Productivity: Tips to Get the Most Out of Your Day

I had the opportunity to attend an educational session led by Chris Bailey on productivity.  He states there are lots of books on the subject, good and bad!

The following is a recap of his session from my notes.

What is Productivity?  They mean different things to different people.

It has changed over the past 50 years from repetition of work (think working with your hands vs the brain) to knowledge-based work.  Factory vs Knowledge!

He goes on to state that there are 3 keys to productivity: Time Management; Attention; and Energy. Accomplishing what we intended to do is what productivity is all about.

He talked about the following 3 tactics that if we're aware of, that if we manage, it will make us more productive.

  1. The Rule of 3
  2. Procrastination
  3. Taming the distractions/interruptions

The Rule of 3

Set better intentions, what 3 things to I want to accomplish each day or week.  Our brains are ingrained to do things in 3.  So what are your 3 daily intentions?


The research states that there are 7 reasons we procrastinate because the work is boring, frustrating, difficult, lacks personal meaning, lacks intrinsic rewards, ambiguous and unstructured.

How to beat it, think of your future self, list the costs, shrink your resistance, define the very next thing and do it and finally notice mindless busywork.

Taming the distractions/interruptions

Research tells us that we have 40 seconds of focus before we're distracted/interrupted.  Which translates into 26 minutes of lost productivity from each distraction/interruption.

He goes on to say there are four types of distractions/interruptions - control/no control, annoying/fun.  The key is to deal with these things ahead of time.

Give 3 goals to your staff for the day, week, month or quarter.  Your team, like all teams, can understand when you keep it to three.

As a manager, do you have a list of 3 things you want to do? Time management, attention and energy are the keys to productivity and where those three circles come together is productivity.

At the end of the day, we need to be our own traffic cop to increase our productivity.

For more information about Chris Bailey and his productivity project go HERE.

Creating an Entrepreneurial Culture in an Existing Organization

At a recent educational breakout session I attended, the speaker, Courtney Kiss, spoke of creating an atmosphere where your staff can make a difference and change the culture of your organization and in turn your community.

It's about building a culture that everyone has a voice and has the ability to change things from where they are in the organization.  It cannot happen in a vacuum.

The top three key things that jumped out at me that may also work for you and your organization that the Courtney mentioned are:

  • Improve on what you already have - there is no need to start from scratch.
  • Try something new - and this does not have to be a big thing, it can be small or it could be large.
  • At the end of the day, it's about thinking differently - people who challenge the status quo.

Who drives the culture?

Management - buy-in from the top or who manages people.  It doesn't have to start at the top, but the top has to support.

Leaders - and that doesn't just mean the person with the title but the individuals that can inspire, constructive critique, and support (you will always have failure from time to time but the leader gives support and fail-forward. The leader can reinforce the message.

HR - supports the entrepreneurial culture through hiring and maybe even the review process and a consistent reinforced communication to all staff.

Benefits of an Entrepreneurial Culture

  • More innovation
  • Employee satisfaction - you are giving staff a platform to be heard
  • Employee advocacy - great PR

How do you Build It (10 Key Things)

  1. Embrace passion, share your passion
  2. Allow the right amount of autonomy
  3. Avoid homogeneity
  4. Be brave and radical
  5. Be patient with the process and timing
  6. Small is ok (learn as you go)
  7. You need to be ok with failure (you need to learn from it)
  8. Celebrate the successes
  9. You need to make way for change (you need to allow it to happen)
  10. Transparency is critical (share the most information you can from where you stand)

Some Action Items to Create this Entrepreneurial Culture

  • Create focus groups within your staff
  • Utilize the technology you have (Dropbox or a comment box, etc. to get new ideas)
  • Get your folks to talk to others outside your organization
  • Create a competition
  • Host a lunch with your staff to hear ideas but give it context

The good news is that it’s not expensive to change a culture, improve efficiencies, or the opportunity to make more people happy at work!