productivity, boundaries Jennifer Thibodaux productivity, boundaries Jennifer Thibodaux

Out of office vibes

How many times have you set the below out of office message or received it from a colleague or other contact?

"I am out of the office and have limited access to email and voicemail. I will respond to your message after I return to the office on March 25. If you need immediate assistance, please contact John Doe at 123-456-7890 or jdoe@office.com. Thank you."

More times than you can count, right? Well, try this one on for size instead:

"Thank you for your message. I am out of the office and will respond when I return on March 25, 2024."

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intention, productivity Jennifer Thibodaux intention, productivity Jennifer Thibodaux

Do you live in your inbox?!

How many times a day do you check email?

If you work at a desk all day like me, your answer is most likely "constantly" or "as it arrives." But have you ever stopped to think about how often you are actually checking email? The answer might be upwards of dozens of times a day, not to mention responding within minutes of receipt much of the time. Really have a think about it for a moment.

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productivity, self-development Jennifer Thibodaux productivity, self-development Jennifer Thibodaux

“Your storage is almost full”

"Your storage is almost full." Google must have sent that message to my main Gmail account* countless times over the last six months or so. The first time I received it, I opened it, read how close I was to the limit and what I'd have to do it fix it, told myself "I don't have time to deal with this," decided to procrastinate fixing it, and deleted the message.

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productivity Jennifer Thibodaux productivity Jennifer Thibodaux

Take. A. Break.

It's taken me a very, very long time to realize that the biggest secret to staying productive is... drumroll please... taking breaks. Yep, that's right. You want to do more? Make sure you actually do less. As in, stop working once in awhile. I promise, you'll be more productive -- and avoid burning out.

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productivity Jennifer Thibodaux productivity Jennifer Thibodaux

One tomato, two tomato….

The Pomodoro Technique is a way to stay productive because it prevents multitasking. I credit this hack for single-handedly turning me into someone who used to be so proud about all she could (allegedly) do at once into a recovering multitasker. 

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productivity Jennifer Thibodaux productivity Jennifer Thibodaux

There’s an app for that

Now that you've broken down your to-do list into bite-sized pieces of actionable items (sub-tasks) instead of jotting down vague tasks, it's time to get organized and allocate time to complete the items.

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perfectionism, productivity Jennifer Thibodaux perfectionism, productivity Jennifer Thibodaux

Accountability partners vs. perfectionism

I love writing my newsletter. Suffice it to say, it's a highlight of my week. Sometimes it takes me 25 minutes. Sometimes it takes me an hour. However, I used to have this tiny problem: No matter how long it took, I couldn't leave it alone. I couldn't say, "It's done!" and move on with my life. I'd tinker with it night after night, driving myself nuts over inane things like whether semi-colons are too archaic. (They're not; I love 'em.) 

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