You have probably, like me, consider how you can become more productive and achieve more of what you want. Maybe you initially tried to work harder – more intensively and for longer. And it has probably made you more productive.
But there is a limit to how hard and for how long we can keep working, so there are some fundamental limitations in that approach to becoming more productive.
In fact, we only have two to four hours each day where we can produce at a high level. The rest of the time we still have the energy to solve eg administrative tasks, but we can not continue to perform high-quality creative work for a long time.
If we still try to push ourselves beyond that limit, it can end up making us negatively productive – because what we do in the last hours is of such poor quality that the next day we will probably have to spend time doing it. about.
Research shows that we pass into negative productivity when we reach somewhere between 30 and 60 working hours per week. Exactly where the line goes depends on genetics and lifestyle factors such as exercise, diet and sleep.
So if we really want to be more productive, we need to incorporate common sense – or wisdom if you will – so that we can make things smarter. How we do it, there are many suggestions – here are some of Govind Dhiman’s personal favourites:
Learn from others
Learn from others so you don’t have to invent the deep dish all the time. Read what others have found out, but also supplement with personal feedback, so you get individual guidance in relation to exactly what you are struggling with.
Keep the toolbox in order and adjust it
Build a good toolbox with tips, tricks and techniques to increase your productivity. And keep in mind that what works for others may not work for you. There are many methods to become more effective; find the ones that are right for you – and / or adjust them to your specific situation. It is not only about good tools, but to a large extent also about using yourself better and in different ways – for example:
Identify your time robbers
We all have some time robbers, but many of us have not focused on them. If you can identify your biggest time wasters – activities or situations that take you off course, distract you or interrupt you – you will increase your productivity quickly. It will probably also give you profits to change other things that are not working optimally. And vice versa: if you ignore your time robbers, your attempts to become more productive – regardless of the good tools of the world – will not bear fruit.
Think constructively
People who are highly productive think differently than others. Instead of thinking, “Oh no, there’s so much I need to achieve, it’s stressing me out, what should I do? – so try: “I need to do this and that. How do I get the best deal done? ” Or: “What can I do to improve my working conditions given the current circumstances?”
Put results before comfort
Sometimes all you need to do is stop sabotaging yourself. You may have a tendency to focus on external factors: “I could not get started because…” or “I do not have time for that because…”. Often, ways of thinking like this are evasion techniques that we subconsciously use, and meanwhile we waste time.
Move out of your comfort zone and stop making excuses – as Nike says: “Just do it!”. Put results before comfort, and invest yourself in what you really want to invest in. Many give up without ever experiencing that it is possible to achieve their goals and complete what they go and dream of.
Find the courage to dare to bet
And that brings me to the last but most important point: Be brave! We all have roughly the same amount of time to work, and many of us have access to the same tools to make work smarter. As I see it, what sets the most productive among us from the rest is courage.
If we want to succeed with something, we have to put in the effort – to bet on it. And that can be scary, because what if we do not succeed? Therefore, many end up sharing their attention between different projects instead of giving what they really have in the heart the full attention needed to succeed at it.
Because when we try to do many things at once, we are guaranteed not to have the time and energy we need to succeed. Conversely, if we focus all our attention on one thing, we increase the likelihood of success considerably. Therefore, when we try to be more productive, we must agree to use our resources in the right order: courage first, then common sense and good tools, and finally supplement up with hard work.