Whether you’re a student, a stay at home mom, a busy executive or a business owner, we all need to be aware of how to improve (10X) our performance at whatever we do. Fortunately, the same principles apply to all aspects of work and life.

It’s not just enough to be busy or to look the part of busy. Truth is, there are productivity junkies out there who think they are “crushing it” when they are actually “crashing it”.

It’s time to get rid of hustling backward and stalling your greatness and it’s time to start applying tried, tested and proven productivity strategies that are guaranteed to give your life (not just your work) a major facelift.

The discipline of productivity has evolved beyond popular concepts such as planning, scheduling and the likes. Here, in The Organizing Academy (TOA), we also teach new productivity concepts like Mental Agility, Design Thinking, Mindset Mastery, etc. that guarantee ULTIMATE PRODUCTIVITY.

Piggybacking on the business productivity workshop we hosted in October, let’s look at four timely and evidence-based productivity strategies every success-driven person needs in their artillery.

 

Choose Effectiveness Over Efficiency

I was in conversation with a Canadian business owner a few days ago and we got talking about ‘this entrepreneur lifestyle’. She has a thriving business and I was impressed by her passion and devotion to the ‘grind’. This lady knows her numbers and her market like the palm of her hands and I was blown away by the business metrics she was analyzing. I was honestly amazed at her diligence and commitment to building something remarkable and I kept asking “how do you do it?”. At some point, she said, “hold on, Jesmine! There’s a lot to it and this “empire building” thing can take a toll on a person. Some time ago, I had to slow down because I was stressed and almost losing my mind. I had to stay away from active work for about 2 months. It required the help of a therapist and my mum (who traveled all the way to come be with me) to help me regain my sanity. I sort of jeopardized my mental and physical wellbeing by my drive for success in business.”

The next questions I wanted to ask were: So, how much did the therapy cost? How much did it cost to have your mom over? How much did staying away from work cost? … But I didn’t have to because the answers were embedded in the narrative.

Most of us work with the traditional productivity mindset of doing more and producing more with as less cost as possible. We often measure productivity based on the input-output analysis instead of a cost-benefit analysis. Productivity should not be evaluated only based on quantitative values but ultimately on a qualitative basis. As an Economist, I understand the importance of economies of scale and all those other quantitative economic concepts but as a Productivity Consultant, I advocate for Quality over Quantity which can be interpreted as Effectiveness over Efficiency.  We also need to understand that quantity is only one of the elements of quality.

At the Productivity Essentials for Business Growth (PE4BG) Workshop, we shared about the Google culture of happiness and how the company has been able to significantly improve its productivity by factoring employee wellbeing.

If you want to truly improve your performance, strive for effectiveness over efficiency by looking at your work as just one element of your life. Bring in a holistic performance approach by connecting all the other elements: your mental health, your relationships, your emotional wellbeing, your lifestyle, etc.

When we provide productivity consulting for business owners and organizations, we propose the Effectiveness over Efficiency strategy by encouraging them to take into account the triple bottom line of PEOPLE + PROFITS + PLANET. Will you?

 

Reduce Control: Release Creativity

As much as schedules, deadlines, plans and all those other “popular productivity concepts” that help us stay in control are great, we have to also learn how to cooperate with the mental process. Psychology has proven that reducing control can foster creativity.

You can do that by tapping into the flow state where the sense of time and self are eliminated and the elements of excitement and curiosity are awakened.  In the flow state, work feels like play and not just any kind of play but serious play. The best picture to paint here is that of a child who comes across a set of Lego or playdoh. The child immediately confronts these play items with curiosity and without any thoughts of the “how” and “when”. The child focuses on building and creating and ends up enjoying the process of discovery as he goes. In this state, the child is fully immersed in the activity and enjoying an optimal state of consciousness where he feels very excited and actually maximizes his skills. By the time he’s done, he barely notices how much time has past and even how tired he may be. The beautiful thing about the ‘flow state” is its ability to help us conquer the most challenging tasks while keeping our energy levels high. A boost in energy equals a boost in performance. As adults, we have to intentionally create this state with our work and we can achieve it by incorporating activities like meditating, sporting, etc. and reflective exercises like free writing, mind mapping, brain dumping, etc. into our tasks.

Have FUN with the FLOW!

 

Collect Mental Models.

Pay close attention to this because it might shock you: the smartest person in the room isn’t the one with the most information, knowledge or experience, it’s the one with the highest level of mental agility. In a world that is getting more and more complex, mental agility is a highly required skill for those who want to improve their performance. Your ability to tackle complexities, make decisions, problem solve, and establish connections between varying factors shows your level of mental agility (MA). MA is a function of mental models aka your thinking tools. Your collection of mental models has a direct effect on your MA. At the PE4BG Workshop, we discussed some mental models used by some of the world’s most successful entrepreneurs: The Regret Minimization Framework (RMF) by Jeff Bezos, the Value Investing by Warren Buffet and the Algorithm by Mark Zuckerberg. I personally have collected some mental models one of which is compounding -my favorite by the way- and I can categorically tell you that my decision making and problem-solving abilities have significantly improved since I started applying mental models.

It’s time to go ahead and build your personalized collection of MENTAL MODELS if you haven’t already. Feel free to check out an array of mental models via this link https://fs.blog/mental-models/

 

Practice Emotional Agility

Your emotions are very powerful that they are potent enough to pull you up towards personal advancement or drag you down towards abysmal failure.

Emotional agility (EA) and what we also call emotional fitness is one of the behavioral patterns of organized and productive people that we teach in TOA. This strategy helps us effectively explore and express our feelings and is vital for an improved way of life. It is a proven stress management technique used to tackle emotional, mental and physical health issues. Science has proven that emotional health has a direct effect on mental and physical health. Doctors say that the lack of emotional agility can weaken our immune system, cause heart-related health issues and can trigger other physical, social and emotional disorders.  EA is vital for our safety, survival and success and aids peak performance.  EA is not only linked to our emotional well-being which has a direct relationship with our mental alertness and overall wellness but also affects our ability to respond to people and situations, to make the right decisions, to focus, to be critical, creative and healthy.

As an emotionally agile person, you influence your feelings from the inside out and not the other way around. You don’t let external factors influence or dictate how you feel and react, rather you take charge internally and channel your feelings and reactions in the most effective, meaningful and beneficial way externally.

In TOA, we teach EA based on 8 Principles, the most important of which is Emotional Intelligence (EQ) EQ will help you gain emotional literacy by acknowledging your feelings and studying your dominant and secondary emotions. EQ also involves an understanding and interpretation of your mood, temperament, personality, disposition, and motivation. Daniel Coleman said, “80% of adult success comes from emotional intelligence.” Stay tuned to TOA Blog for more on the 8 Principles of Emotional Agility.

To reflect on this strategy, think about classifying your dominant and secondary emotions and making a list of those.

Now, I hope that with the above 4 strategies, you feel empowered and equipped to take your performance to a whole new level starting today. See you at PEAK PERFORMANCE!

 

To Organizing, Productivity and Success!

 

Your Organizing and Productivity Buddy,

Jesmine.