your brain is physically bigger than it will be when you go to sleep? It’s because our brains are the most hydrated after a period of rest. According to authors Dr. Robert Carter and Dr. Kirti Salwe Carter in their book, The Morning Mind, the best performing brain is a hydrated brain. So here’s the conundrum: If humans already have an inherent biological advantage to being morning people, why is it so (so, so, so) hard for so many of us to be chipper and productive at the crack of dawn? One way to channel your inner early riser is to mimic the habits of successful morning people: have a routine, meditate, exer…

by Laura Stack, MBA, CSP, CPAE “Artificial intelligence would be the ultimate version of Google. The ultimate search engine that would understand everything on the web. It would understand exactly what you wanted, and it would give you the right thing. We’re nowhere near doing that now. However, we can get incrementally closer to that, and that is basically what we work on.” ― Larry Page, co-inventor of the Google search engine. Is there anyone in the Western world who hasn’t seen (or at least heard about) the Terminator or Matrix movie franchises? As much as we’ve loved our Tamagotchis, Furbys, and Roombas, we still worry our digital and robotic creations will grow bey…

by Laura Stack, MBA, CSP, CPAE “Over-communicating is the glue that holds a high-performing team together and keeps them focused in the same direction. And, it circles back to clarity. Without good, consistent communication, you don’t have clarity.” ― Lee Ellis, leadership consultant, author, presenter, retired colonel, USAF. As managers, it’s drilled into us that we shouldn’t micromanage —that instead, we should hire well-qualified, intelligent self-starters, then give them their instructions and get out of the way. And while this strategy is generally sound, you’ll always find some exceptions that test the rule. In recent years, some business experts have begun back…

Stop “using” AI. Start collaborating with it. Our latest research from Atlassian’s Teamwork Lab shows that when it comes to getting the most out of working with AI, mindset matters far more than adoption – and is key to maturity. Advancing past adoption Much existing research focuses on AI adoption rates, or how often someone uses AI. We take a different approach to instead look at how people work with AI. Our data clearly shows that employee mindset is the key to AI maturity. In other words, adoption matters far less than attitude when it comes to optimizing AI capabilities and improving work quality within an organization. Our data reveals two primary group…

Subscribe to Work LifeGet stories like this in your inbox Subscribe Your colleague has been experimenting with a new automation tool and insists your team should use it to speed up some of your workflows. Everybody has reservations – this person has only used this tool a few times and there are complexities in these workflows that are difficult to automate – but your team member isn’t willing to listen to the naysayers. Confident, eager, and excited, your overly optimistic coworker charges ahead with rolling out the tool. It isn’t long before your workflows are a tangled knot and your team member is grappling with how things went so wrong when they swore they w…

Subscribe to Work LifeGet stories like this in your inbox Subscribe It feels great to make real progress with your team. But too often, work gets bogged down in a frustrating cycle: you’re waiting for input from collaborators stuck in back-to-back meetings, while urgent requests for your input keep piling up. Deadlines slip, blockers multiply, and high-priority work slows to a crawl. Atlassian’s State of Teams research reveals that teams spend 50% more time in unnecessary meetings than making progress on high-priority work. The problem? These meetings are spent talking about work – sharing updates and information – instead of rolling up their sleeves and doing work…

Subscribe to Work LifeGet stories like this in your inbox Subscribe Compare a morning when you slept through your alarm, rushed out of bed, and barely made it to your desk in time to one when you had time for a brisk walk, a healthy breakfast, and some leisurely coffee-sipping. You’ll quickly realize your morning routine sets the tone for your entire day. Think an effective morning routine is out of your reach? We have good news: It’s a learnable science, no matter how much chaos you’re met with when you open your eyes. After analyzing the advice and morning routines of numerous well-known business leaders and productivity experts, we’ve pinpointed common pract…

Subscribe to Work LifeGet stories like this in your inbox Subscribe The holidays are approaching, and suddenly everyone’s scrambling to wrap up projects before taking a break. What should be a time for winding down and holiday parties becomes a sprint to the finish line, bringing a calendar full of meetings, shifting priorities, an overflowing inbox, and a voice in your head whispering, “just one last email before you log off…” That’s when mounting pressure gives way to the stark realization that you’re running out of time, and we start to hear a familiar phrase: “Let’s circle back on that next year.” As the end-of-year crunch fast approaches, Atlassian p…

Subscribe to Work LifeGet stories like this in your inbox Subscribe Whether you realize it or not, you probably already set quite a few short-term goals for yourself. You want to sort your to-do list before your morning meeting. You want to go for a walk over lunch at least three days this week. You want to land five speaking opportunities this quarter. Throughout your day, week, month, or year, you set small-in-scope, attainable finish lines that give you a little boost of forward momentum. Those are short-term goals. But what exactly makes these bite-sized objectives so helpful? Let’s explore the power behind short-term goal-setting – and how you can ha…

Subscribe to Work LifeGet stories like this in your inbox Subscribe 5-second summary Time management strategies are specific frameworks or systems to maximize your time and energy We’ve gathered five time management strategies that put you in the driver’s seat of your tasks, schedule, time, and energy, each in a different way. Take our one-minute quiz to find out which strategy will be the biggest difference-maker for you. Where the heck did the day go? Time slipped right through my fingers. Next week, things will calm down. Every single one of us has had those exact thoughts about our workdays. But here’s the harsh truth: You won’t magically find or m…