Community Spring Cleaning week is here! Join your fellow Maveryx in digging through your old posts and marking comments on them as solved. Learn more here!

General Discussions

Discuss any topics that are not product-specific here.

Is that a dancing tomato? Work tips and tricks

shannonem
Alteryx Alumni (Retired)

Hey Alteryx Community Friends-

 

I was digging deep for an inspirational post but sometimes the more practical parts of life are better to share. This week we are going with sharing work tips & tricks inspired by @Kenda and her blog post around the Pomodoro Technique & Alteryx.

 

I like using this technique because time management is a skill I am always improving. In today's world, it is easy to get distracted from tasks at hand and it helps me stay focused. I found an option that has a dancing tomato at the end of each section of time for an added bit of fun. 

 

shannonem_0-1655387208927.png

It is wearing a tie and dancing - it is a win win, my friends.

 

Another tip I will share is prioritization and something I am working on the rest of 2022. Community professionals tend to want to help everyone and all at once. But a lack of focus can lead to overwhelming moments and burn out which is no good! Enter in prioritization lists:

 

shannonem_1-1655387636143.png

 

This new technique will help me focus and get what needs to be done done. I think it is good to point out that you can change the headings of the lists to fit you at work. Example: "Other People Want Me To" could be labelled as "Other Teams Who Need My Help" or "I have to" is "Due today."

 

Grouping priorities together is important so you can feel accomplished and successful. 

 

Alright, enough of me talking at you - what are your work tips or tricks that have helped you? Or what are the things that you could not live without doing each day? Share with the Community, you never know who is reading. 

 

 

Shannon Emery, she/her
8 REPLIES 8
Kenda
16 - Nebula
16 - Nebula

Thanks for promoting my article, @shannonem!

 

Another thing that I find helpful is color coding. Along the same lines as your idea of breaking up to-do lists into different categories, I think that color coding them (e.g. using different colored pens or papers) helps to create that clear separation/prioritization.  

Kenda
16 - Nebula
16 - Nebula

I just realized I should have been clever and made some sort of play on words with Pomodoro and promote in my first reply... but alas

shannonem
Alteryx Alumni (Retired)

Ooooh yes @Kenda - I love a good color coding situation. What colors do you use in yours? My brain likes to default to the traffic sign colors - red, yellow, green.

Shannon Emery, she/her
Kenda
16 - Nebula
16 - Nebula

Well now this just seems excessive compared to your 3 colors... 

 

pens.jpg

MeganDibble
Alteryx Community Team
Alteryx Community Team

@Kenda PROMOdoro 😁

 

@shannonem love both of the graphics in your post! I'm a big fan of task organization and prioritization.

shannonem
Alteryx Alumni (Retired)

Oooh, you love a good ballpoint pen, I see!

 

I am more of a fine point kinda gal myself. Also now slightly worried I am missing one and haven't noticed. Or it might be my sign to get a new set. 🤔

 

shannonem_0-1655405439868.jpeg

 

Shannon Emery, she/her
IraWatt
17 - Castor
17 - Castor

 

Had to think for this one, don't think I can top the dancing tomato...

I think I could possibly live without them, but sticky notes (used to have multiple colours but now just have yellow) are great for reminding me of my priorities.

My work tip would be to always try have a few goals/projects of varying difficulty. The easy one should give you quick wins that keep you motivated for the harder more long term tasks (that's the theory anyway) 😄

 

Adrian_T
Alteryx
Alteryx

Loving all the tomatoes 🍅 and great article @Kenda

 

@IraWattI share the same advice too. An extension to planning tasks of different difficulties is the Two Minute Rule from David Allen’s book on time management - Get Things Done.

 

Here’s an insightful quote from the book:

"If the next action can be done in two minutes or less, do it when you first pick the item up…The rationale for the two-minute rule is that it’s more or less the point where it starts taking longer to store and track an item than to deal with it the first time it’s in your hands—in other words, it’s the efficiency cutoff."

Labels