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It's About Time: The Path to Productivity

Written by: Kim Freedman

Article Overview: How well do you manage your time? Do you sometimes feel like you spend most of your work day putting out fires instead of being productive? Often it seems we’re so busy putting out those daily fires that we don’t ever get to accomplish anything of real significance—those things that would make us the most successful in the long run. Every day becomes something to “get through” instead of an exciting path to greater fulfillment. We all have the same amount of time; it's what we do with the time we have that makes the difference.

It's About Time: The Path to Productivity

Do you sometimes feel like you spend most of your work day putting out fires? Often it seems we’re so busy putting out those daily fires that we don’t ever get to accomplish anything of real significance—those things that would make us the most successful in the long run. Every day becomes something to “get through” instead of an exciting path to greater fulfillment.

The efficiency of technology only increases the pressure we feel to do even more than ever before. All of it leaves us feeling too busy and robbed of a sense of accomplishment. So what can we do to increase personal productivity? Below are some tips to help you to get more done in less time—and do what you really want to be doing.

Mission Possible
Often busy-ness is a cover for not really knowing what’s the best thing to be doing. To get around this, you have to know what your priorities are in the moment. To determine this you need know what your larger life priorities are, as well as what you value most.

Stephen R. Covey, best-selling author of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, suggests writing a personal or organizational mission statement, a statement that summarizes your higher purpose and goals in life. Here’s an example:

To create a life of purpose and meaning with a healthy balance of work, play, loving relationships, spirituality, and learning.

Without a clear picture of what you want most in your life, you won’t know which projects to accept and which ones to pass up. Whether you realize it or not, every time you say yes to one thing, you are saying no to something else.

Just Do It
We can learn all the self-management tricks in the book, but none of them will be worth a dime if we don’t follow through and use them. That’s where self-discipline comes in. There’s no easy, painless way to eliminate procrastination, but if we don’t get into action, we will be left forever unfulfilled.

Brian Tracy, one of the world’s top business speakers and author of dozens of books on business and personal productivity, offers some very simple advice: Simply start doing what you know you need to do. Stop pushing it off for later. Once you start seeing the results active self-discipline yields, the desire for the payoff begins to become greater than your resistance to taking action.

Most productivity experts suggest breaking down tasks into smaller chunks and then simply focusing on taking the first steps. This way all your tasks and goals won’t feel so overwhelming, which makes it easier to take action. It's like eating an elephant one bite at a time.

Balance Urgent with Important Tasks
David Allen, author of Ready for Anything, points out how crises typically arise because secondary priorities have been neglected. He suggests working on unfinished tasks to open up your creativity. It’s more difficult to focus on the bigger, more critical tasks when you’re painfully aware of ongoing but necessary projects that you never seem to start, such as reorganizing your files, catching up with your accounting, or hiring an assistant. So set aside some time—even if it’s just an hour or two a week—to work on these longer term, but less urgent projects. Just don’t let these tasks become distractions from working on the bigger picture goals.

Schedule Relaxation and Recovery Time
Top athletes around the world know the value of alternating periods of intense activity and focus with periods of rest. Balancing stress and recovery is also critical in managing personal energy—and thus, productivity—in all areas of our lives.

“Too much energy expenditure without sufficient recovery eventually leads to burnout and breakdown,” write Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz in their book, The Power of Full Engagement. “Too much recovery without sufficient stress leads to atrophy and weakness.… Full engagement requires cultivating a dynamic balance between the expenditure of energy (stress) and the renewal of energy (recovery) in all dimensions.”

Work When You’re Supposed To Be Working
If you want to maximize your productivity at work and balance it into the larger scheme of your life, focus is crucial. Tracy says the reason people’s lives get out of balance is not because they have too much work to do, but because they do too little work. And he means they waste too much time when they’re supposed to be working. If you have to, turn off the phone and shut down your email. You’ll find the more work you do get done, the better you feel—which motivates you to keep doing more of the same.

And a few other quick tips…
• Write out your goals.
• Pare down your obligations.
• Break down your goals into actions.
• Break down these actions into bite-sized chunks.
• Schedule these chunks into your planner.
• Follow through with regular action.
• Don’t confuse busyness with productivity.
• Intersperse periods of intense work with periods of relaxation, even if brief.
• Take all of your allotted vacation time.

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Article Tags: 7 habits of highly effective people, accomplishment, br, efficiency, fulfillment, goals in life, life priorities, loving relationships, mdash, mission statement, painless way, personal productivity, procrastination, putting out fires, rsquo, self discipline, self management, spirituality, stephen r covey



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