Delegate, delegate, delegate. Don't do what you can pay someone $10 an hour for - your time is worth more than that. The tendency we see in small to medium businesses is the philosophy that I can do it better, faster, and easier if I do it myself rather than delegating. But at what cost? Pay someone to do the job, train them in the manner in which you want it done, and then you do what you're good at, not the mundane delegate-able jobs.
My productivity is related to inspiration. When I'm inspired, I get more done and I do it better. If I'm not inspired, no amount of forcing myself to do something will work. I am inspired by deadlines, so sometimes I create deadlines for myself. If a task is on my to-do list for more than two weeks, I'm not going to do it. I either need to find someone who is inspired by it or admit it isn't worth doing.
"Stop" setting results as goals. "Start" setting activity goals and behavior goals to reach great productivity gains. You can't manage results in productivity, but you can manage you. What you do with the time and how you behave within the time you can manage and control. If you want more homeruns, make more swings that are perfect swings. For example: What you say matters. How you say it matters. How often you say it matters. Start controlling and managing you; the results will come in spades.
We watch reality shows because of the drama, the conflict between show participants. Drama in the office space sucks up productivity. Keep drama out by hiring team players. When adding to staff, have current team members talk with the candidate and get their feelings about the new person. Make it clear that "he said she said" stuff won't be tolerated. Make the office "open" so this high school attitude can't exist. And keep a supply of chocolate around because chocolate solves everything!
Shutting off email and designating blocks of time to get actual work done is the most effective way to increase productivity. It is far too easy to lose an entire business day to email, phone calls and interruptions -- all of which can send us off on unproductive tangents. Be sure to include scheduled breaks every 45-90 minutes. Research has shown even a 5 minute mental health or stretch break lets you come back more focused and productive!
My chief role as CEO is to 'serve' my team mates (whom I value the same as customers) and remove their hurdles in the process. Productivity is squashed by restrictions and unneeded processes. I hired these professionals for a reason, and all too often we fail to keep focused on the truth: companies don't generate profits, people do.
If there's a task you find yourself doing repeatedly, create a template. For example, if you must frequently respond to email inquiries on a particular subject, create a boilerplate letter. No sense in writing from scratch each time.
If you frequently send out company press releases, you can most likely use some of the same wording no matter the release's specific focus.
If your templates are good, you may even be able to delegate the tasks to others.
1) People know the key aims of the business they work for and how they contribute to these. 2) People have a few clear, well defined targets that focus their attention. 3) People know what standard they are required to operate to - they know what good looks like! 4) People get regular feedback on how they are performing. 5) Good performers receive recognition, poor performers receive reprimands - they feel the heat!
So much of business is common sense that simply gets overlooked.
One of the keys to increasing productivity is to never bring a problem to the table without a solution, or at the very least, a foundation for a solution.
Expecting others to fix problems without personal contributions creates an energy drain on the entire organization. Every person in a company is responsible for improving operations and efficiencies. Great ideas often come from unexpected sources.
Productivity depends on people! Getting to know the temperament of your team and its members is paramount to success. Learn about temperament and become more effective and efficient. A mix of temperaments (i.e., Earth, Air, Fire and Water) provides a unique blend of viewpoints and perceptions.
Keep meetings short, to the point and engaging. Invite only those that need to be there and will benefit from the content. Include something inspirational or motivational so attendees leave the meeting feeling good about what took place.
We too often confuse lots of activity with effectiveness. Creating simple, straightforward strategies and processes lets us focus on the most powerful actions to get the most powerful results. Add too many steps or rabbit trails and like a garden hose nozzle opened wide, the power spreads out and softens the outcome. Tighten down that nozzle to blast ahead to your goal with less fuss, less stress, less cost, and mega-results.
You eat an elephant one bite at the time. And you do large projects or jobs one small piece at a time. Breaking down a big, overwhelming undertaking into small tasks and committing a complete date to them will drastically increase productivity. This method will also help decrease the number of delays caused by our natural tendency to avoid a big project or job.
Small and mid-sized businesses hold unique powers to empower their employees through seeking their passion. Even large companies can encourage their associates to think like entrepreneurs thereby infusing real passion to their companies. A lean company that trusts their employees to think and more importantly act like entrepreneurs will always succeed!
Pay attention to what you perceive mentally. Focus on the positive and filter out the negative and with whom you conceive socially; attract positive people to your team.
Then, believe emotionally in your mission & goals by positively stating your intention.
Mix in what you achieve physically by acting on your attention and intention...
...and watch as your productivity positively increases at an exponential rate!
Just as entrepreneurs are motivated by increasing financial rewards, so also are workers. A compensation system based on progressive pay increases, bonuses for innovation, and capital accumulation payouts for consistent company success will maximize productivity. The company that motivates its workforce to maximum, consistent high productivity will win in the marketplace every time.
Focus days are days of absolute productivity. No distractions, just pure focus. You should be able to do an entire week's work in these two days. Mon & Wed.
Flex days are used to schedule. Planning, making appointments, etc. Use for Focus or Filler as needed. Tues & Fri.
Filler days are used to fill in the gaps. Marketing, accounting, filing, meetings, consults, calls, etc. Thurs & Sat.
Any group, team, or business needs focus to provide purpose, direction and acceptance which drives performance. Every day, in some way, have your core values, mission, vision and purpose in front of your team. Begin each meeting with a 1 minute review of them. In each decision, have these as a test against the decision. Have your team share these with your clients, vendors and stake holders. You will have a self starting/directed team running at full speed. Now, you have to keep up to them!
Solutions should be workable, reasonable, and realistic in execution. The whole point behind productivity is setting objectives based on group resources available. Put objectives in print. Cover issues of Who, What, Where, Why, and How. Then, the confusion and misunderstanding is cut dramatically.
Productivity in a business is critical for success, but often not at the top of the list.
Look ahead and be future oriented. Think about what could be and take positive forward action.
Own your time. Time is a very precious commodity for business owners and owning their agenda is critical. Set your own calendar.
Do not multi-task!! Keep one task the main priority and focus until you have implemented your objective. Everyone thinks multi-tasking is productive; it isn't!
Productivity... to me, that means getting high quality work, and a lot of it, during business hours. In my seven-year-old publishing company, appreciating the experiential capital of my staff has been the key to the highest productivity.
I've found that employees produce more if I regularly and openly inform them about the company, allow them to learn and use new skills, empower them to do their jobs, and hold them accountable. Reward them for staying with you--experience is a priceless asset.
My work is done primarily with small and medium sized businesses. I tell them to take advantage of the fact that they get to know their employees quite well. My recommendation is to find out what their employees think will increase production; ask for their advice! They are the ones doing the job and this will allow them to make it their own and take pride in its growth, knowing that they contributed to that growth. Any place I've worked, employees have ideas - listen to them.
Closing the gaps between strategy, structure, processes/operations, incentives and people will increase productivity and stop all of the dripping faucets of wasted time to actions. The closing of these gaps will better align behaviors to desired results and helps to ensure that the right people are in the right seats using the right talents when making the right decisions for the right results in the right time frame and the right environment.
True productivity means efficiency, and efficiency derives from gaining results by blending your resources with harmony to optimum advantage without stressing your personnel! Efficiency means getting the best-case result with the least effort invested, not by over-stressing people.
The Gestalt of business designs an effective integrated architecture of how individuals work together, complementing one another. Be wary of simple org charts and embrace integrating the aptitudes of personnel!
The fastest way I've learned to boost productivity is to multiply my efforts utilizing replicatable web 2.0 means. What does that mean?
From productivity tools/service such as Workflowy, TaskRabbit, Basecamp and my most effective tool: ZIRTUAL ASSISTANTS- I have an amazing "zirtual"/virtual assistant, who takes a ton off my shoulders and allows me to focus on more meaty things.
The key is having a plan and understanding how to properly utilize these tools and resources!
As Tim Ferriss, author of the Four Hour Work Week likes to say, identify the critical few and ignore the trivial many. Taking the extra hour, two or even more to clearly identify the most powerful outcome producing tasks is well worth your time. Once identified, they can help you multiply your results. What is producing results now? Excel in that area.
Constantly evaluate what you are spending your time on and move things from your To Do list to a Do Not Do list.
Too often, we focus on what has become Urgent but may not be Important. We add things to our To Do list without really evaluating the time investment and payback.
Time is a precious and scarce commodity. It should not be expended lightly. Evaluate your Return On Invested Time constantly, not just the return on your Financials.
As co-founder of a social media marketing company, I'm a strong believer in the benefit for small and medium businesses in using social media to connect with prospective clients or customers. But social media can be addictive and thus, a time and productivity thief. Solution? Schedule a regularly allotted social media marketing time period each day and, if you cannot on your own limit yourself to that time amount, set an egg timer. When the timer goes off, you're out of there!
When I lecture to young entrepreneurs just getting started, the first thing I tell them is not to skimp on equipment. Have the right tools for the job! A great example is having dual monitors. It does not cost that much and increases productivity 50 fold. Being able to look at two programs at once and cut and paste without toggling saves time and better allows you to focus on the task at hand. The other piece to this equation is RAM, you can NEVER have enough.
What has helped to increase productivity in my business is simply dividing the time I have available on any day by the tasks that are most important to get done first.
Say I have only two solid hours to work - I could divide that time chunk into completing 2 tasks, giving them an hour each. Or for example, I could give the whole two hours to one task, or I could do four tasks giving them 30 minutes each.
The point is set it, do it, and then move on. This has helped me to maintain focus.
I have found that when my team clearly understands our mission, vision and values they refrain from non-productive activities that would be detrimental to our mission of "Restoring order to the world one household at a time." When we are on an organizing job, some of our Liberators get wrapped up in the minute details. Once they are re-focused on the vision for the household, the budget and our mission, they get back on track and finish the job so fast that our clients are amazed.
Connections energize. Connecting exposes you to new ideas and a larger network. When you see what others are doing, it gives you a greater vision of what you can be doing and how you can do it. Our productivity is limited by our vision. Expand the vision, expand your productivity.
Understanding the personality type of your staff reaps huge rewards! Each type is motivated differently to perform. Some will love the challenge of working on several projects at once and need no follow up, while others prefer one or two assignments at a time with a side list of projects, in order of priority, to work on until you are able to assign them more work. You must understand how each person operates to get the most and best out of them!
Whether or not you become a certified Results Only Work Environment (ROWE) like us, focusing your measurement of productivity on results rather than time spent producing is the name of the game!
A small business owner never has enough time to do everything that they need to do. You have to prioritize and the best way to do that is to make a list of what you need to do. Put a smile next to the things that will make your clients happy and a dollar sign next to the things that will bring you new business. Do the smiles first because keeping your customers happy is job number one. Then, do the dollar signs because that is growth. Whatever time you have left, do the rest. Prioritize!
To maximize productivity, limit introductory phone calls to 15 minutes and share 1 piece of advice the prospect doesn't know so that they understand your value. Then, tell the prospective client that you are sending them an application form to work with you. Include a small, non-refundable deposit that will be entirely applied to their work. Serious prospects will move forward with you. "Tire kickers" will go away.
Do whatever you can to make it a "Happy Place" to work. Nothing increases productivity like having a little fun. If people are able to smile and laugh once in a while at work, it spreads to other employees and also to customers. If you had a comedian come into your office one day and make people laugh out loud, they would go back to work energized. It's good for the heart, good for the soul, and good for the bottom line! A fun life and happy work is good balance, like the little dog on the beach.
