What makes some people more productive at work than others? Here are some suggestions from people who are highly productive in business.
Time Management
Learning how to manage your time is the first thing to do. Focus on minutes, not hours. There are 24 hours in a day, but 1,440 minutes. Time spent can never be regained, it is gone forever. Some of the successful people plan their time in minutes, rather than blocking out half hours or hours in their time budgets. The experts say that if you master minutes, you master your life.
One Goal At A Time
It is easy to get distracted during the day. So many things come up that can take you away from your main goals. Try focusing on one thing at a time. Settle on your Most Important Task and work on it without interruption each morning. In other words, invest the most productive time of your day in addressing what is currently most important. To identify the “Most Important Task,” ask yourself what will have the greatest impact on reaching your goals or getting you up the ladder where you work.
Ditch The Lists
Don’t make to-do lists. Studies show that only 41 percent of the items placed on to-do lists actually get done. The undone items can haunt you and lead to stress. Highly productive people have a calendar and work from that calendar, setting aside 15-minute blocks for various tasks. Using such an approach will put you in the 95th percentile, production-wise, the experts say.
Use Resources Wisely
People tend to be time-inconsistent. Defeating your future self is one of the challenges. For instance, we buy bags full of healthy vegetables to get on a better regimen, then let them sit in the refrigerator until they rot. Or we buy exercise equipment that is still in the box a year later. Anticipate ahead of time the areas in which you are likely to self-sabotage and act accordingly.
Cherish Family Time
Make it home for dinner. There’s no such thing as being finished with your work. There’s always more. Even though your work is one of your values, there are others that do or should have equal standing. Each individual chooses his own “most valuable” list, but for many, it includes family time, exercise and giving back to one’s community. Consciously allocate time to your own personal value areas and stick to it. Put time for these things into your calendar and don’t let them be crowded out by work.
