How to increase productivity
Have you also noticed when you ask someone how they are they nearly always say they
are super busy? Or: “too much to do so little time!” Do you also find it challenging?
So what does it take to increase productivity in today’s busy world and clear the tasks in
the To-Do List?
Travis Bradberry researched that and gives some background knowledge what is happening when we get distracted.
Being busy has somehow become a badge of honour. The prevailing notion is that if you aren’t super busy,
you aren’t important or hard working. The truth is, busyness makes you less productive.
When we think of a super busy person, we think of a ringing phone, a flood of emails, and a schedule
that’s bursting at the seams with major projects and side-projects hitting simultaneously. Such a situation
inevitably leads to multi-tasking and interruptions, which are both deadly to productivity.
David Meyer from the University of Michigan published a study recently that showed that switching what you’re
doing mid-task increases the time it takes you to finish both tasks by 25%.
“Multitasking is going to slow you down, increasing the chances of mistakes,” Meyer said. “Disruptions and
interruptions are a bad deal from the standpoint of our ability to process information.”
“It took people an average of 15 minutes to return to their important projects (such as writing reports or
computer code) every time they were interrupted by emails, phone calls or other messages. They didn’t spend
the 15 minutes on the interrupting messages, either; the interruptions led them to stray to other activities,
such as surfing the Web for pleasure.
Does is ring true to you?
“I was surprised by how easily people were distracted and how long it took them to get back to the task,”
said Eric Horvitz, the Microsoft research scientist behind the study.
When you try to do two things at once, your brain lacks the capacity to perform both tasks successfully.
Regardless of what we might think, we are most productive when we manage our schedules enough to
ensure that we can focus effectively on the task at hand.
High multitaskers had less brain density in the ACC. It’s as if being busy all the time (via multitasking)
trains your brain to be mindless and unproductive.
If you are a woman reading this, do you feel that keeping an eye on everything – kids, household, business….you never get things done properly?
There is the belief that busyness is a sign of success and hard work is so prevalent that we actually fear
inactivity.
The researchers also found that we use busyness to hide from our laziness and fear of failure. We burn valuable
time doing things that aren’t necessary or important because this busyness makes us feel productive.
For instance, responding to non-urgent emails when you know you have a big project that you need to finish.
It’s tough, but you need to recognize when you’re using trivial activities to shield yourself from sloth or fear.
How many people do you know that do that? And you can definitely see through!
If you’d like to read the whole article: http://www.forbes.com/sites/travisbradberry/2016/03/29/how-being-busy-makes-you-unproductive/#725945aa5269
Here are 3 tips that I learnt and put into practice:
- Focus
- Discipline
- Be aware of time stealers
Each task needs its time to be finished.
What really has helped me was reading the book: “Build your business in 90 minutes a day”
by Nigel Botterill and Martin Gladdish.
Not just reading the book but mainly putting the tips into action really helped my productivity!
It gave me the understanding why it is crucial to dedicate each day (building momentum)
certain amount of time (in this case 90 min) to the most important tasks in business (what ever that might
be for your business – finding customers, business partners, etc.) in order to measure progress with your business.
I’m sure you heard that before: “If you want things done, give it to a busy person.”
From my own experience, running a business part-time you have to be even more organized and time
sensitive to time wasting activities as there is a lot I had to fit in. When you are full-time in your business
you have to be aware of what activities are stealing your time and steering you away from being productive.
Well known phrase but true: Are you working on your business or in your business?”
Did you find this useful? If yes, be sure to comment below. I also be grateful if you share it on Facebook.
Skype: Lucie Patel Varekova
Email: [email protected]
