Productivity, Lifestyle
Busyness ≠ Business: One Quick Tip to Maximizing Your Productivity
Stop doing this and you’ll be well on your way to a more productive lifestyle
“I have so much going on!” you say, exasperated, as you look at your enormous To-Do list. It’s an all too familiar feeling. Task after task after task awaits you.
Answer a few emails, check up on a few informational resources for work, answer a few more emails, attend a somewhat pointless meeting, and now the day is over and you end it feeling vaguely accomplished.
In reality…while your day might’ve felt “busy,” you weren’t really getting much done. You had a low output day. When it comes to our productivity, there’s a lot of ways we can improve.
Critically, you have to be able to define what success means in your job or any work you’re trying to do. This can vary from person to person and from occupation to occupation. As Cal Newport mentions in his book Deep Work, there’s a lot of people working without clear directive.
When you set clear goals and measures ahead of time as to what progress looks like, you will be able to produce even more without feeling like you’re doing a lot of overwhelming work. Doing a lot of things that are highly visible doesn’t work. So what does?
Measure your productivity by considering how much important work you’re doing and the progress you’re making on those goals. By setting your focus on the most important tasks what you’ll realize is that the smaller ‘busy’ work falls away and you’re able to better reach the defined goals you’ve set.
If you multitask all the time, you won’t be able to filter out irrelevant information. You’ll be chronically distracted and not even realize it.
The result of prioritizing our work is the long term returns you’ll get! As you measure the amount of time you spend on the truly important tasks you have to handle, the results will show themselves.
