4 Major Ways to Improve Your Productivity

Major ideas covered:

• Keep the Focus On You
• One Mindset = One Solution
• Failure = Learning
• Mono-Tasking vs. Multi-Tasking

There never seems to be enough time in a given day to work on projects or complete your list of tasks. The other day I began to think about how many times we find ourselves pushing tasks to the next day and thinking that "I'll do that tomorrow" or "that can wait for another day." It dawned on me how short life is and realized that the average human lifespan is approximately 79 years, which is roughly 4,100 weeks. After seeing that number, I began to completely change the way I looked at my day-to-day and how I could boost my overall productivity. Whatever it is that you can do tomorrow, think of it as something that should have been done yesterday. Here are some great tips that have been a tremendous help to me along the way.

Keep The Focus On You

During my time in high school I competed in cross country running, but was far from a star athlete on the team. For most of the races I constantly found myself coming in second to last, but I always made sure that I ended each race strong when I crossed the finish line. At the end of the season I could see my physical transformations as well as improved self-confidence. By focusing on the improvements I had made rather than comparing my race times to those around me I always felt that each season was a success - the same goes for my work. It is easy to compare your progress to other people, but just know that each person is set to achieve differently. Focusing on where you started and how you have progressed will always help to keep an accurate gauge of your success. Being able to keep the focus on yourself will also help you to think more clearly about how to strategically move forward especially in a highly competitive environment. Some of the most successful individuals in history were able to change entire industries because they did things that others were not. This is true for great innovators such as Steve Jobs and Elon Musk. An electric car company? Personal computers in every home? At one point these ideas were laughed at by most, but these two individuals were able to make moves that the majority did not even know were possible!

One Mindset = One Solution

The power of working in a team on tough problems is the secret to making even the most challenging things look doable. Hard problems are very much like artwork; depending on how you look at them you can solve them differently depending on which aspects are being emphasized. Often times I have found that a solution I have had either created another problem or proved to not have the desired result based on what I previously thought.

While starting Havenlabs, I initially worked on the R&D on the first designs of our 3D printed assistive devices. While our Version 1 proved to be effective, there were still many ways that it could have been enhanced and we expanded our team the following year. Having some truly brilliant people on our team it has helped to sculpt the vision for all of us moving forward. This pushed the development of our Version 2, which improved on many aspects of our first iteration of the device. So keep an open mind because multi-part problems require multi-part solutions from a multi-talented team. This will help to push your way of thinking and culture your mindset for future projects.

Failure = Learning

Often times we view failure as a bad thing and maybe rightfully so, because no one likes to fail, but it is extremely valuable when working on projects and can make you an even better problem solver. The idea is to get it right on the first try, but when we don’t we have no choice but to work on it until we do. Possessing the ability to go back and have an intuitive idea of how to follow a process we have created and reverse engineer it to get a desirable solution is beyond valuable. You are always more likely to remember the problems that you didn't get right the first time verses the ones that you did. From my experience, the best engineers are not so much the one’s that know everything from theory, but the ones who are willing to fail their way to success. Failure helps to promote perseverance and with that comes success, so never let a snag in your project get you down, because ultimately it is building you up for something much greater.

Mono-Tasking vs. Multi-Tasking

It is usually very common to get into a pinch at work and then having to work on two projects at once in order to meet that deadline. Being a "good" multi-tasker has been looked at as a desirable quality amongst most people in the workforce, but really should be avoidable at all costs. When you have a conversation with someone, you don't talk to two other people at the same time, right? Of course not! You want to talk with one person at a time and really focus on what it is they're saying in order to engage in a meaningful conversation. This concept also applies to completing tasks, because when you divide your focus you are also dividing the quality of the work you are doing. Being able to mono-task and solely focus on one thing at a time will give you a much higher quality in your work as well as allowing you to have a clearer way of thinking. This will ultimately reduce stress and help to increase your productivity throughout the day.

Hope these tips help along your journey and wish you all the best!