How to Not Be busy all the time but Be productive

Productivity should not be measured in how long you worked but by the quality in which those work hours are invested.

Buy V/S productivity

Busy involves more actions: taking the time to answer emails and messages,having meetings, answering call and so on and forth.

However,productive entails having actions completed that makes significant progress with work.

For instance,one employee can have the entire 8 hours be in meetings that does not assist in any projects development but still appear busy.

The other may have the 3 distraction free hours on the main work that is more accomplished.

Causes for confusing action as an accomplishment

We can find ourselves fooled by various routines:

Multitasking- which divides our attention thereby lowering work quality

Unnecessary meetings- which consume precious work time

Constant notification- interrupting work concentration

Non priority task completion- which appear satisfying even when important tasks are incomplete

Busyness can also lead to an excessive amount of stress,which negatively affect the work performed. Having the work interrupted many times limits the time allowed to deep work This causes us to make errors and lower the quality of the output; due to lack of concentration.

Becoming more productive than being busy

First,know your goals and what needs immediate attention knowing what task gives a high value will allow us to distinguish what should be completed over the more urgently requested or seemingly important tasks which contribute little to no value.

In this sense,guarding our attention is highly crucial. Turning off notifications and creating small block periods to be completely focused can make a huge difference.

The most critical piece of making oneself more productive and concentrated on work is focusing on only one task at a time, leading to more accurate work which gets more done without necessarily needing more times

Example of work that gets interrupted: A student who split hours on work tasks and scrolling social media pages while technically studying may finish the day without holding much information on that lesson; an entrepreneur working 8 hours dealing with messages but postponing urgent strategy session that requires concentration can accomplish tasks of less priority; a professionals juggling meetings from the begging to the end of the day, only to discover their most important tasks is left unfinished in a meeting by back to back activities.

How to make myself more productive than busy:

Select 3 important tasks of the day.

Prioritize over lower urgency but higher value tasks

Turn off any notifications which are non critical for the moment.

Limit multitasking

Schedule time out for important tasks.

Schedule and filter tasks which lack values,for elimination and cancellation.

Measure performance on results achieved rather than hours spent

Conclusion

Working with a busy and bursting schedule would leave one full for the day but not have any progress in their work.

This necessitates we ask,

"Have i contributed towards my task? And am i willing to be productive on tasks that matter?" To accomplish more, protect your attention and focus on progress.