3 Strategies for Increased Work Productivity
The following is adapted from Create and Orchestrate.
Imagine you want to build an in-ground pool in your backyard. To dig, you can either use a shovel or a backhoe. Which one would you choose?
Obviously the backhoe! With a shovel, it would take you ages to finish digging. With the backhoe, you could accomplish the same task much more quickly.
Yet all the time, in our work, we unconsciously choose to use a shovel instead of a backhoe. We throw more and more time at our various to-dos, thinking this is the key to accomplishing our goals.
What we really need is not more work but more-productive work. We need mental backhoes to make our work go faster. If you want to increase your productivity and blaze through your to-do list, here are three strategies I recommend.
#1: The Iron Triangle
One of the biggest challenges with successfully completing a project is having a project that can be successful in the first place. Many times, people give themselves unreasonable goals or deadlines. Then they become overwhelmed and start procrastinating, spending their time worrying about the impossibility of making it all fit instead of being productive.
Before even starting on a project, you need to assess if you execute it. That’s where the Iron Triangle comes in.
The Iron Triangle comprises three things: Time (deadlines), Scope (everything we are trying to get done), and Resources (usually people, but it can include other resources as well).
Whenever you undertake a project, assess it with the Iron Triangle. Any successful project must have a scope that matches the allocated resources and time. If these three things don’t match, and you can’t increase your resources or you can’t push out your deadline, then you need to adjust your scope.
One of the keys to being productive is setting reasonable goals that you can actually meet. Assessing the time, scope, and resources of your projects will help you chart a clear path to your finish line, avoiding the roadblock of procrastination.
#2: Batching and Deep Work
Every time you have to stop and switch to a different kind of task, it takes time for your brain to switch gears. It’s more productive to batch your work. That means setting aside a block of time for doing the same type of task to achieve deep focus and optimal efficiency.
This seems obvious, but many people don’t organize their to-do lists for batching. For example, it is more efficient to work through all of your emails, than it is to send an email, make a call, and then send another email. If you take time to categorize the different types of tasks you do and batch them together, you will save time and improve the quality of the work.
Even when you practice batching, interruptions are sometimes unavoidable. Someone may stop by your desk for a chat, or a task may pop up that needs to be addressed immediately. Being able to move from one task to another in these instances is important, but be sure to also make time for deep work.
If you can, block off a couple of hours every day to dedicate to deep-focus work. Turn off the notifications and let yourself really sink into the task. You’ll see major productivity gains.
#3: Pareto’s Principle
Pareto’s Principle is a way of thinking about which tasks produce to the most value.
You’ve probably heard of this principle as the “80/20 rule.” It was named after an Italian economist named Vilfredo Pareto, who, in 1896, wrote a paper that identified 20 percent of people in Italy owned 80 percent of the land. Pareto then applied this 80/20 ratio to other phenomena, such as peas in a garden. Astoundingly, 20 percent of the pea pods yielded 80 percent of the peas.
Over time, Pareto’s Principle has evolved to mean that 20 percent of something produces 80 percent of the value of that thing.
Let’s apply the 80/20 rule to productivity: imagine that only 20 percent of your time produces 80 percent of the value. If this is true, then you have to review your time spent working and ask, “Am I doing the most value-producing tasks?” and “Do I spend at least 20 percent of my time on those value-producing activities?”
If you aren’t, then you have to look at yourself and determine what changes you need to make in how you assign work to yourself. Productivity without impact is useless. You always want to focus on making your productivity valuable.
Work Less, Achieve More
Productivity can be your superpower to achieve success. It’s a key differentiator and competitive advantage in the market. When you are productive, you do more with the one thing we all have the same amount of: time.
We only have so many hours in a day. We need to make the best use of them, with tools like the Iron Triangle, batching and deep work, and Pareto’s Principle. So stop using a shovel to dig when you could use a backhoe. Work less, and achieve more!
For more advice on increasing productivity, you can find Create and Orchestrate on Amazon.
Marcus Whitney is CEO and founder of Health:Further, a strategic advisory firm working with leading healthcare organizations, as well as founding partner of Jumpstart Health Investors, the most active venture capital firm in America focused on innovative healthcare companies. He is an in-demand speaker who hosts a podcast called Marcus Whitney’s Audio Universe, and sends out a weekly newsletter called Two Worlds. Marcus has been listed in the Upstart 100 by Upstart Business Journal, Power 100 by Nashville Business Journal, and has been featured in Inc., Fast Company, and The Atlantic. To connect with Marcus or receive his weekly newsletter, visit MarcusWhitney.com.
Basic Health Access
4 年In undervalued and overworked primary care there is a route to higher productivity. It is the same route to more care and caring, better team member and patient satisfaction, higher functioning primary care, and patient centered primary care 1. Invest in more team members 2. Invest in better team members 3. Destroy performance based metrics, measurements, and micromanagements. Outcomes are shaped by people, social determinants, and societal influences. Primary care should not be Iron Triangle punished for failing to change outcomes determined outside of the primary care office. Deep Triangle focus is what used to be - the focus on care and caring and mutual investments involving patients and team members Work less and do more without meaningless performance focus determined by outsiders that do not understand you, your patients, your local situations, or your communities. Current health policy is the opposite of productive with financial designs shaping fewer and lesser team members, and lesser productivity and revenue as well as greater turnover and burnout. These shape worsening finances along with stagnant revenue and cost of delivery increases not covered by revenue increases. Thank you managed care to Dartmouth to Orsag to ACA to value-based design for not valuing primary care, the people that deliver primary care, the purpose of primary care, and the 50% proportion of the American population with half enough primary care, general specialists, and local support resources. Thank you for closing more hospitals and practices doing basic services where most needed.