In the workplace productivity is key for both you and your employees. i encourage you to read through this as it will benefit you and you can also look at it as a teaching tool for your employees. Help them be more productive and break some of their bad habits.
1. Do you become easily distracted?
Have you ever noticed that when you are not being productive that you are really easily distracted…”Squirrel!” This is exactly what I am talking about.
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If you are not careful you will become more and more distracted, until it becomes a bad habit.
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And once you’re stuck in the habit of being distracted (like most), it will be a bad habit.
A bad habit THAT WILL destroy your ability to focus. And make it harder to stay focused for longer periods of time.
Spend more of your time being productive, so it’s impossible to spend the majority of your time being distracted. Simple right?!?!
2. You become a spectator.
Which person do you want to be? Do you want to be the person working on their craft and being productive, or do you want to be the one who is watching TV and eating ice cream all day?
The difference between the two is simple. One is taking action, and the other one is watching the action.
Once you become one of life’s spectators, you will start to become more critical of others around you. It is just the natural flow of life. Do not put yourself in that position, it is not fun.
What? You don’t believe me? Try this. Go on to YouTube and go to a Miley Cyrus video, google her “twerking episode” What are you going to see? You will see 10,000 spectators on there and guess what they are doing? Yup, they are being critical of her in the comments portion of the site.
I will give you another example since it is that time of year. Turn on a World Series game between the crappy NY Mets (I am a Yankee fan myself) and the Royals. You have players on the field and in the dugout. You have a packed stadium with 40K+ fans in the crowd watching the game.
Which one of them becomes critical when one team loses or a player boots a ball on the infield? The spectators!
The same principle applies to your life.
When you stop being productive, you’ll eventually start spectating and paying attention to things you weren’t aware of before!
3. You start to lose focus.
When you’re not doing something meaningful you start to lose focus. Try this little experiment out when you can.
Go to your closest mall. Take a book and sit down right in the middle of the food court. The moment you put your book down your focus will switch to the people and you will begin people watching and listening to their gossip.
And If you were to do that enough, eventually you’ll stop reading your book at the mall altogether.
The same principle applies to anything else you need to focus on. Stay focused more often than you get distracted.
4. You’ll waste time on things that don’t matter.
Have you ever seen people hanging around on street corners before? Doing nothing in particular?
This is the perfect example of the point I’m getting across.
When you’re not productive you waste time on things that don’t even matter. Most of the time.
Like hanging around on street corners, walking up and down town doing nothing important.
Watching the new world news, reading celebrity gossip magazines, scrolling through people’s Facebook pictures and status updates, etc.
That’s a dangerous habit to get into. Respect your time and use it wisely.
5. You become lazy.
Lazy people for the most part are far from productive people.
And the type of lazy I’m talking about is the person who refuses to do anything. Or makes excuses as to why they shouldn’t or don’t need to do it.
When you’re not being productive there’s a chance you’ll become lazy. And once the lazy habit hits you, you’ll find yourself making excuses.
And once you’re stuck in the habit of making excuses, you’ll get NOTHING done. And If you get nothing done, you’ll be more unproductive than you will be productive.
The goal is to not just stay active, but to be productive. Exercise is a good way to get rid of laziness and the feeling of laziness.
If you’re energy is always up, you’ll be more likely to be focused and productive more often.
6. You’ll have nothing to do.
This ties in with number 4. When you have nothing to do with yourself, you have no sense of direction.
By having nothing important left to do, you’ll do anything. And anything usually means distractions, which leads to bad habits.
But the truth is you always have something productive to do.
If your task is to make 100 sales call a day, or create 15 purchase orders and you pass that target, does that mean you’re done? Of course not.
There’s always something productive you could be doing. No matter how much you get done within 24 hours.
So don’t slack, don’t make excuses, don’t justify, and most importantly, stay focused more often than not.
Our consultants at MCDA have other great tips and advise to keep you on the forefront of production and effectiveness. Call us today and we can meet 1 on 1 or with your team to teach them the skills they need to stay productive for you and your business.