Cyclope-Series Team Blog

Do you want to be more productive? Are you afraid that taking the time to figure out how to be more productive will take too much time away from your already-busy schedule? Relax. You can increase your productivity in just a single work week if you make a commitment to tackling the issue head on. Just follow this 5 Day Plan:

Day One

Make a list of productivity goals. The most important part of getting more productive is to make sure that you understand what productivity means to you. Determine what you want to get out of being more productive. List every goal that you have which may include working with more clients, having more free time to spend with the family or reducing your work day down to six hours. Prioritize these goals.

Day Two

Go back to your list and break it down. Determine what steps could be taken to meet every goal on the list. For example, let’s say that you want to go down to a six hour work day. Some of the things that would allow you to do this might be skipping your lunch hour, reducing your spending so you need less income, working from home to avoid your commute and hiring a secretary to deal with calls and other menial tasks. When your list is complete you should cross off those items that won’t work for you and circle those that seem to offer the best route to meeting each goal.

Day Three

Resolve any conflicts in your productivity plan. You will find that several of the items that you’ve circled on your list conflict with one another. Trying to deal with these conflicts is often how we lose productivity. Resolve them on paper to get closer to meeting your goals. For example, you may have written that you want more clients but you want a shorter work day. A solution to getting more clients would be to work longer hours but this directly conflicts with your other goal. What would be a solution that would meet both goals? Perhaps you can aim to work instead with higher-paying clients so you can earn the same income in less time or maybe you could hire a partner. Take Day Three to figure out where all of the conflicts are and to come up with solutions to them.

Day Four

Take an honest look at everything that you do that hinders your productivity. This isn’t easy but it’s where the real changes will occur. You already know what your goals are and what steps you need to take to achieve them. Now you need to see what you do to prevent that from happening. Do you get to the office late every day? Do you linger on your lunch hour? Do you spend more time surfing the web than contacting new clients? Get tough on yourself to see what is holding you back. Make a complete list of everything that you do that limits your productivity and then list one action that you can take for each item on the list to reduce the problem.

Day Five

Make a commitment to yourself. Take the day off of work today to spend some time really honoring the path that you’re about to embark on. You may want to write out your goals and the steps that you plan to take to achieve them and post it in your home and office. You may want to team up with a partner to hold each other accountable for reducing your productivity problems. Consider this your fresh start. Then return to the office next week with these new goals in mind.

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