Are your employees productive or just busy?

The task of being more effective at work can be misleading about what constitutes a productive work day. Busy people are obsessed with shoveling as many tasks into their day as possible. Productive people knowingly reduce their list of issues by 50%.

Donkeys think the more they do in 8 working hours the better. They cram too many points into their list of tasks, and by the end of the day defer most of them.

Unicorns never put 40 tasks on their to-do list. They competently approach the selection of tasks for the coming day and are only concerned with the most important ones. Pick up some tricks to enhance your agility in “Getting Results the Agile Way: A Personal Results System for Work and Life” by JD Meier. The book of one of the top managers of almighty Microsoft offers a simplified approach to planning and provides step-by-step instructions for achieving results – for a day, a week, a month and even a year.

 

Productive means systematic

Donkeys develop harmful performance habits for years. They constantly check email with no need for it and are distracted by every sound emanating from the smartphone.

Unicorns perform tasks systematically, even simple ones, such as checking e-mail. They take 30 minutes a day to check new messages what allows them to concentrate on important work tasks. Systematize your day-to-day responsibilities for 90 days and see the difference.

Everyone can do it in their own way. The most successful small companies in America use a concept called “UBS.” UBS stands for your “Ultimate Business System” – the master system for how you structure, organize, store, access, refine, and, if need be, delete your company’s documents and files. More importantly, your UBS is the doorway through which you can move yourself into the discipline of the unicorn.

 

Don’t be glued to your desk! Know when to take a break

Donkeys rarely take breaks, they generally hate them, thinking that this is only for procrastinators. They are also upset by productive people who look as if they have all the time in the world at their disposal and generally enjoy their work.

Unicorns know when to give yourself time to come alive. Their breaks are walks, favorite music, short comedy sketches, meditation or snacks. They know that they can be more productive, by giving their brain a break from long hours of work.

There is a book titled “Wake Up Successful: How to Increase Your Energy and Achieve Any Goal with a Morning Routine” by S.J. Scott, that will help you set goals, be on time, prioritize and not be distracted by unnecessary tasks. You will learn proven techniques that will help you manage your time and make a step-by-step action plan for each day.

If you noticed you are one of the “Busy Mules”, and you would like to be more like an “Efficient Stallion”, you could benefit from following the 80/20 rule. The 80-20 rule is also known as the Pareto principle. This principle states that “20 percent of your activities in the workplace will account for 80 percent of your results”.

It is a statistical distribution of data that is frequently used in business, but it has been applied to a wide variety of subjects such as wealth distribution, personal finance, spending habits and even infidelity in personal relationships. Get rid of things that are not needed during the working day, if they have a minimal impact on your productivity. Learn more from “80/20 Principle” by Richard Koch. In order to achieve 80% of the result, it is sufficient to invest 20% of the effort (and vice versa). The 80/20 principle is relevant and versatile. It can be used in your career and in your personal life.

 

How do I improve my productivity?

Five questions that will help you analyze your productivity

  1. Do I have a purpose when I begin a task?
  2. Do I know how to simplify my work?
  3. Do I have a system in place for reaching my goals/targets?
  4. Do I ask for help?
  5. Do I use the right tools?

Using the right tools at work can drastically increase your productivity. SignNow’s mobile app offers multiple features that make any task involving document exchange easy and efficient.

By getting the right e-signature solution for yourself or your team, all of your documents, invoices, contracts can be signed, delivered and stored in a matter of seconds. This can cut the cost of your document workflow by ⅔.