Productivity Boosters

Productivity Boosters

In this series, professionals share their secrets to being more productive. Read the posts here, then write your own (use #ProductivityHacks in the body).

It's funny how you sometimes run into a serendipitous moment. This serendipitous moment helps you in a way that you never expected. Last week or so, my leadership team and I were having a discussion around what I can do better to bring productivity and efficiency to the team. Then I saw Amy Chen who is the Editor at Linkedin sharing the post around the productivity tips from other Linkedin influencers. The timing couldn't be better!  So, here's how I try to keep myself productive and become a productive member every day. 

5:00 am 

Be an early riser!

Yes I know that waking up early when you don't have any meetings is challenging. But once you experience the serenity, utterly relaxing yet completely focused state of mind, and zero distraction from emails, phone calls, meetings, that's when I have a time to think big, plan proactively, and lead strategically. An extra bonus here being an early riser is that you are no longer rushing your morning routine as you know you are generally 2+ hrs ahead of most people. One big change I experienced through this change is that I now eat breakfast before I head out! Win-Win for your body and for your mind. Try this for a week and see how your productivity gain looks like.

6:00 am 

Release your anxiety through [fill your favorite activity] on your way to work.

I commute mostly using Bart to SF. It's about a 45min commute from my station to where I get off. This is a perfect moment to do a few things. For one, I start a day with reading Bible verses and spend some time in prayer. This helps me to remove or alleviate certain anxiety attacks, rationalize situations better, and focus on much more meaningful and longer-term visions therefore prevent me to get distracted on short-term issues. If you aren't like me, just take a deep breadth, close your eyes (assuming you are not driving) and tune to your favorite music to bring yourself a 'ready state'. Don't check your emails from last night until you have done this exercise first. Makes a big difference.

7:00 am

Take a big picture of your day by reviewing the calendar for two consecutive days.

Once I get to the office (between 7 and 7:30am), I always review my current schedule but also schedule for two or more days ahead. Why? This helps me to maintain a big picture of how individual meetings or people I am meeting or projects I am reviewing will and should tie together. Most importantly, this guides me to focus on the most critical things vs. other important things and maintain a clarity. This simple exercise can also become a reminder for how you spend your time at work. Just because you attended all of meetings scheduled on your calendar does not mean you have accomplished something. Meetings are just facilitation tools - they are means, not ends. 

8:00 am - 5:30 pm

Bring your own "e gg timer" and watch it as often as you need to.

We have a little joke within my team about "Egg Timer" metaphor (won't go into details here). Basically throughout each day, it is important to recognize that you can be hampering the overall team's productivity. This is very unnatural for most of people to think that they can be the source of issue (I talked about this in my previous post - The Purpose Driven Work Life). By monitoring and calibrating the frequency of how often you are interrupting the flow of communication between your team and stakeholders, you can help increasing the overall productivity. Egg timer is all about creating a time for your team to digest, formulate, response with a set of clear actions of their own, however, within a specific time frame. I am not perfect at this yet but trying to be a better egg timer for the team.

5:30 pm - 6:30 pm

Decompress your day and make a mental switch

So called 'commute back home' time is where I realize how productive I can be outside of work. It's often easy to think that our work is our life. After all, the most 'active' hours are spent at work. Wrong. I've seen myself dragging myself to a full 24hrs of thinking and doing work related tasks (emails mostly) and thought I became so much productive during this golden hour. It's actually the opposite - you need to be gradually and slowly disengaging to be productive. Your body needs to be refreshed, recharged, and re-calibrated. We do this to other things in your life. Why not applying this to yourself when your physical and mental health is more valuable than those things you possess? 

6:30 pm - 10:30+ pm

Try your best to disconnect from work.

I admit that this is the most weakness I have and feel most guilty when it comes to talk about productivity. I used to feel I was productive whenever I am indirectly engaged with my work via mobile device. After all, the mobile device allows us to be ubiquitous and connected 24/7, therefore, makes us feel empowered and productive. Right? Think again. Staying connected after the normal business hour is destructive to you, to your family as well as to your team. You need to draw a time boundary to become a productive member of your intimate social circle called 'personal life' or 'family'. For me, I try my best to leave the phone away so that I can fully engage with my family - listening to how their life with me has been, sharing each other's story about highs and lows, cheering each other, inspired from each other, and seeking a meaning of my work in context of most valuable thing in life. This isn't about the number game - just because I spend 4 hours physically disengaged does not mean I was mentally disengaged. It's about a conscious effort we all need to make in order to be productive in every aspect of our life. 

dr. Dalton Ngangi, MMRS, CHCP-A, CSCBM, FISQua

Wisdom Seeker | Hospital should not prioritize shareholders' supremacy over patient

8y

Nice

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Sharon Moo

Talks about #Wealth Management, #FinancialServices, #Payments, #Data, #DigitalTranformation, #DesignThinking, #Insights, #FinancialLiteracy, #Sustainability

8y

Thanks for sharing Kevin. Personal and engaging.

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Prashant Desai

Design Leadership at Meta

8y

This is great Kevin. I was just thinking about this topic on the way to work this morning. Excellent tips - thanks for sharing.

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Meditation is crucial for modern managers. It's better than such "mental drivers" like sugar, coffee, alcohol or even drugs.

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