14 WAYS TO BE

AMAZINGLYPRODUCTIVE

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Perhaps you feel like you are spinning your wheels and still not be making much progress in your work and life.

Do you find it difficult to catch up with your work and be productive on a consistent basis?

At the end of the day, do you feel GREAT

or you feel like a DAY has SLIPPED by?

THE NEW

PRODUCTIVITY=MORE AWESOME+ MORE INTERESTING+ MORE PLAY

+ MORE HAPPINESS+PURPOSE

Imagine BEING excited, INSPIRED and engaged

in doing and going ABOUT YOUR DAY!

MAKE WORK MORE ENGAGING!Here are a few ideas that you might find useful:

1. Figure Out Your “Why”: Intentional Productivity and Understanding Who You Are and What Makes you Tick

“By why what I mean is what’s your purp3e, what’s your cause, what’s your belief? Why does your organ4ation 5ist? Why do you get out of bed every morning and why should anyone care?”- Simon Sinek, Author of Start with Why

Did you ever in the middle of many lattes and lists have an epiphany of slowing down and asking the question “why?”

Why are you doing what you are doing?

I call this Intentional Productivity.

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WHAT MAKES YOU TICK? WHAT MAKES

YOU EXCITED? INSPIRED?

TASKS THAT MAKE YOU FEEL

INSPIRED=

GREAT PRODUCTIVITY AND GREAT FEELING

In his TED talk, author and speaker Simon Sinek speaks about the golden circle theory. Sinek’s theory consists of 3 concentric circles with the innerm3t circle being the “why” and su6equently followed by “how” and “what.” 

Sinek explains that most organizations know “what” they do and “how” they do it but very few can clearly explain “why” they do what they do. The “why” question is the purpose question.

WHY?

Sinek explains that The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said “I believe” and he gave the “I have a dream” speech and not the “I have a plan” speech and connected with the similar beliefs of many others.

“I have a dream” and “I believe” are “why” questions and “I have a plan” is a “what” question.

According to Sinek, companies like Apple have a very deep sense of understanding of their “why” question.

Action Tips:Make productivity intentional by understanding what makes you tick: your skills, strengths and passion: “why” you do what you are doing.

YOUR PASSIONS+SKILLS+YOUR “WHY” +HIGHER PURPOSE+GREAT VALUE TO OTHERS = INSPIRED PRODUCTIVITY

2. Mini Power-Lists

ARE YOU OVERWHELMED BY

BIG LISTS?

Take your tasks and make a small power list of 3 to 5 items that you need to get done today.

Complete the items on the power list one after one and check them off.

What are the projects and the tasks that need attention and priority today?

DO LESS, ENJOY MORE!

3. Overcome Analysis-paralysis by Restricting Unlimited Choice and Allowing a Time Frame for Action

Even if you’re on the right track, you’ll get run over if you just sit there- Will Rogers

DO YOU HAVE

ANALYSIS PARALYSIS?

RESEARCH done by Dr. Barry Schwartz explains that too much CHOICE =LESS HAPPINESS AND MORE

PARALYSIS.

Opportunity cost or the cost of not choosing one choice with an unique set of benefits over another can significantly reduce our happiness levels.

Also, having too much choice skyrockets

our expectations and produces less satisfaction with making the one choice. 

Action Tips:Be decisive!

SOME CHOICE=GOODMORE CHOICE= NOT BETTER!

Restrict your choices and set up a time frame for you to analyze and make a firm decision.

4. The Lean Startup Productivity Lessons: Stop Spinning Your Wheels and Take a New Approach

In his wonderful book, The Lean Startup, author Eric Ries describes the Lean Startup process =

BUILD, MEASURE, LEARN.

According to Ries, many startups fail because they take too long to launch a product that nobody ends up wanting.

= A quick launch or BUILD

+Measurement of results or MEASURE

+Learning from the data or LEARN

The Lean Startup Method

A8er this process, Ries describes that you can either persevere or pivot. If it is working you persevere and move ahead and if it is not, you pivot and do something different.

HOW CAN WE APPLY LESSONS FROM THE LEANSTARTUP TO OUR PRODUCTIVITY?

Launch QUICKLY 

TEST it out, MEASURE AND GATHER FEEDBACK

Based on the feedback, you LEARN and then decide to make changes or go all out with what you have.

Imagine the productivity boost you will receive if you were an

ADAPTIVE learner and took quick action and were unafraid of metrics and feedback.

Taking advantage of feedback to pivot or persevere gives you a tremendous productivity boost. 

Action Tips:Take quick actions towards your initial prototype.

Measure what you have accomplished by actual feedback from peers or customers.

Pivot and change or persevere and move

forward. ADAPTIVE LEARNING=MORE

PRODUCTIVITY

5. Bust Through the Common Assumptions and Beliefs That Do Not Serve You

“If you want something new, you have to stop doing something old”― Peter

F. Drucker

WE SEE LIFE THROUGH OUR FILTERS OF PERCEPTION AND BELIEF!

OUR BELIEFS AND PERCEPTIONS CAN TUNNEL VISION OUR THINKING!

DO YOU HAVE PRE-CONCEIVED IDEAS ABOUT PRODUCTIVITY?TASK IS EASY OR DIFFICULT...

ENEMIES OF HAPPY PRODUCTIVITY= Fear, Doubt, Overwhelm, Procrastination and a Lack of confidence.

TAKE charge of your thinking process, your emotions, your beliefs, behavior and address a lack of inspired action= You can be highly productive!

LAUNCH UNINHIBITED and UNLEASH THE

POWER OF ACTION TO BECOME HAPPILYPRODUCTIVE!

Action TipsBecome aware of assumptions and beliefs that you have prevented you to be happily productive.

Take charge of your thinking, emotions, behavior and action power.

By developing more inner-vibrance and by addressing fear, doubt, overwhelm and self-confidence, you open the field for happy and amazing productivity.

6. The Art of Creative Productivity

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In an engaging and short TED talk, Derek Sivers says that the opposite of what we think might also be true somewhere else. The example he gives is that streets have names and city blocks do not in the US while in Japan, streets do not have names but blocks do.

If you limit yourself by thinking in one particular way, you may benefit by thinking of the opp3ite and holding the seeming opp3ites together may assist you in creative productivity.

Creative Productivity= doing things in a new and novel way and creating value for others.

Connect and combine different ideas and allow them to collide in your mind, m: and match and create something novel from the combinations.

BE open to your creativity= you have the potential of creating something innovative.

7. Manage Energy, And Not Just Time

MANAGING ENERGY IS VITAL FOR HAPPY PRODUCTIVITY!

Happy Productivity=Manage your energy

byworking out, eating right, staying hydrated and feeling great

Understand your natural rhythm and cycle for optimal productivity.

When DO you have high energy and when you are able to work your best? What are some of the habits and processes that allow you to be productive?

“We’re trying to push the boundaries of the workplace.” Google spokesman, Jordan Newman

8. Creatively Productive work spaces

What does your work space look like? Does it

reflect who you are or does it make you feel like something is amiss?

Habitat or environment plays a big role in inspired productivity.

In some of the most highly productive and Innovative companies, work spaces have been recognized to be vital for the continued creative and inspired productivity of the organization.

The philosophy at Google is collaboration and innovation and their work spaces reflect that aspect of the company ideology. They make it very easy to talk and cross pollinate ideas.

In the highly innovative company IDEO, workspaces are designed to collaborate, improvise, build, and iterate.

In IDEO, There are carts with materials and objects to quickly prototype an idea, whiteboards and stick-it notes everywhere to engage in innovative brain storming.

Action Tips:What does your workspace look like? Does it reflect your personality and allow you to be effortlessly productive?

Take a few moments to reorganize your work space, declutter or add elements that inspire your productivity.

Pay attention to various elements of your workspace such as color, tools, music and clutter. Do the various elements inspire you to be happily productive?

What does your productivity structure look like? Do you begin working and continue working for 5tended periods of time without taking breaks and small interruptions?

9. Increase Productivity by Scheduling and Taking short Breaks

The study indicates that taking short breaks or brief diversions from a task increases focus and hence the productivity of a task.

A recent study in the journal Cognition at the University of Illinois at Urbana Campaign by Lleras and Ariga attempts to answer the question whether breaks are essential or detrimental for keeping us focused on a task.

Action Tips:You increase focus and productivity by taking short breaks or brief diversions.

Work intensely for a certain period of time and then take a very short break, move around and divert your attention away from your work before getting back.

10. Take a walking meeting: productive change of surroundings

Changing surroundings=MORE productivity?

In Persuasion expert, Dr. B J Fogg’s tiny habits program, change of habits is facilitated by tiny actions and a change of context or environment.

Changing the context or surrounding is a great way to inspire creative productivity and infuse your work with much required fresh air.

I believe that changing the environment is a wonderful way to inspire and supercharge your productivity.

IDEO uses this principle continuously. Workspaces CHANGE and environments are remodeled to stimulate innovation.

In Business Innovator Nilofer Merchant’s TED talk, she suggests that the next time you have a one-on-one meeting, make it a walking meeting and allow the ideas to flow as you walk

WALKING MEETINGS= GREAT FOR HEALTH + GREAT FOR PRODUCTIVITY

Are you so invested in the outcome that you are unable to focus on doing other projects and tasks?

Ancient wisdom teaches us that we should not hesitate to take action, do our very best work and then relinquish our attachment to the work.

11. Detach yourself from the outcome, allow different versions of the answer

SOW THE SEEDS AND TAKE OF YOUR FIELD AND THEN STOP OBSESSING ABOUT THE OUTCOME!

LESS WORRY= MORE GREAT WORK= MORE PRODUCTIVITY

In tibetan custom, elaborate mandalas or multicolor designs are made painstakingly for many days with colored sand. The final product is astonishing. However, after they have been completed, they are destroyed to depict the impermanence of life and the detachment that we need to bring to life.

Action Tips:Worry less and do more.

Become detached to the outcome of your work and spend the mental energy on another project

Focus your time and attention on what you can do, improve and improvise.

Let go of obsessing over the outcome of a project. Instead focus on making your work more amazing from feedback.

If we engage in other distractions so frequently that we are unable to focus on creative productivity, it may be time to reduce the distractions.

12. Eliminate or minimize Excessive distractions

Unitasking can be mindful, engaging, inspiring and highly satisfying.

You may have entered into that amazing state of flow at some point in your life.

According to Professor Mihaly Csik;entmihalyi from his wonder<l book Flow:“Attention is like energy in that without it no work can be done, and in doing work is dissipated. We create ourselves by how we use this energy. Memories, thoughts and feelings are all shaped by how we use it. And it is an energy under control, to do with as we please; hence attention is our m3t important tool in the task of improving the quality of 5perience.”

Professor Csikszentmihalyi’s research suggests that doing what you like to do, developing high skill level, working at a high difficulty level or with challenges and being completely involved or focused causes the flow experience in our work.

Flow states are intrinsically motivating because of the happiness and contentment generated and can inspire us towards great and meaningful productivity.

Action Tips: Attempt to do tasks that you like to do and believe that you can do and eliminate excessive distractions in order to focus and unitask.

Work on increasing skill level and take on challenges that make you practice at the edge of your ability to facilitate a deeply satisfying feeling of flow.

Increase the incidence of such flow events to intrinsically inspire your productivity.

Productivity is a process that needs a structure with different elements and pieces that fit together.

Framework:  What habits do you have in place that support your productivity?

13. Productivity fostering Habits and Tools

Do you have the right tools to be optimally productive?

14. Engagement

One of the most important elements towards happy and inspired productivity is the level of engagement that you are able and willing to bring to the table.

Are you willing to give it all you have and willing to go the extra mile to get the work done or are you going to quit and become demoralized at the first signs of failure?

DO not allow FAILURE to crush you.

If you are willing to engage the problem with enthusiasm, if you are not caught up with the perceptions and assumptions and perceived shame associated with failure,

you give wings to your engagement and super-charge your

productivity.

Action Tips:Bring enthusiasm to your work and be willing to engage the problem.

The level of inspired engagement that you are able to bring determines your ability to succeed through failure.

Do not allow failure to crush you. Instead change the meaning that you give failure and turn up the volume of enthusiasm and inspired engagement.

SUMMARY1. Make productivity intentional by understanding what makes you tick: your skills, strengths and what you love to do and asking “why” you do what you are doing.2. Generate a mini-power list of items that you need to be done today and complete them instead of working with a huge list and getting overwhelmed.  3. Attempt to not get tempted by the lure of unlimited choice. Some choice is great but more choice is not necessarily better. Restrict your choices somewhat and importantly set up a time frame for you to analyze and then to make a firm decision.4. Take quick actions towards your initial prototype.Measure what you have accomplished by actual feedback from peers or customers.Pivot and change or persevere and move forward. In the long-term, your productivity will increase on long-term projects because you are an adaptive learner and action taker.5. Bust through common assumptions and beliefs that are holding you back: Become aware of assumptions and beliefs that you have prevented you to be happily productive. Take charge of your thinking, emotions, behavior and action power.6. Practice creative productivity and allow yourself to look at a problem from different perspectives. Allow your creativity to connect and combine novel ideas and look at opposites to be more creative.7. Manage your energy, not just time: Having high energy levels and feeling great can make you happily productive.8. Productive work spaces: Take a few moments to reorganize your work space, declutter it if needed and add elements that inspire your productivity.9. Increase productivity by scheduling short breaks- work intensely for a certain period of time and then take a very short break, move around and divert your attention away from your work before getting back.10. Take a walking meeting-change your surroundings for amazing productivity.11. Detach yourself from the outcome: worry less, do more. Focus energy on doing great work, not worrying how it will turn out.12. Eliminate or minimize distractions: do what you like to do, reduce distractions, unitask, work on your skills and at a high difficulty level to enter into a highly satisfying and inspiring state of flow.13. Productivity fostering habits and tools: Set up your support structure, establish favorable habits and make sure you have the right tools to foster and increase productivity.14. Engagement: Bring enthusiasm to your work and be willing to engage the problem. The level of engagement, navigation and management through failure will determine your level of happy and inspired productivity.

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