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Golden Rules of Productivity

By on January 31, 2011 in Success

scrollWe are, most of us at least, creatures of habit and structure. We thrive when there are rules and guidelines to assist us through the veritable maze of life and work processes. Why should productivity be any different? Learning or developing any routine or program can be frustrating and confusing. If you are feeling overwhelmed, don’t let those feelings discourage you from your quest for higher personal and professional efficiency. You will not master every technique for organization or effectiveness; you should not even try. I can hear the type A’s protesting out there – mostly because I am one of them – but if you strive for perfection, you will inevitably come away disappointed.  Seek instead; measurable improvement over time and your pay-off will be less stress, greater success and more time to enjoy your life.

So, with that in mind, I have assembled a list of the most crucial rules that will ensure your success in becoming more productive over time. They are a combination of strategies gathered by researching and studying highly successful productive professionals, juggling mothers and also what I have personally found works for me.

Productivity Golden Rules

  1. One Change at a time – you get the best results when you truly focus on one change at a time.
  2. Know Your Why – What is the purpose behind your goals or work?
  3. Clarify your objectives.
  4. Plan your day, every day.
  5. Energy management – Know your peak productivity cycle.
  6. Set boundaries – Protect your time and space.
  7. Play to Your Strengths – Delegate or automate the rest.
  8. Don’t overthink, don’t procrastinate, and just do it.
  9. Invest in yourself – Learn, grow, improve your skills.
  10. Focus, Focus, Focus!

For a more in depth discussion on these productivity rules, read their individual posts, where we describe them in further detail.

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I love clutter

What Can You Eliminate?

By on January 5, 2011 in Success
I love clutter
Image by sindesign via Flickr

As the year is starting to wind down it’s time to think about pairing back and “living lean.” As you go through this month give thought to what you can eliminate to free up more time and energy for work, for family and well… for living.

What can I eliminate? Well, start with eliminating unnecessary tasks, processes, and all around clutter.

Here are some easy tips for “cleaning up” and finding room more productive activities:

  1. Clean your desk/work area. – Do this today.  Now.  You need a clean and more importantly, welcoming area to work.  I can’t produce any amount of work at my desk when it’s messy.  Why not clean it up and at least make your work area welcoming if you have to be there, all day.
  2. Eliminate huge to-do lists. – Don’t get bogged down in minutiae by scheduling 36 tasks for one day. Choose your top 3-5 depending on your system and concentrate on those.   If you can only get one thing done today, what one thing will make you satisfied with your day?  DO THAT, FIRST!
  3. What are you doing that someone else can get done? – Can you let go of control bit and ask for help?  What are some things that someone else could get done in half the time with twice the results for just a small amount of compensation?
  4. What can you automate? Have you automated your bills? How about your computer back-up? Do you check your feeds in a feed aggregator like Google Reader or are you still clogging up your inbox with daily emails? Are you visiting each social media site individually or are you using a dashboard like HootSuite or TweetDeck, or even better get email summaries from NutshellMail?
  5. Get rid of junk. – Opt out of all those email newsletters and daily alerts that you never read. Unsubscribe from magazines, newspapers and catalogs that you don’t look at. Aren’t you ordering online anyway? Use a service like catalog choice to help reduce your paper junk.
  6. How many projects are you working on? Are you spread too thin?  Too many irons on the fire? How many are really important? How about focusing on income producing activities and cutting the rest? Are you doing one thing well or 10 things with mediocrity?

With all these tips, the key is to really examine what is necessary.  What is productive, billable or critical?

Stop and think.  What can you eliminate? Not just “stuff,” but processes, tasks, and so on.

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success

7 Lessons From Successful People

By on June 14, 2010 in Success

successWe can often learn by observing those who have done or are doing what we would like to accomplish. There are certain habits or traits that many successful business people have in common. It may be to our benefit to try to incorporate some of those characteristics into our work life:

  1. Successful people have a daily plan, agenda or to-do-list.
  2. Successful people only work on what they do best. Delegate the rest.
  3. Successful people are able to say no to people and demands that are not the best use of their time.
  4. Successful people are organized in both thought and deed (or hire someone to keep them that way.)
  5. Successful people stay focused on results, not busywork.
  6. Successful people schedule uninterrupted work time and guard it fiercely.
  7. Successful people allow time for learning and growth.
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Get Control of Your Inbox

By on February 24, 2010 in Productivity

Use the rule of the 4 D’s to get control over your inbox. Perhaps the most important rule is to handle each message only once, make a decision and move on. This eliminates the bulging inbox and revisiting messages over and over, which often results in less than stellar efficiency!

DELETE IT – you can generally delete 25% to 50% of your messages. If you suffer from packrat syndrome and are wary about needing the message someday, use the following guidelines:

  • Does the message relate to a current objective you’re working on? If not, you can probably delete it. Why hold on to information that doesn’t relate to your main goals?
  • Does the message contain information you can find elsewhere? If so, delete it.
  • Does the message contain information that you will refer to within the next six months? If not, delete it.
  • Does the message contain information that you’re required to keep? If not, delete it.

DO IT (in less than two minutes) – Can’t DELETE IT, then decide, “What specific action do I need to take?” and “Can I DO IT in less than two minutes?” If you can, just Do it.

DELEGATE IT – If you can’t DELETE IT or DO IT in two minutes or less, can you Delegate it? You should be able to compose and send the delegating message in about two minutes. Once you delegate the action, delete the original message or move it into your e-mail reference system (or WOR folder).

DEFER IT – If you cannot DELETE IT, DO IT in less than two minutes, or DELEGATE IT, then you need to Defer it and deal with it after you are done processing your e-mail. Depending on which system you use for email, you can flag the message for follow up and file in the corresponding project folder, create a task out of it or create an appt. if that is what is required.

If you are using the 4 D’s model on a daily basis it makes it easier to handle a large volume of e-mail. Generally speaking, of the e-mail you receive:

  • 50 percent can be deleted or filed in a reference folder
  • 30 percent can be delegated or completed in less than 2 minutes
  • 20 percent can be deferred to your Task List or Calendar to complete later
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go put your strengths to work

Play to Your Strengths

By on January 14, 2010 in Success

go put your strengths to workI first learned the concept of working on your strengths from Marcus Buckingham, author of “Go Put Your Strengths To Work.” In a nutshell, he contends that spending our time trying to improve upon our weaknesses is actually, well a waste of time. I am not saying don’t try to better yourself, but instead focus on the things that you do well. That is where you will see the greatest improvement anyway.

That is the beauty of working on a team, or delegating out some of your tasks. If you know that you are very creative, but not very organized, then fine work with that. Don’t keep beating your head against the wall. Hire someone to take care of the details or get you organized so that you can keep developing concepts, innovations or marketing your product.  Conversely, if you are a detail, planning and money person, then team up with a creative genius!

This works both at home and at work. For example, I dislike making phone calls and my husband is spelling and grammatically challenged, so we have worked out a system. He makes the phone calls and I write the emails and correspondence. I pay the bills, but he does the painting (I am spatially challenged and cannot color in the lines!)

Think about everything that you do in conjunction with your business (or at home) and see what you can delegate, trade or hire out. You will be so much more productive and much less frustrated.

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