Productivity: Tips to Get the Most Out of Your Day

I had the opportunity to attend an educational session led by Chris Bailey on productivity.  He states there are lots of books on the subject, good and bad!

The following is a recap of his session from my notes.

What is Productivity?  They mean different things to different people.

It has changed over the past 50 years from repetition of work (think working with your hands vs the brain) to knowledge-based work.  Factory vs Knowledge!

He goes on to state that there are 3 keys to productivity: Time Management; Attention; and Energy. Accomplishing what we intended to do is what productivity is all about.

He talked about the following 3 tactics that if we're aware of, that if we manage, it will make us more productive.

  1. The Rule of 3
  2. Procrastination
  3. Taming the distractions/interruptions

The Rule of 3

Set better intentions, what 3 things to I want to accomplish each day or week.  Our brains are ingrained to do things in 3.  So what are your 3 daily intentions?

Procrastination

The research states that there are 7 reasons we procrastinate because the work is boring, frustrating, difficult, lacks personal meaning, lacks intrinsic rewards, ambiguous and unstructured.

How to beat it, think of your future self, list the costs, shrink your resistance, define the very next thing and do it and finally notice mindless busywork.

Taming the distractions/interruptions

Research tells us that we have 40 seconds of focus before we're distracted/interrupted.  Which translates into 26 minutes of lost productivity from each distraction/interruption.

He goes on to say there are four types of distractions/interruptions - control/no control, annoying/fun.  The key is to deal with these things ahead of time.

Give 3 goals to your staff for the day, week, month or quarter.  Your team, like all teams, can understand when you keep it to three.

As a manager, do you have a list of 3 things you want to do? Time management, attention and energy are the keys to productivity and where those three circles come together is productivity.

At the end of the day, we need to be our own traffic cop to increase our productivity.

For more information about Chris Bailey and his productivity project go HERE.