Productivity Hacks for Technical Communicators

Feeling overwhelmed? Stuck? Less productive than you want to be? Join us in discovering five productivity hacks that you can implement today that will help you be more productive! Today's technology allows us to get more done faster, but this increased efficiency often comes at the price of time to think deeply about what we are doing. Being busy and efficient does not necessarily mean that we are being productive. According to Michael Hyatt and others, true productivity is doing the right things well. Productivity is what sets apart the stellar performers from the merely good ones. Being able to manage your time and knowing how to filter out the busy work from the truly important sets you apart from your peers.

About the Visiting Dojo Expert

Katherine (Kit) Brown-Hoekstra is an STC Fellow and former STC Society President (2014-15), certified trainer for the STC Certified Professional Technical Communicator (CPTC) program, a member of the Colorado State University Media Hall of Fame for the Dept. of Journalism, and a 2017 Toastmasters District 26 Communication and Leadership Award recipient. She is an experienced consultant with over 25 years of experience in technical communication, much of it working with life sciences companies and localization teams. As Principal of Comgenesis, LLC, Kit provides consulting and training to her clients on a variety of topics, including localization, content strategy, and content management. She speaks at conferences worldwide and publishes regularly in industry magazines. She coauthored a book on managing virtual teams and recently edited The Language of Localization for the Content Wrangler and XML Press. Her blog is www.pangaeapapers.com.

Watch the Video

Recorded: 2 July 2018

View the Slides

Kit also gave this presentation at STC Summit 2017.

Webinar Follow-up

Kit asked for folks to type in if they were morning or night people. Here are the results from those people who typed in answers:

• 70% said they were morning people
• 25% said they were night people
• 8% said either both or something else like "late afternoon"

Kit also asked what task are you most wanting to work on to increase your productivity? Here's what people said:

• Identifying small tasks
• Writing speed
• Design
• Organization
• Not being distracted
• Planning

References

• "Radical Focus: Achieving Your Most Important Goals with Objectives and Key Results" by Christina Wodtke
• Full Focus Planner by Michael Hyatt
• Franklin Planner (July 2018-Jun3 2019)
• Kit also mentioned the Kolbe index. We did a webinar on collaboration with with one of the Kolbe practitioners, Andrew Lawless.

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