Five Quick Fixes That Increase Your Productivity

One idea I share with every client is to “learn your strengths and constantly look for opportunities (and jobs) where you can spend the majority of your time using them.” It’s a simple rule that helps guarantee you will be making the contribution to the world that you were designed to give. The problem is that it’s not a guarantee that you’ll be putting your energy into the things that matter most to you.

 “Stuff happens.” You (like me) may remember the bumper stickers from the ‘70s, but if you’ve lived past your teens you know this to be a general truth of life. Regardless of how many safeguards you put in your life, interruptions occur, crises happen, and things frequently go sideways. Ironically, this pattern happens for some of us more often than it does for others (something I also address with my career coaching clients) but I want to give you some keys to make your life more productive, regardless of how you’re wired.

 Number One: Write a Few Rules to Live By

Specifically, these rules are the life priorities or outcomes you want to accomplish by a certain age, over some time period or by a date in the future. I’ve written about this before in the form of a Life Vision Statement. You simply take each of the major roles in your life – spouse, friend, employee, boss, business owner or leader, person of faith, athlete, etc. – and write an end-goal you’d like to make real within five years, ten years, or even over your lifetime.

 These goals tend to focus our vision and intentionality and help us define what is truly important in our daily lives. Once you have them in place it’s relatively easy to prioritize your days based on the long-term goals you are hoping to achieve. Stephen Covey [The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People] described this as “Begin with the End in Mind” – a general rule for being more effective in every facet of your life.

Applying a Life Rule is as simple as saying “I want to be the best _________ I can possibly be”, then working to add everything to your life that will help you achieve that end, as well as removing those things that will interfere or impede your progress toward the goal. Rules to live by can be as general or specific as you want them to be. For example, I have a general rule to be a person of high moral character that implies a specific personal rule that I will strive to always speak the truth (with sensitivity and tact). I established these because I want to be a person that the people who matter to me can trust. What are the Life Rules that will help you become the person you aspire to be?

The Second Key to Increase Your Productivity is to Establish Your Routine

Do you have a daily pattern to your life that helps ensure you will be focused on the end goals you’ve established for your life? This is something that should be highly individualized because not every pattern will fit every person. For example, I have a couple of friends who are early risers – very early risers. My friend Mark actually goes to bed at 8 p.m. each evening so he can get up at 4 a.m. the next morning.

 Mark’s routine isn’t one that I necessarily endorse (I personally prefer to get up after 6:30 if my day allows it) but it does help him be more productive because he has more hours in his day to focus on his work without interruptions. Routines help us focus our energy on the things that lead to life gains, rather than having them brushed aside by the tyranny of urgent but not important things that arise from a haphazard approach to our lives. Again, the best way to establish a routine that fits you is to ask what overall goals you’d like to accomplish in each day, week, or even chapter of your life, then organize your time and habits to ensure you’ll give these the time and energy they’ll need.

 This leads to a Third Key to Increased Productivity – Put Up Fences

One of the more comical conversations I have with clients surrounds the topic of “Free-Range Chickens”. The idea of free-range chickens was developed as a marketing strategy to convince consumers that eating animals raised without physical constraints like boxes or cages is better because the animals are treated more humanely and are, therefore, less stressed. The challenge to this that the animals we typically eat – chickens, cattle, pigs – present real dangers to themselves or us if they’re allowed total freedom of movement. Chickens and cattle are so dumb they’ll wander into ditches, off cliffs or into the mouths of predators. Feral pigs are so dangerous that some places have monetary rewards for each pair of ears a hunter turns over to the authorities. (It’s estimated that Texas has over 2.6 million feral hogs.) Giving livestock totally free-range increases the risk of harm to them and ourselves.

 Putting up fences in our own lives involves establishing the limits we need to maximize our own productivity. Many of my friends are spontaneous, creative types that would prefer to focus on the things that drive their interest without concern for time-driven deadlines or competing demands. It’s a misunderstanding they often hold with themselves that they’re “lazy”. The truth is that they need space and time for their creative process to work well. Unfortunately, their related weak spot is that they’re not always particularly gifted in setting up a systematic process for accomplishing their work. Still, most of them tell me that they are far more productive when they have certain boundaries established and have to live and work within those.

The boundaries that work well for most of us focus our mind and efforts on distinct tasks for distinct time periods. Even the most verbal person will benefit from having periods of uninterrupted time to focus on planning or doing the tasks of our day. Constant interruption and the Q & A of colleagues, customers or family can prevent us from getting things done. And, even if you’re the world’s greatest multi-tasker, segments of time devoted to doing, polishing and finishing assignments ensure you’ll actually produce those things that truly matter to you and your work. Last, taking 15-minutes between tasks to get up and walk around, find a place of silence and solitude or simply do something radically different than your normal work will go a long way towards improving your own physical and mental health.

 The Fourth Key to Increased Productivity is to Periodically Cull the Herd 

My grandfather was a farmer who raised beef cattle. In livestock farming, “culling the herd” refers to removing inferior animals from a herd to reduce numbers or remove undesirable traits or diseases from the group. In terms of your productivity it means to remove tasks or responsibilities that may be distracting your attention or stealing your energy away from the things that truly matter to you.

For example, many of my clients are big-hearted people who genuinely want to help their bosses, coworkers, customers, families and friends. They are quick to say “Yes” or volunteer when there is a task that needs doing that would be helpful to someone else. However, they often tell me how they’re stretched too thin or have so many responsibilities that they feel they aren’t doing anything particularly well. Periodically taking time to discard the responsibilities that deplete you or diffuse your energy and limit your effectiveness is a great life practice that increases your productivity. Of course, you must first establish the priorities that will guide your judgement of what should stay and what should go, such as in Key #1 – Writing Your Rules to Live By.

 The Last Key to Productivity is to Be Useful

Please know that I’m not saying your value as a human being is based on your usefulness, nor am I asserting that you should base your identity on how useful you think your life or work are in this world. Your value and identity are far too weighty than to link them to things that are often outside your control. No, here I’m proposing the idea that your sense of usefulness and contribution to your work, your life, your family or your community (however you should choose to define these) is a key to your future productivity.

 We are energized when we know our efforts and our work serve a purpose and make an impact in our world. Knowing we contribute to the lives of people around us, to causes that are dear to us, or to the overall health and well-being of our company, customers or clients can have a vast impact on our impact on our productivity. Knowing we make a difference gives us a sense of purpose and focuses our thoughts and energy on the tasks and activities that have the most meaning for us.

 One of the most common sentiments expressed by prospective clients meeting me for their free conversation is that they feel their lives are being wasted and serving no purpose in their current work. They feel useless. Having a sense of usefulness is a key motivator for facing the tasks of your workday and the responsibilities you carry in your family, community, or friend group. Usefulness feeds productivity by giving it a meaning that transforms the mere doing of tasks into the substance of our meaning and purpose in the world. Find, and do, those things that make you feel useful and you will find yourself approaching each day with a sense of potential impact that can come from your life.

My primary motivation for doing my work is to help clients gain an understanding of the purpose and meaning of their work lives, then determine the job roles and work environments where they are most likely to make those impacts, and then attain those jobs. If you, or someone you know, longs for a work life that’s purposeful, meaningful, and helps you attain the aspirations and goals you have for your life, then Contact Me.