First of all, I stole the first part of that subject line from a work colleague (Karen W), and I liked it so much I decided to tell a story about productivity.
Before I do, I was inspired to tell this tale because there is a big difference between being busy and getting things done!
Most people are busy, and you know because they like to tell everybody how busy they are.
Very few people are actually productive though, and just being busy doesn’t mean you are making progress towards an objective.
The Story
Meet Fred. Fred is a sales person at a mid-sized software company. He’s a relatively average performer, but is pretty well-liked within the company.
Fred is known for being busy. He’s trying to become an executive at his company one day, so he is always taking on new projects, and even starting some of his own.
If you asked him how much he gets done in a day, he’d just tell you how busy he is all the time.
But after about 18 months at this company, it started to become clear that even though Fred was extremely busy all the time, there wasn’t a whole lot of progress being made towards the objectives.
He would create surveys to get feedback, and call prospects just to chit chat, and he’d constantly bring up topics in meetings that don’t seem relevant to bringing in more business.
This is what I call “Motion”. You end up doing a lot of activities to look important to outsiders, but they do not produce relevant results.
Motion is like manually cleaning a fish that is already clean. You out in the effort to clean it, but you didn’t need to.
How to be Productive
The funny thing about being productive is that you don’t actually have to be busy to create results!
Producing is all about identifying what’s truly needed to get you to your goals, and then removing everything else.
Imagine the guy or gal that seems to be extremely successful, but you only ever see them on the golf course…
They have found the secret to productivity, and they don’t have to work at a desk for 8-10 hours a day. They can only focus on what truly matters, and spend the rest of their time having fun!
Productivity is like building a race car. The only goal is to go fast, so they would not add in headlights, A/C, power windows, sound insulation, etc.. You would only add the components that help you go faster.
Summary
To book it down and be productive…don’t be Fred.
Always ask yourself if what you’re doing is helping you get closer to your goal. If it doesn’t, then you would want to avoid the activity completely.
And if you’re asked by a supervisor to complete a task, you may also want to ask them how the results will get you closer to your main goal.
-Jake
JakeMartincic.com 