
As a serial Entrepreneur, I have faced ups and downs. Spend countless nights crying and woke up next day like nothing happened.
But after my 3rd venture, I learned how to manage things well. Thanks to Peter Drucker & his books that helped me when I really needed it.
Productivity has its own benefits. It helps you to excel faster in your career.
Although productivity is a general term, I prefer the word ‘effectiveness’
Because to me, productivity is like doing a lot of things in short period of time.
While effectiveness means getting the right things done at the right time.
And if really want to get things done in life. You need results, not just work.
You might be able to work 70 hours a week, but if you’re not growing professionally, personally, and emotionally, everything becomes meaningless.
As a serial Entrepreneur people often ask me, ‘where to begin?’, to answer that I want to share 3 productivity tips by Peter Drucker which helped me to excel in my life.
People often ask me, “where do I begin?” To answer that question, I want to share one exercise that I use with companies and people who hire me to improve their effectiveness.
“To be effective, every knowledge worker, and especially every executive needs to be able to dispose of time in fairly large chunks. To have small dribs and drabs of time at his disposal will not be sufficient even if the total is an impressive number of hours.” ~Peter Drucker
The best thing I love about Peter Drucker is that he explains the most difficult management and productivity concepts in layman terms.
So, here I will also try to remain as simple as possible.
1- Know Thy Time
“I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I keep procrastinating.”
Sounds familiar?
Time management is life management.
If you don’t measure your time, how will you be able to stay productive?
Time flies, but luckily, you’re its navigator. Technology can aid you in better time management. With online productivity management software, you can easily give a boost to your productivity.
If you’re able to track time, you can surely eliminate procrastination.
Your memory is not enough. If I ask you what you were doing one-week prior on this same day, what would you answer? I am sure most of you would not recall.
How to track time? Keep an activity log!
“Every night I go through my activity log and make mental note of my time wasters.” ~Peter Drucker
Yes, I agree, you might be thinking, but ‘I don’t get time to log everything down.’
You think you are busier than Peter Drucker? We don’t think so.
Related: How to Spend the last 10 minutes of Your Work Day?
Just keep a notepad with you, everywhere you go. Note down the things you did in the previous 2-3 hours. No need to do it right away. You can start writing whenever you get the time.
What is important is that you jot down something in regular intervals of time.
2- Identify your Non-Productive work hours
Procrastination is a good thing. No. really, I mean it, seriously!
But there is a catch with it. You need to procrastinate creatively.
Creative procrastination simply means you need to make use of your idle-hours.
For instance, while going for my normal walk, I keep a diary with me. Because ideas often come when you’re relaxed. For me, it works all the time.
So, it does, for Peter Drucker. Try this out and it might work for you too.
Related: How Business Leaders Use 5 Hour Rule For Deliberate Learning?
3- Write a not-to-do list every day
Writing to-do list is easy. Even following it is easy. What is difficult is to create a not-to-do list every day.
How will it benefit you?
Simple. After step 2 you’ve figured out what is your not-to-do list is.
Give some time to follow this list with consistency.
This is not just a list. It will help you figure out your weak spots and fill them with something helpful.
For now, this might seem a stupid thing to do. I also thought the same when I read it in an interview by Peter Drucker.
I followed. And bingo. It worked for me big time.
Results were instant. My productivity sky-rocketed to phenomenal heights.
To wrap it all up
There are two ways in which you can learn things. First, to do it yourself. Fail a lot and learn from it. The second one, to learn from the experience of others.
Peter Drucker is known as a father of management. So, if he says these tips work, it means they do. Follow the tips and let us know how much they helped you in your business.