If you have a job, stop trying to increase your productivity to do more in less time. It’s a waste.
Better ideas… that’s the key. That’s what will get you ahead.
Prevail or fail. This largely depends on what you do to yourself rather than what the world does to you. As such, when most are working 40-60 hour work weeks, it is no surprise productivity is such a popular concept. If you have to spend all your free time at work, of course you are going to want to learn techniques that will help you save time and energy.
Streamlining your life as much as possible becomes more important with the less freedom you have. You need to focus better on work and home, or something will give. If you do manage to be successful at streamlining this should then result in a better performance at work, with a raise in income to follow. Right?
No.
Productivity is a trap. Better ideas win.
It may seem like doing a good job and being productive leads to a raise, leads to a promotion, leads to more interesting work, but it does not. Yes, this appears counter to the idea that everyone within a company should pull their weight and push the company ahead. Then expect to be rewarded for it with money and bonuses. But I have been to cubicle land and it does not work like that.
What ends up happening is if you are a productive employee and get your work done quickly, you are only rewarded with more work. This simple fact disincentives you to be as productive as possible. Or, you work in a large industrialized environment where a carrot and stick approach is implemented. You must get x done or be punished. If you get xx done you get a bonus of this amount, and xxx of this amount.
If right now you are sitting in a cubicle with your shades of brown dockers on (or black skirt for the ladies) think about who gets ahead in a company.
The most productive person?
Nope. They are certainly appreciated and are favored by employers, but they are not rewarded with promotions. They are too valuable in their current positions!
It’s the person with the good idea that made the company more money. The person who made themselves into the company super star. That is who gets ahead.
Remember, productive employees are rewarded with work. Super stars with good ideas are rewarded with promotions, money, and interesting work.
A word of warning, if you’re just a peasant widget pusher within your company, the local lord (your boss) or King (CEO) may be displeased with your decrease in productivity. Be sure to “look busy” when your really hunting for that big idea. I wont be held responsible if you’re get caught slacking on the job and punished for it.
Another reminder, employers obviously don’t mind pissing off good hard working employees, but they fear losing their idea super stars. Lets go over ways to become an idea super star.
First you need that idea.
To hunt that idea, you need more time. Since you spend most of your time at work, this is where you need to do your hunting. Obvioulsy you can not just leave early even if you are done. You have to sit in your box for 8 hours or get fired. That means the only way you get more time at work is to do less work. That means you need to become less productive. Do only what needs to be done when at work. Nothing above and beyond. As I have said, productive employees are rewarded with more work. Unfortunately, getting everything done assigned to you within 5 hours does not mean you get to go home early and get paid for 8 hours.
To free up your time at work you need to organize your work day into sections.
For example, I publish on this site Monday, Wednesday, Friday. I write whenever I am inspired, but I only publish on those days. Everyday I devote one hour to promotion, and on the off days I come up with ideas and products to help transform this site from blog to business. It is a structured approach. It allows me to know what I need to get done each day, but most importantly is signals when I am done for the day. If it takes me 1 hour or 4 hours, it matters little to me. I don’t go by time like a job, I go by tasks.
You need to go by tasks as well in your job. Figure out what tasks you do in a given day and compress it down into 5-7 hours of work. Parkinson’s law says work will always fill up the time allotted. That means if I give you a task and give you 5 hours to do it. You will get it done in 5 hours. If I gave you 4 hours. You would get it done in 4 hours. Just human nature. You need to reorient your approach to work and compress everything into less than 8 hours. Schedule things into blocks, and don’t be lazy and let things bleed into unscheduled blocks. The end result should be freeing up and hour or two a day while at work to think of bigger things.
Stop doing busy work until your work is done.
You need busy work so you do not get caught slacking. Remember you’re there to make sure the CEO gets his bonus next year so he can by that yacht. But that doesn’t mean you should not be doing repetitive, mundane tasks, when you have real work to do. Delegate these tasks to someone else like and intern, and assistant, or a computer. Maybe even stop doing them all together and see if the world ends. It probably won’t.
Be smart with your communication.
When I work, I do my work right after my power morning routine. My routine is taking a shower, listening to 10 minutes of music, drinking a cup of tea, and making breakfast. The work part of my day does not include checking email, and it should be the same for you. Checking email is a bad idea because it is like falling down the rabbits hole in Alice in Wonderland. 30 minutes later you have accomplished nothing other than reading emails about:
1) Cupcakes in the break room!
2) The corporate newsletter/magazine
3) OMG this needs to be done right now!
Stop going to meetings.
Meetings are fine once a month to keep everyone updated, but anymore than that they get in the way of you doing work. I worked at this one place that had team meeting for all 8 groups every Wednesday. In addition to that, each group had a meeting per day.
This is an incredibly big waste of time especially if you’re attempting to get things done in under 8 hours without anyone knowing so you can think about a big game changing idea for yourself or your company. It is also a sign of poor management, or mommy management (ie they don’t trust you to do the right things). Try telling your colleagues you have too much work to do, or “forget” to go and ask for forgiveness later.
Ignore everybody.
People will gladly tell you why your idea will not work. Just ignore them. They worry about you for two reasons. 1) They care about you. They do not want to see you do something stupid that could put your job and thus your safety at risk. 2) They fear you will succeed and shine the light on their own timed living.
From Idea to Super Star.
Humans are wired to be disproprtionalty impressed with someone who is the best at what they do compared with the second place or third place person. The first person is a super star. The second and third guys are just talented. This same principle works at work. The idea guy is the super star. The productvie guy is just taleneted. Your goal should not to be the best at work, but rather it should be to find what you can be the best at. Which includes finding that right idea. I did not say big idea, that is also a fallacy. You just need your right idea.
For example, who would you be more impressed with?
A guy who went to an Ivy League school, was a stellar performer, then went right to Havard for his/her MBA
OR
the Joe shmoe with a good idea who build a million dollar company making covers for Ipads?
The second right? Not only are you more impressed with the second, it was probably a hell of a lot easier than the first! The reason is because the second is the best at what he does. The MBA guy is talented, but he is not the best or the first to go to an Ivy League school.
Hunt your idea. You will thank me later when your living a more meaningful life (a donation would also be nice).
best,
-David
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