As business owners survey their organizations, they’ll likely notice their productive people – those employees expert at accomplishing lengthy task lists without breaking a sweat.
In a Inc.com post, contributor Kevin Daum shares six tips for being more productive each day, based on his observations into the lives of extremely productive people.
Six Things Productive People Do
Pick Your Priorities
It doesn’t matter whether the goal is achieving a certain level of financial success or making a commitment to get healthier, lasting productivity centers on making conscious decisions about what demands your attention and what can wait.
“With most endeavors, you can either go deep or go wide. Focus on spending time that for you is fun and productive.”
Choosing and understanding the priorities most important to you will determine how you spend your time most effectively.
Go For Efficiency
Daum notes no one can do everything well, and advises business leaders to design their personal and professional lives to meet their wants, while recognizing that saying no is often a good thing. “Live your life by design, not by default.”
For business leaders, efficiency can be avoiding the distractions that don’t advance their business goals or delegating whenever possible.
Integrate Your Activities
There are countless blog posts written about the pursuit of work-life balance, but Daum takes a different approach.
“Stop trying to balance time between friends, family, work and play. Find ways to enjoy them in a combined manner.” Rather than balance, blend and integrate activities and passions.
Actively Manage Time-wasters
Social media, conversations around the water cooler, and interpersonal relationships can monopolize your time and drain your productivity if you let them. Treat your daily work day like a budget, and allocate resources accordingly.
Keep interactions and conversations that don’t support your business goals to a minimum and you’ll accomplish more every day.
Be an Active Learner
The most productive people always seek out opportunities to learn new skills, especially if it helps them work more efficiently by freeing up their hands for larger priorities.
“Always be looking for a new way to gain back an hour here or there,” says Daum.
By actively looking for ways to improve on current practices and ways of working, you’ll pick up little tips and tricks to help you work smarter, not harder.
Lighten Up
Prioritizing activities and managing time-wasters can help, but sometimes a few things will remain on your to-do list from the day or week before.
That’s perfectly acceptable, says Daum.
The important thing to remember about productivity is it’s about developing new, healthy habits, and constantly reinforcing them.
What productivity tips do you have?
