Here are two productivity tips that I have learned through frustration. Doing these two simple things more than doubled my productivity. These were my two biggest issues, and obviously they will have different impacts on different people, but absolutely everyone is guilty of losing time to these two things at least to some degree.
Turn off your phones
I don’t know why I didn’t start doing this years ago. I hate the house phone concept, because, especially when you are the only one home, a call that isn’t even for you can pull you out of the zone. No matter how much you don’t let it get to you, the thirty seconds it took you to answer the house phone and tell the person on the other end that your significant other isn’t here has pulled you from the zone, and it could take up to fifteen minutes (in my case) to get back into it.
Because of this, and much to the disgust of many people, our house phone is always unplugged. Why then, has it taken me so long to turn off my mobile phone? Yes, all the calls (well, ninety nine percent of them) I receive on this phone are for me, but how often are they urgent? I have probably received two urgent calls ever on my phone. How often is it much more efficient to let your answer machine take the call? The rest of the time.
You can continue working, and then when you take that fifteen minute break you are supposed to take every hour, you can turn on your phone, collect your messages, return some calls if necessary, then get back to your work.
This is such an obvious time save, I don’t know why it took me so long to figure out. I have literally lost four days work in the last week because I didn’t do this. It took a loss that drastic for me to figure this one out! Learn from my mistakes! So, the second productivity tip:
Don’t wait for anyone!
Ironically, ALL of this article was written whilst I was waiting for people. I used to be the biggest waiter. I have literally wasted entire days waiting for people who never turned up. I always felt that I had to be ready for them when they arrived. Not any more.
I try to get on with something that doesn’t require my entire attention just in case they do arrive whilst I am half way through something, but if this isn’t possible then the person can wait for me until I can give them my attention. It may sound harsh, but people just aren’t punctual anymore. Most of the time they have a valid excuse, but usually it is just that they were waiting on someone else that wasn’t punctual. I don’t have time for these games so I would much rather be productive and let them wait then the other way around.
Of course the other side of this coin is that I don’t like to keep people waiting. If I am going to be somewhere at 9.30, I will be there at 9.30 or a little earlier, but NEVER late. Without being difficult about things, this is my way of letting people know that just because I am working at home, it doesn’t mean that I am not a busy person that deserves punctuality.
Keeping these two little tips in mind will dramatically increase your productivity. As I said different people will be affected differently by employing these tips, but it will help anyone that puts them in place.
Update: Another productivity suggestion comes from Tom, a bmindful reader. He says one way to become more productive is to turn off the TV! I couldn’t agree more. The only TV is our house is a small 24cm black box that gathers dust most of the time. We do watch TV on the odd occasion, but only for documentaries and the like that we have decided we want to watch ahead of time!
I am sure we could find something to kill some time by flicking channels, but we don’t use the TV in this way. By deciding what we want to watch ahead of time we don’t sit there all night channel surfing. We sit down only to watch what we want, and then get up and do something else afterwards.
I know that I wouldn’t complete half of what I set out to do if I spent all day in front on the TV! I would also be a great deal less informed (because I read if I need to relax rather than watch TV) I would have bias views (because TV is always one sided) and I would be more easily influenced (see as a man thinketh by James Allen)
This post was converted automatically from the old bmindful article archive. Some of the mentioned links or references may no longer exist.
“How easy it is in our life, to miss what’s being offered.” — Paul Haller
