Productivity

Western society has become consumed with being busy. Most of us feel guilty if we’re not always on the go. The challenge is that busy doesn’t necessarily make you money, nor does it mean you get more done. The real question is not how busy are you, it’s how productive are you?

The first step toward becoming more productive is gaining clarity on what it is you need to accomplish. Once you are clear on your tasks, the next step is to prioritize them. Steven Covey popularized a system for prioritizing tasks. He divided them into quadrants:
1. Important and urgent [i.e.: a critical work project due tomorrow]
2. Important and not urgent [i.e.: getting a physical]
3. Urgent and not important [i.e.: picking up dry cleaning for an upcoming trip]
4. Not Urgent and not important [i.e.: cleaning out your gutters]

Once you’ve broken your tasks down into quadrants, prioritization becomes much easier. You simply rank each task within each quadrant.

Charles Schwab ran Bethlehem Steel in the early 20th century. He hired a top Wconsultant, Ivy Lee, to increase the productivity of his organization. When they discussed terms, Lee suggested that after 90 days, Schwab pay him what he thought his services were worth. Lee gave all senior management, (including Schwab) one task: “Before you leave each day, write down the 6 most important things you need to do. When you walk in tomorrow start with #1 and don’t do anything else until you finish. Then move onto number 2.” Using this advice, Bethlehem Steel went on to become the largest independent steel producer in the world. Schwab paid Lee the equivalent of almost $1 million in today’s dollars.

The idea of combining the discipline of writing tasks each day, prioritizing them, and then executing, is a powerful way to increase your productivity.

At the end of your next workday, before leaving the office, fold a blank piece of paper to create 4 boxes. Using the quadrant system, write the tasks you must accomplish in the appropriate place. At the end of the following day, pull your existing list, update, reprioritize, and transfer it to a new quadrant page. If you prefer, you can use an app called Priority Matrix (I have no affiliation with it), which uses the quadrant system. It’s very easy to move tasks around and reprioritize, avoiding the necessity to rewrite things every day.