A close friend of mine who’s in a similar line of business was complaining to me about himself the other day. It went something like this:
“
I sit here at my desk and I find it so hard to get anything of any significance done. And I see you (getting new clients on board and creating new products and launching your licensing system and I feel so frustrated at my lack of productivity compared to yours. How do you do it?”
It’s a worthwhile question to contemplate and hopefully this article provides you and my friend with some proven ideas that you can take away and practice with a view to improving your output. Please note: I regularly fall short of my own productivity ideals so I’m a long way from perfect. However it does appear that I get more done than most people so here we go …
1. You need plenty of energy
Cars that run out of fuel don’t go. And cars that have dirty fuel splutter along. Similarly, if you want high output, you must have high quality inputs in the form of a fit and healthy body. That means plenty of sleep, two litres of filtered water a day mostly before 2pm, lots of fresh and raw vegetables along with high quality protein. And you need to exercise at least four times per week (very brisk walking for 30 minutes per session is all you need).
That takes care of physical energy but that’s not enough – you need mental energy as well and that comes from passion, a sense of purpose and an appreciation of progress (see point 2) and time out. I’ve hammered this point often enough and over the years literally hundreds of clients have benefitted from the “do less, achieve more” approach.
The simple truth is this: if you fail to have two days a week, minimum, with zero business work - including reading the business section of the newspaper, sneaking a peek at your emails or avidly watching the business news on TV – then you will gradually reduce your stores of “mental energy”. and when that happens you cannot sustain any significant amount of proactive effort. You’ll revert to being like a pinball in a pinball machine, bouncing off flippers such as emails and phone calls.
That’s number 1: take two days out every week and take a minimum of one week’s holiday, away from home, every quarter. Two weeks per quarter is ideal with four weeks over the summer break. I love the beach on weekends for swimming, cafes for kicking back and enjoying an espresso and a chat if I’m with beloved or a good read if I’m on my own. Sometimes when I had a young family and the budget was tight we went camping and other times we took them to Disneyland (frankly, I preferred the camping!).
But the point is that a decent break to recharge the mental batteries is a critical ingredient for periods of high productivity. Rest and having fun should be viewed as a precursor for high productivity, not a reward for working hard. In just the same way, a cow has to graze before it produces milk.
2. You need to like the work that you do
Contrary to what many think I’m not an advocate of the idea that you should simply “pursue your passion and then the pennies will follow”. I loved racing motorbikes but my total prize money after 3 seasons was $8.67. I may have loved it but I sucked at it. The trick is to find something you enjoy doing AND that you can make money from. That marriage between passion and profit is the way to go.
If you don’t like what you are doing your productivity will suck as badly as my motorbike racing. So quit doing it and do something else. That may be problematic but it’s certainly not complicated.
Or carve off the parts of your role that you don’t like and write out some systems for those parts and then hire someone, train them on the systems. You’ll free yourself to do the things that you like to do the most and that you can make some bigger bucks from.
3. You need to quarantine big blocks of time
On the last Friday of most months I invest about four hours planning the next month in some detail. But more I firstly block out whole days for
marketing planning and product development work. Typically that’s around 8 – 12 days per month and that’s all proactive work. These are the “big rocks” that Steven Covey spoke about and everything else has to fit around these days.
I “quarantine” these days to protect them from emails and other reactive seductions. Most people do it the other way around. They do all the little stuff that gives them a sense of instant gratification but it’s like spending all your money on ice creams and never saving up for a car.
With the type of brain I have, the ONLY way this works is to dedicate whole days to specific outcomes e.g. a marketing day or a product creation day or a workshop day where you learn and plan. Whole days. Not a couple of hours here and a couple of hours there.
4. You need to reward your mind by recognising and appreciating your progress
Many years ago I was training with Rick Wells who was then the world Triathlon champion. I asked him how many hours a week he was training. “About 30” he said. “Wow” I responded, “that must be tough!” He looked at me and with a smile and a wink he replied “It’s not so bad if you’re winning”.
Ain’t that the truth? If you’re working hard and you’re winning it’s downright motivational. But if you don’t make progress or you are too busy to pause and reflect on your progress it’s the opposite: very de-motivating.
Late on most Friday afternoons I meet with my good friend and business buddy Herr Kessler from Germany over Skype and we each review our week in terms of progress and preview our plans for the upcoming week. I look forward to that meeting and if I’m tempted to slack off during the week I remind myself that I want to put in a positive report on Friday with Thomas.
So find a buddy and make a time every Friday afternoon to review and preview your progress relative to your goals.
5. You need a set of clear goals
Implicit in this last point is that you have set up specific and measurable objectives and identified the activity and projects that need to be completed in order to achieve those objectives. You gotta have a clear outcome and you gotta be real clear on the inputs