Posts Tagged ‘tasks’
 

Beware Of Being Busy

Saturday, May 1st, 2010

Being busy is most often used as a guise for avoiding the few critically important projects which must be done in order to move our life, our career or our business forward. It’s all too easy to convince ourselves that being busy and being productive are one and the same. Big mistake!

The same holds true for being effective and being efficient. Doing something unimportant well does not make us effective. Requiring a lot of time to finish a project or complete a task doesn’t make the task more important.

Here’s the key question to ask yourself: Am I being productive or am I just being active?

Being Selective Is the Key to Productivity

The two characteristics of high performers are: the ability to separate the urgent from the important, and second, the ability to focus their time and attention on those tasks that will complete important projects or produce the greatest results.

One of the best ways I know of to separate the important from the urgent is to apply the Pareto Principle. Also known as the law of the vital few or the 80/20 Rule, Pareto says the majority of productivity will come from a few select actions or activities.

The stark reality is most of what we do on a daily basis has little impact one way or the other in moving our most important projects forward. Unless we’re very selective in how we structure our day, the important will fall victim to the urgent. We’ll end up majoring on the minors, and what would otherwise be a productive day will be lost.

Being selective and doing less is the path to productivity. Identify those few critical tasks that contribute most to moving your career or your company forward. Schedule time during the day to work on those vital few tasks and don’t allow that time to be affected by trivial things. Hint: most email is trivial and meaningless. So are most phone calls and most office visits.

You have more control of your time than you give yourself credit for. Schedule your priorities. Ask yourself, if I could only accomplish one important thing today, what would it be? Once you make that important decision, schedule time to make it happen. The key to being more productive is doing less.

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Posted in 2010 | No Comments »
 

Turning Knowledge To Power

Saturday, April 24th, 2010

Ever hear the adage “knowledge is power?” Well..it’s not. It isn’t what we know that counts, it’s what we do with what we know that really matters.

You and I live in the Information Age. There’s more information around today than there has ever been on any topic you can imagine. Not only is information available, it’s at our fingertips on the Internet. The Web contains tons of information you can use for improving every aspect of your life.

With all this information at our fingertips, you’d think we would have it made. Ah, but such is not the case. Why? Because we’ve come to believe that learning and collecting information are one and the same. The reality, however, is that we must take what we’ve learned or what we know and translate it into meaningful actions. You see, it’s not what you know, it’s what you do with what you know that translates into power.

Doris Lessing, a novelist and playwright of the last century, once said: ” What matters most is what we learn from living.” Life is a great teacher, if we do something with what we learn.

If you’re familiar with my six-step process for improving performance and productivity, you know that the last of the six steps is ACTION.

Taking action on the information or knowledge we have is critical to success and achievement. Here are some thoughts on converting knowledge to action you can start doing immediately.

1. Develop the habit of being action oriented. Don’t think about finishing the project or getting the degree, finish the project and get the degree! Don’t focus on the obstacles, focus on actions.

2. Get creative! Find fun or interesting ways to achieve an important objective. Make a game out of it or offer yourself a nice reward when the project’s finished.

3. Break projects down into tasks that can be completed in a relatively short period of time. You’ll be amazed at what can be done in fifteen to thirty minutes of focused activity.

4. Use worst case scenario thinking to stimulate action. You’ll end up there anyway if you don’t get that important project finished.

5. Do the hard stuff first. Once you get that out of the way, it’s all downhill from there.

6. Use momentum to your advantage. Once you get going on a task, stick with it until it’s finished.

Remember, it’s not what you know that matters, it’s what you DO with what you know that really counts. Success and achievement are about DOING, not DREAMING.

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Posted in 2010 | No Comments »