Some Essential Tips to Boost Your Productivity

Are you overwhelmed by priorities?  Well, focusing on the essential priorities can make the difference between feeling continually stretched to actually feeling more relaxed and successful!

Prioritisation is a time management skill fundamental to the success of both effective managers and professionals. For many of us the plain truth is, that although we tell others to prioritise, we don’t always manage to do it consistently for ourselves.

Why don’t we practice what we preach?

Prioritising is essential for our health as it reduces stress.  It improves work life balance by creating better boundaries.  You may find that much of the work you felt was urgent, isn’t really essential at all.

Very often we find ourselves backed into a corner due to a very common underlying reason…….

Saying Yes to everything!

Is this true for you? Do you or others around you fall into the trap of saying “yes” because:

• • • You like to please people?
    • You need to know everything and feel in control?
    • Or you have a fear of missing out? (FOMO)

Maybe you have another reason? (Please let us know!)

Saying “yes” to everything may give you a short term benefit. However, it’s likely to get in the way of the long term satisfaction you get from succeeding with your most important goals.

Instead of endlessly saying “yes” to our manager, key customers and colleagues, we need to decide what’s essential.

3 Keys to Success

Deciding on what’s essential is a tried and tested way to clarify what our priorities are.

Here is a three step process to help you do this:

Take time to reflect!

The most effective managers and leaders block time to reflect in their diary every day. Without reflection we behave like hamsters in wheels, going round and round, and never stopping to think why.  Here’s a quote from the successful investor Warren Buffet about how he prioritises his own time:

“I insist on a lot of time being spent, almost every day, to just sit and think. That is very uncommon in American business. I read and think. So I do more reading and thinking, and make less impulse decisions than most people in business.”

Learn to say “No”.

When we were cavemen and women, saying “no” was pretty risky.  It could result in social exclusion and being left to the mercy of large animals on our own. Today’s manager can develop a repertoire of ways to elegantly and unapologetically say “no” without risk to life or limb. Learn how to do this and experiment with different ways every day!

“The difference between successful people and really successful people is that really successful people say no to almost everything.” Warren Buffet.

Focus on a few things only – Your essentials

Greg McKeown, author of “Essentialism”, tells us that the thing that holds capable, disciplined people from breaking through to the next level, is success. Why? It gives too many options, which then, if not managed, lead to failure. The answer is the disciplined pursuit of less. This means finding out and focussing on a few things only. Greg tells you more on how to do this in his video for Stanford Business School here.

Conclusion

Focusing on a few essential priorities is key to your long term success. Developing the associated skills – being able to reflect, say “no” and focus on a few things only, can help you succeed. Again, in the words of Warren Buffet:

“The most important investment you can make is in yourself.”