There is no doubt that there are a whole plethora of
productivity tools to help with all the busyness that is attached to running a
business and yet most owners find theirs and their teams productivity are not at
the levels to produce the results needed to hit their targets. There always
seems to be a few more things that need to be done.
It can also work the other way and people with
plenty of time can often find they are not as productive as they would like to
be.
So what can you do about it? In most cases low
productivity stems from poor self-management, little or no scheduling and
actually determining what is important.
Here are a few tips that if applied will definitely
help take your productivity to a whole new level.
1.
Work
from a plan…as business owners you can be spinning
a lot of plates and finding time to not only plan and then implement the plan
can be challenging, it is however essential. To put together a plan that will
work consider all the different areas of your business; sales, marketing,
finance etc and ask yourself this question; “if every other area of my business
remained at its current level of performance what is the one area that if
changed would have the greatest impact? This will give you the most important area
to work ON your business. Fix that
one thing then ask the question again, in other words keep your plan skinny.
Have 1-2 goals and you are likely to achieve them, have 10 goals and you may
achieve 1-2, have 10-20 goals you will probably achieve Zero.
2.
Get
into a routine…plan your day the night before. Nature
abhors a vacuum, in other words if you don’t fill your day with what’s
important for you to achieve you can guarantee that something else will come
along and fill it for you. Block out time for your important tasks and make
sure you allow space in your day for working on your plan. Once you commit to
doing this you will be forming a new habit that will serve you in ways you may
never have imagined possible.
3.
Have
a visual calendar…with the advent of mobile devices a
visual calendar would appear to be a thing of the past. Challenge is that
sometimes out of sight is out of mind. The fact that we have may have put a
reminder into our mobile calendar more often than not they are forgotten about.
A traditional old fashioned calendar that is for want of a better phrase ‘In
your face’ acts a visual and constant reminder and will help you keep your day,
week, month, and year on track.
4.
Keep
an eye on the distractions..these could include
email reminders, music playing in the background, or just the good old “Have
you got a minute?” (and we all know what that really means). Every distraction
breaks your focus, takes you off task and with the best will in the world it
will take you time to get your mind back into the right place to carry on.
Keeping a log of the distractions you get throughout the day will probably
surprise a great many of you, with some having half their working day eaten
away by distractions. By keeping the log, you will now be aware of just what is
side-tracking you and able to put in place systems to offset them in the
future. It may be that you have to learn one simple word “NO.”
5.
Stretch
your legs…with the best will in the world we all find that our
concentration wanes after a certain period of time. Depending on where you read
this can be as little as 7 minutes and for the super concentrators as much as a
couple of hours. What you need to do is find your natural cycle and build in
breaks around that cycle. It would seem strange to advocating breaks when we
are talking about productivity but sometimes that’s exactly what is needed a
stretch of the legs, a breath of fresh air to break your mental state so that
you are in a better place to complete your task.
6.
Drop
the perfectionist gene… I was a given a piece of advice
once by a good friend when I was having a challenge with what is commonly known
as ‘writers block’. I was so obsessed with getting things right first time that
it would stop the creative juices flowing and I would procrastinate and never
get started. The advice I was given was “write for the bin” in other words just
get writing and things will begin to flow even if they are not right first
time. Perfection is a myth and if you are going to wait for it to get started
then be prepared for a very long and unproductive wait.
7.
Don’t
beat yourself up…fact is you may never have enough time
to get everything done. If you get into a routine of knocking of 2-3 really
important tasks a day that keep you moving forward on your plan you will begin
to notice a ripple effect in your day. Suddenly you will start to feel more in
charge of your time the key is to aim for consistency and not perfection.
Give these tips a go and see what happens. If you
would like to discover more about the mysteries of time/self-management take a look here
Thoughts:
“Time
is the most valuable coin in our life. You and you alone will determine how
that coin will be spent. Be careful that you do not let other people spend it
for you.” Carl Sandburg
“The
bad news is time flies. The good news is you’re the pilot”
Michael Altshuler
“The
most important choice we make in life is what we choose to be important” Michael
Neil
“Time
is life. It is irreversible and irreplaceable. To waste your time is to waste
your life, but to master your time is to master your life and make the most of
it.” Alan Lakein
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