Being productive with your time is one of the cornerstones of being an outstanding leader in the workplace. Most people are extremely busy, but the question always comes down to: are you busy being busy, or are you busy doing what’s important?
Below is what I believe are the six levels of productivity that people experience in the workplace.
Which level do you spend the most time on?
Level 1: Avoiding — People avoid the work and actively don’t do it. In other words, a lot of procrastination.
Level 2: Distracted — They tend to be distracted by lots of incoming priorities other than the ones that they’re supposed to be working on. They find themeselves overwhelmed by their work. The impact is that they have to work three times as hard to get one unit of work done.
Level 3: Appropriate — This is where they’re doing the work they “should” be doing, in other words just they’re doing what is required.
Level 4: Deliberate — This is where people are starting to be disciplined with their work. They have a structured approach to how they manage their Quarter, their week, and their day.
Level 5: Important — This is where people do valuable work that is crucial to their specific role. They work on a core categories or a key project in a deliberate way on a consistent basis. This is where things start to change. One unit of input starts to create ten units of output.
Level 6: Inspired Work — Inspired work is game-changing work. This is where you will create ideas or find actions that are the difference that make the difference. In game-changing work, you can do one unit of work and have up to fifty units of output. Tim Ferriss calls these “Leveraged Activities”. The activities that give you explosive impact.
The challenge for all of us in the workplace is to stop avoiding the work and start moving towards doing, being disciplined and ultimately focusing on valuable and game-changing work. This will produces massive output and value for our clients and ourselves.
Discover the secrets of the Super Productive.
Join Colin for a free masterclass on productivity.
In this training, you’ll discover:
- How to create a Super Productive Mindset (the exact thinking you must have to produce incredible results)
- The secret to leveraged energy – this is like a Red Bull for your daily productivity
- 3 critical brain rules – and how you can use them to work with your brain, not against it