Dr. Heidi Grant

Five Ways to Increase Your Productivity

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From HRM Today

You just have too much on you plate.  Chances are, your employees do as well.  You suspect that you could all be making better use of your time, completing more projects and achieving more goals.  You want to be more productive, and to help your team be more productive, but you aren’t sure where to start.

You are far from alone in your confusion. Even the most successful, highly accomplished people have difficulty pinpointing why they are so productive.  The intuitive answer – that you are born predisposed to having the intelligence, creativity, and willpower to get the job done – is really just one small piece of the puzzle.  In fact, decades of research on achievement suggests that successful people reach more of their goals not simply because of who they are, but more often because of what they do.   Here are five scientifically-tested strategies that successful people use, proven to help you reach your goals and make the most of your time.

 

#1   Get Specific. When setting a goal, try to be as specific as possible.  “Meet with every member of my team once a week” is a better goal than “meet more often with my team,” because it gives you a clear idea of what success looks like.  Knowing exactly what you want to achieve keeps you motivated until you get there.  Also, think about the specific actions that need to be taken to reach your goal.  Just promising you’ll “communicate more” is too vague – be clear and precise.  “At our meeting, I’ll ask about each project they are currently working on” leaves no room for doubt about what you need to do, and whether or not you’ve actually done it.

 

#2 Seize the Moment to Act on Your Goals. Given how busy most of us are, it’s not surprising that we often miss opportunities to act on a goal because we simply fail to notice those opportunities.  Did you really have no time to work on that assignment today?  No chance at any point to return that phone call?  Achieving your goal means grabbing hold of these opportunities before they slip through your fingers.

To seize the moment, decide when and where you will take each action you want to take, in advance.  Again, be as specific as possible (e.g., “When it’s 3pm today, I’ll stop whatever I’m doing and work on that report.”) Studies show that this kind of planning will help your brain to detect and seize the opportunity when it arises, increasing your productivity by roughly 300%.

 

#3  Know Exactly How Far You Have Left To Go. Achieving any goal also requires honest and regular monitoring of your progress – if no one else is looking over your shoulder, then you’ll need to monitor yourself.  If you don’t know how well you are doing, you can’t adjust your behavior or your strategies accordingly.  Check your progress frequently – weekly, or even daily, depending on the goal.

 

#4  Be a Realistic Optimist. Believing in your ability to succeed is enormously helpful for creating and sustaining your motivation.  But whatever you do, don’t underestimate how difficult it will be to reach your goal or complete your project.  Studies show that thinking things will come to you easily and effortlessly leaves you unprepared for the journey ahead, and significantly increases the odds of failure.   Express confidence in your employees, while always being honest with them about the challenges they’ll face.

 

#5  Focus on Getting Better, Rather than Being Good. Believing you have the ability to reach your goals is important, but so is believing you can get the ability.   Many of us believe that our intelligence, our personality, and our physical aptitudes are fixed – that no matter what we do, we won’t improve.  As a result, we focus on goals that are all about proving ourselves, rather than developing and acquiring new skills.

Fortunately, decades of research suggest that the belief in fixed ability is completely wrong – abilities of all kinds are profoundly malleable. Embracing the fact that you can change will allow you to make better choices, and reach your fullest potential.  People whose goals are about getting better, rather than being good, take difficulty in stride, and appreciate the journey as much as the destination.   And telling your employees that you expect them to make a few mistakes as they learn is, ironically, the surest way to elicit their very best performance.

 

Want to Double or Triple Your Own Productivity? Here’s How.

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From my Fast Company blog:

Very few of us are as productive as we could be. We want to be focused with laser-like precision on critical tasks and make the best, most efficient use of our time.  Instead, we get distracted by coworkers, lost in our Inboxes, and too absorbed by unimportant aspects of a single project when we’d be better off turning our attention to other things.

Wanting to be more productive isn’t enough to actually make you more productive.  You need to find a way to deal effectively with the distractions, the interruptions, and the fact that there is just way too much on your plate.   Fortunately, there is a very simple strategy that has been proven to do the trick.

If you’ve already read my book Succeed: How We Can Reach Our Goals, then know that I am a big fan of planning.  If-then planning, in particular, is a really powerful way to help you achieve any goal.  Well over 100 studies, on everything from diet and exercise to negotiation and time management, have shown that deciding in advance when and where you will take specific actions to reach your goal (e.g., “If it is 4pm, then I will return any phone calls I should return today”) can double or triple your chances for success.  Making if-then plans to tackle your current projects, or reach your 2011 goals, is probably the most effective single thing you can do to ensure your success.

If-then plans take the form:

If X happens, then I will do Y.

For example:

If I haven’t written the report before lunch, then I will make it my top priority when I return.

If I am getting too distracted by colleagues, then I will stick to a 5 minute chat limit and head back to work.

If it is 2pm, then I will spend an hour reading and responding to important emails.

How effective are these plans? One study looked at people who had the goal of becoming regular exercisers.  Half the participants were asked to plan where and when they would exercise each week (e.g., “If it is Monday, Wednesday, or Friday, then I will hit the gym for an hour before work.”) The results were dramatic:  months later, 91% of if-then planners were still exercising regularly, compared to only 39% of non-planners!

A recent review of results from 94 studies that used the if-then technique found significantly higher success rates for just about every goal you can think of, including monthly breast self-examination, test preparation, using public transportation instead of driving, buying organic foods, being more helpful to others, not drinking alcohol, not starting smoking, losing weight, recycling, negotiating fairly, avoiding stereotypic and prejudicial thoughts, and better time management.

Why are these plans so effective?  Because they are written in the language of your brain – the language of contingencies. Human beings are particularly good at encoding and remembering information in “If X, then Y” terms, and using these contingencies to guide our behavior, often below our awareness.

Once you’ve formulated your if-then plan, your unconscious brain will start scanning the environment, searching for the situation in the “if” part of your plan.  This enables you to seize the critical moment (“Oh, it’s 4pm!  I’d better return those calls”), even when you are busy doing other things.

Since you’ve already decided exactly what you need to do, you can execute the plan without having to consciously think about it or waste time deliberating what you should do next.  (Sometimes this is conscious, and you actually realize you are following through on your plan.  The point is it doesn’t have to be conscious, which means your plans can get carried out when you are preoccupied with other things, and that is incredibly useful.)

So if you are finding, day after day, that too many important tasks have gone unaccomplished, and you are looking for a way to introduce better habits of time management into your life, look no further:  try making a simple plan.  By starting each morning making if-thens to tackle the day’s challenges, you won’t actually be adding hours to your day, but it will certainly seem like you did.

How Did Tiger Woods Ignore That Plane?

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Tiger Woods returned to the world of professional golf yesterday at the Masters Tournament, after a months-long and scandal-plagued absence.  Many sports analysts doubted that he would perform well – some predicted that he wouldn’t even get past the first cut.   How could he possibly focus?  Wouldn’t he be distracted by all the turmoil?  Surely he couldn’t perform under that kind of pressure, under such hostile scrutiny?

When Woods approached the first tee, he was greeted with applause and cheers – though there were enough boos and hisses to be clearly heard.  Then, a small and rather noisy airplane flew overhead, lingering above the course, with a message trailing behind that read “Tiger Did You Mean Bootyism?”  (referring to both his religion and his recent sexual transgressions).  A couple of hours later, a second banner appeared, reading “Sex addict? Yeah. Right. Sure. Me Too!”  Whatever taunts and animosity Woods may have expected to encounter yesterday, he probably never considered the possibility of sky-heckling.

Despite the pressure, the mocking, and whatever internal conflict and self-doubt he may be enduring, Tiger Wood shot a four-under-par 68, his best performance ever on the first day of a Masters.   Whatever your personal opinion of him may be, you really can’t help but wonder, how in the world did he do that?

One clue can be found in the answer he gave to a reporter, when he was asked what his remarkable comeback performance “meant to him.”   Woods replied, “It meant I’m two shots off the lead, that’s what it means.  I’m here to play a golf tournament.” This is an athlete who knows how to shut out distractions – to focus on the game and nothing else.  Not surprising, really, given that he has won 14 major titles (his last, the U.S. Open, when he was suffering a very painful knee injury).

Distraction is one of the most dangerous saboteurs we can encounter in pursuit of our goals, and it comes in many forms.  Some distractions, like jeering fans, loud noises, or taunting airplanes, come from outside of ourselves.  Others, like anxiety, self-doubt, cravings and intrusive thoughts, come from within.  Whatever the source, distractions take our attention and energy away from what we are trying to do, and lead to inefficiency and mistakes.

Not knowing him personally, I really can’t say which strategies Tiger Woods uses to shield his performance from distractions, but I can say something about the ones that the rest of us can use to keep ourselves from being distracted, from the inside and out.

First, you’ll want to practice.  Practice may not actually make perfect, but one thing it does for sure is make automatic.  The more you practice, the more the actions you need to take become routinized – your brain learns what to do without you having to consciously think about each step.  Automatically-executed actions are harder to derail.  For instance, because I have spent so many hours typing on my computer, the act of typing is relatively automatic for me – my toddlers can scream and bang on pots in the background and my fingers still hit all the right keys (now, whether what I end up writing in all that racket is actually worth reading is something else altogether.)

Second, try simulating the factors that might disrupt you as part of your practice.  Getting used to distractions makes them less attention-grabbing, and weakens their impact on your performance.  (When he was young, Tiger Wood’s father would often drop clubs or make loud noises when his son was in mid-swing, in order to prepare him for the distractions he might face in competition.)

Lastly, try making an if-then plan for how you will deal with the distractions you think are most likely to occur. By planning out in advance how you will respond, you can act swiftly to return your attention to your performance.  The plan can be as simple as saying “If I hear a distracting noise, then I will ignore it,” or “If people are calling out, then I will focus on the game.”  Studies show that if-then plans made by dieters to control their cravings (e.g., by having a healthy snack) and by competitive tennis players for dealing with feelings of anxiety or frustration (e.g., by thinking about how they’ve won in the past) are enormously useful for improving and maintaining performance.

These strategies will keep your focused on your goal, so you can stay “in the zone” and do your best, no matter what kind of distraction comes your way.