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I recently did a workshop in Brisbane on being super productive. It’s a funny thing, but  when you teach you often learn more than the attendees. It sounds a little unfair, but it goes with the territory. Back to the story.

One of the people said he sometimes got to the office after a weekend and he had so many messages and “things to do” that it was 10am and he was simply stopped. And he hadn’t achieved a thing. I asked him how he prioritized what he had to do. He replied, “That’s the problem, they’re all important. I just end up stuck.”

I laughed at first, untill I realized he had a real problem. I asked him, “do you try to do more than one thing at a time?” He puffed out his chest and replied, “I am great at multi tasking.” I politely inquired why then did he have a problem. He said it wasn’t “his” tasks that caused the problem, it was other people’s.

He is a sales manager who believes in being a servant leader. Then I realized what he was doing. He thought to be a servant leader he should take on all the problems of his people and solve them, as well as the customer requests that seemed to bombard him on all sides.

I asked him to list the problems and tasks and their origin. That is, who they came from. THe old 80 - 2o rule soon became evident. Most of the problems and tasks were not his. I said, “Why don’t you take each of these tasks and assign it to the person it came from?”

You should have heard all the reasons why it couldn’t be done. “It’s quicker if I do it myself,” “I’d be letting them down,” “I need to make sure it’s done properly,” etc etc.

I simply said, “If they don’t know what to do, SHOW THEM. Your job is to get the people to get the work done. Then you can focus on what you have to do. He looked at me doubtfully for a moment then grinned. “Does that mean I don’t have to do it all myself?”

I replied, “You can multi task and each action will suffer because you do not give it your full attention. Simply DO WHAT YOU ARE DOING NOW!”

The big lesson for me was that I realized that I am just as guilty as he was sometimes and I have resolved to help others take responsibility for the actions they are responsible for and, where necessary, show them how to handle the situation. But they handle it, not me. What a relief.

So, if you want to be super productive, simply, DECIDE WHAT TO DO - DO IT NOW - DON’T DO ANYTHING ELSE. If you follow this rule your tasks will melt away and you will be on top in no time.

Try it.

Live well,

Ollie Lind