How to increase productivity in life

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​How to improve your life by being more productive, How to increase productivity in business.

Productivity in our life, comes from developing few sets of habits in our mental-emotional-physical process.

Productivity is really a mindset thing. And if you have productive habits, you would be contented in your inner-self, that would lead to everything that we want and need in life, like success, happiness, growth, leadership etc.

Let us first understand what real productivity is

1.You are productive when you are on everyday basis focused on and take actions to develop yourself
2.You are productive when you are focused on excellence rather than perfectionism
3.You are productive when you help develop people around you, your team, your family members
4.Productivity is not about glamorous outcomes, it is rather very slow, it takes time to be seen. Like in if you are applying the lean manufacturing concept of identifying, minimizing or eliminating wastages as a culture, thought process or habit OR if you are focused on 6 sigma concepts of continuous improvement and qualitative outputs – you will find initially actually the productivity parameters dip. But if you drive it for long and can manage to apply in everyday activities, you would find the law of compounding working for you
5.You are productive when you are engaged in the quadrant 2 of urgent-important matrix by most of the time doing those activities, what is important but not urgent
6.You are productive, when you manage to take actions on the most important ones among the important ones
7.You are productive, when you are focused on sustainable, long term impact and not short-term gains
8.You are productive when you have crystal clear priorities of, what you want, and can differentiate between – having focus on End-values rather than means-values
9.You are productive, when you surround yourself with people who are smarter, more knowledgeable, more experienced and more qualified people than yourself
10.You are productive when you can effectively say no can move away from people, who pull you down
11.You are productive when you are balance between the long-term actions towards your passions and the current demand
12.You are productive when you focus on the most important person, that is yourself, by taking very good care of yourself [it is not about being selfish – although it may sound like that to some people]
13.You are productive, when you seek help, when you can't do something
14.You are productive, when you don't hide your mistakes and weaknesses, but identify, accept and work on them to improve yourself emotionally, mentally, physically
15.You are productive, when you have crystal clear values and you stand-up for them
16.You are productive when your balance between planning and implementation and improvising, till you achieve your objectives
17.You are productive, when you take regular breaks and spend time with yourself
18.You are productive when you love yourself unconditionally
19.Real Productivity is about being involved in meaningful, worthwhile activities, while having fun doing them

Improving your life is not about a big leap or one big gesture. Instead, they are small-small incremental improvement, as a matter of nature.

When you are overloaded and overwhelmed with your job responsibilities, your family responsibilities and other obligations, exceptionally few even think about self-improvement, self-development and growth.

Random Productivity Improvement Tips – Many those I use

[Choose, what is easy for you and you can apply and make them the part of your habit]

1.Figure out your two phases of peak energy hours in a day
2.Work in Intervals
3.Instead of thinking, how much you have to do – think – I need to do these What is the best way for me to get everything done and schedule them as per the priorities
4.If you are stressed, ask yourself, what is causing the stress, What needs to change so that I manage this situation better, What can I do to improve this, considering the current circumstances
5.Successful people aren't luckier than most people, But they try more things, and fail more, But the difference between average and productive people is that average people are unnerved by failure and give up when they fail
6.Create habits you can stick to
7.Rethink about your to-do list and deleting the unnecessary tasks by Following the Pareto Principal or 80/20 rule
8.Take more breaks
9.Use your morning to focus on yourself – Just calm reflections within self – unless you are foggy and totally feeling fatigued[then you need other cure first]
10.Tackle your challenging tasks when you are feeling totally in your elements
11.Stop multi-tasking
12.Define what being Productive means to you
13.Identify what habits are your biggest obstacles & which ones makes you a winner
14.Find out what are your mental, physical, emotional binders and are stopping you from achieving your potential, it could be your submissiveness or inability to say no or fear of something. Create a plan on overcoming these, seek help if you are unable to work on them yourself. Read my blog on these
15.When Gain momentum, keep going till you can
16.Expect challenges, problems and other obstacles blocking you in your way towards your big picture & then plan on how will you tackle them
17.Use the latest technology only for boosting your Productivity
18.Know When to Just Say No, identify what is negotiable and what is not, be assertive
19.Stop Trying to Do it All by yourself, create systems, processes and delegate
20.Outsource as much as you can, hire freelancers
21.Learn to Listen to understand, you would save lots of time and frustrations and rework
22.Go for only those Meetings That have a definite agenda and outcomes
23.Encourage Intrapreneurship, Make it easy for employees to approach you with their new ideas and empower them to make decisions outside the chain of command
24.Praise, recognize and reward all who perform exceptionally, you can't imagine how much productivity this will increase
25.Focus on first time right
26.Do not accept anything less than excellent from yourself and others – we are not talking about perfection[which is exactly opposite of excellence]
27.Hire top talents by paying well
28.Learn to go into the basics to make your hands dirty
29.Understand the concept of Lean Manufacturing and 6 Sigma and apply them to your daily life
30.Use social media for crowdsourcing and gaining wonderful global perspective
31.Be an action person Right Tasks - Right Time
32.Engage Your Employees, Customers & Vendors meaningfully
33.Re-purpose Your Downtime
34.Many entrepreneurs balance passion projects with the responsibility of family and a day job
35.Examine and re-purpose your daily downtime
36.Break Down Workflow Barriers
37.Mix Business with Pleasure, network, network net work
38.De-Clutter Your Inbox, your table, your wardrobe, your mind and your life – get organized
39.Invest in Your Employees, your customers and yourself – add value - Improve employee skills with training
40.Stop micromanaging, empower others
41.Take care of yourself first
42.Understand the value of remote workers
43.Use technology to improve your operations
44.Review your existing setup, systems and procedures – discard the red-tape processes especially those which actually restricts productivity
45.Focus on quality always
46.Go for Multi-task for tasks which do not require much brain work
47.Also Use a do-later list
48.Focus on being Effective first and then be both effective and efficient
49.Meditate exercise, sleep, eat healthy
50.Read, read, read and Learn from the best
51.Always Improvise, when the plan do not work, don't keep doing the same thing
52.Bundle/Batch similar tasks
53.Practice every new skill that are important for accomplishing your goals
54.Get a mentor and coach
55.Go slow, when on very important work, so as to avoid rework
56.Learn how to focus
57.Celebrate both small and bigger triumphs
58.Stop beating yourself up when things don't go as planned
59.Do what you really, really, really want to do & passionate about
60.Go for regular disconnected day or weekend.
61.Learn to ask powerful questions
62.Stop waiting for perfect conditions to launch a great project. Immediate action fuels a positive feedback loop that drives even more action.
63.Say goodbye to the energy vampires in your life (the negative souls who steal your enthusiasm).
64.Focus on the improvement in small increments
65.Be accountable to yourself
66.If you like to listen to music, experiment with different styles until you find one that helps you be more productive with each type of task
67.Stop giving Excuses
68.Instill accountability in your employees, Provide the proper equipment, Provide upgrading opportunities
69.Break the monotony of routine
70.Wear headphone, while working on crucial tasks
71.Give yourself less time than you think you'll need
72.Read in the morning
73.Complete recurring tasks at the same time each day or week
74.Plan, Practice and Prepare before you get started
75.Make your expectations flexible
76.Measure, measure, measure
77.Practice In public
78.Use Caffeine to boost
79.Follow a Morning Ritual
80.Learn how to Procrastination effectively, read my article
81.Get into the habits of being bored of doing the same thing the same way, read my article
82.Make fewer decisions (about things that aren't important)
83.Find repeatable shortcuts—automate tasks
84.Learn from successes as well as mistakes
85.Plan for when things go wrong
86.REVIEW WHAT WORKED & repeat
87.RECOGNIZE WHAT DIDN'T WORK, improvise or change
88.Create Clear BOUNDARIES
89.ASK IMPORTANT QUESTIONS, "What needs to be done" and "How can I work smarter", "What can I add" and "What can I make better"
90.Understand what you can do consistently and progressively that sets you apart from others

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