Enhancing Your Productivity

In a world filled with competing priorities, information overload, and increasingly long to-do lists, people are struggling to make the distinction between being busy and being productive. Our days are filled with tasks and many demands. It is easy to get swept along with the next pressing thing to do and before we know it, the whole week has gone by. We need to press pause and ask ourselves if we are truly the masters of our time. Are we in control of our lives? Are our lives unfolding the way we had hoped they would?

Working as a Leadership and Career Coach has given me insight into the many saboteurs that derail people from achieving their goals in life. In my view, one of the most important skills to master, is time management. Your life is made up of years, months, days, hours, and minutes. Think about it. If you do not manage your time effectively, you cannot manage your life effectively.

This article aims to provide some examples of how you can increase your productivity by managing your time.

Understand your mission, vision, and values

Start with crafting a strategy for your life. Since your life is your time, you need to fill your days doing what is important to you. To create a strategy that is truly aligned to what you really want in life, you need to have clarity. Do you really know who you are, what inspires and motivates you, what makes you happy and what your values are? Taking the time to engage in reflection can yield many insights that will help you to stop doing the things that no longer serve you and start doing the right things that will build the future you desire. You do not want to fill your time doing things that do not really matter to you. Remember you cannot turn back the clock.

Human beings are led by their values and beliefs whether they are conscious of them, or not. Understanding the core-beliefs you hold and questioning any assumptions you may have, can help you to understand what drives you, and how you perceive the world. Furthermore, when you have clarity about your purpose in life by defining your mission and vision for your life, you can make the right decisions about what to do with your time. Working with a coach can help you to get clarity as you build the right foundation for yourself.

Self-mastery

Self-mastery is the control of one’s nature. You need to understand who you are, how you react and think and how this affects how you show up in the world. Do you need to exercise more self-discipline to respond more productively in the face of challenges?

Personal mastery can help you to deal with stress more productively and master your emotions so that you make better decisions and solve problems effectively. Do you allow your emotions to dictate what you do with your time? Do you have the self-discipline to do something even if you do not feel like doing it?

Setting up the right habits

Human beings are typically creatures of habit. Choose your habits carefully because they decide your future. Make a list of all your current habits and decide which ones you need to swap for healthier habits. You can also stack habits for example when you drink your green tea in the morning, read something inspirational. It takes approximately twenty-one days to make a habit part of your routine. Habits help you to build consistency. You become what you repeatedly do.

Focus on high-priority tasks

The Eisenhower Matrix is a useful tool to help you organize tasks to decide what your most important tasks are and the things you should delegate and eliminate. Another useful tool is time blocking. When you block time in advance, to focus on your highest-priority tasks, you are more likely to be productive.

Minimize distractions

We live in a world that is full of distractions that can lure us away from what we need to get done. The best way to minimize distractions is to recognize them, and plan how to counter them. Turn off your phone, or put in on silent, organize a nanny for your children, or put a ‘do not disturb’ sign on your door. Whatever the distraction is, find a way to minimize it. When you get into a ‘flow state’ and are doing deep work, you will truly be productive, sand it is imperative that you honour that sacred time and guard it.

A cluttered workspace reflects a cluttered mind. A clean, orderly workspace can help you focus better and improve your ability to be productive. Organize your workspace in advance and minimize objects that can distract you. One of my favourite authors, Dr. Maya Angelou, rented a room in a hotel that was very simple. She used the room to write without interruption or distraction. Find your own sanctuary to work from.

Have an agenda

Meetings can be highly productive or a total waste of time. Assign a timekeeper for the meeting and have a pre-planned agenda. If the meeting veers off course, ensure the person assigned can skilfully steer it back on course. Ensure that people have prepped in advance for the meeting so that decisions can be made and hold them accountable for this.

Engage in self-care

I recently taught an Executive Leadership Course where we looked at one of Steve Covey’s ‘Seven habits of Highly Effective People.’ This habit dubbed ‘Sharpening the saw,’ stresses the importance of taking the time to replenish ourselves. Imagine you are cutting down a tree, and with time, your axe becomes dull, and the act of chopping becomes more difficult. Would you continue in your endeavour, or would you pause and sharpen the saw?

Do you pause in your life to replenish yourself? We all want to be productive but if we do not take care of ourselves eventually, we will become dull. Remember, if you are in good condition, you are more likely to be productive. Take regular breaks, prioritize good sleep, nutrition, and exercise. Go on leave when necessary and replenish yourself.

Create systems

We spend a lot of time thinking about doing something, talking about doing it and then planning to do it. When you create systems to get routine tasks done, it eliminates the time needed to make decisions and you can get things done without too much hesitation or overthinking.

In summary, we are only given certain periods of time to live our lives. Let us not waste them. Become a master of your time and life, and reap the benefits of a focused, and productive life.

Article by Shailja Sharma, SBS Faculty Member and Leadership and Career Coach