Sunday 17 February 2013

How to become a super productive performer




How to be super productive performer

All of us want to do more in life, get more out of life, have more time and get more done. But the problem is all of us are given equal time each day, that is 24 hours. You have seen performers achieving in one day what you would do in a week. You might also have come across performers who stay busy the whole day, but at the end achieve little and of course you might have come across people who spend just few hours a day and yet get the job done. Do you know what the difference between the two is? It’s productivity!
Productive performers or entertainers always get more out of life, do more in their life, spend less time working and yet get more done. In the next couple of minutes I am going to share with you some great tips to be productive and achieve more in your limited time.

Set goals for yourself

Be very specific about what you want to achieve and set goals for yourself as a performer. Your every objective should be a goal, and then think of a practical and viable strategy to achieve that goal. Keep your goals realistic and constantly compare with the ultimate outcome that you want. To know more about how to achieve your goals read my other article about 

Break your goals to actionable steps

When we talked about goals a moment ago, we talked about the big picture or the ultimate outcome. Now is the step to divide your goals to smaller goals, then the smaller goals further, till each becomes a task or an actionable entity. Here is an example, Your goal is you have to upload a website for your company. Divide it to designing, programming, content writing and uploading. Now you have got actionable items, you have to make a design, then you have to write the code behind the design, next step would be to write content and once all is done then you have to upload the website.

Plan, Plan, Plan

This is one of the most important steps in being ultra productive. Make a plan for your every objective and every goal. Spend as much time as you can on planning about how you are going to achieve your goal or objective. That way when you would start doing a task, everything would be there in front of you and all you would have to do is follow  the plan.

Remove distractions

Find out the distractions that keep you from doing your work. Make a list of them, and set it as a goal for yourself that you have to remove those distractions. Those that can not be removed, learn how to overcome them. Always find the source of distraction and remove that source.

Give yourself motivations

Motivation helps you stay focused and be resilient to increase your productivity. Give yourself short term motivations. Think about going to a show or a concert after your finish a specific task. Mind is a wonderful thing, it’s a whole world within your head, make this world beautiful, give your mind a beautiful place to work in and it would do wonders for you.

Give yourself ideals

Set ideals, love them, praise them, follow them, imitate them, try to walk in their shoes for a moment and think about how they achieved their goals. Anyone can be your ideal, it can be Steve Jobs, or Bill gates or even the guy next door!

Stop multi tasking

Switching from task to task never helps. It has been proven that multitasking decreases your productivity level by about 10 percent. Start a task, and never switch to anything else till you finish it. Doing to many things at a time makes you busy, not productive! There is a huge difference between being busy and being productive

Make a schedule

Make a schedule for yourself, right from the time you get out of bed till the time you go back to sleep. Each and everything must be written, divide your time into sections and allocate each section to a task according to your schedule. Here is another point, if you can not follow your schedule, don’t even bother to make one. If you make a schedule and then don’t follow it, it becomes a distraction and source of low productivity.

Learn when to say NO

Again, this one is extremely important. You must know when you have to say NO. Think about this, you have to make a 500 page report in 24 hours, you start working early in morning, after a couple of hours your friend came and asked you to help him in fixing his car, what would you say ? You might think this guy is like my best friend, I must help him because he need me at this moment, tell you what, this is wrong. This is the time when you should and you must say NO.

Believe in yourself

Self belief is extremely important in productivity. Believing in yourself improves your confidence, boosts your morale, makes your daring and focused. Believe in your abilities and believe in the fact that nothing in this world is impossible. Those who you think are standing at the Mount Everest of success are also humans like you. If they can do it, you can do it too. To clear yourself more, go back to the point where I said give yourself ideals and imitate them.

Learn the difference between busyness and productivity

“It’s not enough to be busy, so are the ants. The question is, what are we busy about?" – Henry David Thoreau
Highly productive people are often less busy than those who are overworked and overwhelmed. When you are working don’t look at the clock in front of you, look at the work that lays ahead. Work and work hard, but not to stay busy , work to achieve your goals.

Move from self management to time management

"Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life." – Steve Jobs
Manage yourself first and then think about managing your time.

List your actions

When you start your day, make a list of actions or tasks that you have to do, write anything that comes to your mind. Then prioritize your actions, list the important ones first and follow a descending order. When you are done with your list, allocate time to each according to its importance. Then start from the first and never stop till you nail down the last one. If you can do it in an hour, enjoy the rest of your day, if it takes whole day to complete your list, whole day is what you have to give in to achieve your goal.

Measure, Analyze Enhance

At the end of each day look at your actions and goals. Think about what your achieved and what could not be done. Then think about what stopped you from achieving your goals, think about how to overcome those distractions and obstacles, make a plan to enhance your productivity and when you get up the next day incorporate that plan to your next day’s agenda. At the end of day two again analyze your plan, see if it worked for you, if it worked, make that a habit, if it didn’t work, analyze it again, follow the thinking curve again and tweak your plan to make it perfect.


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