Productivity

It’s an honest question: Are you letting perfection get in the way of progress?

My friend Mark Riffey recently reminded me of the sentiment that, “Perfect is the enemy of good.” He also links to an interesting article in a blog post ‘cult of done‘. The article, ‘cult of done manifesto‘ by Bre Pettis points out to us that we need to banish procrastination, be keen that there are three states of being, not knowing, action and completion. He nicely summarizes it with, ‘Done is the engine of more’. Amen, and amen.

It is easy to be a perfectionist. In some cases it acts like a security blanket. While it is easy to be this, the results and impact aren’t easy. Unnecessary stress, and many back burnered projects and irons in the fire become evident.

How do I know this? I’ve been there many times.

[Read more...]

Action is the foundational key to all success. -Pablo Picasso

The greater the distance, the greater the payoff once traveled, right? For most of us, this is true. For some, it is only a passing glance to where they really want to be.

As I think back to some of the road trips I’ve taken that could be considered longer treks than the usual, one sticks out in my mind as unique, the time I drove from Minnesota back to Montana with my mom.

[Read more...]

Have you ever heard someone say, “don’t take your health for granted”? I know I have, and it probably was while I was downing a bag of Cheetos. I have learned one of life’s most important lessons. Your health is your most important asset. So how does this affect your business life?

I have increased my productivity by at least three times over the past couple of months by making a decision to be more active.

[Read more...]

Doing more isn’t always the solution to a productivity problem. I had recently discovered this when I evaluated the progress I was making on some projects I was working on. When I realized that I was attempting to do more in an effort to get more work done, I found it wasn’t giving the results desired.

I know that many others do this same thing. It’s an attempt to fill the to do lists and project management systems with the tasks, items, milestones and goals we need to hit. While goals and objectives are crucial to seeing the end to a project, how you get there can be done by traveling different roads. Which road you travel however can often determine the smoothness of the ride, and the overall trip time (OTT).

What happens to the OTT if you are doing more, but not the right things? How can you know what the right things are to do?

Ask yourself the following questions to evaluate if the task is the right thing, or not:

• Is it actionable? – Meaning can you take some real action on the task
• Does it align with the end goal? – Can it clearly match up with the end destination, or goal
• Does it maximize my use of time? – Is it the best use of time? Email, while a great tool, can be a huge time sink if you aren’t careful. Consider alternative ways to communicate such as a internal project management system, or task list

Some of the most productive thinkers out there, leverage technology to help them do their jobs. While technology is a wonderful resource and tool to help you accomplish things, sometimes it can get in the way.

Spend less time learning a system, and more time building a process.

Question: What have you found helps increase your productivity?

(photo credit: nezitic)

This isn’t just my wallet. It’s an organizer, a memory and an old friend. - George Costanza

Men are lucky. A wallet is sufficient in our lives to hold what we may need on a daily basis: cash, cards, and identification. Some of us, like good old Costanza, view our wallets as ‘pocket purses’ jam packing everything imaginable in them. Others, prefer a minimalistic approach, a slim wallet.

I am a cross over wallet guy. I used to have the traditional leather wallet in my back pocket, but got sick of that really quick. Nothing worse than a hot summery day and a leather wallet in your back pocket. It can seem almost sacrilegious to not fill each of the little slots and pockets inside of the wallet, so you end up putting stuff you never needed in the first place, like the three cafe loyalty cards from different shops that only have 2 stamps on them, dated 2 years prior.

[Read more...]