If your job is anything like mine, you are in constant battle with yourself on productivity. I don’t have a manager. According to Brian Tracy, the author of my productivity reference manual, Eat That Frog!, only 2% of people can work entirely without supervision. I’m not actually sure if I fall within that 2% or not, but I’m pretty sure that some of my co-workers do and some don’t. If that’s true, then those of us who don’t have supervision, and may not fall within that 2%, better figure out how to.
Last Month, I Had Major Productivity Issues
About a month ago, I was going through a productivity battle with myself. There were so many things competing for my attention and so many things that I “could be doing”. At the same time, I hadn’t had a strategy meeting with my boss in a long time and also hadn’t been spending much time planning my priorities. This situation had me spinning my wheels and not getting much of anything done. When that happens to me, I get very uncomfortable. So what did I do to fix it?
Well, after work on one very unproductive day, I went home and was fired up to sit down and plan out my upcoming work priorities. Just like clockwork, as I sat down and got out a pen and my notepad, I got drowsy. Awwwwggggghhhhhh, I was mad. Okay, I decided, I’ll do it in the morning. So I went to bed at 8:00 PM and got some serious sleep. I got up the next morning about 2 hours earlier than normal, grabbed my trusty Eat That Frog! book, stopped at Starbucks to grab a coffee and went into work.
The office was silent and peaceful. With my hot cup of coffee in front of me and a pen and notepad at hand, I opened my productivity reference manual, Eat That Frog! and started flipping through the pages. I’m going to break from this story now for a bit to tell you more about this book.
Eat That Frog! by Brian Tracy is a Productivity Lifesaver
Tracy begins the book by emphasizing the power of setting goals and writing things down. He then moves into suggesting that you plan every day in advance and that doing so can save you as much as two hours per day. Think about this, if you go to work with a list and get to work on it, wouldn’t you get more done in 6 hours than if you went in with no agenda at all and worked for 8? No agenda is kind of like traveling without a planned destination. You may get somewhere, but it has nothing to do with where you’re actually wanting to go.
The book moves on to summarize the 80/20 rule and how you should apply it to everything. For those of you who aren’t familiar with this concept, click here. In a nutshell, it means that 20% of the tasks you work on account for 80% of the results. Tracy recommends you figure out which things are in the top 20% (vital few) or in the bottom 80% (trivial many) and prioritize accordingly.
Next, Tracy recommends you consider the consequences of anything you could be working on. Some things may have little or no consequences either way if they get done or don’t, or are done poorly or done greatly. Other things, if done well could get you a promotion, or if not done well could get you demoted or fired. Always consider the consequences, both positive or negative, of what you are/could be working on.
The book then gets into Tracy’s prioritization strategy, called the ABCDE Method. It consists of writing down everything you have to do in the next, week/month/quarter/year/any amount of time. Then write an “A” next to all the very important ones, a “B” next to the things you should do, a “C” next to those that would be nice to do, a “D” next to those you can delegate and an “E” next to those that you should eliminate. Within each letter, next number them 1, 2, 3, 4, etc. in order of importance, with 1 being most important. After doing this, you effectively have made your prioritization list.
To make sure this doesn’t get too long for you, I’m going to speed up a little. His next major point, in my opinion, is what he calls the “Law of Three”. This says that three core tasks that you perform contain most of the value you contribute to your organization or business. This really gets me thinking. He next stresses again the importance of planning and suggests that you plan each day, each week and each month in advance. His arguments on planning in advance are outstanding. He certainly convinced me.
How This Impacted My Productivity
Back to me sitting at work, early in the morning, coffee in hand and reading Eat That Frog!. Keep in mind that I had already read this 4 or 5 times before. I opened this up, skimmed through the chapters like I would a reference manual and followed his advice. I thought about my goals. I thought about my company’s goals. I wrote them down. I wrote down everything that I could be doing. I applied the ABCDE Method to them. I read through the chapter describing the “Law of Three” and stopped to think. Which things on my list were part of the very important three? I starred four and then crossed one out.
Looking at those three, my brain turned on like a light bulb. Duh, I thought to myself. Why did I lose track of what’s really important and where the opportunity is for me to add the most value to this company. I’ll share with you what one of them is that I lost track of. It’s mentoring others. It’s leading. It’s training. It’s sitting down and showing people their opportunities and helping them understand our company, something that came easy to me as one of the first employees. Sure, if I can get a lot of cool things done, that’s awesome. But what if I can lead, train, motivate and inspire 20 other people to do that same thing? Now that’s huge!
To make a long story short, re-reading this book inspired me to take a step back, think and get focused again on where the opportunities are to make a difference. After all, what good is working your butt off and being stressed out if you’re working on unimportant things and not making a difference. I really think you have a great shot at avoiding that if you pick up this book and read it! Go.. I’m serious.. Get it..
I love this blog! I get so excited when I see you've posted something new! Keep it up!