CORPORATE SUFI: Enhancing productivity in your life -- Part II

Last week, we discussed a few productivity tips that could help you simplify your life and attend to things that matter most.

This week, four more tips to enhance your productivity!

Use deadlines to create results Deadlines create momentum. People who work under deadlines tend to keep up the pace and to point their efforts toward the finish.

Here are some tips for accomplishing difficult or long-term tasks:

Break the task into bite-sized segments; Delegate; Reward yourself after small accomplishments; Share specialized help; Create milestones; Get started; Keep going.

Therefore, if you find that you are postponing some important work, set yourself some mini-deadlines and get going. We usually procrastinate when we’re uncertain, or find the work ahead of us difficult or unpleasant.

Complete one task before moving to the next. As you work on a task, you build momentum. When you drop it to take on a different task, you lose the momentum on the abandoned task, and you have to build up a head of steam on the new task. A habit of finishing the task you started creates efficiency. It allows you to sustain your momentum, and you get an extra boost from the satisfaction of seeing the task successfully accomplished. To get a long-term job finished, create milestones on the road to completion and attain those milestones one at a time. You’ve heard the admonition, “Do it right the first time.” That’s good advice. If you do the job wrong, you often must start over from the beginning and repeat a lot of the steps you did correctly before your goof.

Apply your energy where your priority is highest - Very few of us can call ourselves high-energy and high-focus people. Here’s why: Such people are the ones who take the time to plan, to prioritize, and to stick to their plans. They pick their battles with care, not wasting time on petty issues. They don’t wait for someone else to make things happen for them. They don’t allow e-mails, telephone calls, or other interruptions to become distractions; they set aside a special time for these distractions each day and spend the rest of the day in more productive pursuits.

Be decisive - “Sit, walk or run. Just don’t wobble,” goes an old Zen saying. That’s another way of saying, “Don’t waffle; be decisive.” When you are decisive and totally focused on a task, you accomplish things much more quickly. Focused attention allows you to achieve more. It’s your attitude of mind that counts.