Productivity tools can reduce productivity

Mark Kayser, CEO at Fluid

In essence, one basically needs a PhD to stitch together multiple apps required to accomplish what needs to be done in a typical workday. This is largely because work doesn’t happen in a neatly packaged textbook perfect process that starts at 8am and ends at 5pm.

If it did, there would be one platform and one wouldn’t need email, chat apps, worksheets, project management tools and all the other plugins that workers are forced to use to keep order in their workday.

Lots of moving parts

The normal workday is all over the place with around half the day spent in meetings, lots of time responding to emails, chasing feedback, searching for information and just trying to stay organised. Then there’s the task of working with different teams on different projects and with WhatsApp flows. This takes a lot of effort to manage but it doesn’t have to.

Inefficiencies of meetings

Focusing on meetings, about 20% of meeting activity and information is under control, it is structured, managed and easily accessible. However, the remaining 80% of meeting content and collaboration is unstructured, creating work noise.

People end up discussing, updating and giving feedback ‘offline’, in silos and all over the place. They end up on platforms that aren’t up to the task, or worse, antiquated and outdated for what they need to accomplish. Email, chat apps, to-do lists, workbooks and a variety of other solutions make it challenging to get a full picture of who needs to do what and by when.

To help people get work done, they need to adopt an all-in-one approach by leveraging flexible, easy to use solutions. This will ultimately save time and ensure less confusion by not having to switch between various tools. It also guarantees less time spent trying to understand what needs to be done and more on getting work done.

Working made easier

Having effective and efficient collaboration and activity solutions for tracking work is more important than ever. The easiest way to get a single view of who needs to do what by when across an ecosystem with an all-in-one suite. It is perfect to manage and track all meetings, team activity, agile execution, programs, projects, collaboration and conversations.

There are various options that have been designed and built to work around the individual, to enable their workday and not having to adapt their workday around a tool. It should be built around how people engage and interact with each other while working together in an office and remotely. Simply link all meetings, boards and projects in a central hub.

All-in-One solution is the answer

You can start anywhere in the eco-system and build out from there as the requirements change. Small teams should look for a real-time working tool to collaborate.

Projects and portfolio management tools may be a good starting point for professionals with a high level of complexity to manage.