Yesterday, I held Greatist‘s first official Efficiency Audits.

Efficiency whats?! Well, at first “Audits” may sound unnecessarily intimidating, but I’m a big believer in the importance of constantly working to improve one’s efficiency. And though we talk a lot about personal productivity at Greatist, being reminded that spending the time upfront to save time in the long run is valuable can always be helpful! Plus I figured calling them “Productivity Pow-Wows” wouldn’t be taken seriously (though, in retrospect, shit that’s a great name).

Anyway, Efficiency Audits were started to (1) help everyone become more mindful of their productivity and (2) discuss specific ways to improve their organization. That and check in on (3) the fitness, health, and happiness aspect that’s just as important to all of it.

I’m going to run down the way we ran our Efficiency Audits and what we learned partially so our team can return to these next time, but mostly in the hopes that you’ll be inspired to take an Efficiency Audit yourself.

The Efficiency Audit:

One-on-one meetings for 15 minutes* with each full time team member, following this simple agenda:

1. The Morning Routine

First, we dived right into each person’s morning routine. When you’re most fresh, what are you tackling & where are you putting your energy? Most people will hit their email inbox (even if some try to tame it when they first wake up at home), but I’ve found the most valuable use of my time is to immediately write out my list of things to do that day. Usually it’s 3-5 (w/ some small task sprinkled in). All are actionable and can be completed (very GTD– thanks David Allen!). And I don’t leave until they’re done. That helps frame my entire day, keeps me focused, and holds me honest. Sometimes I overextend myself (and by “sometimes,” I mean “almost always”), but either way it’s worth it. (Also, a personal goal is to use the morning to write blog posts before moving to the email inbox– hoping to start that soon… and here’s one to show for it!)

The 3-5 task to-do list works for some, but of course not everyone– that’s okay! As with everything here, it’s all about what works best for you. And about trying all kinds of different things to see what fits. Shared practices & ideas for experimentation can only get so far. The goal here is to remind people they can put their focus elsewhere in the AM– and should be conscious about how much time disappears before really getting to something important.

2. The Email Inbox

Next, we turned to mastering the email inbox. Most of our team spends between 30-70% of our day deep in our inbox (the 70% is probably me, unfortunately). That’s scary, but especially so if everything hasn’t been totally optimized. I’ve got a semi-famous (it’s been tweeted, so you know it’s gotta be at least semi-famous) “how to hack gmail” class I teach regularly to every new team member and, though usually most everyone takes away a thing or two that helps from that, this is another area that needs constant pruning & attention.

No matter what, to me the goal is to avoid the number at the top of that gmail tab to keep going up. Then most of the day is spent struggling to stay afloat (I sometimes visualize it as Houdini’s Chinese  Water Torture Cell trick, where the water are the emails and your time is the key and there’s no way to get out alive… and maybe I should find a more positive metaphor for this?). So one (of many solutions) is to filter filter filter. Even if it’s taking the main team email list and making it skip the inbox. Whatever isn’t immediate, move it away and return to it later (or remove it completely).

We spoke a lot about the dangers of gear-changing. Reading emails as they arrive, checking Twitter every 20 minutes, and switching between browser tabs may not seem like a lot– but the real productivity loss comes in the lack of focus and the brain changing gears in between. 30 seconds on Twitter is just 30 seconds, but the 30 seconds it takes to remember what you were trying to do before then means it took a minute instead (now multiply that times a kazillion throughout the day). Suddenly 3 hours have gone by without anything to show for it. Sound familiar? Time to filter filter filter (and obviously this applies equally to any communication platform, Facebook (bonus pro tip: I recommend getting it out of your email inbox & turning off text notifications– you’re going to check it anyway), Twitter (bonus pro tip: I recommend creating a private “must-check” twitter list of the people whose tweets you absolutely don’t want to miss), & email (bonus pro tip: I also take the time to unsubscribe from everything that you delete one-by-one whenever it comes in– that’s just a waste of your time.

3. Percentage Breakdown of the Average Day

Third, we dived right into a percentage breakdown of the rest of the day. The answers to this are often super revealing– and sometimes scary, honestly. But it’s important to think through. Obviously, these should correlate pretty well with job priorities and responsibilities, but it’s likely they don’t. How can you fix that? (See next question for where to start).

4. The Biggest Time Suck

Fourth, I asked what’s the biggest distraction/“time suck“? Another revealing response. For example, we’ve got an amazing office culture– it’s fun, active, and sometimes boisterous. We’ll call out questions, share a funny video, listen to Stevie Wonder (on repeat), and do chinups on our pullup bar. Buuut, despite how awesome that might be, it sometimes gets in the way of getting things done (and this was the distraction more than half of the team members mentioned)– especially for people that need quiet to focus on their writing, editing, or thinking. That’s mostly because we have a tiny office, so we don’t really have anywhere to escape to (Starbucks?)– but it’s a problem we’re going to need to tackle. One idea is to institute quiet hours (maybe on Fridays, maybe during the mornings) where everyone agrees to focus. But at least now we’re all conscious of coming up with smart ways to fix this without hurting the goofy, fun, and friendly environment we love.

5. Sleep & Fitness

Fifth, we discussed two things I find incredibly crucial to efficiency: how much are you sleeping & how often are you working out? On average, Greatist team members are sleeping around 7.5 hours a night, which is pretty killer. Because we live the life we champion, we firmly believe people who are better rested are many times more efficient, significantly more creative, and profoundly more happy (there’s research behind sleep galore!). Everybody is different and needs different amounts of sleep, but for those below 7.5 hours/night, we discussed possible ways to get more rest (maybe naps, maybe prioritizing, maybe delegating). And obviously we believe the same for fitness & working out (another thing that has mad proof on how postively it affects efficiency). Greatist shares memberships to the New York Health & Racquet Club just a block away and those things get used a TON. On average, Greatist team members go to the gym 3-4x per week. Think that’s a great number– and for those being less active, we talked about how to build it into their schedule better and how the team could do a better job encouraging it (we already email out classes we’re attending at the gym, activities in the city we’re hitting up, invitations to other gyms and resources we’re members of).

6. Total Productivity on a Scale from 1-10

And finally, the simplest question: “On a scale from 1 to 10, how productive have you been?” The average efficiency of Greatist right now? 7.14 (with mostly 7s & 8s). That’s solid, but there’s significant room for improvement. With each, I asked them to think about how we can get it to 9 or 10. And that was it!

Your Turn

Now it’s your turn– on a scale from 1 to 10, how productive have you been recently? Go ahead & share your score in the comments– what can you spend the time on now to improve that score later?

*Also, in a sly hack for my own efficiency, had these take 15 minutes per person instead of my typical Thursday 20 minute 1-on-1s. Take THAT, time!