Productivity Keynote Speaker Leadership, Sales, & Team Productivity Expert
Maximum Results. Minimum Time.®
303-471-7401

You are here: Home / Archives for Performance / Business Productivity

Productive Travel: Tips for Business Travelers

Posted on 03/15/2012 by ·

Too often, business travelers use their trips as opportunities to rest up for the next bit of work. However, it pays to shift your mindset. The savvy worker never wastes travel or hotel time. You should always be willing to make good, productive use of those periods that most travelers would consider "lost hours," because doing so offers a unique opportunity to get work done with few distractions or interruptions. In this article, I'll outline a few simple things that you can do to maximize your business productivity while you're on the road. Plan Efficiently Spontaneity can be fun, but save it for vacation time. Before you ever set foot outside your home, it's best to make certain that every step of your trip is mapped out (doubly important for international travel). Start well in … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Business Productivity · Tagged:

Workplace Productivity Ruts

Posted on 02/23/2012 by ·

Determined to jump out of a workplace productivity rut? Don't forget to reconnect with your Muse. Now, the hardnosed businessperson in you might view such a statement with a bit of suspicion. What, you may ask, does "a Muse" have to do with revitalizing your productivity at work? Well...everything, really. Your Muse represents, collectively, all those things that drive your creativity. While you can be productive for a while without any real inspiration, the lack can eventually wear you down into a rut where you're content to maintain no better than minimum standards. Work becomes boring and pointless...and there goes your productivity. When you feel the walls closing in, stop and think about why you work in the first place. Ultimately, what do you intend to achieve? Go back and review … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Business Productivity · Tagged:

Delegation and Workplace Productivity in the Global Village

Posted on 01/25/2012 by ·
Delegation and Workplace Productivity in the Global Village

Modern job descriptions, especially those at the managerial level, often specify more responsibilities than anyone can accomplish within an ordinary workweek. This may seem ludicrous at first blush, but it reflects the reality of the business world as it exists today. No one really expects upper-level managers to directly handle all their responsibilities; nor could they. Trying to do so would wreck their lives inside of a week. It’s called "management" for a reason. True achievers know to parcel out most of the items on their plate to subordinates or even to people outside of their organization, before focusing on the few things they do best that profit the company the most and produce the highest value for the time worked. In other words, leaders delegate like crazy to those who can … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Business Productivity · Tagged: , ,

Time Management Skills: Group Productivity Issues

Posted on 01/05/2012 by ·

Time management training tends to focus on individual workplace productivity; and while that's all well and good, most of us actually work within team environments. It's not a good idea, therefore, to just ignore the productivity issues affecting your coworkers. Your team workflow process can't function smoothly if the individual parts are broken. Raising awareness of group productivity issues requires little more than circulating an informal survey among your teammates, and then distributing the results. Simply ask something like, "What are your X biggest time management challenges?" You can make "X" any number you like, depending on how much time and resources you have to dedicate to the issue. Needless to say, your team's manager bears the ultimate responsibility for maintaining an … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Business Productivity · Tagged:

Increasing Productivity:How Reflective Thinking Impacts Workplace Productivity

Posted on 12/23/2011 by ·

"Reflective thinking requires the continual evaluation of beliefs, assumptions, and hypotheses against existing data and against other plausible interpretations of the data." -- John Dewey, American educator. "Reflective thinking turns experience into insight." -- John C. Maxwell, American author and leadership guru. "By three methods we may learn wisdom: first, by reflection, which is noblest; second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third, by experience, which is the most bitter." -- Confucius, ancient Chinese philosopher. As a savvy SuperCompetent, I suspect you take a few moments occasionally to examine your workflow process, carefully considering what works and what doesn't so you can maximize your productivity going forward. Psychologists call this process "reflective … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Business Productivity · Tagged:

Increasing Productivity: Great Personal Productivity Podcasts

Posted on 12/12/2011 by ·

" 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...]

Filed Under: Business Productivity, Tools & Systems · Tagged:

Email Productivity

Posted on 09/21/2011 by ·

I'm curious to know how often you check your email each day. Please vote in my poll: http://linkd.in/nTAJVK. Please comment; I'd love to hear your thoughts on the impact email has on your daily productivity. … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Business Productivity, Tools & Systems · Tagged: ,

The Implications of Declining Productivity

Posted on 09/06/2011 by ·

"If demand remains weak, there’s a danger that businesses may try to boost productivity by cutting jobs." -- Paul Dales, American economist, regarding the recent 2011 Q2 productivity drop. "Nowadays, business is all about productivity—and our folks produce." -- Senator John Hoeven, former governor of North Dakota. "[If] you don't have a very motivated working class, it starts to affect the dynamics of the economy. If workers are disenchanted and disenfranchised, productivity losses will go along with that." -- James Sinegal, American businessman, founder and CEO of Costco. From a business perspective, productivity is defined as the rate at which goods or services are produced per unit of labor. It's an important measure of corporate success, and, on a wider scale, a primary metric of … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Business Productivity ·

Should You Try to Learn from Failure…Or Just Forget It?

Posted on 08/29/2011 by ·

"If at first you don't succeed, try, try again." -- Traditional saying. "The better a man is, the more mistakes he will make, for the more new things he will try. I would never promote to a top-level job a man who was not making mistakes... otherwise he is sure to be mediocre." -- Peter Drucker, Austrian management consultant and social ecologist. "Remember, you only have to succeed the last time." -- Brian Tracy, Canadian self-help guru. In the modern business world, failure is often made out to be something glorious, a virtue that almost inevitably leads to success in the long run. Oft-cited examples include Edison's 1,000+ unsuccessful attempts to invent the light bulb before hitting on the right solution, and Bill Gates' unsuccessful first computer business. We're told, again and … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Business Productivity · Tagged:

Organizational Skills: How to Process Email and Deal With Information Overload

Posted on 08/24/2011 by ·

        I was reading an article in Information Week appropriately titled, “Eaten by the Email Monster.” http://www.informationweek.com/blog/main/archives/2006/08/eaten_by_the_em.html It links to several useful articles on how to handle information overload. I thought I’d add my thoughts on how to efficiently process email: the 6-D Information Management System™: 1. DISCARD = Delete it 2. DELEGATE = Forward it 3. DO = Reply immediately if it will take you three minutes or less 4. DATE = Needs work but not now. The key is to somehow get it out of your in-box. Pick one favorite method and try to be consistent, so you don’t confuse your brain about what you did with that email. Options: * Move to a process folder called “Action” or something similar. * … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Business Productivity, Tools & Systems · Tagged: ,