How I Organise My Day

Spoiler — Mostly using Office 365 automation and habit forming psychology tricks

Ok, it’s Tuesday. Lets get organised 👏

Have one source of truth

For me the biggest hurdle to feeling on top of your to do list, is storing tasks in multiple places. Emails, Teams messages, meeting actions and recurring tasks make up the majority of my to do list actions, so my first step in any new job is to collate them into one central store.

In the past I've used JIRA boards, Azure DevOps boards and now in my new role at Microsoft, I use a Planner board. I set it up so it looks like any Kanban board and work through tasks in two week sprints like you would in an agile project.

Sometimes I end up with piles of unplanned work so it’s not a proper Agile sprint in that regard, but I'm taking the format and rolling with it. Really, I'm using the basics of habit forming and motivational psychology to game myself into doing work:

• Closing off tasks gives me that little dopamine motivational hit I need to keep going every day.
• Setting aside some time first up for the week to clear everything back into the backlog and then set my intention for the fortnight ahead, helps me feel in control and less overwhelmed.
• Seeing how much I managed to close, planned or unplanned, at the end of the fortnight is a positive way to end my week, also more dopamine when I check those boxes. Perfect :P

This is how I have my board set up. For help setting up a Planner board, click here.

My Setup:

• I have a “training” backlog because I have tons of recorded community calls that I work my way through!
• I move tasks between columns as I work through them.
• On Friday afternoon, I close off everything in the “done” column so I can see what I managed to achieve.
• I tag things so it’s easy to filter the tasks and just see “admin” or “customer A” if I need to.

Automate as much as you can

Alright, the board looks ok but then I still have emails, Teams messages etc and it’s going to take time to create them all in Planner!

My friend, I'm a nerd and I am also very tired and lazy, so I'm always on the lookout for ways to automate the things I need to do. For personal and social media tasks, use IFTTT to automate as much as possible, but I’ve switched to Power Automate for work tasks.

You can use Power Automate to create cards in Planner from a Teams message, flagged email, on a recurring schedule and a bunch more depending on your needs.

To set up something basic:

1. Log into Power Automate (via https://portal.office365.com)

2. Then open up templates and search for Planner.
There are so many tasks to choose from!

NB: A bunch of people love using Microsoft To Do lists for this. I personally find a long list means I just — ignore the list. If you’re not feeling planner, check out To Do and see if its more your style ❤

Some of my Favs Flows

1. I use the scheduled task flow for everything that is re-occurring like:

• Admin tasks — update the CRM, Team meeting prep, Expenses..
• Regular events or content that is published — like the Bicep Community call or the DevOps monthly calls recording that I need to catch up on every month. I include the link in the task so it’s easy to find each time.

2. I create cards based on flagged emails so I can delete them from my inbox knowing they’re in Planner.
I used this pre-canned flow:

and then updated it to include the email body in the body of the Planner task:

3. Create a Planner task from a selected Teams message

This one didn't have a pre-canned flow so I wrote a post on how to set that up over here.

4. Get a follow up reminder for a Teams message

This one doesn't create a Planner card, but it creates the option to remind you about a Teams message at a time of your choosing. Similar to how you can tell Slack to you remind you later.

5. Assign a new Planner task to the user who created it

Mostly just so all the tasks are assigned to me. I think I was just on a roll at this point!

Create a routine, form habits to give your brain a rest.

On the less technical side here are some things I do to keep my task list in check:

• I rely on habit forming hacks to get things done. There’s some great studies on the topic but for me, the key is to take a habit I already have and add something to it.
• When it’s a routine or a habit you don't need to weigh up options and make a decision every day which is nice.
• I have my coffee, I open up Planner, I check out and tidy up my diary for the day. If I know what's coming up I don't feel stressed all day.

Block out your calendar so you have breathing space.

• I auto block time in my calendar first up on Monday and last thing on Friday to get organised. I read my emails, I clean up my calendar. I don’t have to think about it, it’s not another task that’s weighing on me — it’s just what I do at those times.
• I use Viva Insights to auto block out 6 hours a week for focus time/admin time. Sometimes it gets used for meetings but I do my best!
• If I have a meeting invite that needs prep time, I block prep time out in my calendar before I accept the meeting. If it’s more than about 30 mins prep — I create a Planner task by flagging the invite email so it’s on my radar.

Ask for calls to be recorded

If there’s a call that I want to listen in on but don’t need to participate in — I'll ask the host to record it. You can add that call recording link to Planner automatically and when you have time, watch it at 1.2–1.5x speed skipping the intro and pausing as needed.
Every 60 minute FYI call is now 25 mins fam.

Be a good communicator & keep people updated

If you give people all the information they need in one email/meeting/Teams message, if you’re clear and you keep them updated, you shouldn't have a ton of follow ups to wade through and be distracted by.

Keeping people updated and giving them all the information they need in a concise way, will save you so much time I promise!

Unsubscribe

If you have a bunch of emails or notifications that you just delete or use rules to “file away” every day, consider unsubscribing from them. If you’re ignoring them for the most part, you can just as easily stop receiving them.

Some days I really struggle to focus, so I turn off notifications for things that don’t need me to context switch and attend to them immediately. I don't get pop ups for emails, Teams messages etc. I’ll check them when I have time to check them.

I’ve also enabled “quiet hours” on my devices to keep distractions to a minimum.

What do you think?

That's me! If you have any Power Automate flows you can’t live without or other tips please do let me know on Twitter @simone_au or here in the comments :)