Decluttering

Get rid of 25% of your books, tools, sporting equipment and so on.  You'll have fewer things, but you'll use a higher percentage of what's left. For more productivity tips, follow us on Twitter, and sign up for the weekly Productivity Pro newsletter.   … [Read more...]

Delegation: An Extension of Your Hands

"I not only use all the brains I have, but all I can borrow." -- Woodrow Wilson, 28th President of the United States "The best executive is the one who has sense enough to pick good men to do what he wants done, and self-restraint enough to keep from meddling with them while they do it." -- Theodore Roosevelt, 26th President of the United States. Smart leaders soon learn the value of delegating responsibilities and authority to team members. You can try to do it all, but if you do, you'll keel over within a few weeks from sheer exhaustion. Obviously, you need metaphorical hands to extend your reach. You have a staff for a reason. Ideally, each possesses talents, knowledge, and abilities that combine to form the extra hands Mother Nature didn't see fit to give you. That being the case, … [Read more...]

Bridging the Gap Between Good Enough and Great

"As for the genius of innovation, clearly the one percent spark of inspiration is nurtured by a positive culture. But the 99 percent perspiration ingredient comes from employees who love what they do, as well as where they do it, and who invest in that Holy Grail of productivity called 'discretionary effort'." -- Organizational consultants Stephanie Quappe, David Samso Aparici, and Jon Warshawsky. In one of my Organizational Management courses I took while working on my MBA, we watched a series of TV commercials by Amalie Motor Oil, bragging about how its products exceeded all minimum government standards, ending with this tagline: "Better than it has to be—Amalie." I remember being confused: Why were they proud of being just good enough to squeak by? As I gained more experience in the … [Read more...]

Finding More Time to “Do” Leadership

"Effective leadership is not about making speeches or being liked; leadership is defined by results not attributes." —Peter Drucker As a leader, you know how valuable it can be when you consistently, thoughtfully apply good, old-fashioned “leadership.” And yet at one time or another, nearly all of us have looked up to discover that we've let true leadership go by the wayside in the workaday hustle of just getting by. It’s far too easy to get bogged down in the minutiae of the operational piece of your job; in fact, your greatest occupational hazard as a leader is forgetting you manage people, not paperwork. If you find yourself too busy to do your “real” job—or at least inexorably drawn in that direction—then something's askew with your personal productivity. Perhaps it’s time for a … [Read more...]

Every Day, in Every Way: Fostering an Attitude of Continuous Improvement

"He who stops being better stops being good." -- Oliver Cromwell, British soldier and politician. When he was 10, my son Johnny took guitar lessons. Before long, he'd taught himself to play Sweet Home Alabama. I was impressed—and surprised to discover he wasn't interested when his guitar teacher offered to show him how to play it even better. When I asked Johnny why, he just shrugged and told me, "None of my friends play the guitar, so they think it's cool no matter how I play. I figure I'm good enough, so I don't need to work to play it better." This answer rocked me back on my heels a little. I've based my career on helping people continuously improve their productivity, so my dad’s “good enough for government” expression (my dad the retired A.F. Colonel) expression doesn't fly with … [Read more...]

Organizing Your Space

Tackle a single one-hour organizing project each weekend, such as a drawer, shelf, cabinet, closet, or box. Don’t attempt a huge task, such as an entire bedroom. Break it down into manageable bite-sized chunks. When it’s time to begin, don’t just dump everything out on the floor. You’ll run out of time and steam and shove everything back in, only to be more disorganized than before. Instead, get five sturdy boxes. The Put Away box contains items that are out of place and go somewhere else. The Give Away box is for items that are in good repair that you no longer want or use to give to charity or sell. Use the Store Away box for items that are going to be used again in a reasonable amount of time but not regularly. The Toss box contains items that are broken, old, worn, or in bad … [Read more...]

Encouraging Productive Team Behavior

"In motivating people, you've got to engage their minds and their hearts. I motivate people, I hope, by example—and perhaps by excitement, by having productive ideas to make others feel involved." -- Rupert Murdock, Australian-American media mogul. "Productive achievement is a consequence and an expression of health and self-esteem, not its cause." -- Nathaniel Branden, Canadian psychotherapist and author. One of the best things about being a leader is being responsible for the productivity of an entire team. That's also one of the scariest things about being a leader. Your team's accomplishments (or lack thereof) reflect upon you, so you have to run a tight team. Now, that doesn't mean you have to channel a military commander. My father, a retired U.S. Air Force colonel, taught me that … [Read more...]

Think Beyond Your Desk: Applying Cross-Functional Thinking to the Workplace

"No one can whistle a symphony. It takes an orchestra to play it." -- H.E. Luccock, former Professor of Homiletics at Yale Divinity School. In 1988, the great Peter Drucker predicted in a famous article, "The Coming of the New Organization," that most organizations would have embraced cross-functionality within 20 years. In contrast to the purely functional ethic defined by Adam Smith and Frederick Taylor, businesses would more readily coordinate and share tasks across all levels, increasing response time for the customer's benefit. As visionary as he was, Drucker missed the boat here. While most business schools do emphasize the cross-functional approach nowadays, relatively few real-world organizations practice it in any significant way. Indeed, corporate training often teaches the … [Read more...]

Get Away From It All to Improve Your Productivity

  Want to know a sure way to improve your productivity? Take a vacation! Working non-stop without breaks is counterproductive, as is focusing on work to the exclusion of family, friends, and fun. Some people claim to be so swamped they don't have time for a break— not for vacation, not for a social life, not for anything. I am severely unimpressed by people who brag about the long hours they put in each week. All this tells me is they're not managing their time well. You have to figure out how to get the results your job requires, leave the office on time, and get home to your life. If you're working too many hours, perhaps you're not delegating properly…or you haven't hired enough people…or you don't trust your assistant…or you haven't learned to use your email program … [Read more...]

Lead, Then Get Out of the Way: How a Good Manager Makes Life Easier for the Team

"A good manager is a man who isn't worried about his own career but rather the careers of those who work for him." -- H.S.M. Burns, former President of Shell Oil. "One of the most important tasks of a manager is to eliminate his people's excuses for failure." -- Robert M. Townsend, American economist. From a productivity perspective, one can describe a workplace team using the metaphor of a precision machine. Team members are interlocking parts, which while they vary in significance, all require the others for the engine to function effectively. As in a car, alone and disengaged, the individual parts aren't good for much. As team leader, you play several crucial roles here: a) MECHANIC. You keep the productivity engine in good repair and provide the lubrication it needs to purr like a … [Read more...]