I don’t think there is any skill more important to productivity than effective time management. No end of talent or resources will help you personally if you can’t allow sufficient time to get things done, especially in business.
Here is a two-step approach to massively increasing your productivity:
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1. Create Productivity Inspiring Habits
Making Quick Confident Decisions – it is typically better to make quick decisions and take action on them and fix anything that goes wrong, than to get stuck taking too long to make a decision and not taking action at all.
Not Letting Mistakes Trip You Up – We all make mistakes, the real trick to being successful is to not let those mistakes make us stumble. Accept you will make some and then, when you do, immediately take action to correct the problem.
Learning How To Focus on What is Important – Setting the right goals is key to being productive. Know where your time is best spent for the biggest effect and you will see an immediate boost in your productivity.
Learning How To Ignore the Non-Important – A lot of what we spend our time on doesn’t bring huge rewards, and while you might think it’s a valuable or even necessary function to perform, when you step back and assess the impact of doing it, you will realize you are mostly just wasting your time.
Production Line Effectiveness – In most business situations you are probably either doing something you’ve done a hundred times before, or expect to be doing many times going forward. Learn what these processes are and refine them; aim for production like productivity.
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2. Cementing Your Productivity
Remove Distractions – Don’t open your email, turn off your cell phone, use a Do Not disturb notice on your door, and set time aside for distraction type activities (social media, gossiping, the TV, or whatever else you find distracts you).
Learn the Secrets to Personal Motivation – Personal motivation is as distinct and unique as we all are as people – we are all motivated differently. Find out what truly motivates you – i.e. what causes you to get things done – and you will see your productivity improve.
Create an Action Plan – How can you be productive without a plan, seriously? Plan what you need to achieve – a life plan, over the next year, month or even just tomorrow. The more specific your plan the more focused you can be at achieving that next goal.
Break every Goal into Actionable Steps – make it super simple – if you can’t get a task done in an hour or two it’s usually too complicated. Make it simple and lay it out as a series of smaller steps or goals. Productivity is affected by your motivation, and the more often you can check off a step the more motivated you become to tackle the next one.
Take these steps to heart, build good habits and use them as a foundation to boost your productivity.