Productivity Defined [Effective Entrepreneurship]

As entrepreneurs with no job, we have a great deal of emotional muck holding us back. A ton of familial pressure: From handling things their way to standing up to their expectations, almost every supporter wants a get-rich-quick scheme to work for us. This post examines a holistic approach to improve productivity in such circumstances.

Productivity Defined

Productivity is the ratio of desired results produced to some variable (like time, capital, labor, etc). For instance, if company ‘A’ produces 1000 goods and ‘B’ 1400 goods, then, company ‘B’ is economically more productive than company ‘A’. But if company ‘A’ has 100 employees and ‘B’ has 500, then company ‘A’ has a more productive workforce.

Little increments in overall productivity add up and can increase your margins by a significant amount! So let’s dive deeper into various aspect of becoming a highly productive entrepreneur.

Guide to Becoming More Productive

1. Goal setting and planning

An obvious piece of advice, a defined, streamlined and well-precedented process will help bring structure and order on all levels. From intrapersonal to interpersonal approach, defining the workflow and pipelining process beforehand is the best thing to do.

Just an hour of planning and research can save you years! YES. YEARS!

You must set goals and give them certain deadline. Pick a day of the weekend and create something similar to an editorial calendar. It must include the picture of the end result (paraphrasing Steven R. Covey from the book: The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People)

2. Put precedence over each milestone

Pick the most important task first and be proactive. For example, if my goal is to sell 100,000 copies of my book on mental health asap, and I have these options, tell me which one should I pick first?

1. Hire a social media marketing specialist and create a sales funnel.
2. Write articles around the topics in my industry.
3. Record an online seminar video and collect leads from it.

Now, the most proactive and productive task of all would be recording a video and putting lucrative ads across the targeted locations, and then, hiring a social media specialist to scale up your effort.

You can then make the video free of charge and ask people to go through some questions where you choose who gets the free ticket.

Following are the benefits of choosing option 3:

1. When you get to choose who gets the ticket, you’re getting targeted audience.
2. You get to collect email leads from your prospect buyers.
3. You’ll instantly build rapport and recognition in your niche.
4. Word of mouth is the world’s most powerful marketing strategy.

3. Make your environment a tight bubble of total focus – Robin Sharma

We spend 2.1 hours a day in distraction. ~ Robin Sharma

Create a tight bubble of total focus where you’re not distracted by phone notifications, emails and phone calls. This may sound well exaggerated but not far off: Why do you think every office has small compartments for a group of employees? It is because if everyone was made sit with a laptop on a conference table, there’ll be too much noise and distraction.

For instance, in the game development industries, companies like riot have built soundproof rooms where you could create all sorts of sound effects.

4. Do one thing at a time

If you’re writing, don’t edit your draft. Focus and devote all of your energy to the ideas you’re putting on the paper. If you’re listening to a podcast or reading a document, do just that and don’t focus on executing everything that’s said side by side.

It is essential to create a separate space that’s away from your family circle. Productivity can be boosted in professional environments.

When working alone, starting your business from scratch, you’re bound to work in a congested, familial environment. At such times, focus on creating a space that is well-isolated. Don’t work in your pajamas! Try to keep everything as professional as can be. It will help establish your approach, emotions and workflow when working with clients.

5. Optimize and upgrade the ecosystem

Little tweaks to the environment can have massive effects on productivity. From the change in lighting colors and contrast to posters that endorse certain personality traits, everything affects human behavior and performance.

You must try and automate as much as possible when scaling your business. Integrating useful tools in the workflow will help expand your business and also make it cost effective.

You can upgrade the system by hiring, or educating yourself. It depends on your budget and goals.

Productivity Defined: Concluding…

There are countless ways to improve your productivity. It takes time to establish a stable ecosystem where you’re making decent profits from your business. Once everything is well set, it is time to make little tweaks and tests with various changes across different areas.

I’ve seen many companies that provide business intelligence through semi-automated means, like Helvar’s smart buildings. The level of insights their system gives can indirectly boost your margins by increasing operational productivity and also by keeping a check on employee wellbeing.

Ultimately, you need to have a desire to do something to be productive toward it. If you’re not enthusiastic about the work you do, maybe you need to get a job because we entrepreneurs aren’t compelled by salary and deadlines, but our life purpose.

Thank you for reading the post: Productivity defined. If you liked it, share it and comment below what you think.

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