For me, personal productivity means the ability to deliver results when needed. The results may be some deliverable to your boss, or some outcome for yourself. You should also be able to do this without unnecessary stress. How often have you achieved this? Most of us have been truly productive very seldom. I strongly think that this ability is something that can be developed. It is done by learning a specific set of six crucial skills. I'll run them down for you below.
What many people do not realize is, that such a basic skill like learning, can be boosted. Learning skills can be beefed up by learning to read faster, by learning how to create mind maps, and by studying mnemonics. Especially mnemonics is a very interesting area, as it is almost like a dark art of the mind. Just think about it: you can actually teach yourself the order of the cards in a full card deck. Furthermore, the tricks in this area are surprisingly simple.
Organization skills are also very important, as we are constantly overflowed with new information, papers, and gadgets. Some of these things we should keep and store, others we should immediately get rid of, or they will just increase the amount of clutter lying around. Personal organization methods can really come handy at such situations. Just think what it means to your productivity, when you manage to find that receipt from 2 months ago within 30 seconds.
As third, we have good old time management. Notice how I list time management as a part of personal productivity. For me, time management means things like managing tasks and email efficiently, and having an orderly way to manage your calendar. This is undoubtedly a enormous productivity booster.
In order to get results, we also have to keep fit mentally. Stress will wear you down, if you are not careful. For this, there exists practices like mediation, but doing sports and meting friends will do as well. The point is this: even in the most hectic work situations, you should be able to keep calm. With a stable mind, this is easier to do.
On interesting area is creativity. Our work today if filled with problems, and basically we all get paid for solving them. Can you imagine that there actually exists dozens of small tools to help you on that area? Having creativity handy when you need it, will help you finish that presentation your boss is waiting for, making you both happy - your boss gets his fast delivery, and you can go home earlier.
Last but not least we have decision making. We all know people who cannot make even the smallest decision, as they simply don't have the guts to do it. What do I say again? There exists tools to help persons like this.
If you take some time and develop a few areas of the ones listed above, I promise that you will experience truly remarkable results in your personal productivity. It will also affect positively your ability to manage your time.
What many people do not realize is, that such a basic skill like learning, can be boosted. Learning skills can be beefed up by learning to read faster, by learning how to create mind maps, and by studying mnemonics. Especially mnemonics is a very interesting area, as it is almost like a dark art of the mind. Just think about it: you can actually teach yourself the order of the cards in a full card deck. Furthermore, the tricks in this area are surprisingly simple.
Organization skills are also very important, as we are constantly overflowed with new information, papers, and gadgets. Some of these things we should keep and store, others we should immediately get rid of, or they will just increase the amount of clutter lying around. Personal organization methods can really come handy at such situations. Just think what it means to your productivity, when you manage to find that receipt from 2 months ago within 30 seconds.
As third, we have good old time management. Notice how I list time management as a part of personal productivity. For me, time management means things like managing tasks and email efficiently, and having an orderly way to manage your calendar. This is undoubtedly a enormous productivity booster.
In order to get results, we also have to keep fit mentally. Stress will wear you down, if you are not careful. For this, there exists practices like mediation, but doing sports and meting friends will do as well. The point is this: even in the most hectic work situations, you should be able to keep calm. With a stable mind, this is easier to do.
On interesting area is creativity. Our work today if filled with problems, and basically we all get paid for solving them. Can you imagine that there actually exists dozens of small tools to help you on that area? Having creativity handy when you need it, will help you finish that presentation your boss is waiting for, making you both happy - your boss gets his fast delivery, and you can go home earlier.
Last but not least we have decision making. We all know people who cannot make even the smallest decision, as they simply don't have the guts to do it. What do I say again? There exists tools to help persons like this.
If you take some time and develop a few areas of the ones listed above, I promise that you will experience truly remarkable results in your personal productivity. It will also affect positively your ability to manage your time.
About the Author:
Harri Jussila is a self taught personal productivity guru. Being responsible of a very large organization himself, he has been around enough in order to know a lot about managing time and coping with stress. Feel free to stop by his site! Questions and your own insights are always welcome!
