Maximizing Your Productivity by Knowing Your Strengths
Since the world shut down for the pandemic in 2020, a lot has gotten back to normal, but there have also been plenty of changes that seem like they might be permanent. One of these changes resulted from the quarantine, where it seemed like everyone except fast food employees suddenly found themselves working from home for the first time. And what ended up being even more surprising for many was that, after businesses started up in-person work again, some of that shift to remote work stuck.
Working from home certainly isn’t for everyone. Some of us need to be in an office space to focus, and others need that in-person collaboration to maintain a sense of purpose and accomplishment in their careers. But the real idea that came out of the remote work renaissance was that businesses might actually do better if their employees had the opportunity to tweak the way they work. Business News Daily writes of the post-COVID work world: “What’s emerged is a newer understanding of productivity that accepts and respects a personally guided workday.” Now, whether you work from home or travel for projects or go into the office five days a week, same as always, there are a lot more ways to customize your work life than there used to be. And good news – you don’t have to work in one of the fancy Google offices to maximize your productivity by knowing your strengths. Here are three places to start.
Track Your Productivity
There are plenty of strategies out there for organizing your tasks to boost your productivity, and one of the most popular pieces of advice is to do your hardest tasks first and then work your way down from there. Though this certainly can be a helpful strategy, a better one is to think more creatively and build your strategy around your personal strengths. Everyone has different days when they are more or less productive, and there are also times of each day when you will typically be more or less energized. So, to maximize your productivity, you have to learn your personal productivity patterns.
In the same article quoted above, Business News Daily outlines how to do this. First, be aware and try to notice when in your week and when in your day you feel focused and productive. Write it down. Second, notice when your flow gets disrupted. When do you start getting distracted or sluggish, and what is it that is throwing you off? Write that down too. Once you have some samples of your productivity patterns, you’ll have a much better idea of when you’re at your peak for productivity and when you’re struggling to stay checked in. Now start planning to do your more challenging tasks and projects in your most energized and productive window. Save smaller and less important jobs for the hours when it’s harder to lock in. For more details on this strategy, you can read the full article here.
Define Your Work/Life Balance
The other side of knowing your strengths is knowing your weaknesses, and finding and maintaining a healthy work/life balance is one of life’s biggest challenges for many people. It is essential for maximizing your productivity, because working too much or too hard is a fast track to burning out. So how do you actually find that pivotal but elusive balance? The two tips in this section come from two TED Talks on the topic.
First, if you know you need to make a change (usually in the direction of working less, not more), start small with your adjustments. In a 2011 TED Talk, author Nigel Marsh tells his audience, “Being balanced doesn’t mean dramatic upheaval in your life. With the smallest investment in the right places, you can radically transform the quality of your relationships and the quality of your life.” You won’t be able to change your life overnight, but maybe you can get off work an hour early to spend a little extra time with one of your kids, like Nigel did in an example he gives. It’s often little changes that go longest way.
The second tip comes from a 2021 TED video featuring Ashley Whillans, a Harvard Business School professor, and her advice starts with a surprising stat. Whillans reports that “Companies lose 32 days of productivity each year to employee depression, which is often caused by the stress and burnout of our always-on culture.” If we want to get it all done, we need to establish clear boundaries between our life in and out of the workplace. Whillans encourages us to stop thinking of rest as an “unproductive barrier to our work,” and, instead, put a high value on our time away from our office or projects. One of her practical suggestions is to make plans for your weekends as you would if you were on a vacation, scheduling fun activities and guilt-free downtime. Another idea for establishing those all-important boundaries is to not be afraid to ask for extensions on deadlines sometimes. This will protect your hard-earned off time from being taken over by lingering work. Whillans, who is also a behavioral scientist, notes that, in one study, “employees who proactively asked for more time reported lower levels of stress and burnout and were seen as more professional and committed by their colleagues.” And that is no coincidence. Protecting your work/life balance may take hard work, and it may even take a little courage! But trust us, it’s worth it.
Remember Your Priorities
Here’s one last tip for this post and the whole How to Get It All Done series: everything in life is a trade-off. Doing this means you’re not doing that. Working later means sleeping less. Spending more time with your family means spending less time with clients. Taking on another project means letting up on your side hustle. Making trades is ok, as long as you’re making them on purpose and for a good purpose. This piece of productivity advice is much shorter than the previous two sections, but it’s probably the most important one. Sometimes the key to doing it all is knowing when to say no – even if it’s a good thing you’re saying no to. Our work lives have never been more adaptable, and we’ve never had more options for what we’re doing and how we’re doing it. You can maximize your productivity by knowing your strengths and taking action against your weaknesses, but even more important is keeping your priorities in view. Do your best and work hard, but don’t lose sight of what’s important along the way. That’s how you get it all done.
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