The Motivated Coworker: How to Increase Team Productivity Even When You’re Not the Team Leader

The Motivated Coworker: How to Increase Team Productivity Even When You're Not the Team Leader by Laura Stack #productivity

“People often say that motivation doesn't last. Well, neither does bathing - that's why we recommend it daily.”—Zig Ziglar, American motivational speaker and author. Active, participative teamwork has become crucial to the modern business environment. Gone are the days when one person could anchor a team by doing everything well—or doing everything, period. Even superstar athletes like Labron James and Sidney Crosby depend on the talents and hard work of their teammates to excel. Modern business is too complex to know or do it all; this has necessarily led to specialization. We need capable people in multiple slots to accomplish specific business goals, no matter how narrow those goals—especially in this era of business agility. Ideally, your supervisor would tie you all together … [Read more...]

Increasing Productivity at Work: A Modest Survey

Increasing Productivity at Work: A Modest Survey by Laura Stack #productivity

"Without continual growth and progress, such words as improvement, achievement, and success have no meaning." —Benjamin Franklin, U.S. Founding Father. Someone once told me, "This world would be a nice place if it weren't for all the people." He meant it humorously, but the statement stuck with me because of the grain of truth at its core. While we tend to work best as parts of teams, we also get annoyed with people who get in our way or won't listen to us. It's so much easier to take charge and just lay down the law than to compromise, but for most of us, that's not an option. In a recent survey, I asked my newsletter readers, "If you were going to increase your productivity at work, what would need to happen?" Although some admitted they needed to improve their work skills, a full … [Read more...]

Increasing Productivity: Great Personal Productivity Podcasts

" Remember self-help tapes? You used to throw them into your car [stereo] or Walkman when you were going on a lengthy trip so you could 'grow on the go' and hope to return home all the better for it... Well, podcasts that discuss various aspects of productivity very well could be the evolution of those self-help tapes." -- Mike Vardy, Stepcase Lifehack. "Productivity is never an accident. It is always the result of a commitment to excellence, intelligent planning, and focused effort." -- Paul J. Meyer, American motivational speaker. "None of the world's problems will have a solution until the world's individuals become thoroughly self-educated." -- R. Buckminster Fuller, American author, designer, and inventor. From a productivity standpoint, the relentless march of technology allows … [Read more...]

Increasing Productivity: Telecommuting and Your Family and Friends

In this month's newsletter article, Telecommuting: Creating a Productive Home Working Environment, I discussed some ways of keeping your home office productive. Here are a few more thoughts I'd like to share. Although telecommuting has many advantages, it does have its challenges. One of the greatest lies in getting your family, friends, and neighbors to take your work habits seriously. They may (at least subconsciously) assume that just because you're home all day, you're not really working—and so you can do anything for them at any time. Allowing them to continue to think this way will play havoc with your personal productivity, so nip such tendencies in the bud right away. Let's look at friends and neighbors first. While some may respect your work schedule, others won't think twice … [Read more...]

A Fun Little Tool for Increasing Productivity

It's frustrating to want to print from a website when the formatting doesn't work. It's inefficient to try to copy and paste into another document to print. I found a useful little tool on the web that makes it easy to print from websites, so I wanted to share it with all of you! Check out PrintFriendly when you need to print from a website. It allows you to see a preview of how your printed page would look, and also allows you to print as a PDF. Just enter in the url you want to print from:               Click "Print Preview" to see what your page will look like, then select Print or PDF and you're all set!                   Increases efficiency, saves ink, and saves time. Very … [Read more...]

Increasing Productivity: HR’s Strategic Role in Improving Workforce Productivity

Please join me on August 31 for a special audio conference through the Workplace Training Center. The topic is HR’s Strategic Role in Improving Workforce Productivity: Working with Your Managers to Create High-Performing Employees Employees are expected to be competent. But the really successful employees are SUPER competent—the ones that companies fight to get, fight to keep, nurture and develop, and see as future leaders in their business growth. How do you know who the “A” players are? HR professionals are in a unique position to work with managers to identify productive employees and help them become even greater performers. Using a model that assesses engagement and performance of each employee, HR professionals can work with managers on improving individual employee … [Read more...]

Productivity Minute Video: Refusing Can Free Up Time

Laura Stack, The Productivity Pro(R), talks about saying "no" so that you have more time. (C) 2011 Laura Stack. All Rights Reserved. https://theproductivitypro.com … [Read more...]

Increasing Productivity: Productivity Minute Video: Create a Process to Simplify the Task

Laura Stack, The Productivity Pro(R), shares tips on increasing efficiency by creating processes in order to simplify tasks. (C) 2010 Laura Stack, All Rights Reserved … [Read more...]

Increasing Productivity: Five Things to Do at Work Every Day to Boost Productivity

"Productivity is never an accident. It is always the result of a commitment to excellence, intelligent planning, and focused effort." -- Paul J. Meyer, American businessman "There are a million ways to lose a work day, but not even a single way to get one back." -- Tom DeMarco and Timothy Lister, authors of Peopleware. "Putting off an easy thing makes it hard. Putting off a hard thing makes it impossible." George Claude Lorimer, American pastor Are you working at your maximum level of productivity? That's a question some people don't like to hear; they get all prickly if you even suggest that they're doing less than their best at all times. But as a productivity expert, I know how easy it is to get overwhelmed by minutiae. It happens to the best of us. I imagine you've probably … [Read more...]

Productivity Minute Video: Increasing Productivity: Complete the Task in Less Time

Laura Stack, The Productivity Pro(R) gives advice on finishing tasks quickly. (C) 2011 Laura Stack. All Rights Reserved https://theproductivitypro.com … [Read more...]