The 4 keys to ignite productivity

Creating motivation and making your team feel appreciated is a critical part of long-term productivity.

Encourage your team to keep gratitude journals - writing down a couple of sentences about what you are currently grateful for a couple of times a week. This practice improves productivity by increasing happiness.

If people can't focus on their work, they are less effective in areas like collaboration and learning, and they are less likely to be satisfied with their jobs.

Workplaces with a balance between individual focus and collaboration are more innovative, creative and encouraging.

Probably the most influential step you can take toward creating a consistent practice of success is to invest in the systems that make your life run like a well-oiled machine.

Systems allow you to leverage your and other people’s time.

We all plateau. It’s frustrating but also a normal part of life. The key to bursting through ceilings, be they mental, physical or financial, is to hold yourself accountable. That doesn't mean accountable for doing it all, but accountable for getting help.

You’ll be surprised by how much further and faster a little help can take you. 

Being overwhelmed may be the new normal, but taking on too many responsibilities may be watering down our overall impact.

Bring back your focus to what matters most. Work on the projects that are the real game-changers. Delegate the discretionary work and eliminate unnecessary meetings.

Running a thriving business means understanding how to organize your work by importance and knowing when to delegate.

• Find your sweet spot. When you consider taking on a project, see if it aligns with your purpose and the organization's broader goals. Ask yourself if you're the right person with the right skillset.
• Automate. As your company grows, use automation tools for low-level work. It also allows your employees to make more meaningful contributions.
• Set boundaries. Learn to say no to low-level tasks. Set your own limits about what you'll take on.

• “Good stress”: which psychologists refer to as “eustress,” is the stress we feel when we’re excited about something.
• Acute stress: when something surprises us or catches us off guard. Acute stress is the body’s response to ensure you react and take measures to deal with the unexpected situation. It has no lasting negative effects if we deal with it quickly and move on.

Resilience is how we deal with stress effectively so we “bounce back” after a difficult time.

As we deal with issues that cause tension and strain, we learn to face adversity, deal with significant issues and overcome problems. We learn how to formulate realistic plans and carry them out.

• Do. If the email is actionable and takes under two minutes, then do the task ASAP.
• Delegate. Forward the right tasks to the right people.
• Defer. Reply to the message at a better time.
• Delete emails that are not important or that you can delegate. 
• File. Add messages that contain information you will need to your archives.

To avoid filling the email box of staff members, only CC the relevant parties. Ask your team to respond to you individually instead of using the reply-to-all button.

Putting your feelings into words has a therapeutic effect on your brain; if you’re unable to articulate how you feel, that can create stress. 

The ability to say “no” to yourself to put off short-term gratification ( from daily temptations like social media or junk food) for the long-term gain is an important life-skill. 

Like a muscle, it is strengthened with exercise

Once you’ve written down a company or a team goal, two questions arise. Who is responsible for the goal (accountability), and how do you review the results (performance review)?

These goals are designed to try new things, experiment and break old habits. It’s reaching for the moon and landing among the stars.

Track your progress towards said goal week by week. This is called continuous performance review. 

Weekly status meetings are used in most companies. But you have to be careful with them as they can become pointless very easily if you haven’t set clear goals first.

Some tasks are neither urgent nor important, but as these time-wasting tasks are in front of us, we end up consuming our time with them. These include:

• Browsing social media
• Reading junk articles and posts
• Playing distracting games.

Urgent tasks are the ones that are not adding any value but come up to be done at that moment. The right approach is to avoid the urgent and focus on the important.

Example: Answering a phone call can seem urgent, due to its ringing, but it may not be that important.

• Strategic optimists: They will perform better if they do something positive before they complete their tasks.
• Defensive pessimists: They are more likely to perform positively if they visualize failure before they complete their tasks.

These two groups succeed best under different circumstances. 

Thinking positively can hinder people from realizing their goals.

At the same time, pessimists can become paralyzed by stress and fail to take action while those who are overwhelmingly positive are unlikely to experience stress or anxiety. 

• Tell everyone what you plan to do and talk about your goals. Tell friends, employees, and employers your intentions and you won’t want to let them down. 
• Start documenting and sharing your journey. A blog or vlog where you share the projects you’re working on and your progress will encourage you to get things done. 

If you’re a chronic procrastinator and simply can’t resist the temptations of things like Facebook and Youtube, it might be time to cut out temptations.

There are tools such as Rescue Time, SelfControl and Focus that will temporarily block access to distracting websites like Facebook. Less aggressive tools such as Facebook Newsfeed Eradicator and Distraction Free Youtube will allow you to have access to Facebook and Youtube but block the distracting parts of these websites (such as the newsfeed).