Every business manager strives for high productivity employees. It makes sense, with most costs fixed the more produced by employees the cheaper each unit of production. Even non-profits jump on the productivity management bandwagon; improving workplace productivity is a great buzz phrase.
Employees buy in to doing more, not only because employers are tracking their time, but also because they reason that highly productive employees will be highly valued, which they hope will translate to career advancement, salary increases and promotions. Getting more done in less time is nearly a national pastime in the U.S.
Productivity is so good a buzz word that individuals also strive for high personal productivity. Even stay-at-home moms are on the productivity bandwagon. They juggle a myriad of home and child-care duties while trying to maintain some semblance of a social life, and maybe even some part-time work.
Time Management with Smart phones and Blackberries
Proof of people attempting high productivity through multi-tasking time management is apparent on any freeway. Look over at the car in the next lane. It's likely you'll see someone talking on a blackberry or smart phone cell phone, perhaps gesturing wildly, holding a sandwich or drink in one hand, maybe even smoking – all that while attempting to maneuver a two-ton vehicle at 70 mph safely to the next destination.
Marketers offer convincing arguments that smart phones, social networks, and twenty-four hour Internet connectivity on your new techno-gadget will provide highly productive, happy people. Ads show smiling people accomplishing important business tasks while basking on a sunny beach. What's not to like about that?
Improving Employee Productivity, Who Benefits?
The reality seems much different from the marketing message. Nearly half of all U.S. workers are dissatisfied with their jobs. A similar percentage feel their lives are out of balance.
Stever Robbins suggests we've got it all wrong in his recent book, Get-It-Done Guy's 9 Steps to Work Less and Do More (St. Martin's Griffen, N.Y., 2010). Robbins suggests the only people benefiting from improving productivity are business owners and the companies selling productivity gadgets.
Robbins takes a back-to-basics approach to get more done while working even fewer hours. Robbins advice echoes a similar theme by Timothy Ferris in his book The 4-Hour Work Week.
Focused Productivity Management
Rather than working on doing more with technology and multi-tasking, Robbins advises to "Stop doing stuff that doesn't help you reach your goals." This fundamental advice makes sense, but only if a person truly understands her life's goals.
So Robbin's first of nine steps in doing more is to determine your high level goals in life. These could be called life purpose or life mission. Regardless of the name, Robbins suggests starting with deciding what a fulfilling life would involve, then setting goals to achieve that.
He suggests the best way to work less and accomplish more is to make sure that what you do will help you reach your high level life goals. Robbins goes on to suggest eight more steps for getting more of what you want from life, most of which are not new, but all support the theme of staying focused on those tasks that support life goals.
9 Steps to Work Less and Do More is written in a light, often irreverent tone, but Robbins offers sound advice for doing more in life that fulfills, rather than just doing more.
Clarifying Life Purpose for Improved Productivity
Rather than concentrating on working more efficiently, perfecting time management techniques, or becoming adept at multi-tasking, assuring that tasks are closely aligned with life purpose and high level life goals will result in greater productivity and personal fulfillment.
For a novel approach to determining you life purpose, read Life Purpose Begins with a Eulogy.
Jerry Lopper - IPPA member, business and engineering degrees. Jerry's passion for personal development shows in 5 books, hundreds of articles & ...
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