I'm interested in productivity and in creating environments that best foster it. In this piece, I will first seek to challenge just how productive you really are. Second, I will discuss some things you can do to increase your independent productivity. Finally, I will offer my opinions on the benefits of creating a culture of productivity - what I call, perhaps pretentiously, a culture of success.
First things first: You are not that diligent. You're will is not that strong. You may think that you're more studious, more industrious and more persistent than everyone you know, but the fact remains that, alone, you are relatively weak. You have probably convinced yourself otherwise, and that's not because you are liar but because you are a gymnast. You are incredibly apt at performing all sorts of cognitive gymnastics. Within the constraints of reality, you are able to convince yourself of almost anything. You were at work for ten hours - four of which you spent surfing the net and two of which you spent at lunch - but that doesn't matter. You "worked" for ten hours today. While your ability to bend truth and rationalize serves a functional purpose (it is surely evolutionarily adaptive) when it comes to assessing your real work output, your system is anything but objective. You can never trust a gymnast.
Just how productive are you? I challenge you to leave the cognitive gym, step outside, and look at your output objectively. If we define work as directed focus towards a specific goal, for a given hour where you sit down and "work," just how much are you really accomplishing? Within a given sixty minutes that you have committed to achieving a particular task, how often do you interrupt that task to check Facebook, talk to a friend, or surf the internet? Track it for yourself; keep a journal and collect some data. You'll be inclined to enter that gym again, to skew the data on your real output, but you'll be stronger than that. You'll have recognized that:
- Distraction is normal. There are so many stimuli in today's environment that are continually reinforcing that it's no wonder you find yourself distracted. It important not to internalize this shortcoming.
- Training yourself to overcome the distractions takes time. You're not going to become perfectly productive overnight. Recognize that progress is incremental; small steps forward are better than no steps at all.
- It is in your best interest to track your real performance. Understanding your real output will allow you to improve, saving you time and energy in the future.
Having an understanding of your real average output in itself will improve your productivity, but what else can you do to improve it? Much of the time wasting you engage in is proceduralized, often occurring outside your awareness (this is exemplified in Facebook checking). Tracking your performance will help you break these automatized tendencies.
To improve your output beyond these internal improvements, you must turn to your external environment. Take note of your work area. Is it conducive to productivity and goal accomplishment? Take one step further back. Is your lifestyle and culture conducive to productivity? Are your friends motivated and productive individuals? If they're not but they want to be, then you're in luck. Take control of your external environment and make it work for you, not against you. Have your friends hold each other accountable to your goals. Check in with each other to track your progress. Take down time together. Sell them on the benefits of being on the same schedule and sharing a common goal. You'll be shocked at how much your individual productivity will increase once you are working in a group committed to being individually productive, once you are in a culture of success. You won't have to be in the same room; you won't even have to be in the same country, but by sharing the same personal goal as other people and holding each other accountable to that shared goal you dramatically increase the likelihood that you will individually successful. We all know that alone improving your productivity is daunting. Sharing the same goal (and do note how broad undefined a common goal such as productivity is) dilutes its intimidation and renders it more digestible. Monitor your individual performance and put your environment to work for you.
To improve your output beyond these internal improvements, you must turn to your external environment. Take note of your work area. Is it conducive to productivity and goal accomplishment? Take one step further back. Is your lifestyle and culture conducive to productivity? Are your friends motivated and productive individuals? If they're not but they want to be, then you're in luck. Take control of your external environment and make it work for you, not against you. Have your friends hold each other accountable to your goals. Check in with each other to track your progress. Take down time together. Sell them on the benefits of being on the same schedule and sharing a common goal. You'll be shocked at how much your individual productivity will increase once you are working in a group committed to being individually productive, once you are in a culture of success. You won't have to be in the same room; you won't even have to be in the same country, but by sharing the same personal goal as other people and holding each other accountable to that shared goal you dramatically increase the likelihood that you will individually successful. We all know that alone improving your productivity is daunting. Sharing the same goal (and do note how broad undefined a common goal such as productivity is) dilutes its intimidation and renders it more digestible. Monitor your individual performance and put your environment to work for you.
