Messing with Other People’s Time Management

I write a lot about how to be more productive, but what if that really isn’t your thing? What if you don’t like productivity? What if your goal in life is to ruin productivity for other people?

In an effort to expand our readership to people striving for unproductivity, here are six things you can do to guarantee that your co-workers get as little done as possible. Productivity501 takes no responsibility for the results of actually implementing any of these ideas.

1. Randomly put entries on their calendar like: “1:30 meeting with John White Important!” or “Call Sally 535-321-1242”. Place them far enough in the future that they won’t suspect you did it.
2. Write in fake delegated tasks and followup reminders: “Ask Joe for status of XYZ presentation.”
3. Set up their copy of MS Word to autocorrect their boss’s name with “The Silly Clown” or “The Supreme Ruler of Canterbury”
4. Switch their phone display to Hebrew.
5. There are still a number of “Fax Back” services out there where you call in, select the documents you want and then give the system your fax number. Call in an use their desk phone or cell phone number.
6. Put an ad on Craig’s List saying that you have 4 Superbowl, Hannah Montana, or Blueman Group tickets that you aren’t going to be able to use and you’ll give them away free to whoever tells you the funniest joke on the phone. List their work number.

Originally published April 01, 2008.