All of us already have seen different people. One of them are highly productive people who done all things always. Others that struggle with doing the basic things that they want or like to do.
What’s the difference between highly productive people and average persons that struggles in doing their job?
Are there some systems, tools or habits that highly productive people implement in their everyday job, that averages don’t use?
Yes, there is a difference between highly productive people and averages. And, yes there is something as a system, tools and habits that highly productive people use and averages don’t.
In my personal experience, I always think that I am not good as I like to be. Maybe that’s normal thing because I always want to make myself more productive tomorrow than today. But, on the other side that’s my thinking make a pressure on me to make something different, to try something different, to organize myself differently, to try different systems… Without trying and making mistakes, I can’t learn something new and improve myself.
Different people have different habits and different productivity systems that they use in practice. Some of them didn’t use systems to get organized themselves in getting things done. Before several years, I was one of them, and that was a really terrible period of my life. I can’t say that now everything is perfect, but I can say that implementing systematically approach in organizing myself allow me to get more things done with the same effort.
Here are some of the most important things I think make a difference between highly productive people and average one.
#1 They Organize Their Space.
Highly productive people use systems in practice to get them organized their physical and virtual space. In such a way, they ensure that everything is done perfectly in the right time. They can quickly locate the physical things and virtual information required to support their activities.
Disorganized people spent extra time to find stuff that they need as a support to their everyday activities. That extra time can be looking for documents on computer, finding physical documents, looking for particular phone number or email address. This type of distraction can be really messy and can kill our productivity.
How you feel when you can’t find something that you need it now?
#2 They Have a Workflow System.
Everything can be systematized and organized. Many work activities we use repeatedly every day, on a daily basis, weekly or monthly basis.
It is much easier when we know what we need to do, for what type of work. Then we can perform the work even with closed eyes.
Workflow systems based on the most effective flow of work will enable you much quickly to finish the work with much better quality of work done.
#3 They Have a To-Do List.
Maybe to-do lists sound obsolete, but they are still one of the best tool and habit for getting things done.
You need a fresh to-do list that will tell you what you need to do and when.
I like To-Do lists because they make me to stay on top of my most important everyday tasks.
I like To-Do lists because they make me to think about priority in my daily activities.
I like them because they make me highly focused on the tasks that I need to do and ensure that everything important will be done.
#4 They Know When to Say No.
Sometimes we can decrease our productivity simply because of our wish to do everything, to be everywhere, to satisfy everyone… It’s not impossible.
The highly productive people know when they need to say no for something.
You need another list that can increase your productivity – To-Don’t list. It is a useful tool that can remind you every day what you don’t need to do especially when you work on your most important things.
#5 They Have SMART Goals.
They always have SMART goals. That means the goals are Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Time-Limited.
You need such goals if you want drastically to improve their achievement and your overall productivity on the way of their achieving.
#6 They Have a Perfect Plan.
Everything that they do have a perfect plan as the vanguard of what they do. What is the perfect plan?
Perfect plan is a plan that will help you to do what you plan to do. If you successfully finish your work based on your plan you will know that you have a perfect plan. Such a plan at least needs to answer on following questions:
- What you need to do?
- Why you need to do?
- How to do what you need to do?
- When you need to do what you need to do?
- Who will need to do what need to be done?
- Where you need to do what you need to do?
#7 They Do Not Use Multitasking.
Even we are surrounded with different tools around us that enable us to multitask and to manage multitasking, however, we must be aware that multitasking can be one of the biggest enemies of productivity.
Highly productive people commit their attention to one most important thing at a time. In such a way, they can give their best to accomplish that task before continue with the next one.
#8 They Eliminate Distractions.
Today’s way of doing work enable too many possible ways that can distract you of the work that you are doing now. New incoming emails, new signals of social media sites, phone rings and many more things are one of the biggest distractions and enemies of productivity.
Highly productive people eliminate every possible distraction when they work on things that need to be done.
#9 They Prioritize Their Work.
The real question that you need to answer each day is how you can decide which tasks are the most important at any given time to be implemented?
Highly productive people know what’s important and how to put first things first on their To-Do list.
#10 They Delegate.
Delegation is the process when one person transfers their responsibilities for performing some tasks to another person in the organization.
Delegating some of the work activities to other persons will drastically increase your productivity.
Highly productive people know what they can delegate and to whom they can delegate.
#11 They Work in Short Intervals.
Highly productive people want to work on the high-priority things when their mind is fresh. Because of that they use short intervals to do the work. That intervals can be 60 minutes to 90 minutes. For example, if you use Pomodoro system, there is proposed 25 minutes work and 5 minutes short break.
#12 They Improve the System.
Lastly, but not less important is continuous improvement of the system for things to be done better.
Because highly productive people use systems, they constantly try to find the ways how to improve that system.
[...] Do you find yourself in the position when you need to decide about do you must to do something or not right now? Are you a highly productive person? [...]