How to Start Being Productive?

Mark Twain once said "The secret to getting ahead is getting started" and it holds as true for Productivity as for anything else. Most of us compromise on remaining unproductive for our inability to start in the right manner. 

If achieving productivity was that easy, then I wouldn't have felt the need to write this post/ article and you also would not have felt the need to read it. Productivity is not an impromptu or ad-hoc act of action but a process of deliberate intention and action.

If starting to get productive is a challenge, then staying productive is a bigger challenge. But one thing that can make it happen for us is to "PREPARE to be PRODUCTIVE" and it can't get any simpler than this to start (and sustain) our productivity journey. 

Better Productivity comes with Better Preparation and Planning. The cues are always present to help us find whether we are on the right track or not. Here are three simple tips that will surely help us in starting productivity in the right manner.

1. Getting more mindful and observant about our routine. The more aware and attentive we are, the more productive we would get. Knowing what we are doing and why we are doing it is the cornerstone of productivity. Tracking how we tend to spend our day gives plenty of insights into what may be going wrong with our productivity. 

2. Paying attention to the environmental triggers. Knowing what pushes us away or pulls us towards productivity helps us manage our approach better. There are plenty of small and big things that may impact our productivity and knowing what triggers them always helps us become more cautious and conscious of our actions.  

3. Noticing our habits. The patterns we follow or exhibit say a lot about whether we are being rational or biased in our approach. Many times, our productivity takes a hit because we tend to operate out of our comfort zone and stop to look beyond the obvious. If it's time to change our habits for becoming better at productivity, then any further delay only leads to worsening the situation. 

In the end, it's all boils down to finding out what's ailing your productivity and what's aiding it.

So, if you find yourself stuck, it's time to ask yourself -  "What's stopping me from PREPARING (to be PRODUCTIVE)?

Thumb Rules of Productivity

I sometimes wonder why is PRODUCTIVITY still an enigma even when there's so much available on the subject in terms of research, tools and techniques ?

Maybe this post would provide both, a better insight on the above and a solution !

In many of my previous posts, I have covered a whole plethora of tools and techniques on Productivity (See Related Article: ) but still many clients reach out to me, totally confused about how to move ahead with these tools. I don't blame them because just about anyone is bound to feel overwhelmed confronting the wide range of tools and all that these clients need is a simple and easy way to get started somehow, somewhere but in a structured manner. My single piece of advice/ suggestion to them is to identify few "thumb rules" and get started. These "thumb rules" act as simple reminders to ensure that we are on the right path that lead towards productivity. Gone are the days when the only thumb rule for  WORK used to be "As much output as the input". This thumb rule doesn't hold good anymore in these times when we , on daily basis, face the challenge of maintaining focus on things that matter most to us. There's a need to look for "Thumb Rules" that are aligned to the changing times i.e. the VUCA (Volatile, Uncertain, Complex, Ambiguous) world. I share below few such "Thumb Rules" of Productivity that will make it easy for anyone to become judicious about investing effort and focus on the right things in life so that life remains under as much control as possible. 

First Things First 

The most important thing about life is that it is holistic in nature, which means its a cumulation of multiple aspects like Personal, Spiritual, Work, Family, etc. When our life goes out of balance, it's only by putting our focus on the right aspect/ area that we can bring it back to balance. If Family is out of balance, focusing on Work would not compensate for that. Unless we put our effort on the right element, we would not get the desired result and a certain hollowness or a sense of incompleteness will still exist in our lives inspite of putting our best effort. So, we need to look for that clue or indication suggesting what is causing the turmoil, chaos or confusion in our lives and then put it on top of our priority list. We need to always keep in mind that Productivity happens only when our Life is in balance. The WHEEL OF LIFE is a wonderful tool to identify which area/ aspect of our life needs immediate attention and once we know that then it's just a matter of choosing the right actions. 

Let me share a wonderful quote by Henry David Thoreau which will put things in the right context here. The quote is as below :

"It is not enough to be industrious; so are the ants. What are you industrious about ?"

Let's decide where we plan to invest our effort but also be cautious about identifying that "where" !

So, whenever we feel lost about the BIG picture in life, let First Things First be our guide in getting the BIG picture right.

Most Important Thing 

Talking about the situation when we are presented with the task of selecting from similar tasks, how do we do it ? This may not be easy because when all the identified tasks are similar in nature and have more or less similar impact, the confusion is bound to get louder. The best way to deal with such a scenario is to resort to the concept of "Keystone".  The Most Important Thing would be the one which triggers the other positive impacts too. (Related Article : Habits Build Happy Life ). When confronted with the choice of making impactful change in pour lives, we tend to pick up the a habit which triggers other good habits, likewise, from among the available important tasks/ things, we should opt for the one which triggers the rest. An example could be when we set ourselves the task of say Living Healthy. There are so many of us who set this as a resolution almost every year because we never get going on that due to our inability to identify the "Most Important Thing" from the options available. Few options available to us for the same could be - Joining a Gym, Start Exercising, Adopt Healthy Diet, Do Yoga, Wake Up Early. A good look at the options would reveal that it's not difficult to pick up the "Most Important Thing", which in my case would be "Wake Up Early".  I see waking up early taking more of most of the other identified tasks. Likewise, in a work situation, picking up the "most important thing" is about selecting the task that will play catalyst or that will trigger a sort of domino effect.  

Big Thing 

Many a times, even when we have identified the "Keystone" task, we still hesitate to go ahead with it just because its time consuming or slightly complex. We need to remember that avoiding this "Big Thing" , which we know is the most crucial one for us, will keep disturbing us and adversely impact our productivity. However hard we we try to make up for avoiding this "Big Thing" by way of selecting much simpler and less time consuming tasks, we would not be able to avoid the  loss that we may accrue because of this avoidance. Citing the an interesting concept to drive home the point - In the West, nothing is much worse than eating a frog in the breakfast (as first thing in the morning) and if we do that everything else we eat during the day tastes much better. Drawing  a parallel of this concept to our lives, we can say that doing the most difficult task (but the most essential one) first paves the way for us to be more productive because achieving smaller wins becomes much easier. Doing "Big Thing" first in no way connotes finishing it first, it just connotes starting it first and in time. A complex and a time consuming task may spread over multiple hours/ days and all we need to do then is to start it in time and work out some strategy to finish it in time. There are plenty of strategies that could help us achieve that and few ones could be read at - Beating The Productivity Paradox  

One Thing at a Time

We live with the "Busyness" paradox (Related Article: Busyness - The Utopian Paradox ) where pretence seems to rule over actual action and an outcome of the same is the myth of multi-tasking where engaging ourselves in multiple tasks is perceived to be more productive. A little self check would reveal that multi-tasking is lot more time consuming and less effective than mono-tasking because it consumes far more effort and resource in shuffling among the tasks, getting to refocus ourselves and to refresh our memory about the task. Research has also shown that at any given point of time , we have the ability to address/ deal with a single thought only. So, rather that getting enticed/ lured by the prospect of multi-tasking for better productivity, sticking to one task at a time would yield best results and this in no way suggest to leave aside the other important tasks. Through proper priortising and scheduling (Related Article: Beating The Productivity Paradox ), we can manage to be more effective and productive by addressing One Thing at a time.  

Suggested Reading

• First Things First by Stephen Covey

• Eat That Frog by Brian Tracy  

• The One Thing by Gary Keller

Let's get our "Thumb Rules" in place and hop on the bandwagon of Productivity !

N.B. : The images used in this post has been sourced from the internet

Carpe Diem - 6 Steps To Seize The Day !

I start by quoting Muhammad Ali, one of the all-time boxing greats, who said "Don't count the days, make the days count". Deciphering the quote in context of "each new day" that we wake up to every morning, it boils down to making the most of the opportunities that beckon us during the day. The distracting and disturbing nature of the world only compounds the problems for us and make the task of deriving the best from the day a bit difficult. But following the fundamental principle of keeping the things simple and positive paves the way for us to make every day a productive one for us. Here's sharing 6 steps that can help us "own" the day and make it ours

• PREPARE
• However unpredictable life may be, but it always pays to be prepared (to whatever extent possible) to meet the challenges. Though we may never be able to control every aspect of what happens and predict the outcome but being prepared to our best capacity dampens the negative impact, if and when it occurs. Being prepared (mentally, physically, emotionally) instills a sense of confidence in us to meet any challenge with courage.
  
  Starting our day with the following two simple activities could set the tone for having  a fruitful day

• Visualisation - Imagining a successful day characterised by accomplishment puts us in a resourceful state and this opens our subconscious to grab the opportunities that may come our way during the day.

• Affirmation - Repeating empowering statements to "oneself" builds the necessary self-belief to be ready for any challenge and be able to accept it with a positive intent    

• PLAN 

• Assembling or consolidating what all needs to be done ensures clarity about the way forward. This step (PLAN) is where we create a framework for execution, in terms of the essentials - tasks to be accomplished, steps to be taken for corresponding to each task, resources required and time estimate for completion. Capturing essential and necessary information about every task/ activity puts us in command of the situation and prepares us to take corrective action, whenever and wherever required.

• PRIORITISE

• Once the tasks and steps have been identified, we need to work on the most important item(s) and these are the ones having the most powerful impact on us. Putting the things in correct priority not only saves us from wasting our effort but also keeps the momentum intact and energy preserved till the completion. Prioritisation helps us avoid taking a random approach to work and ensures that we know what is to follow.

• ACT/ EXECUTE
• Every Planning and Prioritisation is useless unless we take real/ actual steps to put things in motion. Whether big or small, an "action" is what will take us closer to our goal/ agenda for the day. Remember, right action taken at the right time in the right manner gives us right results. Being unsure of the outcome is no excuse for being "inactive" because there will always be lot of things beyond our comprehension and interpretation and only by taking action, we will be able to recognise what will work and what won't . 

• CLOSURE

• Many may confuse Closure with Completion. Let me clarify the difference - It's not always that we would be able to complete every task because some of them may run over multiple days and may only require us to execute only a part of it. On other instances, some task may get postponed during the course of the day. This means we may not be able to finish task in entirety and that's also what we refer to as an "incomplete" task. Closure, on the other hand, is always possible, whether in case of a completed task or an incompleted one. Closure is all about capturing the status-quo for a task/ activity so that next steps could be identified for it. Applying this step saves us energy.   

• REFLECT

• Every day presents to us lots of opportunities and it may not always be possible to avail all of them. We are bound to succeed in some and fail in others. The main thing in life is to learn from our mistakes in terms of  understanding
• what went wrong ? 
• why it went wrong ? and 
• what could have set it right ?  
• Reflecting on our actions and their results gives us insight into our behaviour and provides us with the wisdom to know what to embrace and what to leave. 

Beating the Productivity Paradox

It doesn't take much thought and effort to realise that we live in strange times of "Productivity Paradox", where the pull of everything that's considered to aid us in becoming more productive is actually pushing us away from productivity (in various ways). Think about all the apps, tools, softwares, and many similar tech-enabled gadgets, that promise to make our lives seamless in every possible way but ultimately leave us confused and exhausted.

Somehow, inspite of all our efforts, most of us still struggle to match the speed of this advancement that's permeating our life (both at a professional and personal level). Since desperate times call for desperate measures, a lot of us take recourse to the conventional short-cuts (the path of least resistance) of working hard or working more to make up for the lost productivity rather than take the road less travelled of addressing the other "work" based aspects.

It's easy for anyone to notice a drop in productivity and one of the simplest ways to determine the same is to be observant about any decrease in the quantity/volume/ amount of output for any specific  set of input. Simply put, the moment we feel that we are not getting the desired result for our effort is an indication of a drop in productivity. Of course, defining the "desired result"is crucial as we need to ensure that it commensurates with the effort. 

Identifying Unproductivity is easier than correcting it. The VUCA (Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous) world that we are a part of is too demanding and eats up a great chunk of our resources, ranging from our attention to energy to time, and so on. Addressing the Unproductivity effectively is a matter of identifying what aspect of our "effort" we need to target. This "missing link" holds the key

to resolving the issue comprehensively and this missing link could be Focus, Efficiency, Clarity, Goal, Effectiveness, Prioritisation, Time Planning.  

When we deal with a high-pressure multi-dimensional world that's also complicated, complex and distracting, then a uni-directional approach to address productivity issues is bound to fail. What we need instead is a multi-pronged approach, using a multitude of tools, techniques and strategies, that covers every conceivable aspect of productivity. 

Getting better at handling technology is definitely an enabling factor to deal with Productivity/ Unproductivity but more important is to understand what that tool aims to address from among the various aspects that comprise our "work". Here's a compilation of various Personal Productivity Tools  (not necessarily digitally driven but definitely supplemented/ complemented by technology)  that address different aspects of Productivity and prepares us well to beat the Productivity Paradox effectively. 

Wheel of Life - SWOT Matrix - Brain Dump - SMART Goal Setting 

Mind Mapping - Pomodoro - 5 Second Rule - 5/25 Warren Buffet Rule

Eisenhower Matrix - 80/20 Pareto Principle - TimeBoxing - Parkinson's Law

Action Priority Matrix (APM)

"Focus on being productive instead of being busy - Tim Ferriss"