Consider this scenario:  There are 2 people, doing the exact same job, yet one of them get’s the job done quicker.  Is that person smarter than the other?  No, not necessarily.  They have just figured out a more efficient way to do that same task.

Productivity is not about managing time.  Productivity involves accepting the fact that time is inflexible and focusing on ways to use time rationally.  One way to do this is by networking with experts in your field of interest.

Ok, how do you do this?  First, start with listing four basics in your field of expertise.  Now ask yourself, who are the experts related to those basics?  It could be someone you know, someone you work with or it could be someone who’s written a book on the topic.  Who would you seek out if you wanted to increase your knowledge?

I did this the other day.  I was struggling with one of my “basics” and decided to seek out an expert to help me through the process.  After just a one hour conversation, I had a game plan written down and I was on my way. The plan that we came up with would have probably taken me hours to develop on my own – and that’s assuming I would have come up with the same plan.

By networking with experts related to your basics in your field of interest, you’ll gain more knowledge, get more done in less time, and have more time to do the things you want to do.

Check out these 2 websites and let me know what you think:

www.ted.com

www.teach12.com

Have fun with this process.  It truly is a great way to improve your productivity!

Have a positively productive week!

Do you really truly know how you spend your day?  When talking to people who seem to be suffering from not having enough time, I ask them “How do you spend your time?”  All too often the reply I get is “I really don’t know, but I was busy all day”. 

To really understand how you spend your time, get out a piece of paper, put today’s date on it, and right down everything you did today.  Then starting tomorrow, for one week, write down everything you do, every day – including taking a break, going to lunch, getting a cup of coffee – and put the time spent next to each activity.  At the end of the week, look for patterns and see if you can eliminate one low value activity – checking email but not doing anything with it – and replace it next week with a high value activity – starting a project that you’ve been procrastinating on.   

This activity is much like the concept of keeping track of what you eat for a week to assess your eating habits in order to change them.  But instead of checking your eating habits, you’re checking your work habits.  It truly is an eye opener!

Remember, getting more organized, focused and productive is all about habits and not gadgets. 

Have a positively productive week!

I don’t know what it was about this past week, but it seemed like I was always waiting on someone.  Why do people run late? I really feel it boils down to one thing – not allowing your self enough time to get to your destination.

Now I understand if something happens beyond your control – an accident on the freeway, a flat tire, sick child at home.   These things happen.  But the one excuse I heard over and over again this past week was “I just couldn’t get out the door on time.  I always feel rushed in the morning”.  Well, when someone says that to me, I simply have to ask “Why?”

When that question was asked, all except for one person, there really wasn’t a legitimate excuse.  If you find yourself always running late and not able to get out of the house on time in the morning, here’s a few things you can do every night to make your morning less stressful:

1. Set you alarm clock 15 minutes a head.
2. Get the coffee pot ready.
3. Set the breakfast table.
4. Have your outfit ready to put on – do not wait to iron it in the morning.
5. Make sure everything you need to take with you in the morning is waiting for you at the door you’ll exit your house from.  (keys, purse, wallet, snacks, briefcase, gym bag, etc.)
6. Do the same with your kids.  Have backpacks, soccer gear, gymnastics clothes, lunch money, etc. sitting by the door.
7. Put anything you can in your car.

By taking just a few simple steps the night before, not only will you get out of the house on time in the morning, but you’ll be a lot less stressed when you get to your point of destination.  And imagine how you’ll feel when you arrive a few minutes early!

Have a positively productive week!

“Show me the money!”  This is, of course, Cuba Gooding’s famous line from the movie Jerry Maguire.  Money is neither inherently good nor bad…but it serves as a powerful attention-getter for most people.

Finding out the cost of disorganization helps put the importance of getting organized in perspective for many people.  The cost is usually much higher than you think.

If you run your own business, the impact of computing the cost of disorganization will be immediate and will directly affect you.  If you work for an organization owned by someone else and the money is not coming directly out of your pocket, don’t fool yourself into thinking it doesn’t matter to you.  A lot of people have lost jobs because their employer could not survive and remain competitive with disorganized employees.

If you’re curious, go to the “About the GO System” tab on my home page and click on the “Calculator:  Cost of Disorganization” button on the left side.  The exercise is simple and will probably be an eye opener!

Once you’ve calculated the cost of disorganization, don’t forget to also consider some of these costs: 

• Increased health care costs due to stress-related illnesses.  (Usually when you’re unorganized, you’re stressed).
• Increased absenteeism
• Increased employee turnover
• Lost customers
• Employee career dissatisfaction

Pick one area, get it organized and enjoy feeling more in control.

Be Positively Productive!

Let’s talk about work overloading. Work overloading occurs when you schedule too much work in a fixed period of time.  If you think there will somehow be more time later to take care of your excessive workload, trust me, there won’t.  We only have 24 hours in a day.  That’s it.

Since you can’t get it all done, then we must come up with a way to reduce your workload.  One way, is to find ways to do your work more efficiently, thus freeing up time.  If you’re experiencing work overload, consider this option – learn to network with experts in your field.

Start off by listing at least four or five basics in your field of expertise.  Now ask yourself, who are the experts related to these basics.  It could be someone you know, some one you work with, someone who belongs to the same organizations or maybe someone who wrote a book on the topic.  Think about it for a moment.  Who would you seek out if you wanted to increase your knowledge?

This actually happened to me today.  I found an expert in the area that I was struggling with, and after just 45 minutes, we came up with a solution and I was on my way.  If I had tried to accomplish this task on my own, I can pretty much guarantee you that it would have taken me a few hours and I would not have come up with the same solution.  Not only did I get my task done but I freed up time to do other things – like writing this blog!

Be Positively Productive!

A Great Idea!!

Some ideas are good; others are great.  Here are a few tests to help determine if an idea is great.

• Would it have been a great idea 100 years ago and will it be a great idea 100 years from now?
• Is it easy to try with little or no downside risk?
• Does it offer a significant potential return and does it offer a quick return?
• Are practical applications readily available and does it positively influence success in many other areas of your life or business?
• Is it easy to understand and easy to implement?

Getting organized meets all these tests.  It should be a core strategy of any successful plan.  Not being organized is like building your business or life on an unsound foundation.  Why would anyone continue to allow disorganization to keep them from accomplishing great things in life?  Why are so many people looking for complex solutions to their problems when they haven’t tried some of the simple ones yet?  Think about it!

Instead of coming up with reasons why you can’t get organized, pick an area you’d like to improve on, search my blogs and try one idea today. You can’t say something doesn’t work until you try it – and stick with it for at least a week before saying it doesn’t work.

Be Positively Productive!

I had a blast this morning as a guest on WDJC, 93.7 with David and Russell on their morning show. What great guys! Tune in and listen to them every weekday morning. Also, thanks to all the callers!

Have a productive week!

“I can’t get organized because I wasn’t born with that gene”.  Sound familiar?  All too often, personalities are used as an excuse for not being able to do something.  Sure, certain personality traits may have a significant influence on your ability to become more focused, organized and productive.  It is not a matter of any particular trait being good or bad, it’s about whether the traits are a good match or a bad match for what you are trying to do.

Many people go through life totally unaware of how their personality traits influence their day-to-day actions, activities and results.  It’s not unusual for people to be totally unaware of a prominent trait that has been causing them significant problems for years.  Getting more organized, focused and productive is all about developing the right habits and behaviors but first you have to recognize what behaviors need to change.

People often think nothing of spending time, money and effort learning how to play golf, tennis, or even skiing – or in my world – spending money on a new bike, race wheels or swim lessons.  But most people spend little time, money and effort on learning to understand about their habits and behavior and how it impacts every area of their life!

If your HR department offers personality assessments, contact them and have one scheduled.  If you’ve taken one and haven’t looked at it in a while, pull it out and reread it.  Or invest in an online service.  Once you recognize what habits you need to change, it’s so much easier coming up with a plan.

Oh, one key point – first things first – work on understanding your own personality before you move on to trying to understand others.

Remember – becoming more organized, focused and productive is all about developing the right habits and behaviors and not about buying another gadget or electronic device.

Have a productive week!

Last week I talked about how to determine when you should delegate and to whom you should delegate to.  Now let’s cover how you should delegate. 

Use the following 10 Steps for Successful Delegation: 

1. Clearly define the desired outcome and goals of the project. 
2. Explain why the person was chosen
3. Clearly identify constraints and boundaries.   
4. Clearly define timelines and deadlines.
5. Determine if checkpoints/scheduled updates are necessary.
6. Clearly define a completion date.
7. Provide adequate support and be available for assistance.  Make sure they know that you want to be made aware of any challenges and problems if they occur.
8. Be willing to make adjustments if necessary.
9. Ensure the success of the project/task through ongoing communication.
10. Focus on the results.

When the delegated project/task is returned back to you, make sure that you take the time to review it thoroughly.  Only accept good quality and fully-completed work.  What you accept reflects on your standards and expectations.  If work needs to be returned for further detail, explain why, and establish new guidelines and deadlines.  When you accept work that you are not satisfied with, you’re not helping your team member grow and you’ll get frustrated and end up doing it over yourself.  When good work is returned to you, acknowledge and reward the effort.  Compliments go a long way toward building team member’s self-confidence and willingness to take on additional assignments.

To delegate effectively, choose the right tasks to delegate, identify the right person to delegate to and follow the              10 Steps to Successful Delegation.

Remember, you can delegate a task but you can’t delegate ultimate accountability.  The buck stops with you!

Good luck with your delegation!

Do you have the ability to delegate but don’t?  To figure out how to delegate effectively, it’s important to understand why people don’t.  Quite simply, people don’t delegate because it takes a lot of up-front effort.  You know, the “I’ll just do it myself, it’s quicker” attitude. 

While on the surface it may seem easier to just “do it yourself”, there are two key reasons to delegate a task to some one else: 

1. By delegating, you’re making better use of your time.
2. By meaningfully involving other people in a task, the next time a similar task comes up, it can be done much easier with less involvement from you.   

Yes, it may take some time initially to delegate, but you’ll be saving yourself more time in the long run.  Knowing when to delegate is the key.

To determine when delegating is appropriate, ask yourself these three key questions: 

1. Is this task something that I am required to do or can someone else do it?
2. Will this task recur in the future?
3. Will I take the time to delegate effectively?

If you can answer yes to these questions, then it could be well worth your time up-front to delegate.

Now that you have determined that a particular task can and should be delegated, how do you pick the right person to delegate to?

To determine who to delegate to, ask yourself these three key questions: 

1. Does this task provide an opportunity to grow and develop the person’s skills to whom you are considering delegating to?
2. What is this person’s current workload and do they have time?
3. Does this task fit the persons preferred work style?

Remember, don’t delegate to the first breathing body you see and don’t delegate just to get a task off your desk and onto someone else’s.  To delegate effectively, choose the right tasks to delegate, identify the right person to delegate to and delegate effectively.

Have a productive week!