Be More Productive in Life And In Business

Everyone wants to be more productive. It’s an important feature of success, in both the business world and in our personal lives.

Slow Change is Good Change

It’s easy to want to try several productivity strategies all at once, but human behavior changes slowly. It’s best to pick one strategy that is going to make a lot of difference for you and start by implementing that successfully before adding more in. In order for change to truly happen, and for your productivity to genuinely increase, take things slow, and remember that slow change is a good change.

Know your Goal, Make it Productive

Productivity also involves having clearly defined goals, and knowing how to measure the success of these goals. Maybe you want to have more friends. You wouldn’t measure your productivity based on money, you’d probably measure it on how much time you’re spending with your friends. Now you have to decide how to productively execute your goal. In this example, it could be deciding to spend time with multiple people at once, and hosting a weekly movie night at your house. You’ve identified a goal, and you’ve identified a specific way to measure the success of your goal, and you’ve created a plan to productively execute your goal.

Know your Output

Productivity depends on what you’re up against. In other words, how productive you are depending on the output of whatever your particular job is. If you’re a salesperson, for example, the desired output is dollars and customer satisfaction. When trying to be more productive, it’s vital to keep your output in mind and use it to guide your process. The biggest mistake that humans tend to make is setting a goal, and then getting distracted and not keeping their focus on the goal. You must remember why it is you’re doing what you’re doing, or you will not achieve the productivity that you seek. It’s important to understand your output, but it’s equally as important to know your personal purpose.

The Answer to Why

If you struggle to understand your personal purpose, it can be found by continually asking: why? For example, if you are a salesperson, your output is to make money and make customers happy. Why is that beneficial? Because if you make money, then you can pay for things, and if your customers are happy, it makes you happy. If you can pay for things, then you can have a home, food, transportation, leisure activities, and other things that cost money – which is pretty important! If you’re happy after making your customers happy, it makes you feel good, puts you in a good mood, and you enjoy life more. You can continue this process of asking why until you’ve settled on your personal purpose, and use this personal purpose to help fuel your productivity.