Productivity?
Being productive can apply to all aspects of your life; not just in the workplace. This could mean doing physical activity to improve your health and physique, learning new things to increase your knowledge and skills, or streamlining aspects of your personal life to create more time for other things.
It is getting results with less time and effort. When you’re trying to understand how to be productive, what you’re seeking is a way to achieve your goals while having time to spend on what matters.
What Type of Productivity are you interested in?
There are two types of productivity:
- Workforce productivity: The total amount of goods and services workers produce in a certain period.
- Personal productivity: The relevant output of an individual in a certain period.
You do not control the former but you have 100% control over the latter. Hence, if a person, manager, CEO, leader, wants to improve collective productivity; one must improve personal productivity.
One note on the definition of personal productivity. By relevant output, I mean working on the right things. You can be highly productive and have a lot of output, but the results you achieve might be useless. When you focus on relevant output, you get the right things done. Things that improve your career, business, organization.
Also, it is important to look at productivity over a certain period, preferably monthly. Consistent output is what drives results.