It's the Jewish New Year, and although I never quite understood why the Day of Atonement comes after the New Year's celebration rather than before it, one thing that always did make sense to me was that the fall is a time of new beginnings. I guess that's the academic in me, excited about what I'll learn and who I'll meet at school this year. (Even though it's been ages since I've gone back to school in the fall.)
So it seemed appropriate to start the new year with a conversation about productivity. How can we get more things done this year? And how can we make sure they are the right things? 
Ever Worry That You Aren't Productive Enough?
I have always struggled with productivity. One drawback to having run my own businesses since 1991 is that I never have anyone else to compare my productivity with. And I’ve always wanted to do so much that no matter how productive I’m being I still tend to feel that it’s not enough. That I'm not fast enough. Or efficient enough.
It was reassuring to discover, in today's podcast interview with Mike Vardy, aka the Productivityist, (no that's not him in the picture but it captures the spirit of our chat), that he also works constantly on fine-tuning his productivity.
Theme Your Days
One idea Mike had that I'm going to try is, instead of the classic "make an appointment with yourself" to do Project X at Time Y, theme your days. I've already been focusing on Thursdays as my podcast-themed day and Friday as networking coffees, lunches and walks, but I'm going to try applying this to the rest of the week too.
Not sure why, but the combination of focus with flexibility that approach provides seems to work better for me than setting fixed 90-minute appointments to write or exercise, or make phone calls. Appointments seem easier to move than an entire day's theme.
[Tweet "Busy is like the F word of business. If you use it too much it has no power @productivityist"]
GTD: Weed Your Garden
If you haven't yet read David Allen's Getting Things Done, I highly recommend it. It appeals to my ping-pong brain, because he basically has you log every idea that you think you might want to work on, or anything else that is crowding your brain and distracting you when you are trying to work.
Allen has a great system of then organizing these items so that you can, as Mike put it, "weed your garden" - get the most important things on a shorter hot list without worrying about them being crowded out by all the things you'd like to do "someday". At the same time, you get to keep those someday items, and check them over regularly, so they'll be there when "someday" comes.
Contexts
A core element of the system is "contexts". Contexts help guide you on what you should do when. Recognizing, for instance, that you have low energy times of day, you can have a "low energy" context. When you don't have the energy to tackle something major, and find yourself wasting time on Facebook or Upworthy, pull up your "low energy" context list and get a few little things out of the way.
Contexts can also be physical contexts, like "office" or "home" or "errands". And there can be people contexts, so if you get an unexpected chance for a quick chat with Bob you'll remember all the things you wanted to discuss with him.
According to Mike Vardy, you must add contexts to your to-do list or you will get overwhelmed.
But How Do I Set Priorities?
This is one I really struggle with, because I've got dozens and dozens of "high priority" items. So where do I start?
One suggestion Mike had was what he calls IDEA management, where:
I = Ideals - Does this project/activity support something I really value? If not, put it lower on your list
D = Does it interfere with something more important?
E = Excitement must be there and be lasting. (Obviously you can't know if it will last for sure in advance,