Sometimes making progress means being less productive …

We live in a society that has foolishly mistaken busyness for productivity. We equate starting and having many things going at once as being productive, but in many cases, truly making progress will mean being less productive.

We’ve learned that only after many years of the business world telling us the skill of “multi-tasking” was essential to “success.” Now research studies are teaching us that we actually accomplish more, with better quality, by focusing on one thing at a time, or as close to that as possible.

“Productivity” that results in significant progress usually can only happen when our projects are smaller things we’re working to accomplish. For example, if on a Saturday you tell yourself you need to do the laundry, mow the lawn, vacuum the carpet, dust the house, and wash the dishes, all of those tasks can be accomplished if you allot enough time in the day and remain focused on the work. By the end of the day each of the tasks can be completed, resulting in a “productive day” that yielded satisfying progress.

But what about when the things you need to do are more substantial than mowing the lawn?

What is common is this example – on a Monday we identify that we need to do A, B, C, D, and E, all important projects. So what do we do? On Monday, we start A, then we start B, then we start C, then we start D, and finally we start E. By the end of the day we have started all five projects, and so we tell ourselves we had a productive day. The problem is, all we’ve done is start each project. If each day we give to each project just a little time, at that rate of engagement it will take two weeks to complete all of the projects. We might be “productive” in being busy, but each day we’re actually making very little progress.

Now consider the measure of progress you might achieve by doing this – on Monday, you start A and devote the entire day only to starting — and completing — project A. On Tuesday, you start B, and devote all of Tuesday to completing project B. On Wednesday, you do the same for C; the same on Thursday for D; and on Friday, you start and complete project E. That means by focusing a full day on just one project and nothing else, you actually complete all five projects by the end of Friday. In that case, you were less productive each day, but your progress was much greater because you completed all five projects one week earlier than you would if you worked on each project just a little every day.

Sometimes, less productivity on multiple projects can yield more progress for all of the projects over a shorter period of time. That’s because you heighten your productivity in a single project to gain greater progress to complete that project so you can move on to the other projects.

We don’t always have the option of focusing on one thing at a time. Sometimes we have have five projects all needing our attention. We can still prioritize each project, and give greater amounts of engagement according to priority, while having each project started. That way, the overall progress will be greater than if you’re trying to treat everything with equal priority.

When everything is a priority, nothing is a priority!

Are you trying to measure productivity by how busy you are? How much more progress can you make if you allocate your productivity by assigning priorities to what you need to get done?

Scotty