Increase Productivity by Combining Personal and Work To Do Lists

We often hear that we should keep our work life separate from our personal life to make things easier. However, with the advent of constant and relentless connectivity we find ourselves mixing personal and work activities more and more.

Combining Personal and Work Action Item Lists Increases Productivity
In addition, the proliferation of apps for productivity in the workplace and for personal uses is overwhelming. Perhaps you use Slack, Trello, Jira, Hubspot, Salesforce, Asana, Evernote, Basecamp, Insightly, or a number of other powerful productivity apps out there. You may have decided that you like some of these tools enough that you have created a personal account as well.
Here at CommandHound, we have found that our most successful users have figure out a way to integrate their personal and work action items in the same dashboard.

Combining Personal and Work Lists

Because work and personal action items are now kept in one organized place, these users have made CommandHound an integral part of their daily routine.
Here are the top 4 actions to keep in mind when searching for this level of integration and efficiency:

1. Dashboard Organization

It is always a good idea to organize things in an easy to see and access manner. CommandHound offers a few ways to help keep things straight.

Use Colors, Folders, and Themes to Keep Your CommandHound Dashboard Organized

1. Folders:

Create folders to segregate the various action item lists (Control Towers) organized by theme, geography, department, personal, work, etc. for ease of access.

2. Colors:

Use color schemes for a visual cue that helps you differentiate your different types of Towers, including personal and work ones.

3. Templates:

Create Templates anytime you would like to group Towers together by a logical theme like time frames, locations, processes.

2. Daily Routine

Develop a daily routine/habit to, in one place, see everything that needs immediate attention whether it is personal or work in one place. Include the following 4 steps in this daily routine:

1. Check Dashboard:

Visit your CommandHound Dashboard to, at a glance, see what Towers need attention (i.e., yellow or red status). Drill down to investigate and to read explanatory Notes as needed.

2. Check Inbox:

Visit your CommandHound Inbox to review what is due today. Either action items that are assigned to you that are now due, or action items that were assigned to others but have been escalated to you because they have not been completed. Take the appropriate actions to complete as many or all of these action items.

3. Adjust Things:

Review your Towers, due dates, escalation triggers and status and adjust things as needed based on newly available information.

4. Look Forward:

Visit the Calendar and review action items that are coming down the pipeline for the next week or weeks at a glance. Make plans to allocate time to upcoming action items as needed.

3. Personal Escalation

Escalation needs are usually very different for personal and work action items. Within CommandHound, users often escalate action items to themselves as a way to get a sense of urgency levels (i.e., green to yellow, to red) and not to delegate something to somebody else.

4. Tower Separation

Keep separate Towers for work and personal items to make the daily routine review easier to complete. Organizing Towers by theme is always a good idea.

Next Steps

Would you like to know more about how CommandHound can help you increase your productivity by combining personal and work action item lists?