Audit Your Personal Productivity

It’s safe to assume most of us could be more productive.

Before we can improve our productivity, however, we need to assess where our productivity “chargers and leaks” may be—and how to tap into or repair them.

Over the years, many books have been written about how to “do more with less,” “work four hours a week,” or “manage our energy, not our time.” All these resources are right on the money; yet reading them won’t make you more productive. Only committing to and acting upon what you learn will accomplish that goal.

Let’s do this differently. At the end of this blog, you’ll decide what action steps to take to get more done with less time and effort. You’ll find a myriad of strategies to charge your energy, along with five easy-to-implement action steps to help fix your energy leaks. This is your “Personal Productivity Audit,” which will help establish your baseline.

Your Personal Productivity Audit:

1. Strengths and Weaknesses Review: We’ll start with what’s helping and hurting our ability to be productive. The more honest your answers, the more helpful the audit.
   • Strengths: List any strengths that help you stay productive. It can be a behavioral trait: “I am disciplined,” or “I’m creative.” It can be an attitude: “I believe I can do anything I put my mind to,” or “I don’t give up.” It can also be a skill you’ve perfected: “Managing my calendar,” or “blocking time for deep work.” List anything that comes to mind to help you be (and stay) productive.
   • Weaknesses: Next, list any weaknesses that block your productivity. It can be a behavioral trait: “I’m easily distracted,” or “I’m a perfectionist.” It could be an attitude: “I’ll never succeed no matter how hard I try,” or “I’m okay not being very productive.” You may be missing important skills like being organized or setting boundaries. Again, list anything that has a negative impact on your productivity. This is for your eyes only, so don’t hold back.

Strength and Weaknesses Action Steps:

• • • Review your strengths, picking one (or combining up to three) to commit to relying upon to increase your productively. Turn it into a one-sentence affirmative action step: “I am disciplined and tenacious,” or “I have what it takes to change anything I’m committed to.” These statements become mantras, reminding you that, no matter what you want to change or develop, you already have the strength to do so.
    • Review your weaknesses, picking one you’re committed to changing. Think of it as a “nothing-can-stop-me” action step. Rewrite it as a positive commitment to action. It might sound like, “I am committed to drastically reducing interruptions,” or “I will develop at least one new time-management skill to help increase my productivity.” You may not know what that is right now, but you’re making a commitment to figuring it out and executing it.

2. Recharge and De-charge Review: Some activities and people charge us, while others do the opposite. When we’re “tapped in,” we’re engaging in activities connected to our motivators or driving forces. When we align our work and activities with tasks and people that charge us, we get more done with little (to no) effort. Let’s dig into what those are for you.
   • Recharge review: Make a list of activities, environments, and people that energize you when you engage or surround yourself with them. You may find this blog on Motivation and Driving Forces
   • De-charge review: Make a second list of activities, environments, and people that zap your energy.

Recharge and De-charge Action Steps:

• • • Write two action steps you will take to engage with people/tasks that recharge you each week. Commit to taking specific action steps to ensure you’re recharged daily or weekly to maintain your energy.
    • Write one action step to remove energy-zapping tasks, environments, or people from your daily/weekly life. Commit to making these permanent changes to avoid slipping back.

Now that you’re clear about what is helping and hurting your productivity, let’s dive into several key skills to help you get more done.

3. Productivity Skills Review: Now we’ll look at several skills to establish baseline productivity.
   • Skill Review: Indicate your skill level in the following areas, using a scale of 0-5. A “0” is no skills, and a “5” is mastery. Again, there are no right or wrong answers, so take an honest look at how you would rate your current skills. Next, you’ll identify which of the eight skills below you want to develop fully.
     • 1. Prioritizing: Organizing and sorting to-dos (personal or professional) and placing them in order of importance.
       2. Goal setting: Establishing and articulating goals that can be broken into measurable action steps.
       3. Making decisions: Considering and effectively sorting which decisions need to be madeand which can be postponed.
       4. Executing decisions: Moving into action as appropriate to follow through on decisions
       5. Managing interruptions: Maintaining focus and attention to tasks in-progress without being interrupted.
       6. Saying “yes” or “no” appropriately: Understanding when saying yes or no is the right choice—and doing so with confidence and grace.
       7. Maintaining boundaries: Honoring commitments made by upholding boundariespreviously established or communicated.
       8. Resting & restoring: Making time for resting and restoring to recharge batteries.

Skill Action Steps:

• • • Review your skills, committing to developing one to increase your productivity.
    • Write an action step to help increase your productivity. It could be, for example, “I will develop my goal-setting skills and learn to articulate SMART goal statements.” Or, “I will learn to say ‘no with options’ to avoid over-committing.” Once you implement your action step, record how much time or energy it frees up. This accounting can be a powerful motivator to continue the momentum. You’ll be amazed how one “small” action step frees up time and energy, immediately increasing your productivity.

We promised that, by the end of this article, you would have clear action steps for increasing your productivity. If you completed the exercises, you should have at least five action steps to get your personal productivity soaring—immediately.

Not only will this help you accomplish more in less time, it also will free up your energy to do things you love. Imagine what you could do with all the time you’ll save!