Productivity!
I am still learning that this term encompasses so many different ideas, which makes it such a great example of a “glittering generality”. Productivity can mean any and EVERYTHING to a wide audience. It doesn’t matter if you are in the middle of the tenure track rush or if you are embedded in corporate life. We are all fighting against the limitations imposed on us by that term, and it can be especially frustrating when those limitations are self-inflicted.
When I worked at a collegiate level, I used to fear that I wasn’t productive enough — not enough grading done, the assessment methods weren’t thorough enough, the learning objectives weren’t clear enough or that my own research projects weren’t receiving “enough” attention. This type of negative thinking is exhausting, and while I did have the chance to go the “extra mile”, I had to accept that I shouldn’t have to use this fear of enough as the gasoline for my motor.
Bullet journal (bujo) are also great for visual learners
While it was not a quick fix, a few years ago, I was introduced to the concept of setting SMART goals as a way to make the ambiguity around productivity clearer. After the end of my last semester, I decided to continue to set my plan for each day or week using the same SMART goal methods. Each evening or first thing in the morning, I like to make some coffee and then update my google spreadsheets to track my main goals and set priorities for the day. In some ways, my spreadsheets have turned into mini-journals and reflect the “work adjacent work” that helps me set my own definition of productivity.
This is a great technique not just for tracking your own work, but could also be adapted to help your learners track their own skills or career goals over time or to track their own measures of productivity for various projects. You can even color-code the tasks and use data-validation methods to make it even easier to find a workflow that works best for you!