Busy vs. Productive - Part 2

David Sutton, 30 August 2010

I was interested in what productivity and busyness each look like in practice. The division presence of both is more common in the work place than you think. I have broken this into two parts with example of each:

Productivity:

http://www.profit501.com/utah-tries-a-4-day-workweek/76/

This website above talks of how Utah was experimenting with a four day work week to reduce energy, they found that the energy consumption didn’t change the most, but it was the productivity as they found that when the employees were working for something the productivity went up and they got more things done in about the same amount of time.

http://www.switched.com/2007/09/12/facebook-costing-businesses-264-million-daily-in-lost-man-hours/

There are multiple sites, studies and news reports that talk of how Facebook and other such sites chew up working hours and in turn into lost revenue. This was the first site that came up when looked it up, and this article is from 2007. Just imagine what sort of revenue loss is going on now with the social networking sites even more popular than ever.

Being productive really is easy. Even though it feels it is beyond your control when you put planning behind it and really set your mind to it you will be surprised what you are able to get done. One idea to get the momentum going is to put rewards in place - maybe not a four day week - but another reward. Also, when you have things planned stay away from networking sites, even though they are good for expanding your knowledge, business and social status they will only do harm while you are supposed to be – keep them as something for your lunch break.

Busy:

http://www.seattlepi.com/business/145484_trunk27.html

I love how the website above talks of the word busy as if when you say it you aren’t being honest, and this also provides some very helpful solutions to the ‘busy problem’.

http://magnetism.co.nz/blog/10-08-23/Busy_vs_Productive.aspx

And of course check out my previous blog post which explains the differences between the two and some ways to combat being busy as opposed to being productive.

To really sum up being busy and just reaffirming what has already been said in the pages above. You know when you are being busy to fill in time and you are selling yourself short if you don’t do anything about it. Put steps in place to stop yourself becoming busy and wasting time. There are many more articles out there that provide solutions, hints and clues of what you can do to improve your productivity.

Next time I will be doing a blog on how Dynamics CRM 4.0 can improve productivity and ways that the software can do the work for you.