Introduction
In this article we will first give personal productivity a definition and secondly try to look at its application in business life by placing personal productivity training in it’s proper place in the field of different corporate consultancies. In this slightly weird way we try to build a holistic definition of the concept. Let it also be said that these views are not from Webster’s Dictionary. In stead they reflect the working definitions we have here at Time Management Solutions.
Also note this: we are now looking at things through goggles that have “work” written with small print on the lenses. Ok, let’s start.
Personal Productivity vs. Time Management
Personal productivity has a broader meaning than “just” time management. Time management is however an important component of personal productivity. The picture below shows the relation:
The main components of personal productivity, of which time management is an important one.
Put simply personal productivity consists of all the virtues an effective employee has. These areas are: efficient learning, personal organization, time management, mental control, creativity, and decision making. Let’s look at them little deeper, one by one.
Learning new things is of important value in today’s workplace (if nothing else, then at least those constantly changing IT systems). It is also quite usual that people suddenly have to start manage businesses in unfamiliar areas, due to “organizational changes” or just pure growth. A productive person welcomes learning and new situations. There are however also other ways to accelerate learning beyond attitude. These include tools like mind mapping, mnemonics, fast reading and the ability to use the right sources when looking for new information. These are all skills that can be learned.
Organization in a personal productivity context is the art of being able to place important things in places from where they can easily be retrieved later if needed. A good measurement of organization skills is the condition of a person’s office table. Truly organized persons do not have multiple piles of paper on their table, not to speak of dozens of irrational papers lying all around the rest of the space. The most difficult part of organizing is to build your preferred system. The second most difficult thing is to actually use it. Yes, the ability to organize is partly an individual inclination. However, with a good system in place and some discipline, we all can do it.
Time management is discussed throughout this site. Have a look at Introduction to Time Management. The term time management is by the way often used interchangeably with personal productivity. This is OK, and we sometimes do it too. Don’t let it confuse you.
Mental control is ever so important today. Productive persons are able to act calmly also in the most hectic situations. Optimal productivity is never achieved by unnecessary hurrying, shouting or making a fuzz out of things. Mental control is also important for the self. We all have to be able to let go of work related thoughts on our free time. We also have to be able to sleep during night. Otherwise Mr. Burnout will get us. Mental control is developed through learning to know yourself better; both generally and by defining your goals and and your values. Mediation and striving to live in the now – an art also called present moment awareness – will also help a lot.
Creativity is a tricky one. Your boss needs solutions, and you have to deliver. But what should you do when you also have no idea? Furthermore, unfortunately it is not enough to have an idea or a solution only in your head. You also have to be able to convey your thoughts; in slides, written reports or emails that are short and concise even when the facts aren’t. My point is this: only representing your ideas often requires creativity. Creativity can be enhanced by getting enough sleep, by learning to trust your abilities, and with the use of certain tools, like mind mapping. Presentations and reports can be greatly improved by using templates and having default structures to different type of presentations or reports. This frees your mind from the presentation technical part of the task, leaving more capacity for the creativity part.
Decision making is key to keeping projects running. A common mistake is to always strive for a mysterious “perfect” decision, also when you have many good alternatives already at hand. This is a trap that slows things down. You also have to be brave to make the decisions and to take the responsibility with them. Decision making is best improved by experience. There are however also tools available, some of which are very interesting. Those will most certainly be discussed in another article later.
Personal Productivity Training in a Larger Context
Now let’s have a look at the practical application of personal productivity in the business world. What the heck are personal productivity consultants actually doing – the David Allens, McGhees and Jan Jaspers of this industry? Let’s have a look at the following picture, which tries to look at things from a higher level. We will now take a step backward, before going forward.
Six levels of corporate consultancies, all working on their own fields, trying to enable corporate success.
There are various consulting services that companies can rely on in their quest for increased success. The caricatures of them are as follows.
We have the all knowing management consultancies with their teams of one older partner ($ 600/hr) and his young MBAs (á $ 300/hr) producing impressive slides about strategies and market situations. These support top management in tricky, strategic level decisions.
We also have the “IT solves every problem” process improvement people (the business card could say Accenture, IBM or SAP). They say like this: “Yes, this system costs $250k now, BUT it will actually pay itself back in 8 months”. Often they are theoretically right, and sometimes they also can convince the clients. Most often the projects are delivered late, at which point the companies always blaim at changed requirements during the project.
Then we have the corporate coaches. This field consists of a broad and wild group of actors, with better and worse content. The point is often to try to ignite a collective desire of success within a company, which is all good and important. The most important delivery factor in my opinion is the charisma of the preacher, i.e. the “coach”.
The three disciplines above are often done and delivered collectively. The three following are more individual of their nature.
Leadership training tries to teach people to lead other people. This is a difficult task, but an important one. This type of training is actually good for both the boss and the employees, who hopefully also can collect on the fruit.
Some engineers would just prefer to run Microsoft Project all day. So they have their project management courses for that. This is partly close to some of the areas of personal productivity and time management, however not quite. Project management skills focus on getting one specific thing done. Often it is something large – it could be constructing a nuclear plant.
And yes, with those words we now finally arrive at personal productivity.
Where does that fit in anymore? Who would pay for that? (Is there any money left?)
The thing is this: when you have a good company direction, well working IT, a collective desire for success, good bosses, and all that, truly productive employees can give any company substantial extra velocity. Things just happen faster.
“Our employees are our company’s most important asset”, as many a corporate values bullet point say.
With productive employees a company simply has more horsepowers to achieve it’s goals. It can also save on cost, as possibly fewer employees are needed. In all cases personal productivity skills should free each and every employee’s time to the core activities, away from clutter and “busy work”, towards better customer service and product quality.
In our view personal productivity is a set of generic skills that can be thaught. Time management/personal productivity consulting tries to do this. It is the newest consulting direction of these all, and formal training is still rare.
But it is coming.
Summary
Personal productivity is all about getting more done with the same time and employee resources. As a formal discipline it is still young, however growing.
Introduction to time management. Not fully familiar with time management yet? We offer a selected collection of articles for your convenience.
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