By Stephen Tierney
•
16 Oct, 2023
Are you productive? Or are you just busy? Think of a relatively normal day at your work. You get in, potentially have a meeting (though it might not be the most productive meeting). You get yourself a cup of coffee because you can’t function without it. You may do some work. Then you hear someone from your team talking about something they had watched on TV or Netflix. You join in with your say on it. You probably check your emails, then involuntarily stuff because you become involuntarily got so drawn to listening to your workmate complain. Look, the list of this usual activities (and yes, distractions, too) is endless. If you think about it, we always have those little pockets of time ---- that if we are just being honest with ourselves ----- we waste. Time is the most expensive commodity in the world, simply because we can’t get it back. But then, we give it away so easily. Can you imagine what it would be like if we just give away our money like we give away our time. So the question is, are you really productive? Or are you just busy? Too many people believe that being busy is equivalent to being productive. Is it really? No. They are definitely not the same. Let’s a draw a line between the two. Busy people complain they have no time, but productive people dedicate time to more important things. Being busy is usually doing frantic work and multitasking on shallow tasks, jumping from one thing to another, whereas being productive is dedicating time and effort on doing tasks which are purposeful Make the decision today to stop wasting time and start adding more productive time pockets into your day. Would you agree if I say that it is time management that we need? Rather, it is a combination of focus and attention management. Remember, it is not always about the number of hours you put in. It is what you put into the hours that count. When I was still a professional sportsman, I would often put in 6 hours a day practicing. But it wasn’t purposeful. And therefore, whatever I did in practice wasn’t effective. I was just wasting time. Being productive is equivalent to block time. So, what block time? It is the time you dedicate in doing deep, focused and purposeful work until the task’s completion. As Henry David Thoreau said, “It’s not enough to be busy, so are the ants. The question is, what are we busy about?” It is better to focus in doing one task which is meaningful and has a greater impact on your results, instead of knocking out several tasks halfheartedly. Not everything matters equally. And success isn’t a game won by whoever does the most. Yet that’s how most of us think and do each day. Peter Drucker said it best with, “Efficiency is doing things right; effectiveness is doing the right things.” Time is very important, as you might have probably realized. So do the best that you can, not only in your job, but in life as a whole. Think about this: what can you stop doing that will save pockets of wasted time for you each day? Schedule things in priority of what matters the most and what will get you the results that you need. Manage your focus and attention by switching off everything that distracts you, and fully focus on that one thing. So, let me go back to my question at the start of this blog: Are you productive? Or are you busy?