Throughout October 2017, we ran the first season of Productivity Quest — our Slack-based series of challenges tailored to improve the way we work. It turned out to be a huge success and kept the community wanting more.
This year, we decided to take a different spin on the purpose of the quest. Instead of trying out a lot of different techniques, we focused on 2 of them. The goal was to improve not only productivity but also the way we make our work transparent to our coworkers and partners.
This is bowling there are rules"
After the first season, we did a poll, and everyone voted that we once again help with planting trees as the charity cause for this quest. This made us very happy as we like to make the world a better place here at X-Team.
Thus, like last time — every time someone completed a challenge we donated $1 to https://retree.com
Everybody Loves a Challenge
Here are the challenges we designed for the second edition:
Week 1
This week’s focus was mainly on getting acquainted with the PPP-technique. The intention was to not only improve how we journal but most of all to benefit from how X-Teamers indicate problems — practicing the ancient art of being transparent.
* Monday to Wednesday: Read the resources about the PPP-technique, try out different formats, and share on the ＃productivity-quest channel so we can see your take on it.
* [https://hanno.co/blog/ppp-plans-progress-problems/](https://hanno.co/blog/ppp-plans-progress-problems/)
* [http://blog.idonethis.com/progress-plans-problems-ppp/](http://blog.idonethis.com/progress-plans-problems-ppp/)
* [https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/progress-plans-problems-ppp-report-james-young](https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/progress-plans-problems-ppp-report-james-young)
* Thursday to Friday: Automate PPP - Try Zapier, IFTTT, or your own custom solution to make a daily PPP post on ＃productivity-quest; try out different approaches — whether you want to post at the end of the day automatically, by click of a button, or in a completely different manner — the sky is the limit — share your solution.
Week 2
This week, we focused on improving productivity by planning ahead and keeping the list of important things to do all neat and tidy.
* Monday to Wednesday: Plan Next Day — Instead of starting the day with a list from yesterday, for three days, try planning ahead of time the tasks from the list for tomorrow.
* Thursday to Friday: Prioritize & Eliminate — Take two days to clean up your list and figure out your learnings.
Week 3
This week, we will introduce a new technique called the Bullet Journal. Although it was designed for paper, we will try to set it up in digital form for sharing, accessibility, transparency, and collaboration purposes.
* Monday to Wednesday: Setting up a bullet journal — Read about the basics of what a bullet journal is and how it works. Proposed solutions: Trello, Evernote. If you come up with a different approach, like, e.g., Todoist, let us know and share it with others.
* [http://bulletjournal.com/get-started/](http://bulletjournal.com/get-started/)
* [https://blog.trello.com/how-to-bullet-journal-in-trello](https://blog.trello.com/how-to-bullet-journal-in-trello)
* [https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/use-bullet-journal-trello-plan-day/](https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/use-bullet-journal-trello-plan-day/)
* [http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/use-evernote-bullet-journal/](http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/use-evernote-bullet-journal/)
* [http://theinvisibleauthor.com/tutorial/create-digital-bullet-journal-evernote/](http://theinvisibleauthor.com/tutorial/create-digital-bullet-journal-evernote/)
* [https://lifehacker.com/the-bullet-journal-productivity-method-empowers-your-pa-1169313228](https://lifehacker.com/the-bullet-journal-productivity-method-empowers-your-pa-1169313228)
* Thursday to Friday: Automate your Bullet Journal — the same case as it was with PPP — try to automate it for publishing and sharing with your coworkers. For quest purposes, share on ＃productivity-quest channel.
Week 4
In this week, we focused on the planning benefits of the bullet journal. The intention was to leave every member of ＃productivity-quest with something tangible when the quest ends, something that they can work with during the whole 2018
* Monday to Wednesday: Plan next month
* [https://www.bohoberry.com/planning-routine/](https://www.bohoberry.com/planning-routine/)
* [https://www.bohoberry.com/bullet-journal-101-pre-planning/](https://www.bohoberry.com/bullet-journal-101-pre-planning/)
* Thursday to Friday: Plan whole year (big goals)
* [https://www.bohoberry.com/future-planning/](https://www.bohoberry.com/future-planning/)
* [http://zenofplanning.com/perfect-bullet-journal-key/](http://zenofplanning.com/perfect-bullet-journal-key/)
Here are just a few of the many examples of how X-Teamers completed their challenges:
We did it
Once again, thanks to X-Teamers' commitment, we managed to plant 100 trees across the world and helped make it a tiny bit better place. We learned a lot, improved the way we communicate, and last but not least, every participant was rewarded with our special coins, which can be exchanged for X-Team swag.
Stay tuned for next seasons of the Productivity Quest.
