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.
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
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:
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.