Named after Ivy Lee, a productivity consultant hired by leaders like Charles M. Schwab, this is a night routine that only takes 15-minutes. When your home is quiet, “jot down the five or six most important things you want to accomplish the next day.” Next, you’ll put them in order, “starting with the most important task first thing in the morning.”
What are Your Top Productivity Strategies?
When you think about it, most things in life are subjective. Your favorite color, food, band, or movie? They are your personal favorites — no matter what anyone else says. In other words, there’s no right or wrong answer. In a way, the same is true of productivity strategies. What makes a top productivity strategy for me may not fly with you. And, what works for Elon Musk, Oprah, or your best friend may not be a useful technique for you.
Like your favorite food or music — you want to share your favorites with others. Who knows? Maybe all the famous ones would agree with you? That’s why we’ve collected some of the top productivity strategies for you to implement. Hopefully, you can use them to boost your productivity.
But, if one way to productivity doesn’t work for you, then try out the next suggestion you hear about. Or, even better, make some adjustments and make it your own. You will find a strategy that will work for you. Just keep trying.
Stack your habits.
“You probably have powerful habits and connections that you take for granted each day,” James Clear writes in “Atomic Habits.” “For example, your brain is probably very efficient at remembering to take a shower each morning or to brew your morning cup of coffee or to open the blinds when the sun rises — or thousands of other daily habits.”
Basically, this is where you “identify a current habit you already do each day and then stack your new behavior on top.” And, you’ll use the following formula to achieve this: After/Before [CURRENT HABIT], I will [NEW HABIT].
Here’s an example from Clear; “After I pour my cup of coffee each morning, I will meditate for one minute.” After meditating, you would write your to-do-list for the day. And, after that, you would begin working on your first task.
Set self-imposed deadlines.
While we usually think of a stress as a bad thing, a manageable level of self-imposed stress can actually be helpful in terms of giving us focus and helping us meet our goals. For open-ended tasks or projects, try giving yourself a deadline, and then stick to it. You may be surprised to discover just how focused and productive you can be when you’re watching the clock.
Entrepreneur Steve Olenski recommends implementing the "two-minute rule" to make the most of small windows of time that you have at work. The idea is this: If you see a task or action that you know can be done in two minutes or less, do it immediately. According to Olenski, completing the task right away actually takes less time than having to get back to it later. Implementing this has made him one of the most influential content strategists online.
Just say no to meetings.
Meetings are one of the biggest time-sucks around, yet somehow we continue to unquestioningly book them, attend them and, inevitably, complain about them. According to Atlassian, the average office worker spends over 31 hours each month in unproductive meetings. Before booking your next meeting, ask yourself whether you can accomplish the same goals or tasks via email, phone, or Web-based meeting (which may be slightly more productive).
If you absolutely must have a meeting, there’s some evidence that standing meetings (they’re just what they sound like–everyone stands) can result in increased group arousal, decreased territoriality, and improved group performance. For those times when meetings are unavoidable, you may want to check out these 12 unusual ways to spur creativity during meetings.
Wake up early
This may be specific to individuals, but I’ll just share this as it’s true for me. Waking up early really does make me work faster and better. Personally I don’t think there’s any scientific rationale behind waking up early and being more productive. I think it’s more of a psychological feel-good factor – Since you are up before 99.99% of the world, you want to maintain the lead, so that spurs you on to work fast. When you work fast, you finish more things, and that motivates you to maintain the lead and do even more stuff.
Another reason why waking up early helps is because the quietness in the morning is a conducive environment to get more done. I love being up early (5am) and hearing absolutely nothing in my neighborhood. The birds have not even broken into song yet, cars are not on the road and my family isn’t up either. Perfect time to get things done.
Authorship:
https://www.calendar.com/blog/what-are-your-top-productivity-strategies
https://www.inc.com/john-rampton/15-ways-to-increase-productivity-at-work.html
https://www.lifehack.org/articles/featured/13-strategies-to-jumpstart-your-productivity.html#:~:text=13%20Strategies%20To%20Jumpstart%20Your%20Productivity%201%20Set,Use%20the%2080/20%20rule.%20…%20More%20items…
Productivity strategies
If you’re like me, you are going to get a whole streaming list of random, miscellaneous tasks to do throughout the whole work day. I used to give attention to these things when they come immediately. Say extra task # 1 comes in now, I’ll do it immediately since it takes just 5-10 minutes. This is the same for extra task # 2, #3…. all the way to #15. After a while, I realized these things take a lot of my time and I don’t even get any meaningful result out of them. Not only that, I never get to finish my real work for the day because I’m so busy with the random stuff. I may think I’m being very productive when I finish them, but truth is it’s just fake productivity.
13 Strategies To Jumpstart Your Productivity
Looking to increase your productivity? You’ve come to the right article. I don’t claim to be a productivity master (I always think there’s room for improvement), but I am very passionate about increasing productivity. I’m always looking for different ways to be more productive – stealing pockets of time where I can, deprioritizing the unimportant, getting system overhauls, etc. And I love it when I see my efforts pay off in the form of increased outputs at the end of the day.
In this article, I have selected 13 of my best productivity strategies – tried, tested and validated. If you follow all of them to a tee, I can guarantee you that your productivity will double, triple whatever it is right now – or even more. I personally make it a point to follow these steps every day. During the days when I don’t do that, my productivity plummets. The days I do, my productivity soars. The correlation is obvious. I have also compiled a list of the best resources for some of the steps for your further reading.
Set your productivity targets
Probably half of the self-help articles out there keeps telling us to set goals and set targets. Do you know why? It’s because it really works. When you set goals, you focus your energy on the things you want to achieve. Things which you wouldn’t be achieving by default. That automatically makes you more productive.
I do regular goal setting to maximize my output. For example, one of my goals for the upcoming month is to write 30 articles, which is an average of 1 article a day. These articles will include articles for my blog, The Personal Excellence Blog, and guest articles for other large sites, including LifeHack.Org. My average output in the past few months was only been an average of 1-2 articles per week, so I decided to set a 30 article goal to stretch me to write a lot more than I normally do. By virtue of just setting this goal and striving for it, I’m naturally increasing my output more than if I didn’t set it.
Be clear on what exactly you want to achieve. What do you want to accomplish for the upcoming month? What is a goal that will make you feel absolutely exhilarated and surging with pride if you achieve it? Set that as your goal. From there, set your weekly goals. Finally, you can set your daily goals which become your day-to-day targets.
Step 2: Run a productivity audit
Now that you have your strategic plan ready and a deeper understanding of the goals you’re shooting for, you need to go over all your business processes, department by department, to figure out where productivity improvements could be made.
Get each team together to go over their process and look for bottlenecks and areas where productivity could be improved. During the early stages of the audit these talks could be quite informal, so everyone feels comfortable with the discussion. You can create breakout discussions to look at specific issues / areas later on.
Focus on the problems – t hat may seem counter-intuitive as business advice usually encourages a solutions-focused approach, but this is one instance where discussion about solutions could derail the process.
Problems/friction points need to be identified in each functional area so they can be assessed across the whole business – and solutions need to be designed with the whole business in mind and the customer at heart.
From all the productivity discussion, identify a list of critical areas where productivity improvements would have the greatest impact. Order these items by most critical. Share the list with your key strategy team and invite feedback.
Remember your goals – i t’s vital when making your list to consider which productivity improvements could have the biggest impact on your strategic goals. For example, there’s no point focusing on your customer service workflow if improvements to your production line could help you achieve your goal of increasing units shipped.
Step 3: Research and consider solutions
The research phase of your productivity strategy may be an extremely simple process – as you were conducting your productivity audit you may have noticed a familiar pattern across several departments. One single solution might solve a range of problems at once.
Or, things will be a little more complicated. You’ll need to implement a range of different strategies to manage productivity. In this situation, an outside opinion might provide some guidance, especially on the technology front. Find a WorkflowMax IT partner or cloud integrator in your town – they’ll be able to suggest a suite of cloud tools to dramatically improve your
Technology – this has become even more important if your team works remotely some or all of the time. Could your productivity problems be solved by rethinking your technology stack? Look at how your teams use technology for their processes, and pay particular attention to accounts, project management, document management and sharing, and inventory. What solutions are on the market to improve these areas?
Training – are your productivity drains occurring because staff lack training in the most efficient way to perform certain tasks? Look at areas where some extra professional development could solve your productivity issues.
Outsourcing – look at the tasks each member of the team conducts. Are there tasks that could be outsourced for a cheaper cost? Get your people doing the work that brings in the top results, and use external workers to do the rest.
Strategy 8: The Service With a Smile Strategy
Measuring productivity in service staff can be tricky. Of course, you want to push your team to answer as many support tickets as possible, in order to avoid a backlog. But you also don’t want to encourage speed over good customer service. It’s no good having a quick response time if your responses are rude and condescending, is it?
You can use whatever equation you believe best represents the duties your team perform and the importance of good customer service over quantity of tickets. There may be other factors you’d like to include in your equation, depending on the nature of your product, such as:
It’s important when considering an equation for your support team that you establish a baseline – where your company should be performing in terms of service. This will help you measure employee performance. You can adjust this baseline every year to take into account the current market.
These productivity measurements don’t just help you, as the business owner, to achieve your goals quicker. They also give a valuable glimpse into the value your company provides in the market, and the talent and drive of your team. But more than that, productivity measures can help your employees and contractors understand how they work and improve areas where they are weak. They can improve focus and foster ownership and leadership skills within your team.
Improving productivity starts with getting the right data. WorkflowMax all-in-one job management software will help your professional service business track and manage every aspect of your job from quotes to time to invoice and everything in between.
Authorship:
https://www.lifehack.org/articles/featured/13-strategies-to-jumpstart-your-productivity.html
https://www.workflowmax.com/blog/the-six-step-productivity-improvement-strategy-to-skyrocket-your-business
https://www.workflowmax.com/blog/8-simple-strategies-for-measuring-productivity-at-your-company
Productivity strategies
In this situation, they may decide that the best way to assess how effective the team has been is to focus on profits they have brought into the company. They may compare the rate of profit against the total amount paid out in salaries for a more accurate measurement.
How To Measure Productivity and Increase Efficiency in the Workplace
Measuring the productivity of your company or department allows you to make operational changes, adding employees or equipment to meet deadlines. Understanding the productivity of your workforce also allows you to gauge overall efficiency and whether you can meet tight deadlines or take on new clients. There are a variety of ways to measure productivity and understanding which is best for your business can take some time and consideration.
Productivity is a measure of the efficiency of a machine, factory or person in converting inputs into useful outputs. To calculate productivity, you divide the average output per period by the costs incurred or the resources, such as personnel, consumed in that period.
Why productivity must be measured
Investment decisions are easier
A company needs to know how productive its operations are to make investment decisions. For example, you may work in a production plant making cars where outputs have slowed considerably over the past two years. Based on its productivity measurements, the company can conclude that the reduction of productivity is being caused by old equipment that requires updating.
Gauges employee effectiveness and abilities
Another important reason for measuring productivity is that it allows you to gauge the efficiency of your workforce. For instance, if your company has been asked by a client to accommodate a challenging deliverable, the only way you will know if you can meet the timeline is if you are consistently measuring the productivity of your workforce. Managers also need to know how each individual employee is performing.
This information helps them make important decisions that impact overall workplace efficiency. For example, understand how efficiently each employee performs helps managers determine who can take on additional responsibilities or who would be ideal for leading a team project.
Allows for better operational decision-making
A further crucial reason for monitoring productivity is that it can help managers change the company. For example, the data gathered during the measuring process could reveal delays in the production process.
Alternatively, it may reveal problems in the customer lifecycle. Recognizing this could allow you to make operational changes like expanding your customer service team or investing in new production equipment.
Step 2: Run a productivity audit
Now that you have your strategic plan ready and a deeper understanding of the goals you’re shooting for, you need to go over all your business processes, department by department, to figure out where productivity improvements could be made.
Get each team together to go over their process and look for bottlenecks and areas where productivity could be improved. During the early stages of the audit these talks could be quite informal, so everyone feels comfortable with the discussion. You can create breakout discussions to look at specific issues / areas later on.
Focus on the problems – t hat may seem counter-intuitive as business advice usually encourages a solutions-focused approach, but this is one instance where discussion about solutions could derail the process.
Problems/friction points need to be identified in each functional area so they can be assessed across the whole business – and solutions need to be designed with the whole business in mind and the customer at heart.
From all the productivity discussion, identify a list of critical areas where productivity improvements would have the greatest impact. Order these items by most critical. Share the list with your key strategy team and invite feedback.
Remember your goals – i t’s vital when making your list to consider which productivity improvements could have the biggest impact on your strategic goals. For example, there’s no point focusing on your customer service workflow if improvements to your production line could help you achieve your goal of increasing units shipped.
How to create a production strategy
A production strategy is an essential tool for companies to achieve their goals and gain a competitive advantage in their particular market. By formulating a plan of action that informs every decision and function, production costs remain low, and profitability may increase. Here are five steps of how to create a production strategy:
1. Set goals
The first step in creating a production strategy is to identify what is the company’s long-term goal. This task is typically the responsibility of the management team. After defining the primary goal, you start building the steps that lead to it by establishing measurable or actionable sub-goals. These sub-goals can range from bi-weekly to monthly achievements.
2. Recruit a consultant
Whether existing or new, companies can benefit from recruiting a consultant to advise in the development of a production strategy. If you have an interest in consulting, it helps to demonstrate your expertise in a particular market or industry. Understanding production-related IT solutions, maintenance, and production finance can be great assets. This knowledge can position you as the ideal candidate who may provide the necessary insight to advance the company’s competitive value.
3. Perform an internal analysis
A production strategy relies on a company’s internal structure and identifying areas of improvement. These improvements can occur in various ways, such as reducing energy consumption costs or updating equipment to produce higher quality products. In some cases, gaining more comprehensive research data about your particular market can benefit your production strategy. The purpose of an internal analysis is to acquire an overview of the entire production process and make informed decisions that can help you focus your efforts more efficiently to achieve your goals.
4. Engage in strategy development
After defining your long-term goal and acquiring an analysis of the production process, the next step is to develop your production strategy. This step involves a detailed outline of every task, function, or change you want to implement to fulfil each sub-goal towards your central long-term goal. Specificity is essential because specificity helps establish focus, informs priorities, and identifies the most efficient allocation of resources.
5. Create a visualization
The final step is to use the production strategy outline to create a visual representation of it. Consider using a Gantt chart, concept map, slideshow software or customer relationships management software. They can help you create a visual presentation to show your entire production team. Consider setting up a meeting to communicate every component of your production strategy. These meetings can help assess how well the team understands the plan and open discussions that may lead to adjustments of the project to maximize efficiency.
Authorship:
https://www.indeed.com/career-advice/career-development/how-to-measure-productivity
https://www.workflowmax.com/blog/the-six-step-productivity-improvement-strategy-to-skyrocket-your-business
https://ca.indeed.com/career-advice/career-development/production-strategies