In this article, we’ll take you through why measuring your productivity is helpful and some examples of how you can make a simple to-do list in multiple types of software.
3 Reasons Why You Should Measure Your Productivity
There are a number of reasons why measuring your productivity is beneficial. Not only does it help you know where you are with your important tasks, but it will also help with motivation and your overall day planning experience.
Measuring your productivity starts with keeping a simple daily to-do list that you create the next before or that morning, but it isn’t limited to the items on there. Ideally, you stick to the list you’ve created, however, it’s not uncommon to get side-tracked by a new task that was brought to your attention.
Even if you complete the new task before putting it on your to-do list, make a note of it on there anyway. That way, you get a better picture of which tasks you’re spending time on.
Here are three reasons why keeping such a list is helpful.
1. You’ll See You Got Things Done
Writing out a to-do list will not only help you stay focused on the day’s priorities, but you’ll also have a way of proving to yourself you are getting things done as you check items off.
By no means is it a race to see how much you can check off. More so, you’ll know you got your important tasks out of the way—or at least contribute toward a larger one by tackling some action items.
Not only will you feel better at the end of the day, but you may also find it motivating to see what you accomplished the day before and keep the momentum going.
2. You Can Set Better Goals
Every goal needs to be measurable. However, you won’t know where to begin if you don’t have a baseline.
By writing out your to-dos and keeping track of what you’ve accomplished, you’re giving your productivity a unit of measurement—the number of tasks completed. Using that number, you can get a better idea of how many tasks you can typically get done in a day on average, which is your baseline.
From there, you can set a more realistic goal, or daily number of tasks, and adjust up or down as needed.
3. You’ll Know When It’s Time to Take a Break
Sometimes it’s hard to know when to put work, a project, or studying away. By giving yourself a set amount of tasks to complete each day, you’ll know when it’s time to take a break.
That doesn’t mean you need to complete them all. In fact, productivity expert Ivy Lee recommended that a group of executives complete six tasks a day, and whatever they didn’t get done, they were to simply move to the next day and make it a top priority.
His method also didn’t teach the executive to keep adding to their list once they completed their six daily tasks. To do so would be much like moving the finish line once before allowing yourself to celebrate your win.
You know your workload better than anyone. Even if you’re only part way through your list, you’ll be able to better gauge if you should push through one more, or if you’ve done enough, and you can pick up where you left off after some much-needed rest.
How to Quickly Measure Productivity in a Word Processing Software
This example shows Apple Pages. However, you don’t need specific software to get started, as any word processor will do.
Start by creating a new document and naming it accordingly. Add the date in bold to help it stand out, and write your to-do’s in point form.
As you complete tasks, change the formatting in some way to let yourself know you’ve completed them—for example, striking through the text or changing the color.
Any unfinished tasks, you can copy and paste into the top of the next day’s list. You could cut and paste too if you don’t want to see unfinished tasks, but it may be helpful for you to track these as well so that you can adjust your goal, and learn what types of tasks you may find more challenging.
If you find you’ve moved a task over more than once, you may need to come up with a method to get it done, such as the eat the frog method, where you challenge yourself to get the tougher or less desirable tasks out of the way first.
Some Examples of Measuring Your Productivity in Other Software
1. Notion
Here’s an example of what your daily to-do list could look like in Notion. This list uses Notion’s to-do list block, which gives you the boxes to tick as you complete items. As you do, the software automatically crosses items out for you.
2. ClickUp
You can also use a simple list in ClickUp to help you measure your productivity. The list in the example uses days of the week as groups, and as you complete items, they go to the complete group so that you can still see everything you’ve done.
For this, using the date closed column will help you track which day you completed an item.
3. Spreadsheet
A simple spreadsheet is another way you can keep tabs on your productivity—pun intended. In this example, you would use one file for the entire month. Each tab outlines a week within that month, and each column is a day of the week.
Spreadsheets like Google Sheets offer checkboxes that will make marking items complete a cinch.
Keep Track of Your Productivity
Measuring your productivity will help you feel less stress about the things you didn’t get done because you’re showing yourself you’re making progress. It will also allow you to set better goals and know when it’s time to get some rest.
Thankfully, it doesn’t need to be overcomplicated, and you may already have the software you need to get started.
