You’ve probably noticed that some people are more productive than others.  

In the same timeframe, one person can build and launch a successful business and the other person is still struggling to come up with the business plan. I’ve noticed that it isn’t the usual things that hold people back from being super productive, e.g., procrastination, distractions or even inefficiencies. Sure all of these impact productivity, but they aren’t the deal breakers. 

Super productive people think differently than most. In fact, some of their wisdom is counterintuitive.  

Productivity always starts in the mind.  

That’s why I wanted to share 5 productivity patterns that I’ve noticed in the most highly productive people I’ve worked with. Some of them are more counterintuitive than others but I trust all make sense and serve you well.

Here are the 5 counterintuitive thinking patterns of the super productive:

1. They Do Less – I know it seems counterintuitive that through doing less you produce more. But what I noticed is that highly productive people are exceptional at choosing the right projects and not just trying to implement every project. Instead of trying to implement 10 projects per quarter they will obsess about implementing the three most important. Through a relentless desire to ensure that the 3 most important projects completed each quarter progress is created and momentum sustained. Don’t try to implement 10 projects at once, choose between 1 to 3 and ensure they get done.

2. They Obsess about Impact not Efficiency – super productive people are obsessed with hi-impact activities. To them productivity has more to do with the impact of the activity and the speed of the activity. Many time management experts obsess about shaving off minutes and seconds in a task to save time. On one level this helps, but ultimately it doesn’t matter if the task is done fast or slow. All that matters is the impact it creates. A nice way to distinguish this is to identify the tasks that have a $10, $100 or $1,000 value per hour.  Do the tasks that have a thousand dollar value first and outsource the rest.

3. They Prioritise Prioritising – highly productive people prioritise the habit of prioritising. In many of the workshopsrun participants will say to me that they need to implement the priorities more. This idea of implementing your priorities is great. The problem is that most people are implementing them simply because they don’t know what they are. Getting clarity on the most important pros each day will enable you to implement them. Clarity creates confidence and confidence enables action.

4. They Keep Their Eyes Up – many of the ineffective people I’ve noticed in workplaces become ineffective because they lose track of the big picture. They will get obsessed about a specific spreadsheet or process while forgetting the purpose of the activity. Highly effective people, on a daily basis, keep their eyes on the goal. This can be as simple as having the quarterly goals in front of them each day. They see the forest from the trees. Set up your work environment so that everyday you’re reminded of the big picture.

5. They Embrace Realistic Standards – one of the greatest lies that perfectionists invite into is that through creating an unrealistic standard they are doing a good job. In essence when you become perfectionistic about an idea, you’re simply sick coming to the fee and vulnerability it takes to release the idea. Progress is more important than perfection. In fact, it’s through progress that you’re headed towards perfecting an idea. But it is only until you receive feedback that the idea can be adjusted. When you embrace more realistic standards and launch things at 80% ready, instead of 99% ready, you end up getting to 99% quality faster. Don’t get me wrong, this is not for the faint hearted. It takes real vulnerability and courage, but the alternative is you become a nit-picky perfectionist who makes very little impact on the world. Bags not.

So you’ve just learnt five of my favourite thinking patterns that I’ve noticed highly productive people embrace and utilise on a day-to-day basis.

These thinking patterns are just the foundation for becoming productive.  There’s so much more to the puzzle.

That’s why I’ve decided to run a “Double Your Productivity Masterclass”.