Black Holes: A Danger To Productivity

Have you ever lost track of a deadline, in spite of your best intentions? Your task might have been sucked into a productivity black hole.

I realized the other day that I have a couple of these productivity killers laying around. The first two were folders on my computer where I put stuff for filing — a “file” folder, and a folder in my pictures. I have been stashing things in there for a long time, and I can’t remember the last time I emptied them. I also have a black hole within my productivity system – my someday/maybe list. I put things on there, and then forget all about them. Huge productivity black holes.

What Is A Black Hole?

The dictionary defines a black hole as “a region of space having a gravitational field so intense that no matter or radiation can escape.”

In other words, things go in and never come out again.

(As a side note, the picture is a black hole pic taken by the Hubbell telescope. Cool, huh?)

What Is A Productivity Black Hole?

A productivity black hole is where things go in, and are never seen again. This could include email inboxes, task lists, project lists, piles of paper, or the “someday/maybe list.”

Anything where you don’t routinely review its contents qualifies as a productivity black hole.

Identifying Your Productivity Black Holes

We talked about inputs and outputs recently, and therein lies your clues to finding your productivity black holes. If you put something into a folder/location/program and you never see it again, this is a black hole. In otherwords, an input without an output.

General Guidelines for Freeing Things

Having items stuck in black holes is a dangerous place to be. If you’re not aware they are there, you can lose track of important things (like bills and deadlines). You might also be operating in a false sense of productivity security, where you believe you have everything handled.

The trick is to identify the black holes and then free the items.

Sometimes it is as simple as taking everything and processing it into your system as a new input. This is effective with backlogs of information.

If the black hole is one of your outputs, such as a someday/maybe list, then you have to make sure that you are regularly reviewing and pulling those items into the areas you work.

What’s Next

In December we will be talking about planning for the new year. One of those articles will deal with processing a backlogged someday/maybe list.

Image by Hubble Space Telescope / ESA. Licensed under Creative Commons. Text added.