5 Easy Business Productivity Tips you Need to Know – Part I

Want to be even more productive?  I mean seriously obtaining mega output with the same or even less effort?  Want more time in your life to spend on what really matters – moments with family, friends, and the causes you support?  Here are the first five of 15 proven techniques to help you perform at your best and really excel in your business.

Productivity is more than time management.  It’s Focus Management.  This means focusing on the right organization, resources, and mindset actions to get the most output with the least effort.  How many of you think that if you were just a tiny bit more productive, you’d make a lot more money in your business and serve a lot more customers?  It’s much easier than you think.  Here is the first of three posts which covers increasing your productivity by improving your organization.

1. Write Everything Down (On Paper or In Your Phone): Very few minds are perfect at remembering everything, so use other tools to support you such as a notebook or your smart phone.  If you commit to doing something for someone you meet at a networking event, write it down and do it.  Better yet, write it down on YOUR business card, give it to that person, and have HIM contact you if he is serious about getting what he requested (a connection, a plumber, a book, a report, etc.).  That takes one thing off your to-do list and puts the burden on the requester to follow up.  I used to leave networking events with a full list of action items for myself which was nuts!  Now, I put the onus on the other person to take action. Some do, most don’t.  It’s so much more productive.  I provide lots more awesome techniques like this in my upcoming webinars and workshops, so please join my VIP mailing list on the red box on the right if you want the updates.
2. Schedule Everything on Your Calendar: Carry your paper or smart phone scheduler everywhere and log appointments, action items, and follow ups with an exact time to get them done. This includes planning time for meetings, drive time, exercise, family, relationships, fun, and work.  Get rid of tiny slips of paper which get lost or you can’t remember why you wrote them in the first place. Schedule everything so you schedule your success instead of letting things just happen.
3. Touch Emails/Paper just One Time:  Piles are deadly.  Shifting paper/mail/stuff from one to-do pile to another wastes valuable time and focus.  Follow the one and done methodology and just process everything once. When someone suggests getting together, pull out your calendars and schedule it right then and there with him. Don’t make a note to call later to compare potential times.  When the postal mail arrives, toss the non-important stuff and hand the bills to your bookkeeper.  Break down all piles because they are constant reminders of what is not getting done which leads to stress and overwhelm.
4. Chunk Up the Week by Task: I’ve heard this called Theme Days too, which basically means picking a day of the week to group and complete similar actions.  For me, I write and record on Mondays (blogs, podcasts, emails, presentations), perform client consulting work on Tuesdays and Thursday, meet with partners/prospects/network on Wednesdays, create new products on Thursdays, and allocate serious thinking/planning time on how to grow my business on Fridays.  Chunking time helps make people even more productive and eliminates the waste of drive time, switching focus, and transitions between tasks.
5. Check Email just Once or Twice a Day:  Don’t let email drive your day because it will take over!  Email has been shown to be the most unproductive distraction after social media.  I’ve tried to just glance at my email throughout the day to see if there is anything important. Hours later I realize I just lost a large part of my day.  Now, I just check at noon and again at 4 pm and it’s so much better.  I’m so excited to be adding an assistant to my team through HireMyMom.com.  If you are not familiar with this company, it’s a staffing service for educated women who took a break from their careers to have kids but who still want to keep their skills sharp by working flexible hours. Most are based in the US with great experience.  Check it out for assistants, copy writing, social media, and more.

These are some of the habits that highly productive people do consistently every day.  These small changes can and will make a huge difference in your results if you start doing them today.  Next week, I’ll post about ways to be even more productive with simple changes in how you manage your resources (people, time, money, focus, etc.)

If you loved these tips and plan to be in the Denver area on Friday, February 19, I invite you to attend the Ultimate Business Boot Camp Session I: Gain the Advantage in Sales and Marketing workshop.  Just claim your seat and GET STARTED HERE.  It’s a must attend workshop if you want to explode your business and sales in 2016.  Participants leave with simple ways to get a lot more output with slight changes to their input.  Focusing on the right actions makes all the difference between struggling and success.  JOIN US!

Please leave a comment about tips you use to make your business even more productive.