Tooling Up Productivity

These days, there is definitely a lot that goes into being productive at work in our professional lives. Some of it can be then transposed into our personal lives but I think that's a little more intruisive than I want at the moment. With work however, I've really been trying to leverage the things that we've got access to!

I started using this a few years ago, something that my company had in the Microsoft Office package we had. The tool called Viva and the insights that it provides us into things that we have. Many people will think that AI has been a recent craze but AI has been around for a number of years, since I transitioned over into primarily the IT realm of my profession I've been using Viva and the AI power that it uses to keep me on task and productive. The catch is, sometimes I forget to leverage it!

With my new job, one of the things that gets a little more stressful is trying to stay ontop of all of the various things that are going on. I send a significant number of emails in a day and work on all kinds of projects. It's not unbearable thankfully but it does get a little tricky to stay on task and track with remembering all of the various things that go on during a day. Luckily, I've been trying to get myself back into using the Viva Insights and it's been a really positive change for me! I've caught a number of things that have fallen off my memory radar and was able to get them in a good amount of time to send a proper follow up to a colleague or customer.

In the days where we are expected to do more with less, I wonder if using a tool like Viva Insights is going to end up working against us. We might be expected to be productive 100% of the time, all the time and that's simply not something that's going to be possible. We need to be allowed to have mediocre days as well as have days where we are absolutely taking shit to the next level. With the ebb and flow of work motivation in life that depends on the various factors that go on in life, I am certainly trying to see what I can do to "tool up" myself and use the tools that are at my disposal to assist me in doing the work that I need to do, efficiently.

I will not allow myself to be overtaken by the technology though, because we need to separate the possibilities of technology and the need to have a human on the other side of it, interacting with it and doing it. We simply cannot, and should not, use "technology" to do all of a humans job no matter what. I won't let the eventual usage of tools like Large Language Models or voice recognition software drive my work life and steer me in particular directions. I'm hopeful that my company won't go in that direction but you never know. Larger companies tend to do whatever they can that's best for their bottom line, not best for their customers or their employees. It's typically in that order.

I'm not saying I work for a bad company though, because the company I work for is actually quite good on many different scales for being a good place to work but that is also a cycle where the management of the company right now is of a particular mindset but I'm not going to be disillusioned to think that it will stay that way forever. Changes come to companies in the leadership roles and we have a good group right now but there will come a time where we won't. In the time I've been in the workforce, I've seen great leaders at the various places I've worked at and I've also seen piss poor leaders, so it's certainly something that can and will change.

In the meantime though, I'm trying to not kill myself with work as I see some of my colleagues doing. I guess it's different because of the stage of life I'm at where my family is far more important to me than spending extra hours on my computer trying to get another email sent, another form filled out and to continually work. I've read many testimonials from people who are older who were "career people" and missed all kinds of family events because of their work. The kids don't remember the work that needed to be done, the worker doesn't remember the work that needs to be done but everyone remembers that they were missing from the particular event. That's no way to live in my opinion!

With trying to stay up to date with some of the tools at my fingertips, I am certainly trying to ward off falling behind in some of my work duties but also being able to do other important things like engage with my colleagues in meaningful ways. With Viva and the AI bots scanning my emails and messages (a little creepy, I know but that's why it's work related, not ever something I will implement at home) it keeps me on task and allows me to stay ontop of some of the important tasks I said I would do or my colleagues said they would do.