You can't expect to make much progress on achieving increased productivity if you don't know where you're at currently. Therefore, I suggest that you

begin this entire "personal productivity" endeavor with an assessment of where you're starting from. As part of this assessment, you need to acknowledge the areas where you could stand some definite improvement as well as those where you're naturally strong (be it the area of organization, prioritizing, planning, or time management). Doing this will indicate the areas you need to concentrate on, while at the same time preventing you from reinventing the wheel, so to speak.

As part of this productivity self-assessment, I also suggest you take a look at where you expect yourself to be after developing some new skills and habits in the areas that need improvement. I find it tremendously important to have a clear and concrete image of what work/life balance means to you and what it looks like in your life. This image can then serve both as a motivator and a model that enables you to judge your success.

Remember that peak personal productivity is not a goal in itself. Rather, it's merely the means of achieving the real goal of balancing your professional and personal life. Further, keep in mind that the underlying purpose of this work/life balance is to be as happy and fulfilled in all aspects of your life as you can possibly be.

I think maintaining this perspective on personal productivity is important in keeping you going and keeping your eye on the prize. Too many gurus in the productivity field aren't clear enough about this. Because they're so personally jazzed about the subject, they tend to give off the misimpression that achieving peak productivity should be a sufficient reward in and of itself. I not only don't think that this is the case, but I also caution you against making personal productivity more than it is: a worthy means to a lofty end.

I use the term "productivity tools" in the loosest sense. Your day planner, personal computer, cell phone, and Outlook software are only the most obvious tools that you need to master in order to achieve peak personal productivity.

Your intelligence, motivation, and attitudes are also key productivity tools that you need to master. Therefore, I urge you not only to give a makeover to your computer files and your Outlook program interface, but also to your attitudes toward work and play. Also, I urge you to adopt an open attitude that enables you to welcome every opportunity you get to develop new abilities and skills that help actualize you both personally and professionally.

Remember that solid organization provides the foundation upon which you build your personal productivity. As such, it's important to get your workspace organized at the outset of the process of becoming more productive. Just be aware of the definite trade-off between the time it takes to maintain peak levels of organization and the time it takes to actually get your work done.

Also, keep in mind that being organized doesn't just describe the state of your files, but also the state of your mind. This means that you need to be on top of your mental/emotional game when it comes to work in order to have any chance of achieving your productivity goals. This, in turn, means that you need to take care of both your body and your mind by paying attention to nutrition, exercise, and recreation. (All work and no play is definitely not the way to go.)

The real key to achieving peak personal productivity is being able to realistically assess the relative importance of all your obligations. By evaluating their relative merit, more often than not you end up determining the order by which you need to take them on and find the means by which you can get them done. This means that in the ongoing fight to maintain your personal productivity, establishing the priority of the things that still need doing is often more than half the battle.

When you think about your day planner, you undoubtedly think "calendar." And when you think "calendar," you probably think "scheduling." And so you should, for effective time management is often little more than effective scheduling.

Just keep in mind that effective scheduling isn't just a matter of juggling and filling the open timeslots on your Outlook calendar. It's also being able to find ways to make good use of the slots you don't fill, the time that isn't planned and accounted for. Also, planning isn't just a matter of dealing with your immediate obligations. It's also a matter of being able to anticipate those commitments that aren't yet on the horizon but which you're bound to meet up with in the near future.

The power of positive thinking just can't be overstated. When it comes to personal productivity, you have to be able to keep your focus on what you can do now and get done in the near future and not what you can't accomplish.

Whenever you're unable to maintain this kind of "can do" focus, you run the risk of being stopped dead in your tracks and then wasting time getting absolutely nothing done (the very antithesis of personal productivity). For, even when you can't get everything done and your best-laid plans go awry, you need to be able to keep on doing whatever you can to have any chance of later regaining the upper hand and getting back on track.

Staying open to change isn't just a platitude. It's an essential component of successfully dealing with the vicissitudes of modern life. In fact, it may be the people who are the most adept at dealing with change, both in the workplace and their personal lives, who end up being the most successful in terms of personal productivity.

It surely takes a certain amount of mental jujitsu to deal effectively with having to switch your gears and change your plans. The best way to cope with ongoing change and reduce the stress associated with it is to learn how to stay relaxed and mentally open in the face of it so you're ready to go off in a new direction whenever you're situation requires you to do so.

By anticipating information overload, you have half a chance of not being completely overwhelmed by it. As I'm very fond of pointing out, however,

information overload is, all too often, the result of ineffective or nonexistent data filtering (which is why, in my computer training classes, I stress knowing how to filter out of your data all but the information you need to work with).

When it comes to personal productivity, the big problem with information overload is that it can render you ineffective, either by leading you down a lot of blind alleys or by stopping you in your tracks. Either way, you need to guard against it whenever possible in order to maintain peak productivity.

To paraphrase John Donne, "No person is an island." For, at the end of the day, personal productivity isn't simply a matter of being the best at your own game, but also a matter of being at your best playing with others.

This is the case because so many knowledge-based and service-related professions make communicating and working well with others an essential part of the job. This makes honing your interpersonal skills part and parcel of achieving true peak personal productivity. It also means that you must face the twin challenges of effectively staying in touch with others as well as successfully relying upon them at various times to meet certain obligations.