Our users wanted the possibility of having multiple teams under the same organization, so we created Upwave Workspace. Instead of creating a team when you signup, you will now create a workspace. Inside this workspace, you can create several teams, e.g. for different departments, project groups, external suppliers etc.

From Single-Team to Multi-Team

Before workspace, you created a team-url when signing up and added all the members in your organization to that team. If you wanted to divide your organization into different teams or departments, you could do this by creating groups for your boards. You could, however, not add members to groups – only to the boards inside a group. With the introduction of workspace, you can now create multiple teams inside your organization.

While a major change in itself, the launch of Workspace also signals a direction for the platform. We will emphasize collaboration, teams and breaking down silos even more in the future.

Why Is This Awesome News?

What will this launch mean for you and your organization?

For Big Organizations

If you’re a big organization with a lot of employees, you don’t want your shared workspace to be cluttered with all the projects everyone is working on – but at the same time, you want to have all your employees inside the same workspace. With the introduction of multi-teams, you can now create different departments or project groups inside your organization. The employees will then only see workspace visible (public) teams and teams they are invited to. This way, your employees can focus on the tasks and projects that are relevant to them.

For Collaborating With External Clients/Suppliers

If you are working with clients or suppliers that you don’t want to see everything inside your organization, you can easily create a team for your collaboration. This way you don’t have to worry about them getting access to confidential information, because they will only be able to see boards inside that specific team. When a project is over, it’s easy to revoke their access to the team or delete it.

For Small Organizations

Even if you are a small organization, you will still get advantages of multi-teams. You can look at it as a way to organize your boards, which makes it easier to structure different areas of your business. Before this release, you could see all non-private boards, even if you weren’t a part of them. Let’s say you only work with marketing, you can now create a team for marketing, where only the marketing team are members. When you log in to the workspace, the marketing team is all you will see. Where as before, you would also see all the tech, admin, and sales boards – even if you weren’t a part of them.

Key Benefits:

• Users can collaborate in multiple, separate teams, within the same organization workspace
• Improved access rights and security control – allowing easy involvement of outside parties on demand (customers, contractors and partners)
• Teams can be assembled and dissolved with a few clicks – useful for short term projects
• Workspace administrator(s) can manage the entire account, and have full overview of all teams and workspace activity
• Individual teams assign their own administrators, with full control of details

Great time management means being effective as well as efficient. In the modern, fast paced workplace it can be hard to distinguish between what’s important and urgent. We often fall in the trap of believing all urgent tasks are also important, even if that’s seldom the case. In fact, most stuff trying to get our brain’s attention are usually trivial, non-important tasks, with a high sense of urgency.

The Eisenhower Principle 

The Eisenhower Principle originates from a quote attributed to the former U.S. president Dwight D. Eisenhower:

“I have two kinds of problems, the urgent and the important. The urgent are not important, and the important are never urgent.” 

The principle is pretty simple. You evaluate your task in terms of urgency and importance, and then place them in different quadrants of the Eisenhower Matrix, which gives you a visual overview of how to prioritize your tasks.

Urgent vs Important

Let’s start by defining what constitutes an important task and an urgent task.

URGENT

A task defined as urgent requires immediate action or attention.  Examples:

• Crises
• Pressing problems
• Projects with deadlines
• Interruptions (calls, meetings, emails)

IMPORTANT

A task defined as important often relates to long-term goals. Examples:

• Planning, research, design, testing
• Capability improvements
• Relationship building
• Developing change, direction and strategy

The Eisenhower Matrix 

The Eisenhower Matrix consists of four different quadrants, based on urgency and importance. The quadrants are as follows:

1. Urgent and Important: DO

If a task is both urgent and important, do it right away.

2. Not Urgent, but Important: DECIDE

If a task is important, but not urgent, set a due date and do it later.

3. Urgent, but not Important: DELEGATE

If a task is urgent, but not important, the best thing is to delegate it to someone else.

4. Not Urgent and Not Important: DELETE

If a task is neither important nor urgent, it should not be prioritized. Drop it or do it when you have some extra time.

Obviously, what you need to tackle first are tasks that are BOTH urgent and important. It’s also easy to see that tasks that neither urgent nor important should be the last priority. However, it can be difficult to decide what to focus on when it comes to tasks that are “not urgent and important” or “urgent and not important”. This is where it’s important to remember that if you focus all your time on urgent tasks, the important tasks will never get done. Urgent does not equal important.

By using the Eisenhower Matrix you get a better picture of how to prioritize your tasks. Start by doing what’s important, ranked by urgency. If you have capacity do to some of the non-important tasks, do them after you finished all important tasks – or delegate/drop them depending on urgency.

Create Your Own Eisenhower Matrix in Upwave

Upwave supports both columns, rows and colorcoding of cards, which makes it a perfect tool to create your Eisenhower Matrix. Start by creating two columns, “Urgent” and “Not urgent”. Then turn on rows, and create a row for “Important” and “Not important”. Now, you have the structure.

Create the colors you want to use for the 4 different categories; Do, Decide, Delegate, Delete. We have used red (Do), green (Decide), yellow (Delegate) and blue (Delete), but there are no rules – use the colors you prefer! When you’re all set up, start adding your tasks in each quadrant.

1. Do right away

2. Decide when to do it

 3. Delegate to someone else

4. Delete/Drop

In this case, the red tasks would be done right away. For the green tasks, you would set a deadline for each (which is very easy in Upwave!) and then get started on them after the red tasks. The yellow tasks should be delegated to someone else (if possible), while the blue tasks should be dropped.

Key takeaways

• Urgent does not equal important: What is important is seldom urgent and vice verca
• The Eisenhower Matrix: Helps your categorize your tasks, so you can get your priorities straight!
• If a task is important and urgent: Get it done right away – no procrastination.
• If a task is important, but not urgent: Set a deadline and get it done by then. Make sure you do it!
• If a task is urgent, but not important: Then it’s just a distraction, so delegate it to someone else.
• If a task is neither urgent nor important: Well, then you don’t prioritize it at all. Drop it!

Sources

Baer, Drake. (2014). “Dwight Eisenhower Nailed A Major Insight About Productivity”. Business Insider

Dwight D. Eisenhower (1954). “Address at the Second Assembly of the World Council of Churches, Evanston, Illinois”. The American Presidency Project

McKay; Brett; Kate (2013). “The Eisenhower Decision Matrix: How to Distinguish Between Urgent and Important Tasks and Make Real Progress in Your Life”. The Art of Manliness.

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Hygge (pronounced “hue-gah”) comes from a Scandinavian word meaning “well-being” and has been adopted by generations of Nordic people as a way to not only ward off the winter blues, but to actually embrace and celebrate the gifts offered by the colder, darker season. Hygge is loosely translated as “coziness” in English, but it’s actually much more than that.

Hygge is an attitude, a way of being, that can be applied to all aspects of your life, including the way you work together with your team.

“Hygge was never meant to be translated — it was meant to be felt”
– Tove Maren Stakkestad

We all know the Scandinavians endure short days and long nights. The hours of daylight are full of frenetic activity, but the nights are an invitation to rest, to allow ourselves the space and time for quiet contemplation. This gives us the opportunity to connect more deeply with our loved ones, with our own selves and, for some, our spiritual beliefs.

How to implement “Hygge” in your team

Not everyone has the same changing seasons as the Scandinavians, but we all have ups and downs in our own lives, and your business is no exception. Learning the lessons of how they thrive in challenging conditions can help us overcome the obstacles we encounter in everyday life.

Even in the tough “Winter” periods, with the right attitude you and your team can overcome any obstacle. The hygge philosophy can help transform your team and make you happier, more fulfilled and most importantly, more productive.

1. Less clutter

Scandinavia is famed for its minimalistic approach to life. Simplicity brings peace and tranquility to the mind. Less clutter means less distraction and allows better focus. The calming influence of hygge should be brought into the workplace and promoted through company culture.

Hygge is all about enjoying the environment and the people around you, to allow you to transform your personal space.

2. Connecting with the world around you

Spend more time connecting with your team. Express your gratitude for the work they do. Go for a walk during your work hours. Fresh air and nature bring balance to your life, soothe your worries help recharge your batteries and studies show it can even improve your memory.

“I think the essence of hygge is the pursuit of everyday happiness. Trying to build a little pleasure and gratitude into your daily routine.”
– Make Wiking, CEO of Copenhagen’s Happiness Research Institute.

3. Do more with less

In today’s world we are constantly bombarded with information. Many people feel like they are constantly drowning in new gadgets that claim to make you more productive.

As Paul Simon says “Want to be a writer but don’t know how or when? Find a quiet place, use a simple pen.”

4. Keep it simple

Most systems work best when they are kept simple rather than made complicated. Simplicity should be a key goal for any team and unnecessary complexity should be avoided at all costs. Simpler solutions are both easier to implement and easier to maintain.

Leonardo da Vinci himself famously said “Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication” and who are we to argue with him?

5. Clarify your priorities

When your team sees the big picture they are more invested in getting to a “win”. The “OKR” system is how Google, LinkedIn and Intel do it and so do we here at Upwave.io.

Abraham Lincoln said “If I had 8 hours to chop down a tree, I would spend the first 6 sharpening my axe” and he knew a thing or two about getting things done.

Understand and accept your limits. Don’t say “yes” to everything. Learning to say “No” is powerful. Limiting your “work-in-progress” leads to quicker “wins” and more positive momentum for everyone.

6. Understand your role in the team

Studies show employees are more engaged when they understand their roles and responsibilities within their position. It leads to higher levels of performance and commitment.

Be open and listen to your teammates, regardless of their role! Yes, you can’t always get what you want, but listening, true active listening, builds empathy.

Remember the “Golden Rule” of all religions — “treat others as you would want to be treated yourself”. Doing just a little bit to show you care can go a long, long way…

7. Know what you want out of life

Remember that the enjoyable things in life don’t have to be restricted to outside the office. Spontaneity is the spice of life but there’s nothing wrong with organizing your fun!

Try organizing a sweepstake, take an hour out to play a team board game or quiz (We highly recommend our Norwegian friends at Kahoot!). Why not try meditation sessions at lunchtime?

You could even organise a tasty food rota, with people taking it in turns to bring in homemade cakes or soup for the office.

Whatever you decide, it’s worth taking the plunge; after all, there is nothing more hyggelig than making time for each other.