"How to Maximize Your Productivity with a 1% Boost"

A little bit riled by the recent RTO mandates and curious as to how I would solve the current productivity problem (which had a lot of energy being devoted to it in Davos last week) - I thought, what about if we each, individually, every week, just focused on being 1% more productive.

I also lean towards a more individual approach to organisational problems because I recognise how we are all different and there is no one-size-fits-all solution. I also lean towards autonomy and empowerment and therefore feel that we are far more likely to be successful solving this problem if we each take individual ownership of it and define what is going to work for each of us personally.

So what might a 1% productivity increase next week look like to you?

First, I think we should explore what productivity means to us personally. For me, it is distinctly different from presenteeism or measured through the number of hours I work. I would not think I’d been more productive simply by working more hours, as many of you I’m sure would agree.

No, for me it’s about how much work I can get done in my normal working hours or ideally fewer hours.

This then leads you to the exploration of how you spend your week. How is your time taken? What takes up most of your time?

When I reflect on my week, I think I recognise I flit between tasks. Those tasks in my week where I am fully present I.e. my coaching calls feel like good quality work. I spend a limited amount of time before prepping and time afterwards reflecting.

For me, a productivity increase would be delivering more each week. This would require greater clarity at the start of the week.

I’m fortunate that I work quite autonomously and meetings are in the minority but I’ve had my working days of back-to-back meetings and this impacts the ability to deliver ANYTHING unless it’s sat on your sofa at home at night.

Research by the University of Oxford found a causal link between wellbeing and productivity. They found that a one-point increase in self-reported happiness led to around a 12% increase in productivity, on average, among call centre workers.

So perhaps the question that actually needs to be asked is: what can we do to increase our wellbeing at work by 1%?

So what might turn your 1% productivity wheel this week?

• A longer sleep, movement, nutritious food

• One priority task each day that you ensure you complete

• A daily stand-up instead of the longer weekly meeting

• A time-blocked diary

• The utilisation of AI tools to accelerate the creation of a document

• Picking up the phone to speak to someone instead of several back and forth on a messenger chat or email

• A quick meeting to walk someone through a document rather than directing them to read it and give comments

• A concerted effort not to multitask as we know this makes us less effective at both tasks

  
  

I’m a big advocate of small changes in behaviour that you keep building upon to reach bigger gains and imagine the societal impact that could occur if we all took ownership of it a drive it simultaneously.

Other techniques that might be effective for you in driving efficiency include:

The 135 rule. Where each day you commit to do one big task, three medium tasks, five small tasks.

Or perhaps the Ivy Lee Method, where at the end of each evening write down the 6 things you must accomplish tomorrow.

Or the rule that if you can do a task in two minutes, do it straight away!

Or The Eisenhower matrix:

Do: Do this task now.

Decide: Schedule a time to do it.

Delegate: Who can do it for you?

Eliminate: Eliminate it.

It is also argued to help if you:

• Minimise distractions

• Take three items or less in a meeting

• Check mail only twice a day and minimise other distractions, it takes 25 mins to get back into a task when you’ve been distracted

• Journal and get your jumbled brain thoughts out on paper each morning or on the way to work

• Systematise your work by identifying what you do regularly that can be made more efficient by defining a process for it so that you do it the same way every time

So in the spirit of individually taking on the productivity problem and looking to ourselves about what we can control and change about how we work to improve our wellbeing and drive up productivity, here I present some options around tools and systems that might work for you. But as always its about taking the time to understand what makes you tick and what would move the wheel for you and also to connect to your motivation for doing so, your why? Never is it enough if you are simply told you need to be more productive. Perhaps for you its that motivation to squeeze that game of padel in on a Friday afternoon or to pick your kids up from school or to see your organisation achieve its goals more effectively. And us taking our own individual responsibility for this doesn't abolish the responsibilities that organisations have to foster this environment and remove those barriers that prevent our productivity, but that is the subject of another post.