Two Simple Tools for Improved Productivity

What does productivity mean to you?

I hit a wall. Or rather, I hit the floor.

The Backstory of a High-Stress Corporate Job

It was back in my company days when I was doing everything I could to scurry up that corporate ladder. I was working 70-80 hours per week and 85 pounds overweight with pre-hypertension.

I was pretty miserable, but more urgently, at that moment, I was dizzy. And the floor was the only safe place to be to keep me from falling over or running into someone or something in the office.

I couldn’t get an appointment with my doctor right away (that’s why they call us “patience,” I suppose), but fortunately, a good MD friend of mine was available that evening. He did a neurological test on me to make sure there was nothing wrong with my brain.

There wasn’t.

Then he offered me a prescription: don’t go into work for a few days.

It was stress. I had vertigo. It hampered my productivity.

How the heck was I supposed to take time off of work? I had client meetings, employees to train, a never-ending list of phone calls and emails to make, not to mention a big project to implement – my project, the one I’d been pushing to happen for months.

Coming to Terms with Slowing Down

But I relented. It was better for me to put everything on hold than for clients to think I was drinking Irish coffees all morning, or worse.

I relaxed for a day, did some reading, went to the gym, and then found a life coach.

In our first session, she asked me a few simple questions:

“How do you prioritize?”

“Um, everything is a priority,” I answered, matter-of-factly.

“With all of those responsibilities, how do you block your time?” she continued.

“Block my time? Between developing my people and clients, I’m constantly interrupted,” I replied in my best victimized tone.

I think you can see where this is going. Of course I was stressed.

Fast forward to 2 months later, (dizziness completely gone, and even a few pounds lighter!) there were two big things I implemented into my work life that made all of the difference.

The Eisenhower Matrix for Productivity

“What is urgent is seldom important, and what is important is seldom urgent.”  – Dwight D. Eisenhower

Eisenhower was one of the most productive individuals of the last century. You may have heard of him: 5-star General, President of the United States – he was also behind huge initiatives like NASA and the Interstate Highway System, to name only a couple.

This decision matrix was part of his operating system for everything he accomplished and have even helped him increase his productivity:

This creates four quadrants.

In the Urgent-Important quadrant, anything that is crucially important to your life and do the career now – as in, today or tomorrow.

The second quadrant, Important-Not Urgent are things that aren’t urgent right now, but you can plan for like getting in better shape, a quarterly report or paying taxes.  Of course, if you procrastinate or wait long enough on any of these, they move into the first quadrant and then you have more things to do that are urgent.

The third are things that are Urgent but Not important. It probably won’t affect you significantly if you don’t do it, so try to find a way to delegate it. Obviously, you may not have a personal assistant to delegate to, but who else could help? How could you use a virtual assistant or enroll family members or co-workers to contribute?

And the fourth quadrant are simply those things that don’t matter. How did they get on your to-do list in the first place? Perhaps some of these activities are ways you procrastinate that make not-urgent tasks urgent!

Most of my clients over the years who have had a hard time prioritizing use this system in their journals or a conveniently placed white board.

 

Schedule Blocking

The research is clear: we know that being interrupted and multitasking is simply not good for us, and is not efficient use of our time. So in this day and age where devices seem to run our lives, how do we keep from interruptions and enhance productivity?

You block your time, you set healthy boundaries, and you communicate this to everyone around you.

Blocking your time is exactly what it sounds like. You can even color-code your weekly calendar with ONE activity for each time block. The idea here isn’t to get it perfect (maybe it takes you more than 30 minutes on Monday mornings to answer emails), but do it the best you can. You can always tweak it in subsequent weeks. It would look something like this:

8:45-9:00 – Meeting Prep

9:00 to 10:00 – Weekly Meeting

10:00 to 10:30 – Answer Emails

10:30 to 11:30 – Return Client Phone calls

Lunch Break – Personal texts/phone calls 

12:30 to 2:00 – Research reports

See how this works?

The key here is to stick to it – let your family know that if it’s not urgent, you will not answer a text before lunch. Let clients know that you return phone calls between 10:30 and 11:30. Let coworkers know you will not drop what you’re doing at any moment. This will help out with something (which can be difficult at first if you always did in the past).

If you finish something early, simply go to the next task, and if that keeps happening, just adjust it for the following week accordingly.

If you’re feeling overwhelmed, give these a go.

If you have further questions or would like to book a complimentary session with a life or executive coach, feel free to reach out.