Do the right thing and be more productive
" Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right "
Are you doing the right thing? If you could choose to become more efficient or effective, which one would you choose?
We usually tend to choose efficiency, which means increasing our output with the minimum effort or time required.
It can be misleading however to view productivity as the ability to do more faster, as it all comes to a simple question: why do it in the first place? What is the point of doing some work if in the end it is not important to you?
It feels good to busy and stimulated by different activities and schedules, nevertheless it can be an illusion and also a waste of your valuable time.
The critical aspect to be more productive in your work (and in your life) is not really how you do it but what you do it. That's because the less work you have, the more quality and creativity you can put into it.
Essential steps to improve your productivity:
1. Decide what is important to you:
- Have you decided do you want?
- What are the most important activities in your day?
- Where do you feel your actually adding value, rather than wasting time?
- What are the relationships you need to create or build to achieve your long term goals?
- What are your top 3 objectives for this year?
- Start your day with your top 3 MITs most important things, as Leo Babauta recommends in his book Power of Less
2. Eliminate or delegate what is not important
- If you had just one day a week to work, what would you have to sacrifice or delegate?
- What activities are not fully utilizing your capability and creativity?
- Avoid useless meetings
- Outsource your admin activities, hire professionals to do the work for you. Elance is a great option.
- Get a virtual assistant , the best providers are: BPOVIA.com, Brickwork and Your Man in India
3. Cut distractions and focus on what is important
- Separate the time when you're consuming and when you're creating
- Turn off your phone, your internet, lock your self somewhere and just focus on your creation with not interruption
- Empower your team to fix problems for you
- Using the using the matrix proposed by Stephen Covey split your activities into urgent / non urgent, important / non important.
- Aim to spend most of your time on quadrant 2 - important but not urgent. That's where quality work happens.
- When you're not pressed for time and have the focus to plan and drive your goals and relationships.
- Minimize, delegate or eliminate as much as possible quadrants 3 and 4
- By doing less and focusing on what's important on quadrant 2, you should expect less crisis and pressing issues that take up your time and prevent you achieving your goals.
- Relax. Focus on quality rather than quantity. As Mr Gandhi once said: "There's more to life than increasing its speed"
Essential resources to be more productive:
- Book: 7 Habits of the Most Effective People is the ultimate source of effectiveness
- Book: The 4-Hour Work Week , who could be more productive than that?
- EBook: Zen to Done, great read! A simple system to get you more organized and productive
- Virtual Assistant providers: BPOVIA.com, Brickwork and Your Man in India
- Article: Getting things done - the essentials of GTD
- Website: Tasck, a great minimalistic to do list
