“How can I be more productive?”
It’s a question our clients ask us frequently. With so much pressure on all of us to achieve so much in what seems like so very little time, it’s not surprising that business owners want a simple ‘how-to’ solution.
The thing is – your productivity can improve. But you won’t find the secret in someone else’s list of ‘Top 10 Productivity Hacks’. Because those hacks only address your superficial symptoms and not what’s at the root of your unproductiveness.
You can do anything, but not everything. – David Allen
Getting more productive means doing more of ‘what’s important’, and less rabbit-chasing ‘what’s urgent’ down sidetrack alley.
But how do you know the difference?
Know EXACTLY what it is you want your life to look like.
And that’s the moment our productivity unravels. Because most of us do not have a clear picture of what we truly want.
You get in to the office and the moment you walk through the door, your phone rings or a team member’s wanting to talk to you about something or an email comes in that completely scuppers what you had planned to do that day./p>
You started the day with a perfectly logical plan and yet, somehow, you were no further along that plan at the end of the day than you were at the beginning.
How is it that this scenario plays out day after day in business upon business?
It plays out because:
If you have no idea what you want from your personal and your professional life then you have no way of determining what’s urgent or what’s important.
For most business owners, their future life goals are vague ideas of ‘freedom’, ‘happy’, ‘successful’, ‘more money’, and ‘more time’. Yes, those are lovely notions. But the question is – what do they actually mean to you?
For example, how do you know when you’ve achieved ‘more money’?
Knowing what you want is one thing, but really digging in to WHY that’s important to you, that’s where you really find the clarity that drives you to do whatever is necessary to achieve it.
The process we take our clients through in our Leader of Business Accelerated program uncovers our clients deepest drivers for success and a desired lifestyle that they’re actually willing to do whatever it takes to achieve.
Ok, so technically, this is a multi-step step. But they’re like chocolate, strawberries and cream (or coconut cream if you’re lactose intolerant) – good on their own, but amazing together.
If you know what you’re really working to achieve, then it’s easy enough to reverse engineer a mud map to get you there.
For example, let’s say one of your goals is to create a particular lifestyle for yourself and your loved ones.
Now you know exactly how big your business has to be to create the necessary profit in order to create the lifestyle you desire.
How simple it would be to reverse-engineer a plan to achieve that specific goal. How easy it would be to action those steps.
How effortlessly more productive we’d be.
Now, rinse and repeat this process for every area of your life – Relationships, Family, Community, Health, Personal Development, Spirituality, Finance, etc.
Notice how we don’t call it a “To-Do” List? That’s because you have to think of your days in terms of OUTCOMES not activity. If your ‘to-achieve’ list is still a hundred deep, that’s evidence you don’t have a crystal clear vision of what you’re trying to achieve. (Go back and repeat Non-Hack #1)
When you know exactly what you want, and have written down how you’re going to achieve it, you’re not going to waste your precious time with distractions and shiny objects. And if you do have ‘urgent’ stuff on your list because you’re the only one who can take care of it, then at least you know where you need to start finding solutions.
We are driven to support small business owners achieve the lives of their dreams. With over 15 years experience in business coaching, there’s nothing that we’re more passionate about. We want you to have an amazing 2020FY which means helping you uncover what’s holding you back from achieved the business and the life you’ve always wanted.
We’ve got 7 spaces left in October / November to help 7 business owners uncover their deepest drivers for success and create a plan for their business that will actually get them there.
Contact us and Rebecca will be in touch to within 1 business day to help you build a 2-Point Plan you can action immediately in your business.
What does it take to actually remove yourself from the day-to-day grind of business? Learn from our panel of Business Owners who've Been There, Done That.
