productivity – Small Business Odyssey

February 20, 2012February 20, 2012

Is Indecision Crippling Your Productivity?

Indecision has a major impact on productivity – in fact, it can cripple your productivity. When you are undecided, your cannot focus or gain momentum in a particular direction. You spend all your energy on the decision process rather than taking action.

Have you experienced yourself ‘going around in circles’ – unable to decide which direction to move in? Or have you sat there at your table endlessly tapping your pencil (as in the image above) – and becoming agitated by the pain of the decision process? Indecision can not only detract from our positive energy, it can also create negative energy and lead to exhaustion and depression. The best antidote for depression is action – but indecision prevents us taking action and becoming productive.

[Photo credit: Tapping Pencil by Rennett Stowe]

Dealing with indecision to improve your productivity

Sometimes indecision is a result of too many opportunities. If you try to pursue every opportunity, you will dissipate your energy and achieve very little on any front – you need to grasp the nettle and make a decision. Until you do decide, your indecision will erode your energy and your productivity. You will spend all day ‘tapping pencils’.

It’s always hard to make that decision – you are torn between too many alternatives. Your emotions tell you one thing and your mind another. Deciding is about making a choice between alternatives – in the process you not only decide what you will do, but also what you will not do. This exclusion process is the hard part of decision making. Often, we really don’t decide – we say that we are going to do one thing and then continue to do the other thing in our ‘spare’ time. The net result is that our productivity suffers and we are unable to give the one important thing our full focus.

Making the decision – a process to improve productivity and overcome indecision

There are many decision making processes you can use and sites like MindTools offer great advice and tools for decision making. One of the decision making approaches that I have used recently (and found very useful) is the cost/benefit analysis approach.

Basically, you look at the likely benefits (upsides) and costs (downsides) for each option you are considering and evaluate the overall net value of each option. You need to decide then which option will give you the greatest net value (benefits over costs). It pays to do this process with someone else and talk through your analysis and decision dilemmas. Often another person can offer an alternative perspective and help you make your decision.

While ever you are stuck in indecision, you can’t move forward and your productivity will definitely suffer.

February 18, 2012February 18, 2012

Procrastination: The Enemy of Productivity

Procrastination can have many manifestations but ultimately it impacts heavily on your productivity. Some authors suggest that procrastination is putting off important tasks in favor of less important tasks or doing tasks you enjoy rather than tasks that will lead you to your goal.

There are many reasons why we procrastinate. In my personal productivity course I discuss fear of failure and fear of success as possible causes. In this blog post, I will look at procrastination in terms of pursuing our preferences, over doing what we should do in order to be productive.

[Image credit: Procrastination Flowchart by jean-louis zimmermann]

Procrastination: doing what you love rather than what will make you productive

One of the manifestations of your procrastination could be that you avoid the mundane, routine tasks that are necessary to realize and maintain your goals. If you are a creative-type person, you will find yourself spending time on creating new things – new websites, blog posts or other endeavors – at the expense of doing things that are necessary to move you closer to your goals – things that would enhance your productivity in terms of goal achievement.

Sometimes we can become productive in the wrong things – we can concentrate on the 80% of things that don’t lead directly to our goals and ignore the 20% of tasks that do. Yaro Starak describes this 8o/20 rule in the following terms:

… the important thing to understand is that in your life there are certain activities you do (your 20 percent) that account for the majority (your 80 percent) of your happiness and outputs.

If you focus only on the things that you enjoy, then you will avoid the things that are less exciting but that contribute more to your goals. In fact, one of the things that have been identified about successful people is that each day they do first the things that they don’t like doing but see as necessary for goal achievement (before they do the things they like). This daily discipline is a way they overcome procrastination to improve their productivity and achieve their goals in life.

So if you want to improve your personal productivity, it pays to look at the important tasks that you tend to avoid because they are routine or boring. Ask yourself how you could give them a new priority, instead of leaving them to last (when you invariably have no time to complete them).

It may be you are putting off social bookmarking, writing that important blog post, updating your browser or making simple (but important changes) to your website – all in favor of enjoying endless interactions on websites such as Facebook or Squidoo. Alternatively, you may be avoiding engaging on these social networks because you find logging in, reading and commenting boring tasks.

You really have to take a close look at your procrastination and determine what is going on for you, if you want to improve your productivity.

February 15, 2012

How to Overcome Writer’s Block to Improve Your Productivity

Writer’s block is the curse of all writers, whether writing online or offline. Even the great novelists report that at times they experienced writer’s block.

In an earlier blog post, I offered suggestions on how to achieve your daily blogging goal. That blog post on daily blogging focused mainly on creating productive habits and establishing a routine. But what happens if, despite your routine, you are lost for words on a particular day when you want to write? What if, despite your best efforts, no ideas come to mind?

Well, there are a couple of strategies that I use that you might find useful to help you overcome writer’s block and improve your productivity.

[Photo credit: Writer’s Block by orijinal]

Strategies to Overcome Writer’s Block

I have developed these strategies over time while writing both technical and popular articles and blog posts. They have really helped me overcome writer’s block.

1. Talk to the computer

This sounds a bit strange but it is a valuable technique. I learned this approach from a colleague when we were doing an Australia-wide research project on action learning. Whenever we got stuck for writing, he would go to the keyboard and start typing questions like:

What do I want to say here?
Who am I saying this to?
What’s the key message that I want to get across?
Why would I bother to write this?
What can the reader learn from what I am writing?

He would then progressively start to answer these questions as if they were questions asked of him by the computer. Invariably, we would have no trouble progressing once we responded to his questions on the computer.

2. Record yourself – create a podcast

Sometimes the act of writing is itself an impediment to what you want to say – you can’t find the right words to start. What I have done to overcome this particular writer’s block is to use an audio recorder, my smartphone or a program like Audacity or AudioBoo to record what I want to say. When you move to the auditory channel, your natural instincts to edit are turned off, so a natural speaking flow can occur. You can then type from the audio and play around with the grammar and structure. You could use the questions mentioned in (1) to get started. It is amazing how using a different communication channel can free up your ideas (and overcome innate fears that can cause writer’s block).

3. Speed writing

This is a real challenge to the perfectionist who may suffer from fear of failure or fear of success. It is a similar idea to the previous one but here you stick with writing as the primary task. However, instead of concerning yourself with structure, grammar, spelling or complete sentences, you just write any idea that comes into your head about the topic that is the focus of your attention. What you will find is that one idea will lead to another and you will find new ways to develop ideas mentioned earlier in your speed writing. It takes a bit of work to edit the writing, but at least you will have captured the ideas and linkages – you just need to structure them and edit your expression.

Speed writing can really free up writer’s block because it enables you to overcome your lifetime conditioning – having to proceed in a logical way and write perfect sentences. The speed writing approach stresses lateral thinking and randomness, and activates the right brain. Eventually, you need to activate your left brain to impose some order on what you have written. The speed writing process can really help you overcome writer’s block by tapping into a part of your brain (the right side) that you may not use on a regular basis (depending on your type of work).

4. Record a reflection

Yesterday I was lost for a topic, so I reflected on what helped me to become productive with my blogging. This led to my extended post on the how you can use focus to improve productivity. That blog post started out as some random ideas that I thought I could write 200 words on and it ended up as a 7 point article of more than 1,200 words. So even if you are slow to start writing, the very act of starting can loosen up your mind and capture the connections that are already resident there. In the case of the focus blog post, I ended up jotting down some key points that turned into the 7 reasons why focus helps to improve productivity.

This current post came about because I was experiencing writer’s block and was reflecting on how I had overcome it in the past – hence the focus of the article.

5. Don’t try for perfection every time

It’s better to write something, however short, rather than nothing. The more you write, the easier it gets. Not every blog post is going to be a ‘pillar article’. So it’s worth persisting and settling for something that may be good but not great. Action generates ideas and ideas build on each other.

If you want to be productive with your blogging, you need to explore strategies to overcome writer’s block – hopefully, my strategies will prove fruitful for you too.

February 14, 2012February 22, 2012

7 Ways Focus Improves Your Productivity

I’ve been reflecting on how focus has helped me to improve productivity with respect to blogging. Over the last 3 months, I have written 80 blog posts for my Small Business Odyssey blog (from 400 to 1000+ words each), while in the previous three months I wrote only one blog post. This improved productivity is the result of focus.

One of my early posts on this blog was about the benefits of focus for small business marketing. In this current blog post, I want to discuss how focus improves productivity – as it has obviously done for me with regard to blogging.

[Photo credit: Close Focus Lens by SqueakyMarmot]

7 ways to improve productivity through focus

There is no doubt in my mind that focus was one of the key means that helped me to improve productivity. In reflecting on this, I identified 7 key ways focus contributed to my productivity improvement:

1. Focus builds momentum

Early definitions of ‘momentum’ described it as ‘the power residing in a moving object’. You know yourself that once you get a heavy object moving, it gains momentum and is a lot easier to push (e.g. trying to push a broken-down car). For me, momentum is the key benefit of focus. Once I decided that I would focus on writing a blog about small business marketing, I began to overcome the resistances (the heavy objects) that were residing in me – the barriers to productivity. Once I started writing blog posts with my new-found focus, I began to gain momentum – writing blog posts became easier and I looked forward to writing them.

2. Focus is motivational

Once you become focused, you start to achieve things that seemed impossible before. You become more disciplined, avoid distractions and build sound habits that help to improve productivity. The sense of achievement you gain is motivational – it provides the intrinsic reward, a sense of satisfaction, that keeps you going. Extrinsic rewards, in the form of increased traffic and revenue usually follow, but it is the inner sense of achieving a worthwhile goal that provides the initial impetus. Focus enables you to gain this sense of achievement and the resultant motivation that leads to improved productivity.

3. Focus channels energy

Focus brings an alignment of your energies (mental, physical, emotional) so that you are able to pursue a single goal or direction with increasing energy. You know yourself that a lack of focus dissipates energy – you are ‘all over the place’. Focus, on the other hand, results in harnessing energy towards a single goal. I think of the analogy of using a magnifying glass to focus the energy of the sun’s rays to burn a hole in a piece of paper (as we used to do as kids). The sun’s energy is there all the time, but it is unfocused unless you capture it with a magnifying glass (or nowadays with solar panels to produce electricity). It is the focus (or the focusing instrument) that channels and concentrates energy. This channelled energy helps you, in turn, to improve productivity.

4. Focus creates a new significance

Lou Tice, famous organizational psychologist, used to talk about the power of organization vision to ‘create a new significance’ – visioning is about focusing on a desired future state that you want to work towards achieving. He explained that the process of visioning, focusing of some desired future, activates a part of the brain called the RAS (reticular activating system) which is responsible for arousal and activating the conscious mind. So, for example, you may be driving to work in a ‘mindless state’, almost on remote control. Then suddenly you see the rear lights of the car in front of you turn read (the brake light). It is the RAS that tells your body to take evasive action (your brain has recognised the significance of the red light – you are going to crash if you don’t stop or swerve away). TheRAS brings you back to a heightened state of consciousness. And so it is with focus in any arena of life, especially in small business marketing. The consequence is that you start to see things you did not notice before, new resources come to your attention, and you recognise new resource people – your brain has created a new significance around your focus and this new consciousness helps you to improve your productivity because you become better resourced and informed.

5. Focus attracts productive people to you

Other people value focus because it demonstrates commitment and achievement – a goal that many people aspire to but cannot achieve. People who have achieved in life are attracted to other productive people and recognise their expertise. Here’s a simple example from my own experience. I decided a few years ago to spend a year acquiring expertise in Squidoo and eventually attained the level of Giant Squid100 (100 excellent Squidoo lenses determined by Squidoo itself). This enabled me to write many blog posts about Squidoo and create an e-book on Squidoo Marketing Strategies which I sold via Paypal. As my expertise developed I came to the attention of Mari Smith, Facebook expert, who asked me to run a webinar for her on Squidoo for her Social Media Certification Course. This gave me increased exposure and access to resources and contributed substantially to my visibility, branding, motivation and productivity. Mari is a great example of how focus attracts others, builds expertise and increases personal productivity.

6. Focus improves efficiency

Efficiency is about achieving more in less time – the hallmark of productive people. With focus you are able to avoid distractions and use your time better. You can overcome information overload because your focus gives you the basis for ignoring, or attending to, the endless bits of information that you are bombarded with. You can sift through information quickly and attend to only those things that further your goal (your primary focus). As you become more time efficient through your focus, you improve your productivity in terms of achieving your goal.

7. Focus taps emotional energy

It is very difficult to sustain a focus unless there is some emotional attachment to the goal underlying your focus. So in my case, the focus on small business marketing contributes to two key goals of mine – the promotion of my own HR consultancy business and the development of a future stream of revenue when I wind down from running workshops. I have a very strong, emotional commitment to both these goals which are interrelated and intertwined. This enables me to tap into the emotional energy involved in my focus and to improve my productivity. The positive emotional energy sustains me when the going gets hard – writer’s block, downtime on my computer, the pressures of my offline business and illness. A key lesson here is to align your focus with a goal you find emotionally energizing and your focus will help you to sustain and improve your productivity.

For further information on ways to enjoy the benefits of focus and learn to improve productivity in your small business marketing, subscribe to my free e-course on how to be productive.

February 12, 2012February 12, 2012

Improve Efficiency and Productivity by Reviewing Your ISP Contract

One of the great boosts to our efficiency and productivity of late has been the new business contract we have established with our ISP (Internet Service Provider).

Over the past 12 months, the competition between ISP’s in Australia and overseas has intensified. One result of this is that ISP’s are now starting to bundle up services and products to attract new customers or retain existing customers. There can be real benefits for your cost efficiencies and productivity.

(Photo credit: ETISALAT TOWER 2 : DUBAI by UggBoy)

Research ISP contracts to improve productivity and efficiency

My wife, Anne-Marie Carroll, did the research for our home offices and located a great package that covers the four computers we have between Anne-Marie, myself and our two sons living at home.

Not only do we get faster upload and download and increased data access but we have our phone services integrated as well (at a greatly reduced cost). The net result is that we not only improve our productivity but also our cost efficiency.

The package we chose is called the Fusion Package for AUD$109 per month:

Unlimited standard local & national calls to fixed lines within Australia
Unlimited standard calls to Australian mobiles within Australia (this is a great cost saving for me as I can make up to 20 calls a week to mobile phones around the State because of my organisational consulting work)
Line rental included
Up to 500GB broadband data per month included – then speed limited to 256kbps (our earlier limit was 16 GB and our service would be slowed down considerably when we exceeded this quota around the end of the month)
Premium Speed (up to 1,000 kbps download speed), WIFI cable modem included with built-in Router for four Internet cable connections (we had a separate Router before with all the issues with drop-out occasioned by the cable connections to the modem)
$0 connection fee & delivery
High definition digital Set Top Box that lets you record multiple channels simultaneously – Pause, Rewind and Record Live TV.

Besides improving our entertainment options, through this new package we have reduced our combined Internet and phone costs (landline and mobiles), expanded our data access, increased our upload and download speeds and save ourselves time and angst. The WiFi modem with integrated router works really well and enables us to access the Internet via wireless when we are using a laptop. This give us greater flexibility and mobility when we work at home (most days for me).

So I would strongly recommend you re-visit your ISP contract and look at ways to improve your cost efficiencies and personal productivity – it’s a buyer’s market at the moment.