You know those
super-productive people who manage to get more done than the rest of us? These
are their secrets.
Some people just get
stuff done. By the time most are pouring their second cup of joe, these
super-achievers have been to Crossfit, hit inbox zero, and nailed the rough
draft of that report due next week.
How do they do it? Actually, you can, too, says Paul Rulkens,
author of The Power of Preeminence and president of Netherlands-based Agrippa Consulting
International, which works with multinational companies like ExxonMobil and
SABIC.
"High performance
starts with a mind-set that translates into things that you do. Once you've got
the mind-set, you will have the behaviors, and then it will turn into action.
Everyone can become a high performer," Rulkens says. They know these 12
things.
People who are highly
productive have established clear goals and a vision for what they want to
achieve long term. They focus on what matters and realize that "80% of
what you do doesn’t matter," Rulkens says. Instead, they focus on the 20%
that does and apply their efforts there.
Extremely productive
people know that "important and urgent are two different things—many
things are urgent, and that’s usually determined by someone who expects an immediate
answer," says professional organizer Alison Kero, founder of ACK
Organizing. If you get sidetracked by unimportant urgent issues, you spend your
time fighting needless fires instead of getting done what matters.
When some of the smartest people in the world want to be
productive, they attend Robert Pozen’s executive education course, Maximizing
Your Personal Productivity, at MIT. Pozen, who is the author of Extreme Productivity: Boost Your Results, Reduce Your Hours, is himself a highly productive person. He
writes and speaks, teaches courses, and holds a post as a fellow at the
Brookings Institution, among other things.
To stay on track, he
says he is meticulous about planning his to-do items around his appointments
and then setting goals for what he wants to get out of each appointment to
ensure those meetings are worthwhile.
4. THEY KNOW WHERE TO FIND WHAT THEY NEED
WHEN THEY NEED IT
You don’t have to have a
pristine desktop or 27 organization apps, but you do have to have a system that
lets you find the information and files you need when you need them, Pozen
says. He keeps files on each of his courses so he can easily access them and
adds relevant news to each file as he comes across it. That way, he can update
his courses with the most current events.
When you make the more
mundane aspects of life routine, you free up brain power and time, Pozen says.
His days are highly regimented. He usually wakes at the same time and has
simple morning routines. He lays out his clothes the night before. It may sound
boring, but think about how much time is wasted wondering what to wear or have for
breakfast. Reclaim those valuable resources by making them a routine, he says.
Those 10 minutes before
your next meeting or the two hours your flight is delayed can be great news for
your productivity, Pozen says. When you keep a list of things that need to be
done, you can quickly scan it and pick out the actions you can take in the time
you have. Answer a few email messages or return a call in the few minutes
before your next meeting, or start the research for your next project while you
wait for your plane.
Meetings are a necessary evil and can aid productivity when
they’re used wisely. But poorly planned meetings waste precious time, says
business coach Melissa Mizer, founder of the coaching firm MoreSeekers.
Mizer says effective meetings must have five components:
8. THEY DO THE THINGS THEY DON'T WANT TO DO
Sometimes you have to
"eat the frog," Rulkens says. Overcoming procrastination—at least
most of the time—is essential for high performance, he says.
At the heart of
procrastination, you’ll often find one of its root causes: perfectionism. Let
that go, Kero says. It’s not attainable and will just lead to dread when it’s
time to start big or challenging projects. "Your desk doesn't need to look
perfect all the time if you don't want it to, and your proposal doesn't need 10
drafts," she says.
Sometimes you get lost
on the way to the meeting. Sometimes a meeting runs long. Sometimes you just
need some time to think. Highly productive people leave room for all of these
things, Pozen says. When you’re too tightly scheduled, you can end up undermining
your productivity, because if one thing goes wrong, your schedule could be
disrupted for the rest of the day. Give yourself time, which you can always
find a way to spend wisely.
Pozen bristles at the anti-multitasking research of late. Multitasking is essential for productive people, but you
have to choose the activities to pair. You wouldn’t write a paper while driving
a car, but you might check your email or write a note while you’re on a call.
"The tasks should be complementary in the sense that usually, one task is
much more important than the other, and the other one can be done with a
limited amount of energy and diversion," he says.
Think high performers
are the "quitters never win" types? Wrong, says Rulkens. Winners quit
all the time—they’re just more thoughtful about it. Strategic quitting means
ditching the things that you shouldn’t or don’t want to be doing because they
aren’t worth your time, or delegating those things that can be done more cost
effectively or efficiently by someone else. And that does more than free up time.
"I work with
high-performance organizations. Whenever we do a workshop on quitting—what it
is we’re not going to do—you see a lot of energy being released, and that
energy is then focused on new things that really matter," he says.
GWEN MORAN
http://www.fastcompany.com/3057350/how-to-be-a-success-at-everything/12-habits-of-the-most-productive-people?utm_source=mailchimp&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=fast-company-daily-newsletter&position=8&partner=newsletter&campaign_date=03072016
No comments:
Post a Comment