Are you as productive as you need to be to achieve your goals?
Here’s the unvarnished truth: If you’re not focused on productivity, you’re never going to 10X.
To be clear, I’m not talking about being busy for the sake of being busy. I’m talking about the completion of incremental goals that ultimately lead to you achieving your overarching goals.
In order to do this, you need to have and maintain a certain mindset that all successful people, to some degree or another, tend to share when it comes to how they spend their time. In concept, this mindset is fairly simple. But, in discipline, well, this is where things can get more difficult.
Take it from me, because I’ve spent decades focusing on how I spend my time in order to make decisions in my life and for my businesses that are clear, efficient, and impactful. Watch out for these five habits that might be holding you back from achieving your goals…
Not having a work routine
Being your own boss is great.
You get to make your schedule, often work where and when you want to, and you possess a level of autonomy that few others can experience…
However, if you’re rudderless in how you spend your time, then you’re never going to get anywhere. Being your own boss requires you to have an extraordinary level of discipline. You need to be very intentional in how you map out your day. Everything becomes a habit.
So make sure your routine is a good one.
Multitasking
Back in the 1960s, IBM first coined the term “multitasking.” It was in reference to one of their computer systems, and was revolutionary for its time.
Somewhere along the way, the same concept was applied to the way that people work, and for a period of time, multitasking as a professional was a celebrated concept.
However, people aren’t very good at multitasking. In fact, we’re terrible at it, and the quality of our work suffers when we try to multitask.
You’re never really doing multiple tasks at once. You’re really just giving partial attention to many things. If you want to deliver the best of yourself in all that you do, then you need to reject the concept of multitasking.
Not removing distractions
Think about how many distractions you willingly invite into your life on a minute-by-minute basis. Social media, texting, podcasts, and all sorts of other distractions. If you’re working on an important project, then you need to give yourself the space to focus on and immerse yourself into whatever it is that you’re doing.
Responding to that text can wait. Checking your notifications, too.
Schedule time in your day to check email and respond to messages. This will make your day more focused and the quality of your work will increase.
Having a giant to-do list
We all have massive to-do lists. That’s not unusual. What is unusual is being realistic about how many hours there are in a day.
You can only do so much.
Look over your list — add as many things to it as you want to — but when you’re reviewing it, identify the 1 to 5 most impactful tasks and focus on completing those.
You’ll often find that this strategy gets you further faster (and feeling more accomplished!) than getting lost in the minutiae of endless to-dos ever could.
Being indecisive
Not only is being indecisive a productivity killer, but it’s a sign of poor leadership. And listen, I get it, it’s hard to be the one responsible for everything and everyone at the end of the day, but this is the path you chose, and learning how to make good decisions is how you’ll get further down that path.
If you’re feeling unsure at the moment, then you need to quietly reflect on the pros and cons of the situation, examine the outcomes of both scenarios, and make the best decision you can at the moment.
And if you’re wrong? Well, that’s part of the process, too.
Use these moments as the learning opportunities that they are instead of letting a bad or wrong decision send you into a negative state of mind. People are looking to you for your leadership. This is how you show them.
Learn from the experts who’ve scaled up hundreds of SUCCESSFUL companies. I want to help YOU do it too. Register NOW for our next 10X360 event!
Recent Comments