Help us eliminate busy work (and win a cloudie)

[#1]

September 22nd marks the start of a new season. For many of us in the Northern Hemisphere, the dog days of Summer are behind us, so lazy beach days have been replaced by new routines and new goals.

As we settle into the new season, our team is focused on spending our hours more efficiently. That means focusing on the most interesting and impactful work - not just the tasks to cross off to-do lists. We’ve been having lots of conversations about what working better together could mean, how we can eliminate the “busy work” that creeps in, and how we can be more strategic about what we invest in. In other words, we don’t want to be busy. We want to be productive. Sound familiar?

Google “how to be more productive” and you’ll find endless how-to articles and no shortage of life advice or productivity hacks. But the time for “hacks” has passed and there’s no group better at GSD than those I’ve met through the Atlassian Community.

So I want to know: what does productivity mean to you? Fill in the blanks and let us know in the comments below! Share your secret sauce and you’ll be entered to win one of 5 “cloudie” plushies.

1. When I’m productive, I always ______.

2. When I’m productive, I never _________.

3. If I had a magic productivity wand, I would want to:

   1. Work more closely in-sync with my team

   2. Be able to do my job faster

   3. Have a better understanding of my work so I know how to invest for max impact

4. __________ in Jira, Confluence, or Bitbucket helps me be more productive.

I’ll go first.

1. When I’m productive, I always feel connected to my team and understand how our work connects.

2. When I’m productive, I never try to multitask.

3. If I had a magic wand, I wish I could: have a better understanding of my work so I know how to invest for max impact.

4. In-line commenting in Confluence helps me be more productive.

Your turn!

[Elizabeth Howden]

Love this! My answers would be: 

1. When I’m productive, I always have a sense of how my work impacts business goals. 

2. When I’m productive, I never waste time. :) 

3. If I had a magic productivity wand, I would want to: Be able to do my job faster!

4. Cross-product search in Jira and Confluence helps me be more productive

[Hosana]

My turn:

1. When I’m productive, I always feel better about myself and my work!

2. When I’m productive, I never try to look at my phone.

3. If I had a magic wand, I wish I could have: more hours in my day for work and for fun!

4. Jira automation helps me be more productive.

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

1. When I’m productive, I always spend at least an hour on doing one task (hopefully well), and can explain what I've achieved over the day's family dinner.

2. When I’m productive, I never react to interruptions like 'phone calls, slack messages, texts etc.

3. If I had a magic productivity wand, I would want to:

   1. Block time-wasters (that's quite a devastating one if you think it through - I'm asking for things like timesheets, holiday booking, corporate bo****ks, and all the other needlessly over-complicated paperwork to go away)

   2. Get the focus right.  At the moment, this does not apply to me, but I know of people under pressure to deliver X when what they want to deliver is Y.  Y is better for the client, and better for us, but X makes us a bit more money in the short term.  It's not what our people signed up for and it is quite toxic.

   3. Work more closely with my colleagues.  I like these people, I want to be with them more.  (On a productivity scale though, we are not good at sharing, there's a kit of wheel re-inventing going on here at the moment)

   4. Have a better understanding of my customers

4. A consistent source of data in Jira, Confluence, or Bitbucket helps me be more productive.

[Pramodh M]

Interesting!! Here are my answers

When I’m productive, I am always pumped up to do my work / learn something new or have a feeling that most of my knowledge was worth / fruitful 

When I’m productive, I never doubt myself on the work I'm doing and doesn't pay much attention to anything else.

If I had a magic productivity wand, I would want to:

1. Build apps and be a master at programming language

2. Build team and grow business

3. Help customers interactively to follow DevSecOps Culture in their environment with Atlassian Solutions

Automation in Jira, Insights in Confluence, or Pipelines in Bitbucket helps me be more productive.

Thanks

[Katie Zavhorodnia_Appfire]

Cool idea) I will give it a try:

1. When I’m productive, I always eat the frog 🐸 - take the most difficult/biggest task to work at. 
   
   

2. When I’m productive, I never change a thing about my work setup, room temperature, lighting, etc, anything to keep the ball rolling. And make sure I have cookies/chocolate at hand all the time.
   
   

3. If I had a magic productivity wand, I would want to: make my brain work 10x more creative 🪄🧠 and fingers double and type autonomously ;)
   
   
   

4. Integrations with many tools in Jira and improved navigation in Confluence help me be more productive. 

[Diana_Architect_ZigiWave]

- When I’m productive, I always think about the positive outcome of my work.
- When I’m productive, I never distract myself with nonsense.
- If I had a magic productivity wand, I would want to:
inspire people to be more creative and trust themselves
help others solve their problems in a heartbeat
eliminate everything that may waste time and effort
- The automation and optimization of workflow in Jira help me be more productive.

[Tomislav Tobijas _Koios_]

I would like to give it a go as well :)

1. When I’m productive, I always stay focused on my work.
2. When I’m productive, I never lose focus on my work.
3. If I had a magic productivity wand, I would want to:
   1. Instantly remove all distractions I have
   2. Be able to multi-task (probably clone myself so I can do more work 😂); a.k.a. have the ability to add more hours to the day when needed
   3. Be able to build my team relationship and keep my productivity on the same level
   4. When needed, be able to (re)balance business and private productivity
4. Search in the navigation bar in Jira and Confluence helps me be more productive. (sorry @Elizabeth Howden for stealing the last one, but it's my most used feature by far 😄)

[Jenn Velázquez]

1. When I’m productive, I always feel calmer and confident that my team and I are working on the right things at the right time.
2. When I’m productive, I never feel overwhelmed or overworked.
3. If I had a magic wand, I wish I could: help others gain confidence and drive to see how their work could impact the bigger picture.
4. The variety of plug-ins accessible for Jira helps me be more productive.

[Łukasz Modzelewski _Lumo_]

1. When I’m productive, I always make decisions faster, because I'm more confident and everything is simple.
2. When I’m productive, I never attend meetings without my required presence.
3. If I had a magic productivity wand, I would want to:
   1. Use it on me and others.
   2. Share it with the Team (so they could use it on themselves and others).
   3. Always go straight to the point/value.
4. Linking and keeping all insights and ideas in Jira, Confluence helps me be more productive.

[Andrey Kiyanovskiy]

1. When I’m productive, I always stay focused, do my job quickly, work less, rest more.

2. When I’m productive, I never get distracted by messages, news, etc.

3. If I had a magic productivity wand, I would want to have 48 per day or at least 4 days work week.

4. Fast page response in Jira, Confluence, or Bitbucket helps me be more productive.

[André Hinz]

For me it would be:

1. When I’m productive, I always have my priorities straight and work in flow on the most valuable task.
2. When I’m productive, I never have doubts about whether I'm investing my time in the right task.
3. If I had a magic productivity wand, I would want to: Work more closely in-sync with my team
4. Highly customizable task boards and backlogs in Jira, Confluence, or Bitbucket helps me be more productive.

[sylvie.ruffin@ecb.europa.eu]

In my case:

1. When I’m productive, I am working on something I understand and even if I don't know the perfect solution I have pretty much good ideas on what to do and where I want to go/be (optionnally discussed with other members of the team to get inputs).
2. When I’m productive, I never have doubts on the benefits that what I am doing will bring.
3. If I had a magic productivity wand, I would want to use that magic to make sure the users requirements are well captured and understood.
4. Describing the procedures that I use once in a while in Confluence helps me and the team be more productive: next time we need it we know where to go look for what we agreed on (optionnally enhancing it).