Have you ever wondered where the 40-hour work week came from? In 1926, Henry Ford, American industrialist and founder of Ford Motor Company, conducted experiments with interesting results: when you decrease your daily working hours from 10 to 8, and shorten the work week from 6 days to 5, your productivity increases! But…what is productivity? You will hear people use the words productivity, efficiency and effectiveness interchangeably to describe the same thing…when they are really not.
Efficiency is achieving the maximum desired results with the least amount of wasted time or energy. Efficiency is important because the less time it takes you to complete a task, the more tasks you can complete in a day. But, if you do them so fast that you make mistakes, the consequences and any rework cancel out the time you saved.
Effectiveness is the degree to which something is successful in producing the desired result. Effectiveness is important because people care about quality and have high expectations that things are done right the first time. But, if it takes us too long to do it right, we will not respond quick enough for customer expectations and lose any advantage we might have had for being right.
While both of these have an impact on productivity, they are not by themselves being productive.
Productivity is simply the rate at which work – the desired result – is completed. In business this is a critical concept because it is the driving force behind how competitive and successful we can be. For example, if our employees can ship 4,000 boxes per hour and our competitor’s employees can only ship 3,000 boxes per hour with the same quality, we will have an advantage over them.
Balancing the two concepts of efficiency and effectiveness is important to driving the best competitive advantage in the marketplace one can have. Productivity is all about working smarter, not necessarily harder.
Things To Do:
Track and limit how much time you spend on tasks – most people don’t realize how much time things take them when they are focused. Awareness is the 1st step.
Take regular breaks – it’s important to walk away from our work once in a while and have some alone time. We often find the solutions when we’re not searching for them. 90-minute intervals are a good rhythm. Even more, make some of them exercise breaks. It improves your mood and your ability to focus.
Set self-imposed deadlines – giving yourself a deadline helps keep you focused. Make them in advance of the actual due date to give yourself cushion.
Follow the "two-minute rule" – if you see a task or action that you know can be done in two minutes or less, do it immediately.
Just say no to meetings – before booking a meeting, ask yourself whether you can accomplish the same goals or tasks via email or phone. Even more, hold standing meetings or use other methods to spur creativity (or encourage brevity) during meetings.
Quit multi-tasking – multi-tasking is a myth. Focusing on one task lets you get it done quicker and with less errors.
Be proactive, not reactive – have a plan of attack at the start of each day, and then do your best to stick to it. Even more, take advantage of your commute - plan your day, return phone calls, etc. (but no reading emails or texting if you’re diving!).
Minimize interruptions (to the best of your ability) – getting back on track is a time drain. Even more, turn off notifications – don’t let email, voicemail and text rule your day; build in time to check email and messages on your schedule not others.
Give yourself something nice to look at – pictures, screen wallpaper, etc. Increasing your happy quotient improves your productivity. Even more, take time to laugh - make a joke, share a funny story.
Give up on the illusion of perfection – perfectionists spend more time on tasks than required. They procrastinate and wait for the perfect moment, and they miss the big picture being too focused on small things. If it is the perfect moment, you’re too late. The perfect moment is NOW!
“Nothing is less productive than to make more efficient what should not be done at all.” – Peter Drucker
“Focus on being productive instead of being busy.” – Tim Ferris
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