3 Questions to Ask Yourself When You're Ready to Supercharge Your Productivity What it costs you to "do it all," plus what's waiting on the other side of claiming your right to enjoy work.
By Brian Covey Edited by Jessica Thomas
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People find change uncomfortable, and many aren't willing to change until it's too late. For entrepreneurs, innovators and all-around game-changers, though, successful disruption is the ultimate goal. However, if you want to disrupt your industry or the competition, you'll likely have to disrupt your own business first.
Let's disrupt your current way of thinking today. If you're anything like me, you like to understand the benefits of your action, because it makes risk and disruption feel more calculated and therefore more safe.
I bet in your current business model, you are practicing the definition of insanity by doing a few things over and over again and getting some mildly to wildly unimpressive results. Am I right? For example, you might post on Instagram every day without any audience growth. You might email the same five leads with your updated offers every Monday. You might check email 600 times a day, or you might be overly obess about your competition. We are all guilty of repetitive, unproductive behaviors.
I've developed three questions that can drastically change your perspective on productivity.
Question 1: What are three things you do everyday that produce no revenue?
For example, are you formatting spreadsheets until midnight when the basic version is okay?
When I asked myself this, I realized I was posting on every social media platform, spending upwards of two hours curating content. Now, I make a video, send it to my assistant and she reproduces the content across all platforms. I spend about 45 minutes a day doing engagement (i.e. commenting on my colleague and team's posts), and I'm much happier with this. The engagement focus of mine has actually increased my team's engagement and led me to speaking gigs, which changed this focus into a revenue-producing activity.
Related: 6 Habits That Help Successful People Maximize Their Time
Question 2: What are three things you would stop doing if you could?
Would you give up video meetings? Stop checking your email? Stop attending 60-minute meetings? Write a "wish list." When I asked myself this, I realized meetings were running my life and leaving me little-to-no time to move big projects with deep focus.
If you also feel meetings are causing you screen fatigue and limiting your ability to make profit, here's my formula:
Take an audit of your typical meeting style. Do you usually talk about the weather for the first five minutes? Do you enjoy that, or are you frustrated? It's likely the person on the other side of the line feels similar. For the next few weeks, practice this phrase, "Are you alright if we dive right into today's topic? I want to give you the support you need."
Next, work on making your 60-minute meetings into 30-minute meetings by looking for wasted time. Do the same process for 30 minutes into 15 minutes.
Lastly, switch about 50% of your video calls to phone calls so you can get in exercise, do small tasks and reduce screen fatigue.
Related: 7 Ways to Make the Most of Your Long Commute
Question 3: What stops you from quitting these unbeneficial tasks?
Think through the fears or limitations that come up when you write down what you'd like to stop doing. Then ask yourself, are these fears (or thoughts) ultimately true?
When I asked myself this question, I was afraid of giving up control of my social media because I felt like people would "know" it wasn't me. The opposite is true! We've had more growth and engagement since I handed off my posting, because my team is able to be consistent in ways I could no longer be. It's still my thoughts, beliefs and words being shared — they're just being shared by someone I trust.
I hope these three questions help you disrupt your current way of work. You'll find yourself way along the way to disrupting your industry and income potential if you block the time to implement your changes, too.
Related: A Beginner's Guide to Intuitive Calendar Management
