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How To Measure and Greatly Improve Your Productivity

Posted on May 11, 2011 by Tomaz Mencinger | CATEGORIES: productivity tips, self improvement, time management

Why are so many of us struggling with productivity?

We set out positively when we start our working day and we’re determined that we’ll do a lot of things that will bring us a step closer to our goals, but when at the end of the day we look back at what we have actually accomplished, we realize that not much has been done, despite having enough time.

We’re not productive because we are not AWARE of our moments of being unproductive. Our minds get distracted by a cool video on YouTube, or an interesting article we read on Yahoo News, or a phone call or one of a myriad of other things.

And every time a minor distraction happens, we might even be aware for a split second that we’re not being productive, but we convince ourselves that,  ‘this won’t take long,’  and that we’ll be back to work in no time.

The problem with this is that these distractions add up during the day and eventually constitute more of our working time than actual productive work.

The reason why this keeps happening is because we don’t measure our productivity, and measurement is crucial if we want to control something:

‘Measurement is the first step that leads to control and eventually to improvement. If you can’t measure something, you can’t understand it. If you canít understand it, you can’t control it. If you canít control it, you canít improve it.’ -  Dr. H. James Harrington

So, how do we measure productivity?

Very simple: we measure the time we had available in each day and then we measure the time we were productive, the time when we were working on the projects that led us closer to our goals.

We can then divide our productive time by the total time available to calculate our productivity in percentage form.

For example, today I started work at 9:30 and I am finishing this article at around 11:30.

For this system to work, you need to be brutally honest. If I am, then in my two hours of available work, I spent around 40 minutes writing this post and about 20 minutes answering emails related to my business.

The other 60 minutes I spent time chatting with two friends on Skype, reading emails not related to my work , and reading internet marketing news not crucial to my business.

My productivity then was 60 minutes of work / 120 minutes of available time = 50%

When I do this again in the evening, I then realize that my daily productivity was maybe only 25%.

I have now measured my productivity and realized the painful truth: I spent only 25% of my available time working towards my goals and wasted the rest of my time doing unimportant things.

Life is short and I believe it’s crucial that we become aware of how much time we waste doing nothing important, because only that painful realization will drive our determination to make the best of our time while we’re here and make us more vigilant about our wasted time in general.

A productivity percentage of only 25% means that I could be progressing four times faster towards my goals than I am now.

Consciously being aware of the benefit of greater productivity and of our wasted time are then the necessary ‘carrot and stick’ that will drive us to success and fulfillment.

Tomaz blogs about unique home business ideas where he shares tips and advice on how achieve financial freedom with the power of the Internet.


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  • http://www.balancedworklife.com/blog Bryce Christiansen

    I have used a tool called FreeMind lately to help my productivity. It is a mind map program.

    When I come out of my weekly meetings I immediately scope out the action items and tag them with the priority they have. Then when I get done with one task, I can quickly review my project mind map to see what the next action item I should tackle is.

  • http://livingthebalancedlife.com Living the Balanced Life

    This is a very eyeopening way of seeing just how we are using our time. I don’t believe there is anything inherently wrong with youtube videos or skyping friends, we just need to be realistic about how long certain projects are actually taking. And then make time for the mindless wandering to occur when the project is completed! ;-)
    Bernice
    Have you outgrown your pot?

  • http://www.Mazzastick.com Justin | Mazzastick

    Tomaz,
    Procrastination and lack of discipline is the biggest block to being productive.

  • http://www.betterfocused.com Tony Edwards | Better Focused

    Hi Tomaz,

    I agree that it’s important to track our productivity. But I don’t think you can just look at your time spent working on your goals vs. the time you are not working on them directly. We are often more productive when we take breaks and focus our attention elsewhere for a period of time. I think we need to take this into account.

    Tony

  • http://www.planetnaveen.com Winning Ideas for a Wonderful Life

    This is very interesting article.Distractions are number one obstacles for achieving results.
    Measuring productivity can also be done by setting daily targets and priorities of work to be done with timelines on each of them. Mark them completed once done. What is important here is the quality of time we spend on each of these tasks. Try to isolate yourself from distractions whether its digital/human or sound. I know it is tricky but its possible.

  • http://www.freedomideas.com Tomaz

    Thanks, Erin, for publishing my post! Appreciate all comments too!

  • http://www.professional-counselling.com Elly

    Hi Tomaz,

    I have given productivity some thought too lately. I have found that making a list and actually building in time to chat to friend, answering emails etc. works best for me.

    Chatting with friends, for example, helps to maintain our emotional well-being and is particularly important for people who are self-employed and may otherwise not have much human contact during the day. Emails still need to be answered and reading and seeing the ‘incidental’ stuff on the internet, will help collate ideas for newsletters and add to your insight, knowledge and understanding in a wider sense. So, it is about ‘managing’ your time.

  • http://enlightened32.blogspot.com/ Tyler J.Logan

    Hey Tomaz,

    I agree in what you are saying here! It’s an insight that people lose time doing things that doesn’t cause good producitivity, while they have other important things to do! However, our productivity is what counts in order to acheieve things , or get things done! Thanks for posting!

  • Geno

    One thing that make us unproductive is instead of we should control our time; we allow time to control us. I measure and improve productivity using this tool which I use also at work. Using this tools I list my entire task on it, organize it depends on priority level. I also set an amount of time to do each task so that I won’t waste time and try to finish it all at the end of the day. Discipline is a great factor for me to keep me on time to do each task. At the end of the day I am proud of myself that I fulfill and completed the task that I need to do.

  • http://www.ofwnurse.net/ ofwnurse

    I have realized that I spent almost all of my time browsing facebook looking for news about my relatives and friends. I enjoyed looking at their latest pictures totally unaware of the time…

  • http://illuminaconsulting.com.au/ Market Research Sydney

     In this multitasking time of world you have increase your productivity to be fit  of this world.For increasing productivity you have to be discipline in your approach.You have to rank your t6ask with priority and do them accordingly.You have to do it with confident.Thus you will improve your productivity.

  • sankalita giman

    Good management means good productivity in the sense and study of Management.
    Organized group and well maintained groups can give a high product rate. Taking good care to working time and  work time monitoring can improve work position real high as I have learned so far from your posts.

  • Gussie

    I really really like this article. I was researching for a paper but this will help me with my time management. I used your formula to see how I’m doing with my assignment. So far I haven’t been very productive today but now that I am aware of it, that can change.  THANKS!

  • http://imobilerescue.com/ Ryan

    Interesting way to measure it. I’ve been really focused on a results driven way of tracking only. I’m measuring by impactfulness. I am tracking how long things took me, and that’s allowing me to refine things a bit, but my main metric is “did it matter!”