Last updated 16 December 2022 ·
Every day, we all have 86,400 seconds to be productive and achieve something great in our lives, careers or business.
So, how can some people produce more or better results?
Are you the type who says they constantly don’t have enough time?
The great thing about time is that everyone (and I mean everyone) gets the same amount every single day. Wouldn’t it be great to get more done and be ultra productive in the time you have?
Action One
Take a look at your diary for the next week or two; how far ahead is yours completed? Better results often come with better planning, so it’s a good idea to plan your time and key focus areas in detail for the next week or two. Consider your overall vision, objectives and key results, and plan how you will spend your time achieving those. Start small to avoid overwhelm and ask yourself what work you will focus on each day or even each part of each day to bring you closer to achieving your goals.
Block out time in your diary to work on those things for the next week or two, if possible, and then review the results at the end of that fortnight. You’ll be surprised by how much more productive you have been.
Action Two
How often do you check your email throughout each day? I checked mine constantly… until I realised this was not productive!
Did you know that every athlete who competes in the Olympics has a success routine fully embedded into their daily life, specifically designed to enable them to perform at their absolute best before they complete their event? There is a good reason for this - they’ve worked out the best routine to produce the best result. We need to do this in business.
So, the action here is to design a success routine for yourself, considering when you are naturally most productive, when ideas flow more easily, when you can concentrate best, even down to what time you go to bed at night and wake up in the morning. Schedule specific times to check your emails at three intervals per day. Allocate a few minutes at the start and end of each day to plan and reflect to ensure you have momentum and are on track to move forward and achieve great results.
Action Three
Identifying your main tasks and areas of focus is key to making the most of your time available each day. Sure, meetings happen, but it’s what you do on either side of those that makes the difference.
Each day I set three Very Important Tasks (VITs). I absolutely must do these things to move further towards my vision in some way or another.
The action here is to set yourself three VITs per day for one week and see how much more you achieve. Be sure to allow these top priorities over checking email and social media!
By now, you will be:
- Planning your time and blocking out sections within your diary at least one week in advance to improve your weekly productivity
- Checking email a maximum of three times per day at predefined intervals
- Identifying three VITs to complete each day before you open your email or social media apps.
Final thought
Author and motivational speaker Jim Rohn put it this way “either run the day or the day runs you.” If you fall victim to this, you need to flip things around. Check out our blog offering Five ways to focus your time better.
Setting OKRs involves a clear, inspirational vision, mission-critical objectives and measurable key results that will help you plan where you want to get to, what you need to focus on to get there and how you will achieve those. Planning your time to work on all that will come naturally once you gain clarity and commit to the process.
To learn more about achieving productivity, efficiency and effectiveness in the workplace, check out our guide offering ten tips to turbocharge your growth here.
If you want further guidance on writing OKRs for the different levels within your business, download our OKR Builder™ today! It includes step-by-step advice on how to write compelling OKRs that cascade seamlessly throughout all levels of a business.
