Productivity Hacks
At my company we always move quickly. I experienced the internal bureaucracies and delayed decision making when I worked in investment banking. It’s one of the reasons I left to start Rakuten 18 years ago.
While we’ve overcome many of the issues plaguing large businesses, I am constantly on the hunt for ways to do business in a better, smarter, faster fashion. Here are some of my favorite productivity hacks:
- Try The Mikitani Curve. It is my belief that quality is fostered or destroyed by 0.5% improvements. Once you are done with a job, even if you think you have completed it, you must not stop there. Take just a bit more time on it. You probably will not be able to add very much, but as long as you are already doing something, you might as well do everything that needs to be done. Never be content with knowing that you have finished something until you add another 0.5. Many small 0.5% improvements will make a big difference in the long run. I call this The Mikitani Curve.
- Rewrite inefficient rules. When you encounter a rule that breeds inefficiency, challenge it. When I was a teenager, I joined a tennis club. It was the rule of this club that the younger players fetch the balls for the older players. What was the good of that? It did not help me as a younger player to improve my tennis skills and what did it do for the older boys? I changed clubs. When I started in the e-commerce business, the rule accepted in the business was that merchants could not communicate directly with customers. This seemed inefficient. We rewrote that rule and it has become a hallmark of our success as a marketplace.
- Speed! Speed! Speed! This is one of Rakuten’s five guiding principles. We always look for ways to be faster. You can do this in your own daily activities. Can you walk faster? Shorten meetings? Tighten deadlines? Find a way to complete your daily tasks in less time? If you apply the mantra of Speed! Speed! Speed! to everything you do you will find ways to be more productive.
Productivity shouldn’t be just a once-in-a-while hack but a daily goal. No matter how well you are doing, there is always room for improvement.
Read my book on revitalizing Japan in the global economy, The Power to Compete. (Find it on Kobo, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Google Play).
"Diligent sets the standard for modern governance with its feature rich GRC platform", including securing the highest possible score for Audit Management. (Forrester Wave)
8 年I read a great article by Kevin Kruse today, wherein he summarises the Productivity Practices of ultra-productive people including 7 billionaires, 13 Olympians, 20 straight-A students and over 200 successful entrepreneurs. Benchmarking is a great way to get a headstart! Post readers can see the details here... https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/productivity-secrets-successful-people-simon-berglund Simon Berglund Helping small to medium businesses maximise their human capital management practices
Senior Director Product Development - Internet of Things Cloud Service, Blockchain SaaS Apps, Multi PaaS Industry Solutions.
9 年Interesting article on increasing the productivity. These are small and simple pointers, can be easily followed and can make a big leap in productivity. Well put up!
Leadership experience in transforming engineering organisations - Ex Harness/Visa/Practo/Verisign/EMC2
9 年Interesting pointers. To make this a reality, it is quite imperative that we build a culture where everyone in the organization continuously adopt this approach and make it part of their DNA. This will go a long way in breeding continuous innovation whose by product is success.
INSULCON Group founder/ CEO at and retired president
9 年Thanks Hiroshi, you are a great THINKER